Testing the Eyewitness Evidence

When I was teaching Sunday school, I did a series of classes using Lee Strobel's works. The following is from The Case for Christ, chapter 2. While there may be the stray original item from me, I deserve no credit for what is written in this particular article. It is properly attributed to Lee Strobel in its entirety.

Strobel outlines a series of 8 tests used in evaluating eyewitness testimony:

1. The Intention Test - Was it the stated or implied intention of the writers to accurately preserve history?

Yes, you can see that at the beginning of Luke - it reads very much like the prefaces to other generally trusted historical and biographical works of antiquity. Luke is clearly saying he intended to write accurately about the things he investigated and found to be well-supported by witnesses.

Matthew and Mark don’t start with similar declarations; however they are of the same genre as Luke, and it seems reasonable that Luke’s historical intent would closely mirror theirs. John’s alone sounds like a theological statement rather than a historical one. But if you’re going to be convinced enough to believe, the theology has to flow from accurate history.

Also consider the way the gospels are written, in a sober and responsible fashion. Accurate incidental details are included with obvious care and meticulousness. There exists none of the outlandish flourishes and blatant mythologizing seen in a lot of other ancient writings. It seems readily apparent the goal of the gospel writers was to record what had actually occurred.

One common objection is that Christians were convinced Jesus was returning within their lifetimes, so they didn’t think it was necessary to preserve any historical records about his life or teachings. Years later, when it became obvious he wasn’t returning, they found they didn’t have any accurate historical material on which to draw in writing the gospels.

First, the truth is that the majority of Jesus’ teachings presuppose a significant span of time before the end of the world. Second, even if some did believe he’d return fairly quickly, remember that Christianity was born out of Judaism. For eight centuries Jews lived with tension between the repeated pronouncements of the prophets that the Day of the Lord was at hand and the continuing history of Israel, and still the followers of these prophets recorded, valued and preserved their words. Given that Jesus was seen as far greater than a prophet, it makes sense that they would have done the same thing

Another common objection is that early Christians frequently believed that the departed Jesus was speaking through them with messages, or ‘prophecies’ for their church. Since these were seen as authoritative as Jesus’ own words when he was on earth, the early Christians didn’t distinguish between these newer sayings and the original words of the historical Jesus. As a result, the gospels blend these two types of material, so we don’t know what really goes back to the historical Jesus and what doesn’t.

This argument has less historical support than the previous one. In fact, the New Testament itself contains evidence that disproves this hypothesis. There are occasions when early Christian prophecy is referred to, but it is always distinguished from what the Lord said. In 1 Cor. 7, Paul clearly distinguishes when he has a word from the Lord and when he is quoting the historical Jesus. In Revelation one can clearly distinguish the handful of times in which Jesus directly speaks to his prophet - traditionally assumed to be John the apostle - and when John is recounting his own inspired visions. In 1 Cor. 14, when Paul is discussing the criteria for true prophecy, he talks about the responsibility of the local church to test prophets. Drawing on his Jewish background, we know it would have included whether the prediction comes true and whether these new statements cohere with previously revealed words of the Lord.

But the strongest evidence is what we never find in the gospels. After Jesus’ ascension there were a number of controversies that threatened the early church - should believers be circumcised, how should speaking in tongues be regulated, how to keep Jew and Gentile united, appropriate roles for women in ministry, whether believers could divorce non-Christian spouses.

These could have been conveniently resolved if the early Christians had simply read back into the gospels what Jesus had told them from the world beyond, but this never happened. The continuance of these controversies demonstrates that Christians were interested in distinguishing between what happened during Jesus’ lifetime and what was debated later in the churches.

2. The Ability Test - Even if the writers intended to reliably record history, were they able to do so? How can we be sure the material about Jesus’ life and teachings was well preserved for thirty years before it was finally written down in the gospels? Wouldn’t faulty memories, wishful thinking and the development of legend have contaminated the Jesus tradition before the writing of the gospels?

We have to remember we are in a foreign land in a distant time and place and culture that has not invented computers or even the printing press. Books - actually, scrolls of papyrus - were relatively rare. Therefore, education, learning, worship, teaching in religious communities - all this was done by word of mouth. Rabbis became famous for having the entire Old Testament committed to memory. It would have been well within the capabilities of the disciples to have much more than appears in all four gospels put together committed to memory and to have passed it along accurately.

