Are the Gospels Unreliable Hearsay?
Objection: Confused question. Hearsay is not "unreliable" by definition. It is rather a claim to knowledge that is based on another person's assertions of fact. Lots of hearsay is no doubt true. But the reason the Courts generally forbid hearsay and require testimony to be based on personal first-hand knowledge is because hearsay increases the probability of jury-misleading far more than Courts feel comfortable allowing. There are also many exceptions to the hear-say exclusion rule, which again shows that hearsay is not definitionally false stuff. Unfortunately for apologists, they never justify why they pretend that the rules governing evidence in a modern American court case are the rules bible readers "should" apply to the bible's historical claims.
Some critics attempt to undermine the reliability of the gospel writers as eyewitnesses,
Most Christian scholars think Mark is the earliest gospel. They also agree that Mark's long ending is forgery. Therefore today's unbeliever is manifestly reasonable to infer that the earliest gospel did not contain a resurrection appearance narrative. Most Christian scholars say Matthew and Luke depended extensively on Mark's text. So we can be reasonable again to infer that their two resurrection appearance narratives constitute "embellishment". All attempts to get Mark to somehow admit the risen Christ was seen by others, are not so powerful as to render the skeptical position unreasonable. Mark's refusal to even mention the virgin birth despite his agenda to prove Jesus was the Son of God, likewise makes us justifiably suspicious that the VB story likely didn't exist until after Mark wrote, since if it existed before Mark wrote, Mark likely would have known about it, and he would hardly have "chosen to exclude" this apparently convincing proof, when in fact all patristic sources agree that his purpose was to exactly repeat previously established Christian truth. If then Peter was Mark's source, then we raise the spectre of either a) Peter not knowing Jesus was virgin born, or b) Peter of it but thought it false, or c) Peter knew of it but never communicated it to Mark.
The Matthew-author's resurrection narrative refers to the 11 apostles in the third person. It doesn't matter if one of those apostles could possibly have later reasonably chosen to refer to his own group in the third person, what zealous apologists intentionally forget is that referring to one's own group in the third person is not typical or usual. If YOU were part of the group you describe as experiencing something, and YOU intend for the reader to take your claims as "eyewitness testimony", we have the perfect right to a) expect that you'll refer to your group in the first person plural ("us", and "we"), and b) not expect you to refer to your own group solely in the third person plural ("they" and "them"). And yet, Matthew was supposed to be a tax-collector, committing apologists to the propositioin that this apostle knew exactly who to word an account so that it properly claims personal knowledge. He would also have known that some sort of identifying mark was necessary to tie the testifying party to their staements, yet nothing in the history of Matthew's gospel or its manuscripts expresses or implied he ever signed his own alleged testimony, even though the need for a signature or personal touch was paramount in the opinion of other Holy Spirit filled people who were addressing people they previously conversed with (2nd Thess. 3:17).
while others seek to have this testimony “tossed out” as unreliable “hearsay” before it can even be evaluated.
But since the mere existence of the gospels today does not obligate anybody to give a shit about them, smarter skeptics, like me, take the third position that there is nothing to "toss out" in the first place. The writings of Homer exist...does this obligate us to either deal with them or toss them out? No. But regardless, my arguments allow you all the authentic apostolic gospel authorship you want, and allow you to date them to less than 6 months after Jesus died...and I would still prove that those who reject Jesus' resurrection are reasonable to do so. So don't think the justification for skepticism forces us to resort to hearsay objections. Far from it.
They argue the gospel accounts fail to meet the judicial standard we require of eyewitnesses in criminal cases.
They would be correct, but again, you've never justified applying modern American criminal law principles to the gospels in the first place. What exactly do you recommend an atheist do with a Mormon who has failed to make their case? Keep asking? Or walk away?
Witnesses must be present in court for their testimony to be considered in a criminal trial.
Which is one reason why your marketing gimmick of applying modern American criminal court rules to the gospels is absurd.
And it wouldn't matter if you could resurrect Matthew and put him on the witness stand today, most Christians who specialize in actual scholarship as opposed to "apologetics" refuse to credit Matthew with any specific narrative or Christ-saying in the gospel attributed to Matthew, thus we are reasonable to say Matthew is not responsible for the text we call canonical Matthew. If you read a Christian commentary and notice a statement to the effect of "Matthew authored everything in this gospel", you KNOW you are reading the work of a fundamentalist who is more concerned about apologetics than about scholarship...which is perfectly sufficient to justify tossing the commentary in the garbage. If you don't trifle to the person who recently received Jesus that just because a skeptical book gets something wrong doesn't justify tossing the entire book, then you cannot trifle to a skeptic that just because a fundamentalist book got something wrong doesn't justify tossing the entire book.
But regardless, my attack on Jesus' resurrection is so powerful, I don't need to waste time trying to distance Matthew from that gospel. I could allow his authorship solely for the sake of argument and I'd still be perfectly reasonable and academically rigorous to call the author a liar about Jesus' resurrection. Yes, I'm well aware of how incapable you are of providing any compelling biblical or patristic evidence that any apostle continued to preach despite seriously believing doing so would likely result in their death. Goodbye to that piece of dogshit called "martyrdom apologetic". What screws the patristic evidence is the biblical proofs that the post-resurrection apostles were unwilling to die.
This often presents a problem for me as cold-case detective.
And the problem would disappear just as soon as you stop anachronistically applying a modern American evidentiary standard to a 2000 year old religious book, fool.
