God and my Neighbour Part 16

JUDGE: Are they in the handwriting of this Paul of Tarsus?

COUNSEL: No, m'lud. They are copies; the originals are lost.

JUDGE: Who was Paul of Tarsus?

COUNSEL: M'lud, he was the apostle to the Gentiles.

JUDGE: You intend to call some of these Gentiles?

COUNSEL: No, m'lud. There are none living.

JUDGE: But you don't mean to, say--how long has this shadowy witness, Paul of Tarsus, been dead?

COUNSEL: Not two thousand years, m'lud.

JUDGE: Thousand years dead? Can you bring evidence to prove that he was ever alive?

COUNSEL: Circ.u.mstantial, m'lud.

JUDGE: I cannot allow you to read the alleged statements of a hypothetical witness who is acknowledged to have been dead for nearly two thousand years. I cannot admit the alleged letters of Paul as evidence.

COUNSEL: I shall show that the act of resurrection was witnessed by one Mary Magdalene, by a Roman soldier--

JUDGE: What is the soldier's name?

COUNSEL: I don't know, m'lud.

JUDGE: Call him.

COUNSEL: He is dead, m'lud.

JUDGE: Deposition?

COUNSEL: No, m'lud.

JUDGE: Strike out his evidence. Call Mary Magdalene.

COUNSEL: She is dead, m'lud. But I shall show that she told the disciples--

JUDGE: What she told the disciples is not evidence.

COUNSEL: Well, m'lud, I shall give the statements of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew states very plainly that--

JUDGE: Of course, you intend to call Matthew?

COUNSEL: No, m'lud. He is--he is dead.

JUDGE: It seems to me, that to prove this resurrection you will have to perform a great many more. Are Mark and John dead, also?

COUNSEL: Yes, m'lud.

JUDGE: Who were they?

COUNSEL: I--I don't know, m'lud.

JUDGE: These statements of theirs, to which you allude: are they in their own handwriting?

COUNSEL: May it please your ludship, they did not write them. The statements are not given as their own statements, but only as statements "according to them." The statements are really copies of translations of copies of translations of statements supposed to be based upon what someone told Matthew, and--

JUDGE: Who copied and translated, and re-copied and re-translated, this hearsay evidence?

COUNSEL: I do not know, m'lud.

JUDGE: Were the copies seen and revised by the authors? Did they correct the proofs?

COUNSEL: I don't know, m'lud.

JUDGE: Don't know? Why?

COUNSEL: There is no evidence that the doc.u.ments had ever been heard of until long after the authors were dead.

JUDGE: I never heard of such a case. I cannot allow you to quote these papers. They are not evidence. Have you _any_ witnesses?

COUNSEL: No, m'lud.

That fancy dialogue about expresses the legal value of the evidence for this important miracle.

But, legal value not being the only value, let us now consider the evidence as mere laymen.

THE GOSPEL WITNESSES

As men of the world, with some experience in sifting and weighing evidence, what can we say about the evidence for the Resurrection?

In the first place, there is no acceptable evidence outside the New Testament, and the New Testament is the authority of the Christian Church.

In the second place, there is nothing to show that the Gospels were written by eye-witnesses of the alleged fact.

In the third place, the Apostle Paul was not an eye-witness of the alleged fact.

In the fourth place, although there is some evidence that some Gospels were known in the first century, there is no evidence that the Gospels as we know them were then in existence.

In the fifth place, even supposing that the existing Gospels and the Epistles of Paul were originally composed by men who knew Christ, and that these men were entirely honest and capable witnesses, there is no certainty that what they wrote has come down to us unaltered.