I think the original scenario is wrong, if we're supposed to use it to make a case regarding eyewitness testimony for things Biblical. The actual situation we're more faced with is:
A group of twelve people are willing to testify that I clocked Jim in the head with a chair. Details of the individual testimonies vary a little - some say I hit him with a three-legged stool, some say a desk chair. Some say I hit him on the left side of the head, some say on the top of the head, etc. - but they all agree that I hit him with a chair and injured him pretty badly.
When the cops arrive, they find no chair and Jim appears to be uninjured. In fact, there isn't ANY physical evidence that the altercation occurred. But the 'witnesses' are so vociferous in their testimony that the police arrest me all the same, and I'm put on trial, convicted, and jailed on the say-so of twelve people.
This is precisely the case regarding the synoptic Gospels - we are asked to believe the most outlandish nonsense (cursed fig trees, demon-possessed pigs, feeding multitudes with a handful of fish and a few dinner rolls, and so on) based on nothing more than the hearsay handed down by unreliable 'witnesses' for more than 60 generations. Not only is there no physical evidence for these stories, there is no good and sufficient reason to suppose them to be true.
Boru
A group of twelve people are willing to testify that I clocked Jim in the head with a chair. Details of the individual testimonies vary a little - some say I hit him with a three-legged stool, some say a desk chair. Some say I hit him on the left side of the head, some say on the top of the head, etc. - but they all agree that I hit him with a chair and injured him pretty badly.
When the cops arrive, they find no chair and Jim appears to be uninjured. In fact, there isn't ANY physical evidence that the altercation occurred. But the 'witnesses' are so vociferous in their testimony that the police arrest me all the same, and I'm put on trial, convicted, and jailed on the say-so of twelve people.
This is precisely the case regarding the synoptic Gospels - we are asked to believe the most outlandish nonsense (cursed fig trees, demon-possessed pigs, feeding multitudes with a handful of fish and a few dinner rolls, and so on) based on nothing more than the hearsay handed down by unreliable 'witnesses' for more than 60 generations. Not only is there no physical evidence for these stories, there is no good and sufficient reason to suppose them to be true.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
