Are There Eyewitness Accounts Of Jesus?
Eyewitnesses Only, Please
If, after I die, someone wanted to find out about who I was as a person, who would be the best sources of that information? Would it be the friends I went to school with? Probably not. That was over 24 years ago. I’m “Friends” with a lot of them on social media, but they only see what I choose to post. And, now I live 2500 miles from where I grew up.
OK, how about people I would have interacted with daily? My co-workers? Or clients? Or the clerk at the grocery store who knows me by name because I am in there so much? If you interviewed them, they would certainly have some great stories to tell – things we talked about or common experiences. But, they wouldn’t be the best source of information on who I really was.
If you wanted to find out about the way I lived my life, the things I did, or the things I believed, the best source for that information would be the eyewitnesses to my life. Those people who spent the most time with me or with whom I had the deepest conversations. That would be my wife, my kids, and my closest friends. They are the eyewitnesses.
Were There Eyewitness Accounts of Jesus?
Christianity has put a strong emphasis on eyewitness testimony since the beginning. The Apostles used this requirement in Acts 2:21-22 when they picked Judas’ replacement. They wanted someone who had seen the things Jesus had done – from his baptism to his crucifixion to his resurrection. In other words, an eyewitness.
The early church fathers also used the eyewitness criteria as they started to accept and reject books for the New Testament canon. If we look at the New Testament, there are 9 authors. 8 if you accept that Paul wrote Hebrews. All of these authors were either direct eyewitnesses to the ministry of Jesus or they wrote down what those eyewitnesses said (in the case of Luke and Mark).
Simply having the name of one of the apostles didn’t mean the book was automatically added to the canon, either. There are a handful of documents, such as The Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, and the Acts of Paul, that are attributed to apostles. But, these documents are dated late in the 2nd century – too far away from the original events to be authored by those they are attributed to.
Can We Trust The Eyewitnesses?
One part of my personality that shows up from time to time (sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse) is my skeptical nature. I tend not to take things I hear or read at face value initially. And, for good reason, I think. For one, people make statements all the time that they may think are true, but they weren’t really in a position to make. Also, eyewitnesses lie. Or bend the truth because they have something to hide or gain. Just ask anyone who has been part of a criminal trial.
In his book Code Case Christianity, long-time homicide detective J. Warner Wallace gives a template that, as an investigator, he uses to evaluate the reliability of an eyewitness. It’s also the same template that is contained in most of the jury instructions across the country. The instructions say that if this eyewitness passes this test, then you are to take his or her account as reliable. It doesn’t matter if they are a jerk or give you the creeps. If they appear trustworthy based on these questions, then you are to trust them.
So, what are the questions we should use to determine if an eyewitness is reliable? First off, were they really there? Was the eyewitness in a position to really observe what they said they did? Can they describe the scene in a way that shows they were there? For the gospel writers, this would include things like using names and terms for things that were used at the time of the events. For example, the names of places and buildings change over time. Did the author refer to a place with a name that wasn’t used until the 2nd century? If so, we could say that it looks like this account came much later.
The second question we have to ask is, can their accounts be verified? This means that if there are multiple eyewitnesses and their accounts are fairly similar, then they pass that test. Now, notice I didn’t say they had to match exactly. No two eyewitness accounts will match exactly. We all observe different things when we see something happen. In fact, if the stories are exactly the same, you would be safe to assume that the eyewitnesses got together to discuss their accounts before they gave them to you. But if there are ways to back up the account the eyewitness gives, then that makes them more trustworthy.
The third question we have to ask is, did the eyewitness change their story over time? When someone comes forward or is interviewed at the scene, there will be the initial notes the detective took. Then, if the case goes to trial, there will be a deposition. And, finally, the witness will give their account on the witness stand. In the case of the New Testament writers, we have years and years of them giving testimony. In the case of John, it was close to 60 years. Did they ever go back on the things they said and change their story?
The final question we have to answer regarding our eyewitness is do they possess a bias. Is there a reason they may make something up or tell a lie? Maybe the defendant owes them money. Or maybe they are scared of the defendant, so they don’t give the whole story. Or maybe, in the case of the defense, the eyewitness hates cops. Maybe the witness and the defendant are part of a gang or a crew. But if you can’t see any kind of motivation for that person to make up what they are saying, then you have to trust them.
Were the New Testament Authors Reliable Eyewitnesses?
Given the template we have established, I think it is fair to run the gospel writers through the test to see if they are reliable. Frankly, when I was younger, I didn’t think the writers were. Why? Because I had some notion in my head that the people who wrote the New Testament probably had some sort of secret agenda and crafted a message to keep themselves in power. But this was before I examined the witnesses to see if they were reliable and trustworthy.