It is difficult for us to imagine today, but this was an oral culture, in which there was great emphasis placed on memorization. And remember that 80-90% of Jesus words were originally in poetic form. This doesn’t mean stuff that rhymes, but it has a meter, balanced lines, parallelism, and so forth - and this would have been a great memory aid.

And it must be said the definition of memorization was more flexible back then. In studies of cultures with oral traditions, there was freedom to vary how much of a story was told on any given occasion - what was included, what was left out, what was paraphrased, what was explained, and so forth. One study suggested that in the ancient Middle East, anywhere from 10-40% of any given retelling of sacred tradition could vary from one occasion to the next. However, there were always fixed points that were unalterable, and the community had the right to intervene and correct the storyteller if he erred on those important aspects of the story. It’s interesting that 10-40% is pretty consistently the amount of variation among the synoptics on any given passage. It’s likely that a lot of the similarities and differences among the synoptics can be explained by assuming that the disciples and other early Christians had committed to memory a lot of what Jesus said and did, but they felt free to recount the information in various forms, always preserving the significance of Jesus’ original teachings and deeds.

It is important to realize this isn't the telephone game from our childhood. When you’re carefully memorizing something and taking care not to pass it along until you’ve got it right, you’re doing something very different from playing the game of telephone. The community would constantly be monitoring what was said and intervening to make corrections along the way; that would preserve the integrity of the message.

3. The Character Test - Was it in the character of these writers to be truthful? Was there any evidence of dishonesty or immorality that might taint their ability or willingness to transmit history accurately?

We simply do not have any reasonable evidence to suggest they were anything but people of great integrity. They reported the words and actions of a man who called them to as exacting a level of integrity as any religion has ever known. They were willing to live out their beliefs even to the point of 10 of the 11 remaining disciples being put to grisly deaths, which shows great character. In terms of honesty, in terms of truthfulness, in terms of virtue and morality, these people had a track record that should be envied.

4. The Consistency Test - Aren’t the gospels hopelessly contradictory with each other? Aren’t there irreconcilable discrepancies among the various gospel accounts? And if so, how can anyone trust anything they say?

Once you allow for the elements we’ve discussed - paraphrase, abridgement, explanatory additions, selection and omission - the gospels are extremely consistent with each other by ancient standards, which are the only standards by which it’s fair to judge them. Ironically, if they’d matched word for word, this would have raised charges of conspiracy among the gospel writers. It would invalidate them as independent witnesses. After studying the consistency among the four gospel writers, Simon Greenleaf of Harvard Law School said, “There is enough of a discrepancy to show that there could have been no previous concert among them; and at the same time such substantial agreement as to show that they all were independent narrators of the same great transaction.”

Critics argue that in Matthew it says a centurion himself came to Jesus to ask for his servant’s healing. Luke says the centurion sent the elders to do this. This isn't really a valid criticism. Almost every day the news report says, “The president announced today…” when really a speechwriter wrote the announcement, and it was delivered by press secretary. Similarly, in the ancient world, it was perfectly understood and accepted that actions attributed to people were in fact accomplished by their subordinates or emissaries.

Mark and Luke say Jesus sent the demons into the swine in Gerasa, while Matthew says Gadara. What shall we make of this?

One possible solution is one’s a town and the other’s a province. But it gets more complicated; Gerasa, the town, wasn’t anywhere near the Sea of Galilee, so…? There have been ruins of a town excavated at exactly the right point on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. The English form of the town’s name often gets pronounced “Khersa,” but as a Hebrew word translated or transliterated into Greek, it could have very easily come out sounding something like “Gerasa.” So it may very well have been in Khersa - whose spelling in Greek was rendered as Gerasa - in the province of Gadara.

What about the discrepancies between the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke? This is another case of multiple options: One is that Matthew reflects Joseph’s lineage because most of his opening chapter is told from Joseph’s perspective and Joseph, as the adoptive father, would have been the legal ancestor through whom Jesus’ royal lineage would have been traced. Luke would have traced the genealogy through Mary’s lineage. And since both are from the ancestry of David, once you get that far back the lines converge.

