Simon Greenleaf

The following is an excerpt from a debate between a 
Christian,  Fitzpatrick, and Farrell Till on the alleged 
resurrection of Jesus Christ--from the Errancy Discussion 
list, November 15, 1998:

FITZPATRICK

Now let me address the question of whether the NT is 

historically accurate in claiming that the resurrection of 

Jesus of Nazareth took place. In other words, are 

the four Gospels good evidence for the events they 

declare? The inquiry into the goodness of this

evidence is actually a legal question.

One man who was highly skilled at dealing with evidence 

was Dr. Simon Greenleaf. He was the famous Royall Professor 

of Law at Harvard University and succeeded Justice Joseph 

Story as the Dane Professor of Law in the same university. 

The rise of Harvard law School to its eminent position 

among the legal schools of the United States is to be 

ascribed to the efforts of these two men. Greenleaf produced 

his famous three-volume work, A Treatise on the Law of 

Evidence, which still is considered one of the greatest single 

authorities on this subject in the entire literature of legal 

procedure.

Greenleaf examined the value of the historical evidence for the

resurrection of Jesus Christ to ascertain the truth. He rigorously

applied the principles contained in his three-volume treatise on

evidence. His findings were recorded in his book, An 

Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the 

Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice.

Greenleaf came to the conclusion that, according to the laws

of legal evidence used in courts of law, there is more evidence 

for the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ than 

for just about any other event in history.

Dr. Simon Greenleaf's great work, "An Examination of the 

Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence 

Administered in the Courts of Justice" can be found at the 

following Web page: (no longer available, but check here, 

kwh) Now although I am a Registered Patent Agent, am  

somewhat familiar with legal reasoning, and can practice

Patent Law before the Patent Bar, I am not a regular  

attorney, and am not, therefore, legally competent to 

pass judgement on this work. It is highly convincing to me 

and seems to cover all the bases, legally speaking. Perhaps 

one of your skeptic friends who is an attorney of law can 

assess the strength of Dr. Greenleaf's legal reasoning 

here. If, as I believe, the evidence for the resurrection of  

Jesus Christ is good enough to stand up in any court of law, 

then, on that basis, I re-present the argument of my 

previous e-mail. Mr. Till, what is your answer to the legal 

reasoning of Dr. Simon Greenleaf concerning the strength

of the evidence for the four Gospels and thus for the 

resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead?

TILL

Simon Greenleaf was a [19]th-century professor of law 

at Harvard University, but he was also a devout believer 

in Christianity and the inspiration of the Bible.  That, of 

course, would not prove that his claims that Mr. Fitzpatrick 

summarized above are incorrect, but it does give sufficient 

reason to question his objectivity.  One thing that is very 

evident in apologetic literature is that those who believe in 

the Bible have no difficulty finding reasons to believe that 

it is "the word of God," and so it was with Simon Greenleaf.  

I don't have a copy of Greenleaf's work that Fitzpatrick 

cited above, but I have read quotations from it in apologetic 

literature.  From what I have seen, it is evident that 

Greenleaf, like Fitzpatrick and almost all biblical inerrantists, 

based his defense of the resurrection on the assumption 

that the NT records were historically accurate.  The following 

is a quotation from Greenleaf that can be found in Josh 

McDowell's *Evidence That Demands a Verdict, * p. 192.  

In reading it, please notice that from beginning to end 

Greenleaf assumed the accuracy of the NT.  I will 

interrupt the quotation from time to time to comment on 

Greenleaf's reasoning.

 "The great truths which the apostles declared, were, that 

Christ had risen from the dead, and that only through 

repentance from sin, and faith in Him, could men hope for 

salvation...."

Now how could Greenleaf possibly have known that the 

apostles preached that Christ had risen from the dead and 

that only by repentance and faith in "Him" could men have 

hope of salvation? He could make this statement only by 

assuming that the NT records are historically accurate, 

because as I have already pointed out several times in 

the short duration of this debate, there were no unbiased,

disinterested contemporary records left about preaching 

activities of a group of men who believed that someone 

named Jesus had risen from the dead, so what Greenleaf 

said that the apostles did is what the NT claimed that 

they did. Hence, Greenleaf assumed the historical accuracy 

of the NT.

