Why the Hearsay Rule Shouldn’t Apply to the Gospels

Imagine you are a witness to a homicide. After observing the murder, you are interviewed by a detective and several years later find yourself testifying in court. The prosecutor would certainly question you on the stand, and the defense attorney would also have the opportunity to cross-examine you. Now let’s change the scenario slightly. Imagine instead that you observe the same homicide, tell a friend all about the murder in minute detail but then suffer a heart attack and die. Can the prosecutor call your friend into court to tell the jury about your observations? No. The defense in this case has a right to cross examine the original witness to the crime, and this “second tier” testimony would not allow them access to the original witness. For this reason, the testimony of your friend would be deemed “hearsay” and excluded from the trial. If a witness’ statement can’t be cross-examined by the defense, that statement is not going not to be admitted in an effort to assist the prosecution.

I wrote Cold-Case Christianity in an effort to examine the Gospels using the same standard jurors use when evaluating witnesses in criminal cases. But these witnesses (the Gospel authors) can’t be cross-examined; they’ve been dead for many centuries. How can we consider them to be legitimate if they can’t be cross-examined? Isn’t any effort to evaluate them as eyewitnesses negated by this limitation? I think it’s appropriate to evaluate the reliability of the gospels using the standard typically applied to eyewitnesses, even though I don’t think it’s reasonable to exclude them because they can’t be cross-examined. There’s a big difference between evaluating witnesses for the purpose of a criminal trial and evaluating witnesses for the purpose of establishing a chronological truth:

Eyewitness Reliability Related to Criminal Trials
The standard for criminal trials is exceptionally high related to eyewitnesses and there’s a good reason for this. We would rather release one hundred guilty people than wrongly convict one innocent person. For this reason, we give the defendant the benefit of the doubt, assume his innocence, and give his defense team every possible opportunity to confront and examine accusers and witnesses. That’s appropriate in criminal trials, even though it often limits the ability of the prosecution to establish the truth.

Eyewitness Reliability Related to Chronological Truths
The standard for establishing historical truths must, by necessity, be very different than the standard for criminal trials, unless, of course, we are willing to reject any claim of history for which we don’t have a living eyewitness (to cross-examine). History is established on the written testimony of eyewitnesses or the research of historians who have access to such testimony. If we rejected every claim about the past that couldn’t be supported by living testimony, we’d be forced to live in the present, unsure of anything that precedes us by more than two generations.

Vincent Bugliosi, the celebrated criminal prosecutor who became famous as the prosecutor in the Charles Manson case, wrote a book a called Divinity of Doubt, claiming that the hearsay clause excluded the Gospels as legitimate testimony. If Bugliosi applied this criminal standard to his own history as a prosecutor, he’d have to admit that all of his own experience and work as an Assistant District Attorney will soon be irretrievably lost; as those who lived during the Manson trial begin to die of old age. Why should we believe the court record of this case if there’s no one still alive to testify (and be cross-examined) about its veracity? Why should we even believe that Bugliosi ever lived or worked as a prosecutor? In one hundred years, there won’t be any living eyewitness who can testify about Vincent or his career. It’s reasonable to examine the Gospel authors and ask (1) if they were present during Jesus’ ministry, (2) if they can be corroborated in some way, (3) if their testimony has been altered over time, or (4) if they possessed a bias that should exclude their testimony altogether. But it is unreasonable to reject the apostolic accounts simply because they are dead. If we took that approach with everything from the past, we couldn’t even be certain of our own personal family histories. That’s an unreasonable (an impractical) standard to embrace.

Comments

[RonH]

Hm. From the OP, you might think that this hearsay thing was central to Bugliosi's book.

So what did Bugliosi say about hearsay?

[T]he gospels would he inadmissible hearsay in a trial. Hearsay is a statement (or writing) made outside of court — that is, not from the witness stand at the present proceeding — that is offered into evidence to prove not merely that the statement was made but that it is true.

That's it - as far as I can tell by searching the book on Amazon.

Bugliosi calls this a 'technical objection, and immediately moves on to other issues - ppecifically, for example, the problem of establishing who wrote the gospels.

I think hearsay is less reliable than testimony from someone who can be cross-examined. I don't think that justifies a blanket ban from court or from history. It should be accepted with a discount appropriate to the situation.

The hearsay rule is based on concern that jurors won't do the appropriate discount. But the hearsay rule is itself an inappropriate discount and sets a poor example for jurors. This is one of the deficiencies that make the court system a poor model to follow if you are interested in being more rational.

[Matt McAlister]

Considering the gospels were written anonymously, and there's not a shred of evidence outside the bible that the supposed crucifixion even happened, why in the world should anyone take anything they say more seriously than, say, the Quran, or Scientology?

[Freeat Last]

"No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it." Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

A few things which he states in the intro:

"I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life."

"I believe the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy."

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."

Regarding true theology:

"As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of atheism; a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to believe in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made up chiefly of man-ism with but little deism, and is as near to atheism as twilight is to darkness. It introduces between man and his Maker an opaque body, which it calls a redeemer, as the moon introduces her opaque self between the earth and the sun, and it produces by this means a religious or an irreligious eclipse of light. It has put the whole orbit of reason into shade.

The effect of this obscurity has been that of turning everything upside down, and representing it in reverse; and among the revolutions it has thus magically produced, it has made a revolution in Theology.

That which is now called natural philosophy, embracing the whole circle of science, of which astronomy occupies the chief place, is the study of the works of God, and of the power and wisdom of God in his works, and is the true theology.

As to the theology that is now studied in its place, it is the study of human opinions and of human fancies concerning God. It is not the study of God himself in the works that he has made, but in the works or writings that man has made; and it is not among the least of the mischiefs that the Christian system has done to the world, that it has abandoned the original and beautiful system of theology, like a beautiful innocent, to distress and reproach, to make room for the hag of superstition."

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_paine/age_of_reason/part1.html