The other is that both reflect Joseph’s lineage in order to create the necessary legalities, but one is Joseph’s human lineage - the gospel of Luke - and the other is Joseph’s legal lineage, with the two diverging at the points where somebody in the line did not have a direct offspring. They had to raise up legal heirs through various Old Testament practices. The problem is made greater because some names were omitted, which was perfectly acceptable by standards of the ancient world. And there are textual variants - names, being translated from one language into another, often took on different spellings and were then easily confused for the name of a different individual

What we learn from these examples is that the best approach is to study each issue individually and see whether there’s a rational way to resolve the apparent conflict among the gospels. It’s okay to hold judgment in abeyance and simply say that since we’ve made sense out of the vast majority if the texts and determined them to be trustworthy, we can give them the benefit of the doubt when we’re not sure on some of the other details.

5. The Bias Test - Did they have any vested interest in skewing the material they were reporting on?

While we can’t underestimate the fact that people loved Jesus and that could create the potential at least to change things to make him look good, people can so honor and respect someone that it prompts them to record his life with integrity as a way to show their love for him.

Besides, they had nothing to gain except criticism, ostracism, and martyrdom. They certainly had nothing to gain financially.

This would have provided pressure to keep quiet, to deny Jesus, to downplay him, even forget they ever met him. Yet because of their integrity, they proclaimed what they saw, even when it meant suffering and death.

6. The Cover-up Test - When people testify about events they saw, they will often try to protect themselves or others by conveniently forgetting to mention details that are embarrassing or hard to explain. As a result, this raises uncertainty about the veracity of their entire testimony. Did the gospel writers include any material that might be embarrassing, or did they cover it up to make themselves look good? Did they report anything that would be uncomfortable or difficult to explain?

There are some hard sayings of Jesus, some of which are very ethically demanding. If I were inventing a religion to suit my fancy, I’m not sure I’d include being perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect or define adultery to include lust in my heart.

Mark 6:54 says Jesus could do few miracles in Nazareth because of the lack of faith there. This seems to limit Jesus’ power. In Mark 13:32 Jesus says he doesn’t know the day/hour of his return This seems to limit his omniscience. Why would Jesus, who is without sin, need to be baptized? On the cross he cries out, “Why hast thou forsaken me?”

There's plenty of embarrassing material about the disciples too. Mark’s perspective of Peter is pretty consistently unflattering. The disciples repeatedly misunderstand Jesus. James and John want places at his right/left hand, and he has to teach them hard lessons about servant leadership instead. They look like a bunch of self-serving, self-seeking, dull-witted people much of the time.

7. The Corroboration Test - When the gospels mention people, places and events, do they check out to be correct in cases in which they can be independently verified?

Yes, and the longer people explore this, the more the details get confirmed. Within the last hundred years archaeology has repeatedly unearthed discoveries that have confirmed specific references in the gospels, particularly in the gospel of John - ironically, the one that is supposedly so suspect!

In addition, we learn from non-Christian sources a lot of facts about Jesus that corroborate key teachings and events in His life. And when you stop to think that ancient historians for the most part dealt only with political rulers, emperors, kings, military battles, official religious people, and major philosophical move-ments, it’s remarkable how much we can learn about Jesus and his followers even though they fit none of these categories at the time these historians were writing.

8. The Adverse Witness Test - Were others present who would have contradicted or corrected the gospels if they had been distorted or false? In other words, do we see contemporaries of Jesus complaining that the gospels were just plain wrong?

Many people had reasons for wanting to discredit this movement and would have done so if they could have simply told history better. Yet look at what his opponents did say. In later Jewish writings Jesus is called a sorcerer who led Israel astray, which acknowledges he really did work marvelous wonders, although the writers dispute the source of his power. This would have been the perfect opportunity to say, “The Christians will tell you he worked miracles, but we’re here to say, ‘He didn’t!’” Instead they implicitly acknowledge that what the gospels record is true.

Could this Christian movement have taken root right there in Jerusalem - in the very area Jesus had done his ministry, he had been crucified, buried and resurrected - if the people who knew him were aware the disciples were exaggerating or distorting the things that he did? No. It was initially a very vulnerable and fragile movement subjected to persecution - if critics could have attacked it on the basis it was full of falsehoods or distortions, they would have.