Church Voices

Earlier I put up a an analysis of the Craig/Edwards debate on the veracity of the resurrection. I came across it a few years ago on Ravi Zacharias’ website, but I was having trouble finding it so I turned to that greatest of all research tools: google. As I poked around the web trying to locate the mp3 of the debate I also came across other people’s assessment of the debate. A common theme among skeptics was to question the reliablity of the gospels. One even went so far as to claim the gospels were nothing more than hearsay, of course then we get into a question of authorship as both John and Matthew were eye witnesses. But, here’s my point, all too often when skeptics criticize scripture, and the supporting extrabiblical documents that confirm the truth in it they fall back to a legal standard of evidence. But this is an improper categorization of scripture.

The term “hearsay” is a legal term. Hearsay is not allowable as evidence into a court of law. And many skeptics fall back onto this standard of evidence in order to disqualify scripture from even being considered. Putting aside issues of authorship for just a moment (which, as I noted earlier would put half the gospels over the hearsay hurdle) the question we then have to approach is, “how much of what we consider to be historical fact fails the legal test”? The answer is: a whole freaking lot. We would have to remove Alexander the Great, and most of ancient history from our history books if we were to apply a legal standard for the historical evidence for their existence. And yet no one doubts Alexander the Great existed.

The reality is that what we consider to be historically valid evidence and what we consider to be legally valid evidence are two different standards of evidence. The standard of legal evidence is much higher for at least two reasons. The first is that legal issues deal with circumstances that happened in the very near past. Generally none of the witnesses have died due to old age, no records have been wiped out by war, and technology has given us the ability to record video of events. If an event actually happened there is an expectation that a lot of evidence can be martialed to prove it existed. On the other hand as the march of history rolls on more and more evidence is lost. Witnesses die, their writings are lost, cultural changes make writings harder to understand, and physical evidence is destroyed or buried. When building a historical case for an event there is far less evidence that can possibly be accessed and so standard of evidence is lower. The second reason the legal standard of evidence is so much higher is because if the prosecution proves an event actually happened then the full force of the government is brought to bear on an individual. The same is not true if a historical event is proven. In fact, not only are legal evidences held to a higher standard than historical evidences, but legal judgments are as well. A jury must have all 12 members vote guilty before someone is thrown in prison. Historical judgments are far less rigorous because whether or not a historical event happened doesn’t determine if someone will soon be traded for a pack of cigarettes.

Much of the Bible obviously falls into the historical category (and none of it falls into the evidence for a trial category), yet many people insist on excluding much of the Bible on the basis that it doesn’t rise to the level of legal evidence. At the same time I’ve never seen an argument that all or any other historical documents need to be held to a legal level of evidence. So why should the Bible?