At first, these statements seemed to describe two different men committing two different crimes. But, the more I spoke with the witnesses, the more I realized that both were reliable in spite of the fact they seemed to be saying different things about the suspect. Sylvia Ramos was hurrying home from work and stopped at the store to purchase some milk and a few small items. She stood in line behind the suspect as he calmly committed the robbery. While she heard the tone of his voice, she never heard his words distinctly, and she never saw a gun. She described him as a polite young man in his teens. Based on the way the cashier handed the robber the bag, Sylvia believed that the robber made a purchase prior to committing the crime. Sylvia immediately recognized the suspect’s blue shirt as a classic IZOD polo because many of the men in her office wore this style of shirt when she first started her career as a designer. In fact, she had recently purchased one for her husband. Sylvia watched the robber walk slowly out of the business and across the parking lot as he left the area. She was sure that he didn’t have a “getaway” car.
Paul Meher was visiting the cashier when the robbery occurred. The cashier was an old friend from high school, and Paul was standing behind the counter with his friend at the time of the crime. Paul couldn’t remember many details related to the suspect’s clothing, but believed that he was wearing a T-shirt. He was certain, however, that the robber pointed a gun at his friend, and he recognized this pistol as a Ruger P95 because his father owned one that was identical. Paul focused on the gun during most of the robbery, but he also observed that the suspect scowled and had a menacing expression on his face. The robber spoke his words slowly and deliberately in a way that Paul interpreted as threatening. Paul described the man as just slightly older than him, at approximately twenty-four to twenty-five years of age. He was certain that the suspect made no effort to purchase anything prior to the crime, and afterward, Paul had a visual angle through the glass storefront that allowed him to see that the robber walked to the end of the parking lot, then ran to a tan-colored, 1990s Nissan four-door.
Once I interviewed these two witnesses, I understood why they seemed to disagree on several key points. In the end, many things impact the way witnesses observe an event. A lot depends on where a witness is located in relationship to the action. We’ve also got to consider the personal experiences and interests that cause some witnesses to focus on one aspect of the event and some to focus on another. Sylvia was older and had difficulty estimating the age of the suspect, but her design interests and experience with her husband helped her to correctly identify the kind of shirt the robber wore. Paul had personal experience with pistols and was sitting in a position that gave him an entirely different perspective as he watched the robbery unfold. As the detective handling the case, it was my job to understand each witness well enough to take the best they had to offer and come to a conclusion about what really happened. Every case I handle is like this; witnesses seldom agree on every detail. In fact, when two people agree completely on every detail of their account, I am inclined to believe that they have either contaminated each other’s observations or are working together to pull the wool over my eyes. I expect truthful, reliable eyewitnesses to disagree along the way.
THE LAST WITNESS TO BE INTERVIEWED
Before I move away from this issue, it’s important to add one final observation. I’ve worked a number of murder cases where there were many eyewitnesses who had to be interviewed. While at the scene, I took each witness off to the side to get his or her account without the input of other eyewitnesses. On one occasion, I discovered that an additional, previously unidentified witness was quietly standing within earshot of my interviews, waiting for an opportunity to talk to me. Up to this point, none of the officers or detectives was even aware of the fact that this person had seen anything, so while I was happy to hear what she had to say, it was clear that she had not been isolated. She was already aware of what others had described. When interviewed, she actually provided important information that the other witnesses had missed completely. I was grateful that she had been patient and waited to identify herself to us.
The Early Recognition of the Eyewitnesses
The early church fathers and leaders recognized that the Gospels were the eyewitness testimony of the apostles, and they set the Gospels apart for this reason. The ancient Christian author Tertullian wrote in AD 212: “The same authority of the apostolic churches will afford evidence to the other Gospels also, which we possess equally through their means, and according to their usage—I mean the Gospels of John and Matthew—whilst that which Mark published may be affirmed to be Peter’s whose interpreter Mark was” (Against Marcion).
I observed something interesting about her statement, however. Because she had been eavesdropping on the interviews we were conducting and was already aware of what others said, she was inclined to skip over the details that had been offered by the first witnesses. She did an excellent job of filling in the blanks, but a poor job of covering the essential details of the crime that others had already described. If I had not repeatedly asked her to start at the beginning and tell me everything she saw, she would undoubtedly have given me an incomplete account that, if compared to the first statements of eyewitnesses, would have looked like a contradiction. In my years of collecting eyewitness statements, I’ve come to recognize that witnesses who are already aware of what has been offered are far more likely to simply supply the missing details. While this witness may offer something that’s critical to the case and was previously unknown, he or she may also offer a version that is less detailed in many ways.