I have a few unsolved cases because key witnesses died and are unavailable to testify in court. Though these witnesses may have described their observations to a friend or family member, I can’t summon these “second level” witnesses into court, as their testimony would be considered “hearsay.”
Then it is your problem that this American criminal evidentiary standard you wish to apply to the gospels (i.e., "Cold Case Christianity") has a standard that would render the gospels inadmissible. But since marketing gimmicks and word-wrangling are your specialty, I'm sure this wouldn't bother you in the least.
The statements of friends or family members would be inadmissible because the original witness would not be available for cross-examination or evaluation.
Oh, so did you suddenly discover that certain traits of the modern American criminal evidentiary standard are not good to apply to 2000 year old religious documents?
This exclusion of hearsay testimony from secondary witnesses is reasonable in criminal trials; as a society, we believe “it is better that ten guilty persons escape … than that one innocent suffer.” For this reason, we’ve created a rigorous (and sometimes difficult) legal standard for eyewitnesses.
So did you suddenly discover that certain traits of the modern American criminal evidentiary standard are not good to apply to 2000 year old religious documents? Or did God tell you that only certain parts of such standard would "apply to" ancient religious documents?
If our spiritual destiny is more important that our earthly circumstances, then the evidentiary standard we apply to spiritual stuff should be even MORE rigorous, since in spiritual matters, getting something wrong can possibly result in eternal conscious torment in the afterworld, which is far worse than merely spending a lifetime in an earthly jail. And yet Wallace doesn't have the first clue how to draw up evidentiary criteria for spiritual matters where the criteria are more rigorous than those applicable to earthly legal criminal cases. I guess we have some sort of obligation to bow our heads and acquiesce to the desperate fools who insist that we, who are taking the entire risk of hell, "should" be satisfied with less than perfectly authenticated evidence, even though getting some spiritual bullshit wrong carries far graver consequences that if we were to get some earthly bit of criminal evidence wrong.
But this standard is simply too much to require of historical eyewitness testimony.
So did you suddenly discover that certain traits of the modern American criminal evidentiary standard shouldn't be applied to 2000 year old religious documents? Or did God tell you that only certain parts of such standard would "apply to" ancient religious documents? If you can't justify that standard from the bible, wouldn't that mean your standard has less authority than a biblically necessitated answer? How obligated are we to believe Jesus was a man? How obligated are we to believe apostle Thomas was martyred?
If historical testimony is dictating what one must do to avoid spiritual prison, it isn't up to Wallace to decide what should be considered a sufficiently rigorous standard...it's up to the individual person how rigorous the standard must be. When its MY ass on the line, you don't decide what "should" suffice for me, I do. If my standard seems too high in your opinion, I don't exactly experience nightmares merely because another imperfect person disagreed with me.
The vast majority of historical events must be evaluated despite the fact the eyewitnesses are now dead and cannot come into court to testify.
Where are you getting that from? What rule of historiography even gets near telling anybody that they "must" evaluate historical events? Your apologetics desperation is starting to show.
The eyewitnesses who observed the crafting and signing of the constitution of the United States are lost to us.
A loss that inflicts great damage, since the Courts, like Christianity, have subsequently interpreted the Constitution in a progressive way that departs from the original intention of the fathers, just like modern Christianity departs from the intent of the original biblical authors, or so seems to be the battle cry we hear when equally authentically born again Trinitarians point the finger of heresy at each other.
Those who witnessed the life of Abraham Lincoln are also lost to us.
And nothing "requires" any adult to care, except for those adults who wish to teach U.S. History. The modern American who is completely apathetic toward Abe Lincoln is doing nothing unreasonable.
It’s one thing to require eyewitness cross-examination on a case that may condemn a defendant to the gas chamber; it’s another thing to hold history up to such an unreasonable necessity.
And it's another thing to tell an unbeliever that they "should" be satisfied with a less-than-perfect authentication standard for testimony that allegedly has the power to cause them irreversible eternal conscious torment...something much worse than merely a false criminal conviction on earth. That higher standard for spiritual matters might make your apologetics case impossible to make, but that higher standard remains reasonable nontheless. Reasonableness isn't limited to whatever supports Cristian apologists. Reasonableness might possibly be found in something that makes Christian apologists hate their jobs.
If we require this standard for historical accounts, be prepared to jettison everything you think you know about the past.
I'm not seeing the downside. Ignoring ancient history is about as dangerous as ignoring a jelly stain in a landfill. When you can prove that any biblical bullshit "applies to us today" (mission impossible), you can talk to me further about the risks of ignoring ancient history.
Nothing can be known about history if live eyewitnesses are the only reliable witnesses we can consult.
And why should anybody outside of historians and Christian apologists give a fuck what might have happened 2000 years ago? You can't show that anything in the bible "applies to us today".
If this were the case, we could know nothing with certainty beyond two or three living generations, including two or three living generations of your own family.
That's not a problem for anybody except those who do ancient history as a hobby or job, and and problem for Christians who realize there is no Holy Spirit in the first place, and so their case for Christ really does evaporate once the historical evidence is justifiably marginalized.
Learn more about the nature of eyewitness testimony in the new, updated and expanded version of Cold-Case Christianity.
Shame on you for trying to draw away Christians from their Sola Scriptura security blankets. If they are serious that the bible "alone" is "sufficient" for faith and practice, that means they don't need J. Warner Wallace's marketing gimmicks anymore than the 4th century church fathers did.