Our first question to answer is, were the eyewitnesses there? We looked previously at several good reasons to date the gospels and the book of Acts very early. Given that the accounts were written only a few decades after the events they describe, the accounts were written soon enough that if the accounts were false, there would have been plenty of opportunities for someone to refute them. Yet, we have no historical documents from the time that do this.
What about corroborative evidence? Well, the authors describe the places and people accurately with names appropriate for the period. Also, numerous non-Christian sources back up some of the events that the gospels describe.
How about stories changing over time? Well, if we look at the gospel accounts being told a few generations out from the original authors, it’s the same story. The gospel message that Irenaeus told was the same that John told.
Finally, what about bias? Did the gospel authors have any reason to lie about what happened? There are only three motivations for someone to commit a crime: money, passion, or power. Sure, 400 years later, the church started to gain lots of power and wealth. But the apostles certainly didn’t. They were encouraged to live extremely modestly. And they certainly didn’t score with the ladies. Jesus taught them to have one wife. If any. And, in terms of power, they gave all that up. In fact, we have good evidence to show that many of the apostles were martyred for what they taught. At a minimum, they were persecuted. Run out of town after town. Beaten. Imprisoned. Stoned. That doesn’t sound like men on a power trip to me.
Who Did The Eyewitnesses Say Jesus Was?
Since the eyewitnesses passed the reliability review, we can now look at what they had to say about who Jesus was and trust that they were being honest and truthful. Did they think of him as just another wise teacher? Or did they think of him as something more?
Let’s start with the Gospel of John. There is the famous scene with “doubting” Thomas, where he proclaimed he wouldn’t believe that Jesus had risen until he saw proof. And not only saw proof but touched it as well. (John 20:24-25). A few days later, Jesus did appear to his disciples when Thomas was present. Then, Thomas calls Jesus “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28)
Peter, the guy who turned his back on Jesus after he had been arrested, later wrote, “To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:1).
There’s also Paul. Paul was an early persecutor of Christians. But, something happened to him so powerfully that he would later write “To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.” (Romans 9:5). Also, in his letter to Titus, he wrote “waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,” (Titus 2:13).
Remember, these guys were Jews. To consider anyone equal to God who wasn’t also God would have been blasphemous. Yet, after these men saw the evidence Jesus provided – the things he said, the miracles he performed, his predicting of future events, and his resurrection from the dead – they believed he was God.
You Keep Using That Word…
Another clue we can look at lies in a title that is often given to Jesus. That title is Lord. Here’s where our 21st-century understanding of this word can get in the way of seeing what the original authors meant. When we read the Bible in English and come across that word, we draw certain images in our heads. I think of kings and knights and European nobility. We could also think of it as an old-fashioned way to say “sir” or pay respect to someone of a higher class.
This is one of those cases where it helps us to know the original word the authors used and how something can get lost in translation. The original New Testament manuscripts were written in Greek. The Greek word that we translate as “Lord” is the word kyrios.
To understand the importance of this word to 1st century Jews, we need to look at another document known as the Spetuagent. This was a version of the Old Testament written in Greek that appeared in the early 2nd century BC, so 200 years before the birth of Jesus. At this time, the Jewish people were spread around the Roman Empire, and many of them did not speak Hebrew. This would have been a large chunk of the audience the books of the New Testament were written. Which is why the New Testament books and letters were also written in Greek.
Now, back to the word kyrios. In the Greek Old Testament, this word is used for “Yahweh” or “Lord”. There is only one Lord in the Old Testament, and that is God. This word is used 6814 times in the Old Testament, and it always represents Yahweh or the LORD. So, Jews in the 1st Century would have read that word in the letters of the apostles and been pretty clear on what they meant. They weren’t referring to Jesus as some sort of noble worthy of respect and honor. They were calling him Yahweh, the Creator of the Universe, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In fact, they did this over 400 times in the epistles in reference to Jesus as a way to affirm his deity. See Luke 2:11, Luke 1:43, and Matthew 3:3 for examples of this.
One Last Challenge
There’s one other challenge I’ve heard on more than one occasion that I have never understood. But I’ll address it because I do hear it often enough. Sometimes, you might hear someone say, “Well, are there any non-Christian sources that believed Jesus was God?”. I understand the motivation of this question. It is a desire to look at two opposing sides and determine if they agree on some point so that we can make a balanced judgment on that point.
