Faith on Trial (2 page)

The facts, if they are shown to be true, would establish that a person of human appearance, living on this earth, died and then came back to life—fully and completely. This is the cornerstone of the Christian religion. Yet these facts have been ripped apart by theory and speculation, intellectually dissected to the effect that they are now generally believed to be based on mythology, just stories to calm our fears, like a cup of chamomile tea. A message was sent to us, but the message has been discredited by sabotaging the messengers.

“Ah,” you say, “a song of love and immortality. Such an amazing thing would require a lot of proof; no fallback to faith here, please.” And what if you were to learn that these facts could be proven with authentic evidence of truthful eyewitness testimony, corroborated by investigative, forensic, and empirical evidence? Testimony scrubbed and polished by the limitations of the rules of evidence used to test truth in a federal court of law in the United States today? That would be a thing worthy of consideration!

The prevailing twentieth-first-century school of thought appears to ignore the evidence and posits that the entire foundation of Christianity is shifting sand, nothing more than mythology, that even the most fundamental portions of the New Testament are meaningless fiction. That Jesus, the man called Christ, was nothing more than a sage, a salesman peddling his teachings from door to door, town to town—a form of self-aggrandizement naively accepted by gullible followers two thousand years ago.

The consistent claim has been made by many of our intelligentsia that the original Gospels, the four books of the New Testament that contain testimony to these facts, are merely stories that evolved over generations—under some theories over hundreds of years—after the time in which Jesus was alleged to have lived, written by unknown authors who built on tradition, mythology, and a shred of teachings that have not been found but are speculated to exist. They assert that this was done possibly to create a political power base or just a philosophy that overcame the shadow of the fear of death.

We are not required to accept one side of the issue or the other based on theories or speculation, however. Since the Gospels set forth knowable facts, based on the testimony of individual witnesses, they should be susceptible to proof. The evidence should be tested for authenticity and credibility against the same standards that apply in a court of law. So let us review whether the manuscript evidence presented by these four Gospels would be admissible in a court of law in the United States today, and if we find that it is admissible, let us determine its credibility as evidence of the facts reported in the texts.

In the eighteenth century Simon Greenleaf, a professor of law at Harvard University, wrote a treatise titled “Testimony of the Evangelists” analyzing this question. Simon Greenleaf was, and today remains, an established authority on the rules of evidence, having written a three-volume work on evidence, one of the earliest and most important works ever written on the law of evidence and one that is well known by lawyers in the United States. In the introduction to his treatise on the four Gospels, Greenleaf pointed out that this sort of investigation is a search for truth and error. It requires the reader to release him or herself from existing prejudice; in other words, if you still hold preconceived, or
a priori,
convictions, you must set them aside in order to benefit from this analysis.

In our search for truth and error, we will use the format of the original Greenleaf treatise as a basis for our analysis, but we will apply the Federal Rules of Evidence and common-law principles to the most recent facts and information available to us in the last decade of the twentieth century. Let us clear the smoke and look at the simple facts.

What evidence is there to prove that the facts on which the message of the Gospels depends are true? Archaeological, historical, and documentary evidence, scientific and medical evidence, evidence presented by the arts, evidence of statistical probabilities—all types of evidence exist to prove much more than a sufficient case that the testimony of the writers of the Gospels is true. If the events set forth in the Gospels can be shown to be actual historical facts, then the basic premise will have been established from which we can by reason infer that a personal God, not just an abstract ideal, also exists, and we can know that a continuing personal identity in life after death is real.

In order to determine the integrity of the evidence presented by the four Gospels, the review and analysis must be objective and thorough. The examination must be approached rationally. The evidence of the Gospels, notwithstanding its implications, should be judged by the same standards that are applied by law and science in all other situations. This book offers the supporting evidence gathered from many different expert witnesses for a conclusion that the message of the Gospels is truthful and reliable. Where it is necessary, opposing views have been presented, with a response if appropriate.

As the proponent of the proposition, I have assumed the burden of proof as an advocate for the truthfulness of the testimony of the Gospels. You, reader, are the jury. Each link in the chain of proof will be provided to you in detail in the format in which it would be presented if we were at trial in a courtroom, beginning with the first hurdle: whether the evidence presented would be considered authentic and admissible. After that we’ll examine whether the witnesses who wrote the Gospels were really eyewitnesses and whether they’re credible in today’s world. At the conclusion of trial, you—the jury—will be presented with the closing argument summarizing and analyzing the evidence to help you weigh it and reach your verdict. I have tried to choose the best work of the experts in various fields to present for your consideration, including the earliest sources possible. Endnotes are provided for reference to source material to assist you in verifying the information and moving further in your search for truth if you are so inclined. Rules of evidence, whether statutory or derived from common-law principles, will be placed in italics for identification.

To determine preliminarily what information would be admitted as evidence in a court of law, we begin with a rule of evidence used in federal courts in the United States today, which provides that all relevant evidence is admissible unless it is otherwise excluded under those rules.
2
Evidence analyzed in accordance with the Federal Rules of Evidence is held to be relevant if it has the tendency to make the existence of the fact you are trying to prove more probable, or less probable, than it would be without the evidence.
3
This is, therefore, a test of logical probability.

Evidence is relevant if: (a) it has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence; and (b) the fact is of consequence in determining the action.
4

Facts
establish the truth or falsity of the actual existence of Jesus and his crucifixion and resurrection. These fundamental facts are the foundation of Christianity, and they are subject to proof. The facts we will try to prove through our analysis are set forth in the Gospels as testimony of witnesses who wrote those books, and therefore, as I mentioned above, the credibility of those witnesses is at issue as well. The question to be answered is whether the witnesses themselves are entitled to belief. As you will see, this question is also susceptible to proof.

