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The Testimony of the Evangelists: The Gospels Examined by the Rules of Evidence

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Greenleaf is well known throught jurist history as providing instruction on rules of evidence. Now that we have court tv and have witnessed some amazing trials, we understand more how what is allowed in as evidence is critical to a trial.

Here in this work this jurist expert analyzes the Gospels as being admissable. Think about it for a moment. In any given historical situation, if four different individuals were asked some time after the event common to all of their attendance to write an accurate report, the same result would happen as we find in the gospels. Stress on different events with highlights of differing focus on common happenings by multiple witnesses would occur.

Alledged contradictions thus fall aside given that each of us admits that this is just the way it commonly happens. We would be much more suspect if each of four witness accounts matched up exactly word for word. Collusion would be charged! Here though God gives four different slants through four Evangelists who do this very thing: they give different emphases and differing slants on the same event.

Bonus attachment is Dupin's "Trial of Jesus Before Caiaphas and Pilate." Interested parties might also check out Paul Maier's "Pontius Pilate" and "Flames of Rome."

This is an excellent book for all types of people, Christians and non-Christian alike. It is especially good for those who believe they are the intellectual type. I work in the legal field, and so I found this book to be a clincher for even the most hard hearted skeptics. If they would just set their bias aside and truly absorb what this author is saying, there won't be any doubt that the evidence of the Evangelist is reliable.

This is a book I challenge my friends and coworkers to read because we deal with evidence people submit daily, seeking a benefit through this government agency. We are legally bound to recognize all applicants are "prima facie" eligible until proven otherwise through testimony and evidence. And so, we are trained to recognize what makes good evidence and what makes bad evidence. The Gospels are good evidence, unimpeachable.

I have actually gone back and purchased additional copies of this book so that I can give them out to people who need to hear it from a legal scholar with impeccable credentials. It's a very easy book to read. It can be digested in a matter of two or three hours, and its inexpensive as well, costing less than ten bucks.

Simon Greenleaf lays everything out so well, it is truly easy to follow his logic. If you are a skeptic about the Bible, doubting its authenticity, this book will explain to you why you should accept the Gospel accounts as fact, because their testimony is clear. Jesus is God incarnate as the Gospels attest. If you read this book, then this knowledge about Jesus is now in your head, and I pray that God the Holy Spirit will place it in your heart.

It's ironic that the review below would fault Greenleaf for making biased assumptions about the Gospels, yet in his own review he makes the very mistakes he accuses this book of. For example, if the Early church randomly assigned names to the Gospels, why would they have named one The Gospel of Mark? Mark is best known in the Bible for deserting Barnabbas and Paul in the face of opposition. And Luke? Luke's name is only spoken of two times in the entire New Testament, and in a passing "Luke says hello" at that! Why not instead name them after the heroes of the Church, like the Gospel of Apollos or the Gospel of Peter?

This person also assumes that "modern scholars have deduced" that the Gospels were written several decades after Jesus' death. Scholars, infact, are dating the Gospels PHILOSOPHICALLY: it is necessary that 1) the Gospels be placed after 70 AD so it would not be allowed that Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple, and 2) that, since the Early Church had been commenting on the Gospels in full swing by 105 AD, they must fit in the first century. With such stringent requirements [and biases], all four are deliberately stuffed into a 25 year period of 70 AD (Mark), 85 AD (Luke and Matthew), and 95 AD (John), and the last one being produced just two years ahead of Clement's letter to Rome. (The context of this letter, by the way, talked about the Gospel of John so casually, it is as if the readers in Rome were highly familiar and well-read in it.)

If the Gospels were to be dated HISTORICALLY instead of PHILOSOPHICALLY, one would find that The synoptic gospels are more properly dated at around 39 - 50 AD; that is, anywhere from 9 to twenty years after Jesus' death. John's Gospel, the apostle proudly maintained in letters outside those found in the New Testament, was written late in his life, probably around the destruction of the Temple.

So I would suggest that we NOT assume a positive review of the Gospel's historical accuracy is forged, and reciprocally that a negative review is founded in fact. When this secularist generation is prepared to listen to the truth, without injecting their own atheistic embellishments, then we will be prepared to learn about the Jesus Dr. Greenleaf speaks of.

What of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of Mr. Greenleaf? According to all accounts, his thinking was irrevocably changed as a result of a detailed examination of the Holy Scriptures. His testimony of faith is a challenge to all thinking persons to make an honest and diligent search for the truth. Our propensity for deceit came about as a result of the Fall, and it is due to that fallability that Man willingly rejects God. A leap in the dark is not what is needed, but rather a desire to know the truth.

The fact that the resurrection stories are claimed to contradict each other may seem so to someone who does not take the time to actually look at the evidence. One needs to not only look at the Biblical text and find that they are simply subtly different, as one would find in any group relaying a similar story. We also have to look at the culture of the time and other historical works - that are purely works of historians. Authors such as Josephus and a few other historians from the time period and the surronding regions. When one fully looks at the evidence, Biblical, historical, archaeological, scientific, and philosophical this book is greatly upheld.