For many issues, this is a wise tactic. But, in this case, the question makes no sense. Christians believed Jesus was God. Non-Christians believe Jesus wasn’t God. So, the question is basically asking “can you show me any sources who didn’t believe in Jesus, who did believe in Jesus?”. Logically, this makes no sense. It’s like asking the members of a jury in a criminal case, “Do any of you who voted that the defendant was guilty think he wasn’t guilty?”.
Another issue with this line of questioning is that it shows someone’s bias towards an already accepted conclusion. They are presupposing that the people who believed Jesus was God are untrustworthy, and their conclusion is wrong. But it’s specifically because of the evidence these people observed that they concluded that Jesus was God.
The truth is, though, we do have two sources who did not live and travel with Jesus during his ministry, who did not believe Jesus was God, but did after they were shown the evidence. One was Saul of Tarsus, who would later be known as Paul, and the other was James, Jesus’ own brother. Saul was an early persecutor of Christians. He oversaw the arrest and death of many of Jesus’ early followers. And, even though James was Jesus’ brother, he didn’t believe Jesus was God. Yet, Paul would go on to be the most prolific author of the New Testament, be chased out of town after town, stoned, imprisoned, and eventually beheaded because he proclaimed that Jesus was God. James would go from unbelief to become one of the pillars of the early church in Jerusalem. He was later stoned to death in 62 AD (see Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews 20.197-203).
So, here we have two sources who went from unbelief, reviewed the evidence, and had something happen to them that was so convincing that they were willing to go to their deaths over it.
The Eyewitnesses Believed Jesus Was God
As we review the texts written by the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ ministry, we can see that they clearly believed Jesus was the Son of God. The accounts were written early enough that counterclaims could have been written to oppose them, yet we don’t have any. And these witnesses pass the test to be considered reliable. We can tell they were present at the time of the events; other pieces of evidence back up their testimony, their testimony never changed over time, and they certainly had no motivation to lie or fabricate any of their accounts.
Whether or not Jesus was the Son of God is a topic for a different article. But, clearly, the people who spent the most time with him certainly thought that he was.
Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!
About the Author: David W. Gilmore
latest video
news via inbox
Subscribe and never miss an update!
The eyewitnesses were mainly the disciples. They spent time with Jesus before He died and after He resurrected. So they believed Jesus was God with the seeing and the feeling of his body. The Pharisees were too stubborn to understand the meaning of it all and they wanted to be better than God so that is why they crucified Him. The Gospels are credible sources, and this was told by Christians and non-Christians. The places that are described in the Bible is historically accurate.
HI Andy,
Great summary.
Thanks for your comment
There is no evidence that Jesus ever authorized the writing of new books to add to the existing Jewish Scriptures. The decision to create a “new testament” was made by the Church. Jesus authorized his disciples to go into the world and teach “those things I have commanded you”. That’s it. The Church added significantly to Jesus’ teachings. Jesus never commanded an end to circumcision, eating kosher, or offering sacrifices in the temple.
There is zero evidence that God authorized or inspired the New Testament. Just because a book may have been written by one of the Twelve (a hotly disputed claim among scholars) doesn’t make it divine Scripture. Jesus’ Bible was the Septuagint. Catholics have faith in the Magisterium of the Church on this issue. Based on what evidence do evangelicals and other Protestants believe that the New Testament is divinely inspired Scripture?
HI Gary,
Thank you for taking the time to read my article and leave a comment.
I’m not quite quite sure why Jesus’s command to go out and teach would exclude written instruction. Both Judaism and Christianity have a long standing tradition of being taught from the writings of God speaking through the prophets. Sometimes God told the Israelite prophets to write down what he said. Sometimes he didn’t. And yet, it was still written down, and is still considered the authoritative word of God – even though there is no evidence that God officially authorized them to write it down.
Secondly, you claim that the writings of the New Testament are invalid. You claim to know what Jesus taught, what he believed, and what his followers added to his teachings. All of that assumes we have trustworthy sources to know what Jesus said, what he taught, and what he believed. What sources did you turn to to know these things?
As for how evangelicals and Protestants determine which books are divinely inspired, I give a number of reasons for why we hold this position here: https://www.legatichristi.org/training/christian-ambassador-training/revelation/scripture-is-authoritative/
Dave
The Jewish Scriptures (the Christian Old Testament) clearly states that the Law is eternal. It also clearly states that God is not a man. Christianity abandons these fundamental Scriptural teachings by teaching that a man, who they believe claimed to be God, was the fulfillment and completion of the Law. Eternal means eternal. How much more clear must Scripture be?
