Power has its perks, not the least of which is the ability to protect oneself. This kind of power was never available to the apostles. The early Christian movement immediately faced hostility from those who actually did possess power in the first century. Rumors quickly spread that the Christians practiced rituals that offended Roman sensibilities and were unwilling to worship Emperor Nero as divine. Tacitus recorded Nero’s response:
Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.185
At this early point in Christian history, leadership within the Christian community was a liability rather than an asset. Prominent believers and leaders who openly admitted their allegiance to Jesus (“pleaded guilty”) and refused to recant this allegiance were the first to die. It was during this time in history when Peter and Paul were executed in Rome, but they weren’t the only apostles whose prominence as Christian leaders cost them their lives. The nonbiblical histories and writings related to the lives and ministries of the twelve disciples consistently proclaimed that the apostles were persecuted and eventually martyred for their testimony. The apostolic eyewitnesses refused to change their testimony about what they saw, even though they faced unimaginable torture and execution. Only John appears to have escaped martyrdom, but he, too, was exiled and persecuted for his position as an apostle.
Bias and Prejudice
Bias:
“An inclination of temperament or outlook; especially a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment.”
Prejudice:
“(1): Preconceived judgment or opinion (2): An adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge.”
(Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition)
Persecution was the uniform experience of the apostles, long before they were finally executed for their faith. Paul’s experience, as he told it in his letter to the Corinthians, was sadly normative for the apostles:
Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure upon me of concern for all the churches. (2 Cor. 11:24–28)
As the apostles rose to positions of leadership, they made themselves the target of persecution and abuse. The more prominent they became, the more they risked death at the hands of their adversaries. The most reasonable inference, given what we know about their deaths, is that the pursuit of power and position was not the motive that drove these men to make the claims they made in the Gospels.
If a defense attorney were representing any of the apostles, defending them against the accusation that they lied about their testimony, the attorney could fairly ask the question “Why would my client have done such a thing when it would not benefit him in any way?” Certainly there was no benefit to any of the apostles in the three areas we would expect to motivate such a lie.
FREE FROM ULTERIOR MOTIVE
Motive is a key factor that jurors must assess when evaluating the reliability of witnesses. That’s why judges advise jurors to ask questions like “Was the witness promised immunity or leniency in exchange for his or her testimony?” (See chapter 4.) We need to know if something other than the simple desire to report the truth motivated the witnesses to say what they said. As we examine the motives of the gospel writers, it’s clear that the forces that typically compel people to lie didn’t drive the authors. The apostles were free from ulterior motive.
But what about bias? Even if they didn’t possess one of these three self-serving motives, how do we know that the gospel writers weren’t simply biased? Judges encourage jurors to find out if the witness was “influenced by a factor such as bias or prejudice, a personal relationship with someone involved in the case, or a personal interest in how the case is decided.” If a witness held a preconception or partiality as he or she watched the event, that bias may have influenced how the witness interpreted what he or she saw. Bias can cause people to see something incorrectly. Was this the case with the apostles?
SO, IS THIS WHY SOME CONTINUE TO DENY IT?
Some skeptics base their distrust of the Gospels (and of the nonbiblical accounts of the apostles’ lives following Jesus’s ascension) on the possible presence of bias. Even though there is no evidence to suggest that the apostles were motivated by greed, lust, or power, critics are still suspicious of the gospel accounts. Let’s look at the reasons behind their suspicions and include them in our final evaluation utilizing abductive reasoning.
THE GOSPELS WERE WRITTEN BY CHRISTIANS
Skeptics have argued that the Gospels cannot be trusted because they were not authored by objective non-Christians. The New Testament records, according to this view, were written by biased Christians who were trying to convince us of their religious perspective. Critics claim that these Christians observed the events through a charged religious lens and then reported the events from this viewpoint. As a result, the gospel narratives are biased and unreliable.