"The Testimony of the Evangelists" by Simon Greenleaf is a much fabled book in apologetic circles, and rightfully so. It is quite an amazing little text. Simon Greenleaf, who was a professor of law at Harvard, and highly esteemed in that profession, investigates the biblical text in a manner most genius. In great detail he examines and cross examines the testimony of the Evangelist. He does so in such a manner that you learn about the law and what can be considered evidence. He goes into great detail to as explain to the person even the why's of the theories of evidence, and what is admissible and not admissible. He also examines the texts themselves that men who have read them in Greek, and studied them at college and Seminary are rewarded with little gems of knowledge concerning them that perhaps they had never thought of before.

For instance, I am even more convinced now that Matthew was the first gospel written, in the face of current scholarly argumentation for Mark.

In the end Simon Greenleaf makes a convincing argument for the veracity of the witnesses recorded, and the conclusion that Jesus did rise from the dead.

One buying this book gets more than he bargained for, as it also has 3 other manuscripts attached. There is a defense of the shameful way Jesus was tried by Joseph Salvador, and then a rebuttal by Dupin. There is a great little account of textual criticism by Constatine Tishendorff, who discovered the Sinaitic Codex. This little essay is worth your ten bucks by itself. As it shows how having the texts we do confirms and rectifies the text we commonly call the Bible.

Originally the author had something else in mind. That is something which is often heard when people try to prove by example that the Christian faith does not work or is based on myths - it seems to work nevertheless. Another example is Lewis Wallace who wrote Ben Hur. Maybe true heroism as in that tale suggested needs always a Christian foundation for ones achievement. Confessing that one has been wrong is almost always an act of heroism!

Greenleaf, one of the principle founders of the Harvard Law School, originally set out to disprove the biblical testimony concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He was certain that a careful examination of the internal witness of the Gospels would dispel all the myths at the heart of Christianity. But this legal scholar came to the conclusion that the witnesses were reliable, and that the resurrection did in fact happen. I think he mastered the hurdles of pride and self-reliance.

The proof that God, the God of the Bible, has revealed himself to man indeed, and that Christianity constitutes that revelation, is no part of these inquiries. The present design, however, is not to enter upon any general examination of the evidences upon any general examination of the evidences of Christianity, but to confine the inquiry to the testimony of the Four Evangelists, bringing their narratives to the tests to which other evidence is subjected in human tribunals.

That the books of the Old Testament, as we now have them, are genuine; that they existed in the time of Christ, and were commonly received and referred to among the Jews, as the sacred books of their religion; and that the text of the Four Evangelists has been handed down to us in the state in which it was originally written, without having been materially corrupted or falsified, either by heretics or Christians; these are facts which we are entitled to assume as true, until the contrary is shown.

The genuineness of these writings really admits of as little doubt, and is susceptible of as ready proof, as that of any ancient writings whatever. What this recognition means to oneself that is up to oneself. It would be indeed a strange thing in itself, that the most testified and proved scripture of the ancient times proved to be reliable and the contents would still be an invention or fantasy or myths, and at the same time claiming to stand for truth and other virtues. One implication is that the Bible could be what it claims to be!

Professor Thomas Arnold, chair of Modern History at Oxford University: "I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead."

This book was written by a Lawyer for a Lawyer. It is steeped in the rhetoric common to all Legal discourse. It is generally difficult to follow, and about as interesting to read as the Federal Tax code. If one is able to wade through the dense and pedantic jargon, there appears to be something of value within its covers. But, no reader should have to work so hard to glean understanding from any work written in their own language. If the Bible were written by Lawyers, then hell is all we could ever hope for.

This book is, of course, a masterpiece by one of the most respected jurists of all time. He makes his case for the evidence and the testimonies Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, and Paul with great care and objectivity. This book, along with EVIDENCE THAT DEMANDS A VERDICT, should be read by every skeptic and every honest inquirer. And just what is at stake? ... the redemption of the human soul, ... and the veracity of Christianity and the culmination of 4000 + years of Jewish revelation regarding GOD's redemptive work on the part of humanity fallen deep into darkness and death. - and THAT is EXACTLY what is at stake.

One quick note: remember and never forget that the men who testified regarding the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus *were devout Jews* who abhorred the very idea of bearing false testimony, *knowing* that such a thing is a direct violation of GOD's commandment. - it is almost unthinkable that they would conspire together to deliberately bear false testimony. And they *clearly* and unmistakably declared THAT THEY SAW JESUS ALIVE after His death and resurrection.

btw: there is another excellent book called, "MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS." I recommend that one also.

blessings to those *who honestly* seek after Truthe, ... for they shall find Him.

Pastor Len Hummel, Clearlight Ministries, Intl.

This volume isn't exactly what one would expect from the title on the cover. The book is not an extended analysis of the Gospels, but a collection of essays, only one of which (Greenleaf's "Examination of the Testimony of the Evangelists") makes any attempt at rigorous analysis of the Gospels. Greenleaf adds a second essay on "An Account of the Trial of Jesus," and this slim volume is rounded out by "The Jewish Account of the Trial of Jesus" by Joseph Salvador, "The Trial of Jesus before Caiaphas and Pilate" by M. Dupin, and "The Various Versions of the Bible" by Constantine Tischendorf.