Cults take the teachings of the mother religion and contort them to their liking. This is what Christianity has done. Jesus’ resurrection proves nothing. The Jewish God raised other people from the dead. Does that prove they are God? Of course not. Jesus was a good man, but one of many failed messiah pretenders. If you want to worship Yahweh, the God of the Jewish people, you need to convert to Judaism.
Do you believe that the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ life are trustworthy? If not, why not?
Why do you assume they are eyewitness accounts?
-None of the books claim to be written by eyewitnesses.
-They are all written exclusively in the third person narrative.
-The alleged authors of these books are not identified by the Church until circa 150-180 CE.
-The majority of scholars today doubt the eyewitness/associate of eyewitness authorship of the Gospels. (The fact that only evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant NT scholars believe in the traditional authorship is telling.)
So, is it possible that the Gospels reflect eyewitness testimony regarding Jesus’ life? Yes. Can we know for certain? No. The authors of these books state the purpose of their books: “So that you might believe”. They were writing to persuade. People attempting to persuade often engage in embellishments of the facts. In summary, the historical reliability of the Gospels is suspect. We should treat the Gospels no different than any other anonymous text from Antiquity: Accept as fact those claims that can be corroborated by other independent, contemporary sources (the independence of the four Gospels is hotly disputed among scholars) and remain undecided/neutral on those claims which cannot be corroborated.
Would you agree that this is a fair, reasonable approach?
In the post, I gave 5 criteria on evaluating whether or not someone is a trustworthy eyewitness. In the interest of brevity, I won’t rehash those here.
The gospels can best be placed in the genres of ancient biography. Some of the stylistic elements – like not attributing the name of the author in some sort of title, writing in the third person narrative, and writing events organized by theme rather than chronology – are common
We do, actually, have times where the authors both write in the first person AND claim to be giving eyewitness accounts. AND verify that there are already other eyewitness accounts floating around before theirs was written. Here is the beginning of Luke.
“1 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.” (Luke 1:1-4 ESV)
You asked if we can know for certainty. We can know with the same amount of certainty that we can use to trust other ancient sources. Compared to a lot of other ancient documents and writings, these documents pass the test of reliability far better than other sources do.(more on this here https://www.legatichristi.org/training/christian-ambassador-training/revelation/why-should-we-trust-the-bible/).
I’m curious what you see as wrong with wanting to persuade others of something you think is true? Millions of books on Amazon are there because their authors hold a particular point of view, and want to give you reasons on why you should think they are right. Even as a physician, you have to use persuasion with your patients, I imagine. You diagnose them with something and then you have to try and persuade them on how they should treat it.
Also, what reason do you think Jesus’ followers had to persuade people of a false narrative?
I’m glad you mentioned corroboration by outside sources. In the page I linked above, I list 7 hostile witnesses to Christianity that back up much of what we find in the Gospels.
Finalyy, you said that The fact that only evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant NT scholars believe in the traditional authorship is telling. Why? Just because more people believe something to be true doesn’t make it true. Nor does the fact that less people hold something to be true make it false. Just think about how scientific discovery has gone throughout history. Usually, someone comes up with a novel theory. They are the first to hold it. The scientific community will often scoff at them. Over time, more evidence ceoms out to show that this new theory makes more sense. So, it’s not the amount of people that make something true. What makes it true or not is the evidence.
Anyone who has graduated from a (public) university has learned that the standard of evidence for science and other professional fields is extremely rigorous. Every new hypothesis is rigorously scrutinized and picked apart. Only if the hypothesis stand up to this intense scrutiny by the entire professional community does the hypothesis become a fact.
University educated people also know that just because you can find a couple of experts to agree with your position, that doesn’t make it true. Individual experts are frequently wrong. The consensus of experts is usually correct. University educated people know that the consensus of experts can be wrong but they also know that following the consensus of experts is the most reliable method of truth discovery known to humankind.
Any non-expert who believes that he and a small fringe of experts are correct and the overwhelming majority of experts (a consensus) is wrong, is very, very, very foolish. You and I cannot have a rational debate, David, if you do not accept and respect consensus expert opinion. The educated, industrialized world respects and depends upon expert consensus. The uneducated, the under-educated, and conspiracy theorists do not.
You and evangelical experts (scholars) might be correct about the eyewitness authorship of the Gospels but overwhelming expert consensus outside of evangelicalism and fundamentalist Protestantism says you are wrong. Why do you trust your non-expert opinion and that of a minority of experts? I believe there is one answer: Your subjective perception of Jesus’ spirit (ghost) living inside of you whom you believe communicates with you and performs occasional wish request fulfillments for you.
