Evidence: The Gathering

[Randy Carson]

Do you agree with the California judicial system that there is "no qualitative distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence"?

No, I don't. Finding your DNA on a woman's panties after she alleges you've raped her is qualitatively far more conclusive as evidence that you did in fact do so than is her neighbour saying he thought he saw your car parked on the street that day.

Are professional historians able to rely on that type of direct evidence, Nestor?

If not, are they unable to learn anything about the past?

d

What are you even considering as evidence for Christianity's claims? A brief list would be helpful here, if you could put something together.

All of the writings from the first one hundred years.

Christian, Jewish, and pagan.

I would also consider some that predate Christianity to acquaint myself with the culture and philosophy in which the authors of the new faith were deriving their inspiration and to understand how they were interpreting what they considered spiritual events.

That sounds good. I assume this means that you'll be reading the NT books as first-century Christian sources.

"Consider an analogy. We don't dismiss early American accounts of the Revolutionary War simply because they were written by Americans. We take their biases into consideration and sometimes their descriptions of events with a pound of salt. But we do not refuse to use them as historical sources. Contemporary accounts of George Washington, even by his devoted followers, are still valuable as historical sources. To refuse to use them as sources is to sacrifice the most important avenues to the past we have, and on purely ideological, not historical, grounds. So, too, the Gospels. Whatever one thinks of them as inspired scripture, they can be seen and used as significant historical sources." (Bart Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 74)