BUT …
This is not an accurate description of what occurred in the first century as the gospel eyewitnesses observed the life and ministry of Jesus. Let me give you an example from one of my cases to illustrate the point. Many years ago, when I was working robberies, I had a case in which a local bank was robbed. The suspect (Mark Hill) entered the bank in the afternoon and waited in line to approach the teller. He stood in the lobby for two or three minutes, waiting to walk up to the counter, where he eventually gave the teller a “demand note” and flashed a handgun in his waistband. While he was waiting for the opportunity, a bank employee (Kathy Smalley) saw him standing in line. Kathy was working as an assistant manager and had a desk located in the lobby, adjacent to the teller line. She recognized Mark as he waited for his turn. Kathy had attended high school with Mark and recognized him because he was a talented (and popular) athlete. Even though many years had passed, Kathy still recognized him with certainty. Mark, on the other hand, was focused as he waited to rob the bank. He never even looked up to see Kathy watching him. He eventually approached the teller (Debra Camacho) and completed his robbery. Debra gave Mark the money he demanded and then pushed the silent alarm button as he turned to walk away. She motioned quickly to Kathy, who was sitting within her view.
Kathy recognized the fact that Debra had just been robbed. She couldn’t believe it. She never considered Mark to be the kind of person who would commit a robbery. In fact, she thought Mark got an athletic scholarship after high school and assumed he became a successful athlete and college graduate. When she first saw Mark enter the lobby, she never thought he was about to commit a robbery. After the fact, how
ever, she was certain that Mark was the robber. She was now a true believer in Mark’s guilt. After all, she saw it with her own eyes. You might say that Kathy was now a “Mark Hillian” believer related to the robbery. So let me ask you a question. Should I trust her testimony? Isn’t she too biased to be a reliable witness? Kathy is not neutral about what she saw in the bank. She has a perspective and an opinion about the identity of the robber. She’s a Mark Hillian believer; she is certain that of all the possible truths related to who committed the robbery, only one is accurate. If she’s this biased, how can I trust what she has to say?
Can you see how ridiculous this concern would be? Kathy didn’t start off with a bias against Mark or a presupposition that tainted her observations. In fact, she was shocked to find that Mark was capable of committing such a crime. She was not a “Mark Hillian” believer until after the fact.
In a similar way, the authors of the Gospels were not “Christian” believers until after they observed the life and ministry of Jesus. Much has been written about the fact that Jews in first-century Palestine were looking for a Messiah who would save them from Roman oppression. They were expecting a military liberator, not a spiritual savior. Even Bart Erhman admits that the disciples found themselves asking the question “How could Jesus, the Messiah, have been killed as a common criminal?” They didn’t expect Jesus (as the military messiah) to die, and they certainly didn’t expect Him to come back to life.
The Gospels are filled with examples of the disciples misunderstanding the predictions and proclamations of Jesus. There are many examples of doubt and hesitancy on the part of those who witnessed Jesus’s life. The skeptical disciples continually asked Jesus for clarification, and Thomas, after spending three years with Jesus, still wouldn’t believe His prediction of the resurrection until he saw Jesus with his own eyes and touched Jesus with his own hands. The apostles became convinced of Jesus’s deity after they observed His life and resurrection. They didn’t start off as Christians any more than Kathy started off as a “Mark Hillian.” The disciples ended up as Christians (certain that Jesus was God) as a result of their observations, just as Kathy ended up as a “Mark Hillian” (certain that he was the robber) as a result of her observations. The disciples were not prejudicially biased; they were evidentially certain.
THE DEATH NARRATIVES OF THE APOSTLES WERE WRITTEN BY CHRISTIANS
Skeptics have also argued that little or no weight can be given to the fact that the apostles were allegedly martyred for their testimony because the “histories” that describe their martyrdom are largely Christian legends written by believers. How do we even know that these martyrdoms really occurred if the only records we have are biased stories and legends filled with miraculous tales?
BUT …
As described in chapter 1, we can’t allow the description of miraculous occurrences to automatically disqualify the ancient accounts. If we are going to claim that the ancient stories are biased (because they were written by Christians), we cannot reject them with a bias of our own (against supernaturalism). While it is true that some accounts related to the martyrdom of the apostles are more reliable than others, we have no reason to reject all of them as historically inaccurate. The deaths of Peter, Paul, James, and John are very well attested, and the remaining martyrdom accounts of the apostles (with the possible exception of Matthias and Philip) are sufficiently documented to provide us with confidence that we know the truth about their deaths.
Most importantly, there aren’t any ancient non-Christian accounts that contradict the claims of the Christian authors who wrote about the deaths of the eyewitness disciples. It’s not as though we have competing accounts related to the testimony of these men. We don’t have ancient Christians on one side, claiming that the apostles died because they proclaimed the truth about Jesus and refused to recant their testimony, and ancient non-Christians on the other side, claiming that the apostles eventually confessed that it was all a lie. There are no ancient authors claiming anything other than what the Christians described; there are no contradictory accounts that portray the apostles as liars who confessed their lies when pressured. The unanimous testimony of antiquity is that the early Christian eyewitnesses suffered for their testimony but stayed the course. They didn’t flinch, and they never changed their story.