It is a delusion, David. You have no good evidence for this belief. Jesus is dead. Ghosts and spirits do not exist. Come out of the darkness of your superstitions and into the light of reason and science.
That process may be true for science, but we’re not talking about science. We are talking about evaluating historical events. They only happened once, and we can’t recreate the events in a lab. We have to evaluate the evidence in front of us and try to determine what happened.
You place a lot of emphasis in consensus. Well, that sword cuts both ways. Only 4% of people in the US claim to be atheists. That leaves 96% who hold that supernatural things exist. If we follow your logic, that means atheism is false because it is the minority view.
You keep discounting my take simply because I don’t agree with the experts you do. Here’s where I think Wallace’s use of the courtroom model is helpful for each of our responsibility’s to evaluate the evidence and come to our own conclusions. You and I are like members of the jury. Neither one of us are experts in these areas. You and I have gained our knowledge by engaging with other experts (I went to your site and saw your reading list. Very impressive!). That’s what happens in court cases as well. Each side will bring up experts. Each of the experts evaluate the EXACT same evidence. And they usually come to different conclusions on what the evidence means. We, as the jurors, still are tasked with evaluating the evidence for ourselves to determine what it means. AND we should refer to experts to see what they have to say about it.
You’ve got me all wrong, Gary. Even though I told you from the beginning why I think Christianity is true. I have only been a believer for the past 9 years. I spent 4 decades observing the world around me, and scratching my head at a lot of what I saw going on – especially with the way people acted and treated on another. I started reading the Bible, not because I was searching for answers, but because my son (all on his own) decided he was going to start going to a Bible study in high school. And I decided I had better read this book so I could tell him what it really said so those “wakadoo born agains” couldn’t pull the wool over his eyes.
I was not ready for what I found in those pages. I told you that I think Christianity is true because it makes the most sense of why things are the way they are. And that’s what I found. Jesus had MANY of the same observations I also had. About how people acted. About what people would do. About what we should watch out for. He called it ALL. 2000 years ago. What he was seeing in the hearts of mankind, and how mankind would react to his teachings, I had ALREADY observed before I read a single thing he said.
So, no. I am not a Christian, and I don’t believe that the gospels are eyewitness testimony because I am prompted by the spirit of Jesus living inside of me. I think it’s true because there are good reasons to think it’s true.
I’m sure my comment comes out of left field for you, David. It questions the very foundation of your belief system. But that is what I encourage all people, theists and non-theists, to do. We should each take a fresh look at our worldview with an open mind using the Socratic Method (critical thinking skills), dropping all assumptions. I think you will be surprised by what you will discover. Best wishes!
All good, Gary. I don’t mind this discussion at all. It’s very healthy.
I DID have my worldview challenged. Several years ago. I am an engineer by trade, so I have lots of questions and need to know why before I take a course of action. All of the questions – all of the challenges I brought up – wee knocked down one by one. And the reason that I came to see that Christianity is true IS because it had the best answers to the questions I was asking. It makes the most sense of why the world is the way that it is. And how it gets fixed.
Excellent. I am a physician by trade. We are therefore both educated with a science background.
Question: Just because a belief system has an answer for all the great questions of the universe, does that make that belief system true?
I’m sure that you would agree, David, that just because a belief system has an answer for every question, that is no guarantee that its answers are correct. What matters is that a belief system has GOOD answers, even if sometimes that answer is: We don’t currently know. You qualified your statement above by saying that Christianity not only had answers to all your questions, but it had the BEST answers to the questions you were asking.
Let me challenge that claim. I am going to list three of the biggest questions human beings have asked themselves since time immemorial. I will give what I believe to be Christianity’s answer (I grew up a Baptist preacher’s kid) and I will give my current answer as someone who considers himself a non-supernaturalist (atheist).
Question 1: Who or what created the universe?
Christianity: God (specifically, the Christian God)
My answer: I don’t know. Scientists have not reached a consensus on this issue.
Question 2: Why am I here? What is my purpose?
Christianity: I am here to obey and glorify God. I am here to fulfill His purposes.
My answer: I don’t know but since I’m here I will choose my own purpose.
Question 3: Why is there so much suffering in the world? Fifteen thousand children under the age of 5 die of starvation and malnutrition each and every day, week after week, month after month, year after year, century after century…
Christianity: The first human beings used their free will to disobey God in the Garden. That sin and the consequences of that sin have passed down to each and every human descendent. That is why thousands of little children starve to death each day.
Gary: I don’t know. However, it is obvious to me that no loving, thinking, omnipotent being would allow so many little children to suffer such terrible, agonizing slow deaths. This fact alone tells me that if our universe was created by an intelligent designer, which is certainly possible, he (she/they/it) is dead, has become impotent, or is terribly evil.
