The Lost Faith, and Difficulties of the Bible, as Tested by the Laws of Evidence

by Thomas S. Childs

The application of this principle is obvious, yet nothing is more common than its violation. An hypothesis with certain analogies perhaps in its favor, but admittedly without a solitary positive proof to sustain it, is put forward as an established truth without regard to the fact that the Bible, with its general character of veracity behind it, gives another and an entirely different account of the matter. We will not say this is irreverent: it is unfair and unreasonable.

The character of the Bible may justly claim to sustain its record till it is proved false. Deal with it as fairly as you deal with the red-handed anarchist: let the book be innocent till proved guilty; and if innocent, the written word, like the incarnate Word, stands a true witness in all things for ever. Condemned, crucified, buried, it will rise again. It is a perilous thing to condemn the guiltless.

Let us pass to another rule of law; it is this: "The testimony of a single witness, where there is no ground for suspecting either his ability or integrity, is a sufficient legal ground for belief" (Starkie on Ev., i. 550). The mere silence of one witness or of many witnesses cannot set aside the clear, positive testimony of a single trustworthy witness. That Josephus does not mention events which Moses records does not affect the truth of the Mosaic record, and his silence as to the Bethlehem massacre—even if no reason could be suggested for it, as there can be—cannot, under this rule of law, affect the positive testimony of Matthew that there was such a massacre.

The courts go farther than this. They say, "If a witness swear positively that he saw or heard a fact, and another who was present that he did not see or hear it, and the witnesses are equally faithworthy, the affirmative witness is to be believed" (Decisions of the Supreme Court of Errors of the State of Connecticut, vol. vi. p. 188). In the case referred to in that decision the court set aside a verdict that had been rendered by the lower court on the negative testimony of eleven witnesses against the positive testimony of three. The principle recognized by that decision, and which is universally accepted as law, is that the negative testimony of witnesses present at any given transaction cannot set aside the positive testimony of a far less number of witnesses, or even of a single reliable witness.

The silence of any of the evangelists in reference to an incident or event at which they may have been present, but which possibly they may not have noticed or which they do not record, does not contradict in the least the testimony of one who says such an incident occurred. The fact of the marriage in Cana is not at all disturbed because John is the only witness who testifies to it. So if one writer states a part of an incident or of a discourse which another writer omits, while the latter gives a part which the first omits, there is no contradiction. Matthew (xx. 20) says the mother of Zebedee's children made a certain request which Mark (x. 35) says the children themselves made. But this is not inconsistent: the children united with the mother in the request. Matthew calls attention to one party; Mark, to another. Nothing can be more unreasonable than the cavil that stumbles at such difficulties.

The rule before us applies to that extraordinary doubt of modern criticism—whether the Israelites were ever in Egypt, because, as affirmed, the monuments do not record their presence nor their flight nor the destruction of the Egyptian host at the Red Sea. Now, leaving out of the argument the strong probability that the monuments do refer to their presence in Egypt, and the further probability that the Egyptians would not be likely to preserve on their monuments the record of their own ignominy and overthrow, the objection could not stand for a moment in any court of justice in the presence of the positive testimony of the record to the history in Egypt—all the more as this testimony is sustained by an extraordinary weight of incidental corroborative evidence, and is involved in the whole subsequent history of the nation.

Grant, if you will, that there are improbabilities in parts of the history; still, the courts rule that "mere improbability can rarely supply a sufficient ground for disbelieving direct and unexceptionable witnesses of the fact where there was no room for mistake" (Starkie, i. 558; see also Greenleaf on Ev., i. 1, 14, 15). That canon, fairly applied, sweeps away no inconsiderable portion of the objections to the Scripture histories. Take the great decisive fact of the resurrection of Christ—a fact that carries with it the whole Christian system and the verity of the whole Christian revelation. It is a fact of testimony—of the testimony of many witnesses, under a great variety of circumstances, at many times and places, and extending through so long a period as to preclude all reasonable or admissible supposition of "mistake." No fact of ancient history can be proved by testimony if the resurrection of Christ cannot be. The proof stands by itself, positive, direct, unexceptionable as to the character and capacity of the witnesses. It is proof that the law declares cannot be set aside by "mere improbability;" and if this fact is established, everything essential to Christianity is established. The seal of the risen Christ is on the Old Testament; his blood is on the New Testament. It is, throughout, the living book of the slain and living Lord.

Another very important rule of law is this: "In cases of conflicting evidence, the first step in the process of inquiry must naturally and obviously be to ascertain whether the apparent inconsistencies and incongruities which it presents may not without violence be reconciled" (Starkie, i. 578). "Where there is an apparent inconsistency or contradiction in the testimony of witnesses, such construction shall be put upon it as to make it agree if possible, for perjury is not to be presumed" (6 Conn. 189). Nothing is more remarkable than the constant violation of this rule by many of the critics of the Bible; their effort is to see, not if the testimony can be made to agree, but if by any possibility it can be forced to appear contradictory. It is hardly putting it too strongly to say that many of these efforts would not be considered respectable, and would not be tolerated by the critics themselves, if they concerned any other book than the Bible and any other subject than Christianity.

The courts take even stronger ground on the obligation of harmonizing apparently conflicting evidence. If the elements of reconciliation are not found in the evidence itself, they insist on the admission of any reasonable supposition that will explain the difficulty.