For clarity here are the fundamental facts we will test, the basic
foundation
for Christian faith:

• Jesus lived approximately two thousand years ago.
  
• Jesus died on the cross.
  
• Jesus rose from the dead.
  

The evidence that will be presented to you, the jury, will be limited to proof of the truth of the testimony of the four Gospels as to these particular facts and no others.

The four Gospels satisfy the components required of relevant evidence: The testimony is material and has probative value.
5
In other words, the Gospels are material to the case because they contain the statements of the facts to be proved. The Gospels have probative value because if the testimony itself is shown to be true, it will establish the truth of the facts. Direct evidence from a qualified witness that is offered in order to prove the facts at issue is never irrelevant.
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As we have discussed, direct evidence is evidence that, if it is believed, resolves the issue. An example of this is the observation of an eyewitness, not otherwise controverted. In fact, the testimony of only one witness may be sufficient to prove a fact if you find that single witness believable.
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To prove the case, the jury will also be presented with circumstantial evidence. Proving a fact with circumstantial evidence requires proof of a chain of events or facts from which the high probability of a conclusion may be deduced. Prosecutors in the
Routier
case illustrated how this works by summarizing the chain of circumstantial evidence against the defendant in their closing argument. Darlie Routier had claimed that an unknown assailant entered through a garage window at night, slashing open the screen, stabbing the two children first and then attacking her before leaving. The prosecution introduced a bread knife into evidence. It was found neatly stored in a kitchen knife holder. Tiny pieces of fiberglass and rubber were found on the knife by use of a powerful microscope. The materials on the knife were identical to components of the slashed window screen. Strong traces of blood were found on the sink and faucet, as if blood had been washed from the knife. Investigators determined that the knife was, in fact, the murder weapon, and no other weapon was ever found.

Additionally, the back of the nightshirt Darlie was wearing had blood splatter consistent with having leaned over her sleeping sons to stab them, raising the knife over her shoulder to repeat the action, but in a manner inconsistent with her own story. Their wounds were deep, but Darlie was only wounded superficially. Expert witnesses testified that in other cases where there was a potential adult witness like Darlie, they were not left alive.
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The cumulative effect of the evidence in the
Routier
case was powerful proof of the murder charge. The evidence was circumstantial—evidence of the circumstances—and supported the highest degree of probability of guilt. The point is that even without eyewitnesses, circumstantial evidence alone was strong enough to prove the facts required, strong enough to cause this young mother to face the death penalty. The circumstantial evidence that will be presented to the jury to prove the facts at issue in our case, including the credibility of the testimony of the Gospel witnesses, is of the same nature.

Our opponents who deny the truth of the Gospel testimony—opposing counsel—have presented that case to the public for the last 150 years, and the jury is invited to weigh the evidence against that yardstick as well. Cross-examinations have also been provided to the jury in this case in specific instances concerning facts that have been most prominently disputed.

With one exception the
implications
that flow from the facts before the jury will not be addressed during the presentation of evidence, not until the closing argument. The exception comes from the inherent impact that scientific evidence has on testing credibility. But in all events the facts to be proved should be judged on their own by the same standards applied to facts proposed in any other civil case presented in a federal court in the United States, without consideration in advance of the conclusion.

At the end of our “trial,” you, the jury, will be asked to render a verdict based on a preponderance of the evidence. This means you must consider all of the evidence that has been presented to you and determine whether you are persuaded that the testimony of the Gospels—that Jesus lived two thousand years ago, died on the cross, and came back to life—is
more likely than not
to be true. This is the standard of proof ordinarily required for a civil case presented in a federal court.
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It is important in this type of legal analysis not to let a philosophical commitment to a certain conclusion, a predisposition, interfere with your objective examination of observable data and solid evidence, direct or circumstantial. Beware the temptation to reject or ignore in advance evidence that appears to be leading to an uncomfortable conclusion. You may think this is an unnecessary warning, but you would be surprised at the number of brilliant thinkers in the world who have made this basic mistake.

Albert Einstein made the greatest mistake of his scientific career when he realized his general theory of relativity provided evidence of an expanding universe that implied the universe had a beginning and an end. Because a beginning requires a “beginner,” Einstein fudged his equations to avoid that conclusion. The correction factor inserted by Einstein was proven wrong by the astronomer Edwin Hubble some years later, leading to the “Big Bang” theory of the creation of the universe. Later studies in astrophysics determined that Einstein may indeed have been on to something—but for the wrong reasons.
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So now . . . let the courtroom be illuminated. You are seated in the jury box to hear the case—that two thousand years ago a man named Jesus lived, died, and returned to life in human form. Let us examine the testimony of four people who lived at that time and reported that these events actually occurred, and then you will weigh the evidence and determine if these reports are more likely than not to be true.

(Admissibility and Authentication of the Evidence)

A
s you enter the jury box, you will notice that you are the focus of attention. You are now a part of the story because you will render the verdict. In our courtroom each piece of evidence will be presented especially to you, and soon you’ll see that it’s all connected with, eventually, a cumulative effect. But the universe of our courtroom is limited; as a juror you are only permitted to hear and consider evidence which is admissible—that is, evidence that meets certain standards developed over hundreds of years. This is the system used in the courtroom to regulate evidence offered to prove a case—in other words, to sift out the dross. Some of these standards have been solidified as rules, referred to as the Federal Rules of Evidence. Others have evolved as principles that were carved from composite experiences over the centuries, as diamonds are cut from stone. These latter types of standards are referred to as common-law principles.