Common sense tells us that the historical Jesus cannot be our creator. The Jesus of the Bible would never stand by while thousands of little children suffer so terribly and not intervene to stop it.
I’ve written a bit more on those questions here https://www.legatichristi.org/5-questions-every-worldview-must-answer/ (as well as a couple more).
Your asking about the problem of evil and suffering (question #3) actually makes a strong case for my point. I said that Christianity has the best answers for these questions. We both agree that pain and suffering exist. At least in the presence of a mother whose child lies dying on a hospital bed, Christianity can offer some level of hope that she may see her child again one day. The only answer Atheism can offer is “I don’t know, but this life is all you get. Guess you were just unlucky”. Which answer do you think is better? That, eventually, the world will be made right? Or “oh well, guess you were one of the unlucky ones”.
You are absolutely correct, David. Christianity provides a much more comforting story to grieving and suffering human beings than does atheism or secular humanism (my preferred worldview). But just because a worldview is comforting, does that make it true?
Some people prefer to receive false hope than the harsh truth. I am not one of those people. I want the truth, no matter how cold and harsh it may be. The reason I no longer find the claims of Christianity comforting is because I no longer believe these beliefs (superstitions) are true.
It’s not just that it provides a comforting story, Gary. It acknowledges the reality of something that we all admit is present – the world is messed up. You gave a list of scenarios that you felt were messed up. I agree, those are some messed up things. It ought not to be that way. You also think it ought not to be that way. But if naturalism is true (which is usually part of secular humanism) then there is no “ought”. There is no “messed up”. Everything is natural processes in motion. Including cancer. Cancer is just another natural process in the world that affects some and doesn’t others. So, the best rational answer (of which secular humanism usually prides itself on) that secular humanism can give is “Cancer is a natural feature of the world we live in. Guess you were just unlucky”.
” But if naturalism is true (which is usually part of secular humanism) then there is no “ought”. There is no “messed up”. Everything is natural processes in motion. Including cancer.”
Yes, if naturalism is true, we must make our own rules of behavior.
Remember, we are not having a contest for who can make up the most comforting belief system nor are we having a contest for who can make up a belief system that provides a just and fair explanation for the suffering and injustice in the world. We are searching for the truth, no matter how cold and unjust that may be. I believe that naturalism is a much more rational explanation for the existence of suffering and injustice than the belief that it was caused by our ancient ancestors’ forbidden fruit eating.
I agree with your last paragraph. We ought to believe what is true, not what makes us feel better.
You an I also both agree that injustice exists. How do you ground injustice under naturalism, which you defined as people having to make up their own rules?
Things are true when they correspond with reality. Each belief system (as you call it) makes certain truth claims about reality. Which ever belief system most lines up with reality is the one that is most reasonable to believe.
I absolutely agree with your last sentence.
Question: Is the Christian belief that the spirit of Jesus dwells within them reasonable?
If I told you that the spirit of an ancient Greek demi-god lives inside my body, performing miracles for me and whispering secret knowledge/life guidance to me in a still small voice, and promising me eternal life after death, would that reasonable? If not, why? How is that any different than the Christian belief?
What evidence would you demand to accept my claim as true; as reality?
You are asking me to give objective evidence for subjective experience. I, like you, have a skeptical nature. I need to see or hear evidence that I can evaluate. The only way I could evaluate whether or not your claim to be inhabited by a Norse demigod were true is if you could provide for me some sort of objective evidence (that is things I can observe and evaluate)
So, to bring your question back full circle, I can’t evaluate your internal experience. I would have to observe other things. OR hear eyewitness testimony. Maybe someone SAW the demigod take over your body. Maybe someone saw you do things no mere mortal can do. The next thing I would have to do is evaluate the reliability of the eyewitness.
Which is the whole point of this article. We have written accounts of the life of Jesus. We can both evaluate them. We have to determine if the accounts are credible. And I think the evidence shows that they are.
Excellent. We agree that subjective experiences of a spirit living inside your body providing life guidance and performing occasional wish-fulfillments for you is not good evidence for the existence of this spirit.
That leaves us with the alleged eyewitness testimony from 2,000 years ago. You do agree that the eyewitness status of the Gospels is hotly disputed among the experts, correct? In fact, the only experts today who believe the Gospels are eyewitness accounts are evangelicals and fundamentalist Protestants.
If a new religion today claims that they possess four books from Antiquity which describe sightings of another man returned from the dead who walked through locked doors and levitated into the clouds, would you even consider the possibility of this far-fetched claim being true based on ***disputed*** eyewitness testimony?