THE GOSPEL WRITERS AS EYEWITNESSES
Growing up as a skeptic, I never thought of the biblical narrative as an eyewitness account. Instead, I saw it as something more akin to religious mythology—a series of stories designed to make a point. But when I read through the Gospels (and then the letters that followed them), it appeared clear that the writers of Scripture identified themselves as eyewitnesses and viewed their writings as testimony. Peter identified himself as a “witness of the sufferings of Christ” (1 Pet. 5:1) and as one of many “eyewitnesses of His majesty” (2 Pet. 1:16–17). The apostle John claimed that he was writing as an eyewitness when he described the life and death of Jesus. He identified himself as “the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things” (John 21:24), and said that he was reporting “what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands” (1 John 1:1). The apostles saw themselves first and foremost as a group of eyewitnesses, and they understood that their shared observations were a powerful testimony to what they claimed to be true. When Judas left the group, they quickly replaced him and demonstrated the high value they placed on their status as eyewitnesses. They set out to choose one “of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us—beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us” (Acts 1:21–22). They replaced Judas with another eyewitness.
The Committed Biblical Witnesses
The New Testament accounts repeatedly use words that are translated as “witness,” “testimony,” “bear witness,” or “testify.” They are translated from versions of the Greek words marturia or martureo. The modern word martyr finds its root in these same Greek words; the terms eventually evolved into describing people who (like the apostolic eyewitnesses) remained so committed to their testimony concerning Jesus that they would rather die than recant.
As I read through the book of Acts, I realized that the apostles repeatedly identified themselves as eyewitnesses and called upon their testimony as the foundation for all their preaching and teaching. In Peter’s very first sermon at Pentecost, he told the crowd that the disciples “are all witnesses” of the fact of the resurrection (Acts 2:32), and he repeated this claim later at Solomon’s Colonnade (Acts 3:15). When Peter and John were eventually arrested for te
stifying about the resurrection, they told the members of the Sanhedrin, “We cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20), and they promptly returned to the streets where they “were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 4:33). Over and over again, the apostles clearly identified themselves as “witnesses of all the things He [Jesus] did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem” (Acts 10:39), and used this status as the foundation for everything they taught. Even Paul relied on his status as an eyewitness. When Christian communities began to blossom across Asia Minor, Paul wrote to many of them and identified himself both as an apostle and as someone who could testify as an eyewitness. Paul said that Jesus “appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also” (1 Cor. 15:7–8).
As the apostles began to write out their eyewitness observations, early Christians gave these accounts great authority and respect. In fact, as the “canon” of emerging New Testament Scripture was examined by the church fathers (the early leaders of the growing Christian community), the issue of apostolic authority was the first and foremost criterion for whether or not a particular writing made it into the collection. Was the text written by an apostolic eyewitness (Matthew, John, Peter, Paul, James, Jude, et al.) or by someone who at least had meaningful access to one or more of these eyewitnesses (e.g., Mark and Luke)? Only the accounts of the original eyewitnesses were given serious consideration, and the Gospels have always been understood as a set of eyewitness accounts.
The question, of course, is whether or not they can be trusted, and that’s the focus of the second section of this book. We’ll investigate the Gospels as eyewitness accounts, asking the same kinds of questions that judges encourage jurors to ask of witnesses in criminal proceedings. We’ll ask if the apostolic eyewitnesses were present at the events that have been recorded. We’ll ask if they were accurate and honest. We’ll ask if their testimony can be verified in some way. Finally, we’ll investigate whether or not they had an ulterior motive. When jury members conclude that a witness can be trusted, they must come to grips with what the witness has to say and use this testimony as the foundation for future decisions they may make about the truth of the case. If the gospel writers are found to be reliable, we can accept their statements as the foundation for future decisions we make about the truth of Jesus’s life and God’s existence.
THE EXPECTATIONS FROM EXPERIENCE
Before I ever examined the reliability of the gospel accounts, I had a reasonable expectation about what a dependable set of eyewitness statements might look like, given my experience as a detective. When more than one witness observes a crime, I expect to see the following characteristics in their statements:
THEIR STATEMENTS WILL BE PERSPECTIVAL
Each eyewitness will describe the event from his or her spatial and emotional perspective. Not everyone will be in the same position to see the same series of events or the same details. I will have to puzzle together statements that might at first appear contradictory; each statement will be colored by the personal experiences and worldviews of the witnesses.
THEIR STATEMENTS WILL BE PERSONAL
Each eyewitness will describe the event in his or her own language, using his or her own expressions and terms. As a result, the same event may be described with varying degrees of passion or with divergent details that are simply the result of individual tastes and interests.
Perspectives and Biblical Inerrancy
The traditional definition of biblical inerrancy maintains that the Bible is accurate and completely free of error. Inerrancy does not require, however, that the biblical texts be free of any personal perspectives or idiosyncrasies. In fact, the existence of these distinctive features only helps us recognize the accounts as true eyewitness statements written by real people who revealed their human gifts (and limitations) along the way. These characteristics can help us have confidence in both the accuracy and the reliability of the accounts.
THEIR STATEMENTS MAY CONTAIN AREAS OF COMPLETE AGREEMENT
Some aspects of each eyewitness statement may be completely identical. This is particularly true when witnesses describe aspects of the crime that were dramatic or important to the sequence of events. It’s also true when later witnesses are aware of what others have offered and simply affirm the prior description by telling me, “The rest occurred just the way he said.”