THE MOST REASONABLE CONCLUSION
Abductive reasoning can help us decide between two possible conclusions related to the bias or motive that the apostolic eyewitnesses may have had when writing their Gospels or testifying to their observations. Let’s list the evidence one final time, alongside the two possible explanations that can account for what we have seen so far:
The apostles lacked evil intent. They simply couldn’t benefit from lying about what they saw. In fact, they would have been far better off if they had kept their mouths shut. What could they possibly have gained from this elaborate lie? It’s clear that the gospel writers appeared to be more concerned about eternal life than material gain. Could a lie about Jesus make His spiritual claims true? Does it make sense that the disciples would forsake everything for spiritual claims they knew were untrue? The evidence from history once again supports the first explanation better than the second. It offers reasonable responses to the challenges offered by skeptics. The second explanation, on the other hand, is simply unable to account adequately for the lack of motive on the part of the apostles. The first explanation is feasible, straightforward, and logical. It exhausts all the evidence we have assembled, and it is superior to the alternative explanation. It is, once again, the most reasonable explanation.
THE GOSPELS PASS THE LAST TEST
We’ve examined the four important areas that jurors must consider when determining the reliability of eyewitnesses. The most reasonable inference is that the gospel writers were present, corroborated, accurate, and unbiased. If this is the case, we can conclude with confidence that their testimony is reliable. We’ve done the heavy lifting needed to determine the reliability of these accounts; we’ve been diligent and faithful as jurors and have considered the evidence. It’s time to make a decision.
CASE NOTES
180. Bart Ehrman, from his closing statement at a debate with William Lane Craig, “Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?” held at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, on March 28, 2006, accessed April 13, 2012, www.philvaz.com/apologetics/p96.htm.
181. Clement, quoted in Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1980), 269.
182. Clement, quoted in Women in Religion: The Original Sourcebook of Women in Christian Thought, eds. Elizabeth A. Clark and Herbert Richardson (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 29. For more information related to Clement’s writings, refer to Alexander Roberts, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2, Early Church Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988).
183. Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians, 162. For more information related to Ignatius’s writings, refer to Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, eds., Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1950).
184. Tertullian, quoted in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, vol. 4, Tertullian, Part Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Parts First and Second (Buffalo: Christian Literature, 1885), 55.
185. Cornelius Tacitus, Works of Cornelius Tacitus. Includes Agricola, The Annals, A Dialogue concerning Oratory, Germania and The Histories (MobileReference, 2009), Kindle edition, Kindle locations 6393–6400.
Postscript
BECOMING A “TWO DECISION” CHRISTIAN
Santiago Ortega turned the key and started his tired 1975 Triumph Tr6. The engine sputtered and backfired, spouting smoke into the small parking lot adjacent to the cheap hotel Santiago called home. Santiago was addicted to rock cocaine, a
nd his addiction preoccupied much of his day. He was either smoking rock or trying to find a way to pay for it, and he was increasingly desperate.
He hadn’t seen his wife in weeks. His family was scattered across the county and wouldn’t offer him refuge, especially now. His father and brother were in federal prison for bank robbery, and sadly, Santiago was following in their footsteps. He’d already committed seven bank robberies in Los Angeles County before he did his first one in our city. I was working on our undercover surveillance team at the time, and an informant gave us a tip that led us to Santiago’s hotel. We were sitting in the parking lot when Santiago fired up his battered and weary convertible.
While Santiago looked like the man in the bank surveillance photographs, we weren’t sure if he was the robber we were looking for. We would find out shortly. Santiago backed out of the parking lot and drove into the city of Long Beach. Our team carefully followed him; five officers and a sergeant trailing our suspect in a series of unremarkable midsized cars. Santiago didn’t make it far before he succumbed to his addiction. At the first traffic light Santiago fired up a homemade rock pipe and filled the interior of his small car with smoke. He was nearly invisible in the hazy capsule of the Triumph. Somehow he managed to drive, bathed in smoke, without ever rolling down his windows. He continued for approximately two miles until he came to a Home Savings and Loan.
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