If you don’t mind, I’d like to comment on specific parts of your article:
“So, what are the questions we should use to determine if an eyewitness is reliable? First off, were they really there? Was the eyewitness in a position to really observe what they said they did? Can they describe the scene in a way that shows they were there? For the gospel writers, this would include things like using names and terms for things that were used at the time of the events. ”
Absolutely! For an eyewitness to be an eyewitness, he (or she) had to have been present at the event in question. How can we prove that the alleged eyewitness was present at the event? Does the fact that the alleged eyewitness makes no mistakes in describing the social, political, and geographical facts in which the event in question allegedly occurred prove he was there? No. He only needs to know these facts. The rest of the story can be pure fiction! If he really wants us to believe his fictitious claims, he will make sure that the background information (names of rulers, cities, etc.) is correct. What we need is: contemporary, independent, corroborating testimony of the principle claims in the story. Do we have this in the case of the four Gospels? No. Even many evangelical scholars admit that Matthew and Luke copied large portions of Mark. They are therefore not independent sources. What about John? There is no consensus regarding the independence of John. According to some estimates, scholars are split, 50/50. So at best, the independence of the four Gospels is disputed. It is entirely possible that Mark wrote the first “gospel”, inventing details about the historical Jesus, and the three other gospel authors simply added their own fictional details.
You keep using that word… possible. Anything is possible. It’s possible that you and I will bump into each other at the Super Bowl. But is it reasonable? There’s a reason that the legal standard is “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Not “beyond a possible doubt”.
All of the statements you made are speculation. As evaluators of eyewitness testimonies, we have to evaluate the evidence we have in front of us and not speculate on the “possibilities”. If the authors (or the eyewitnesses they cite) claim to have been there, then we have to show why we sholdn’t believe them based on evidence, not speculation.
What evidence do we have in front of us?
Answer: Five books from the first century (the four canonical Gospels and Acts) which are not signed nor do any of the authors explicitly name themselves. Do any of the authors of the Gospels explicitly state they are eyewitnesses? No. Are any of the Gospels written in the first person? No. All five books are written in the third person (the narrative voice). There is no evidence of anyone assigning authorship to these texts until the mid to late second century (that is more than a century after Jesus’ death).
So why do you assume that these five books are historically reliable eyewitness accounts?
Again, I ask you to consider the genre. These are ancient biographies. Biographers didn’t tend to write in the first person. Even today, biographies are usually written in 3rd person because the biographer isn’t the subject of the biography.
Where they DO write in the first person, and absolutely do claim to be eyewitnesses is in the letters they wrote to the churches in the area. In fact, Paul and Peter have to make the case for their authority numerous times because other people of the time weere calling them into question. So, yes, the people who are documented as being side by side with Jesus throughout his ministry do proclaim to be eyewitnesses.
I will point out that, in Acts, it does have a huge chunk of it written in first person. Acts was written by Luke. And, we can tell when Luke joined up with Paul because we start to see “we” in the text. Acts 16:8 the author writes “And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia,” Two verses later, the language switches. “And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia” (Acts 16:10).
Most of this article is taken from the work of J. Warner Wallace. He was a cold-case homicide detective who had developed the ability to analyze eyewitness statements due to the nature of his job. He figured out how to determine if eyewitness were reliable or not. He did this as an atheist. So, before he even opened the Bible, he already knew what eyewitness accounts looked like. When he started to read them, he realized that all of the people who are attributed to the gospels WERE actually there. And they were trustworthy. All before he bacame a Christian.
I’d ask you to do the same. Start with Luke. He was a physician like you. Read it. Don’t let the supernatural claims be a stumbling block for you. Just consider how he does on all the other stuff. I think you will find him reliable on it.
I’ve read Mr. Wallace’s book, “Cold Case Christianity”. I even reviewed on my blog here:
https://lutherwasnotbornagaincom.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/a-review-of-cold-case-christianity/
Here is an excerpt of my review:
J Warner Wallace: “I interviewed hundreds (if not thousands) of eyewitnesses and suspects. …I conducted so many interviews and had such success getting suspects to “cop-out” that my department sent me to a number of investigative schools to refine my skills; I was eventually trained in Forensic Statement Analysis (FSA). By carefully employing this methodology and scrutinizing a suspect’s choice of pronouns, use of tensed language, compression or expansion of time (along with many other linguistic tendencies), I was typically able to determine if he or she committed the crime, and I could often establish the time of day when the crime actually occurred! I began to use FSA as I studied the Gospel of Mark. Within a month, and in spite of my deep skepticism and hesitation, I concluded that Mark’s gospel was the eyewitness account of the Apostle Peter. p. 18-19”
Gary: Wow! He’s got my attention. Is it really possible that one crime detective, after just one month of research, has better analytic ability to determine the authorship and source of the Gospel of Mark than the majority of critical New Testament scholars, most of whom have spent decades studying this issue; critical scholars, the majority of whom, do not believe that an eyewitness nor an associate of an eyewitness wrote the Gospel of Mark (or any other gospel)???