LATER STATEMENTS MAY FILL IN THE GAPS
Finally, as described earlier, I expect late witnesses who are aware of prior statements to simply fill in what has not been said previously.
It turns out that my expectations of true, reliable eyewitness accounts are met (at least preliminarily and superficially) by the Gospels. All four accounts are written from a different perspective and contain unique details that are specific to the eyewitnesses. There are, as a result, divergent (apparently contradictory) recollections that can be pieced together to get a complete picture of what occurred. All four accounts are highly personal, utilizing the distinctive language of each witness. Mark is far more passionate and active in his choice of adjectives, for example. Several of the accounts (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) contain blocks of identical (or nearly identical) descriptions. This may be the result of common agreement at particularly important points in the narrative, or (more likely) the result of later eyewitnesses saying, “The rest occurred just the way he said.” Finally, the last account (John’s gospel) clearly attempts to fill in the details that were not offered by the prior eyewitnesses. John, aware of what the earlier eyewitnesses had already written, appears to make little effort to cover the same ground. Even before examining the Gospels with the rigor we are going to apply in section 2, I recognized that they were consistent with what I would expect to see, given my experience as a detective.
THE RELIABLE BIBLE
In the end, it all comes down to the reliability of these accounts. When I was a nonbeliever, I heard Christians talk about the inerrancy or infallibility of the Bible, at least as these terms are typically applied to the original manuscripts that were composed by the authors. I examined these concepts in depth in seminary many years later, but as I first read the accounts in the Gospels, I was far more interested in evaluating their reliability as eyewitness accounts than their inerrancy as divine communiqués. I knew from my experience as a detective that the best eyewitness accounts contained points of disagreement and that this did not automatically invalidate their reliability.
If it was God’s desire to provide us with an accurate and reliable account of the life of Jesus, an account we could trust and recognize as consistent with other forms of eyewitness testimony, God surely accomplished it with the four gospel accounts. Yes, the accounts are messy. They are filled with idiosyncrasies and personal perspectives along with common retellings of familiar stories. There are places where critics can argue that there appear to be contradictions, and there are places where each account focuses on something important to the author, while ignoring details of importance to other writers. But would we expect anything less from true, reliable eyewitness accounts? I certainly would not, based on what I’ve seen over the years.
Surely these apparent “contradictions” and curious peculiarities were present in the early texts and obvious to the earliest of Christians. The oldest gospel manuscripts we have display this sort of eyewitness variability, and there is no reason to think the originals were any less unique or idiosyncratic. The early believers could have destroyed all but one of the accounts, changed the conflicting details, or simply harmonized the Gospels. But these diverse accounts were preserved (as they are) because they are true; they display all the earmarks we would expect in true eyewitness testimony. If the early church had eliminated the four eyewitness perspectives and limited us to one tidy version, we would inevitably have missed some significant detail. If I had tried to clean up the apparent contradictions b
etween Sylvia’s and Paul’s testimonies, I may have ignored the clear descriptions of the gun and the shirt. Instead, I took Sylvia and Paul at their word, learned about their personal perspectives, and wrote a search warrant for these two items. I recovered both the shirt and the pistol and eventually used these pieces of evidence to convict the robber in this case.
NOT ALL MEMORIES ARE CREATED EQUALLY
Sylvia and Paul were reliable eyewitnesses, even though their individual perspectives framed their observations of the robbery in unique ways. But what if many years passed before their testimony was required in court? Couldn’t the passage of time impact their memories of the event? We’ve all forgotten details from past events; we understand what it is like to struggle with a particular memory. Isn’t it possible, reasonable in fact, that Sylvia and Paul might forget or confuse some important detail of this robbery?
Much has been written in recent years about the “unreliability” of eyewitness testimony over time, especially as cases that previously hinged on eyewitness identification have been overturned by new DNA evidence. In fact, the New Jersey Supreme Court recently pointed to cases such as these and cited a “troubling lack of reliability in eyewitness identifications.” As a result, the court issued new rules to make it easier for defendants to challenge eyewitness evidence in criminal cases.20 Given that some eyewitness identifications have been overturned by DNA evidence, why should we trust eyewitness testimony about an event in the past?
In my experience as a cold-case detective, I’ve learned that not all memories are created equally. Let me give you an example. If you asked me what I did five years ago on Valentine’s Day (February 14 here in the United States), I may or may not be able to remember many of the details. I probably took my wife out for dinner or maybe a short vacation. I could probably tax my memory and recall the day with some accuracy, but I may confuse it with other Valentine’s Day memories; after all, I’ve got thirty-three memories of Valentine’s Day with my wife to sift through (we started dating in 1979). This day was important to me, so it may stick out in my memory a bit more than other days in February, but if you ask me for specific chronological details, I may struggle to recall the particulars from Valentine’s Day five years ago.
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