A while back, I decided to dive into Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ.” Currently, that book is sitting on a shelf above my computer along with a notebook. The book is filled with hundreds of little tabs, which are associated with a note in that notebook. Each note details an issue with Strobel’s case. There are a lot of them.
At some point, I will get around to writing a complete and thorough response to Strobel’s book, just as I’m doing for “Christ Before Jesus,” and just like this current response, it will be, at times, a struggle just because there is so much to cover.
Now I bring up “The Case for Christ” for one reason: the similarity it has with “Christ Before Jesus.” While two opposite positions are being argued, it’s still two sides of the same coin. The details are a bit different, but the substance is still the same; the means in which each case is argued is the same.
What first brought me to this possible conclusion was the way Britt and Wingo open up their book. It was strikingly similar to Strobel’s introduction. Both are set within a fictional courtroom. Both present their own arguments as if it were a court case. And both set up the reader as if they were a member of a jury that they were trying to convince of their position.
Both also showed a complete lack of understanding of history. The courtroom analogy simply doesn’t fit history. If you attempt to research history as one would put together a court case that was going to trial, you are going to fail. Yet, this is an analogy that people often use.
One of the best examples to demonstrate this is the issue of hearsay evidence. Within a trial, hearsay evidence is generally not accepted. The opposite is true with history. History is based largely on hearsay evidence.
Think of it this way, newspapers are hearsay. Generally, they are inadmissible as evidence in court. However, when it comes to history, they are often primary sources. As a local historian, newspapers are the primary resource that I use, as often, they are the only resource available.
Hearsay extends beyond that though. Let’s look at the Gospels. If we take the traditional view of the Gospel of Mark, the author is said to be an associate of Peter. Even if we take this view, that means everything in Mark would be hearsay, even if it was coming directly from an eyewitness. We can take this even a step further. Let’s assume that Mark actually heard Jesus, and recorded his words accurately. What we read in Mark would still be hearsay.
Unless Jesus was sitting in court, making a statement about what he witnessed personally, everything else would be hearsay.
History is based on hearsay. That in itself should show us why the analogy of a court here just doesn’t work.
It’s not just the type of evidence that is of concern here though, but how much this evidence needs to convince a person. Britt and Wingo mention the idea of getting beyond a reasonable doubt. Such a standard is really only true for criminal cases, and definitely not true when it comes to history.
For civil cases, you have a preponderance of the evidence, which is often thought of as having at least 51% of the evidence favoring the plaintiff’s position. Other courts will raise this a bit, with the idea that one needs to show a high probability that a particular fact is true.
But this only occurs after one has met the burden of production, which requires the plaintiff here to produce evidence for their case, after which the defendant has a chance to offer evidence to rebut the plaintiff’s case or support their own arguments.
This series of events doesn’t really occur in historical research.
When looking at the question, did x exist, the default position is generally yes. If the person is initially written about as a historical figure, historians generally accept that they existed. There really isn’t a process we go through in order to verify if they are historical or not.
Instead, this default position is generally held until we have reason to doubt. Once that occurs, then historians will engage in a debate about whether that individual existed or not. The reason for this is because generally speaking, if a person is described as real, it’s exceptionally rare that in fact, they didn’t exist.
That doesn’t mean everything written about them is accepted as fact. Those details will often be debated. For instance, we can look at one of the most famous women of the Wild West, Calamity Jane. She most certainly existed; there is no doubt about that. But much of what was written about her is fictional. She’s a real historical figure, but most of her life story that is told is fictional.
This all gets a bit more fuzzy as we go further into the past, but it doesn’t fundamentally change things. We do get more reason to doubt though, and when we look at debates among historians about whether or not an individual existed, it’s often because the person we are talking about is largely known only through late legends or folklore.
King Arthur is a great example of this. There is some debate that maybe there is some historical figure that inspired the tales of Arthur, or possibly it’s a synthesis of multiple individuals. But as all we have are much later legends, that don’t have potential written records, or even a chain of oral transmission that could possibly stretch back to a relevant time period, we have to conclude that King Arthur is a fictional character.
In more standard cases, such as with Jesus, the default position would be that he existed. Historically, we just don’t have good reason to doubt that he existed. Now obviously, Britt and Wingo will argue that there is reason to doubt, and we will see how that plays out. But what we truly have reason to doubt are the details about the life of Jesus, and here we get into the standard of evidence that we need.
Unlike a criminal case, we aren’t looking for evidence that shows beyond a reasonable doubt. We also aren’t necessarily looking for just a simple preponderance of the evidence, a 51%. If we were to hit a situation where the existence of a person is seen as just slightly better than them not existing, most historians would still be cautious.
Instead, we are looking at probability. When we think about history, anything is possible. Not everything is probable though. We look for whether or not something is more probable to have happened. For our current discussion, the question would then be, is it more probable that Jesus existed, or is it more probable that he was invented?
By default, we lean to it being more probable that Jesus existed. Now, to be fair, in the discussion of this book, I will be giving up that default position, and will be arguing why the evidence we have shows that the probability that Jesus existed is much higher.
For the other side though, to show that it is more probable that he was invented, they have to not only show why the evidence for the existence of Jesus can’t be trusted and is invalid, but they have to answer the question of why. Why was Jesus invented?
Unlike a court case, in history, if you’re going against the default position, against the consensus, you have to not only show why their evidence is not credible, why their position falls short, but you have to provide a new alternative that makes sense of the evidence and data we have. So it’s not just a matter of finding someone guilty or not guilty, but also providing an alternative to take its place.
Quite possibly the biggest issue with this whole court analogy though is the idea that a jury has the ability to make a definitive judgment here. The idea that courts and juries can make historical or even scientific decisions simply is incorrect.
This isn’t a dig at the general public. Instead, it’s highlighting the fact that most people don’t have a background in this sort of material in order to make a truly informed decision. As was the case with Strobel’s book, and as we will see in “Christ Before Jesus,” it is exceptionally easy to not only manipulate the data, but also to cherry-pick what is presented, while ignoring those ideas and the scholarship that counters such claims.
Having a background in the information is also necessary to determine if the data presented is relevant, or has any bearing. We have to realize that we are looking at a different time period, a different culture, and a very different world. What might make sense to us, may have been completely foreign to a different culture living in a different time and place. We will see this clearly as we go through this book.
Now, there’s more to historical research than this brief introduction, and we will dive more into that as we work our way through Britt’s and Wingo’s book. But we do have to realize that we can’t treat this as a court of law. We have to treat history as history. And that’s what I plan on doing.