I am all ears.
And here is a link to my final post reviewing “Cold Case Christianity”:
https://lutherwasnotbornagaincom.wordpress.com/2018/02/10/summary-of-my-review-of-cold-case-christianity/
Here is what I say in this conclusion: Mr. Wallace believes he knows more than all the world’s thousands of historians and Bible scholars who say that the Gospels are not eyewitness accounts. He alleges the experts are biased against the supernatural, but there is a big hole in that argument: Most Roman Catholic Bible scholars reject the eyewitness/associate of eyewitness authorship of the Gospels and they very much believe in the supernatural, miracles, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Why is it that only evangelicals and fundamentalist Protestants believe in the eyewitness status of the Gospels?? Someone has a bias, alright.
This bias against educated people is rampant among evangelicals, especially those who lack a (public) university education. THEIR personal research trumps the expertise and study of all the world’s experts. Such thinking is foolish, David. You are an educated man. You should know better.
J. Warner Wallace proposes a framework with which to evaluate whether or not someone is an eyewitness. At no point do you give reasons for why this framework is wrong. Your only response is “he doesn’t agree with the experts”. You also criticized people who do not have a certain type of education. As if where they did (or did not) go to school matters on whether they are right or not. This is known as a genetic fallacy (you may know this. I’m just pointing it out to others who don’t). HOW or WHY someone believes something ot be true is irrelevant to whether the thing is true or not.
For example, I live in California. If you asked me how I know I live in California, and I told you I know I live in California because the tree outside my window talks to me and told me I live in California, that doesn’t change the fact that I live in California no matter how ridiculous the method I cite for gaining this knowledge. You could prove that the tree didn’t tell me I live in California, but it would STILL be true that I live in California.
Attacking someone’s reasons – even their motivations – for holding something to be true is a way to avoid actually evaluating the thing they are claiming to be true. So, can you give me any reasons why the gospels shouldn’t be considered as eyewitness testimony other than “the experts disagree”?
David, do you perceive the presence of the resurrected Jesus dwelling within you?
What does my internal subjective experience have to do with whether or not the gospels should be considered eyewitness testimony?
A man was publicly executed 2,000 years ago and buried. After his death and burial, some of his associates believed he appeared to them. A minority of experts believe that four first century books called the Gospels are eyewitness accounts of these events. A majority of experts believe these books were written by non-eyewitnesses for the purpose of evangelization not to record accurate history. You believe the majority of experts are wrong. You also believe you can feel the spirit of this man living inside your body communicating with you on a daily basis. Are we really to believe that your belief that this man’s ghost lives inside you is not the principal reason why you believe this man returned from the dead twenty centuries ago?
Rewording your previous statement in a different way doesn’t make it any more true this time. What I’m trying to get from you is what did the scholars you trust say about the eyewitness account theory that you found so compelling other than “I agree with that guy”. I know you’ve read a lot of Ehrman’s works. What argument did he (or anyone else) put forth that you found compelling that refutes the claim that I made?
Gary, you’re still committing the logical fallacy I mentioned previously. My motivations for belief are irrelevant to whether or not something is true. Even the only expert opinion you gave as to why the gospels are not historical accounts is one that faults their motivation (“for the purpose of evangelization”). To that I say… so what? Why does the desire to evangelize exclude the desire to be historically accurate?
You’re a doctor. I don’t know what type of medicine you practice. Let’s use the cancer example again. Let’s say you are an oncologist. And some new drug some along that is curing cancer in your patients with incredible success. This is something you are observing. Wouldn’t that get you excited? Wouldn’t you want to tell other people about it? Evangelize, dare we say? Should I immediately discount what you say because of how excited you are to say it?
You’re completely mischaracterizing what I have said in order to make it look silly and easily defeatable. This is called offering a straw man (you may already know what this means. I’m just offering it for people who may be following along). I keep trying to focus on objective facts and evidence – things we can both evaluate. You keep focusing on what I think is going on inside of me – things that no other person can observe and evaluate. And, frankly, that are irrelevant to the case before us.