"This doctrine they asserted with one voice, everywhere, 

not only under the greatest discouragements, but in the 

face of the most appalling errors that can be presented to 

the mind of man.  Their master had recently perished as 

a malefactor, by the sentence of a public tribunal. His 

religion sought to overthrow the religions of the whole 

world...."

This reads more like a sermon than the work of a legal 

scholar trying to find objective evidence to prove the 

accuracy of certain ancient documents. The fact is that 

Greenleaf did not present (at least in the parts of his 

work I have seen quoted) any line of argumentation 

intended to prove that the accuracy of the NT could be 

trusted.  He merely assumed that the NT was accurate 

and proceeded on that assumption to argue that the 

zeal and conduct of the apostles gave credibility to

what they preached. This is an argument that may have 

been fresh in Greenleaf's time, but it has certainly been 

rebutted many times since then. How could Greenleaf 

possibly have known that the apostles "asserted with 

one voice" the doctrine of the resurrection and did so in

the face of "the greatest discouragements" unless he 

had assumed that the NT was historically accurate in 

making these claims. A stubborn fact that Mr. Fitzpatrick 

must deal with in this debate is that NO unbiased, 

disinterested contemporary reports of the activities of 

a religious group known as the "apostles" exist.  Therefore, 

to state that the apostles did such and so and then argue 

that they would not have done this unless they had 

known that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead is a 

flagrant resort to begging the question of the historical

accuracy of the NT.

"The laws of every country were against the teachings of 

His disciples...."

Such as?  What laws?  Of what countries?  The NT claims 

that the apostles were opposed in some places, but it also 

teaches that they were accorded the courtesy of being 

allowed to speak in synagogues. In addition to begging 

the question of NT accuracy, Greenleaf also made unproven 

assertions that conflicted with what the NT says.

"The interests and passions of all the rulers and great 

men in the world were against them...."

Oh, really? That's a strange comment coming from 

someone who has obviously assumed the accuracy of 

the NT.  What was Greenleaf's explanation for the speech 

attributed to Gamaliel in Acts 5, in which he urged the 

Jewish leaders in Jerusalem to let the apostles alone 

in their activities (v:39) and leave it to God to determine 

what should be done about them?  Why did the Epicurean 

philosophers in Athens accord Paul the opportunity to 

speak to them and explain what "this new teaching was" 

that he was preaching in the city (Acts 17)?  Why was 

Paul allowed to reason daily in the school of Tyrannus in 

Ephesus for a period of two years (Acts19:9-10)?  If 

Greenleaf was going to assume the accuracy of the NT, 

he should have at least recognized that the NT doesn't 

teach that everyone opposed the apostles. The NT does 

claim that the apostles confronted considerable opposition, 

but since there is no independent corroboration of this 

claim, competent historians would look with suspicion 

on the claims, especially since they were made by zealous 

adherents of the Christian religion.

Greenleaf's quotation continues at length in McDowell's 

ETDAV, but it is just more of the same, i.e., argumentation 

that was based entirely on the assumption that the NT 

was true in whatever it said.  Whether Greenleaf, who 

died in 1853, started the trend I'm not qualified to say, 

but it has become fashionable in Christian apologetics to 

whine about the great abuses and persecutions that the 

apostles suffered and then to argue that this must prove 

that the resurrection really happened, because they would 

not have been willing to die for what they knew to be a lie. 

That within itself is a fallacious claim that is not supported 

by cases of martyrdom in other religions, but it is also an 

argument that is based on the assumption that the NT 

accurately reported persecutions that the apostles 

experienced. The fact is that the NT recorded the death

of James (Acts 12:2) but says nothing else about the 

death of other apostles, and we really have no way to 

determine if the NT account is accurate in its claim that 

Herod killed James.  Those who have been on the list for 

some time know that many would-be apologists have been 

put on the spot by our demands that they present more

than just contradictory traditions that the apostles suffered 

martyrdom and that early Christians were persecuted to the 

extremes that it has become fashionable to claim in 

present-day apologetic circles. If Mr. Fitzpatrick knows of 

any unbiased, disinterested contemporary records that 

corroborate these claims, we would like to hear about

them.

As for the NT claims about the resurrection itself, the 

simple  fact is that the only "testimony" to the resurrection 

was all  of the hearsay type with the possible exception 

of the  apostle Paul's claim that he saw Jesus, but Luke's 

secondhand  account of Paul's testimony about this 

sighting in Acts 26:19 was that he had seen Jesus in a 

"vision."  I don't know if Greenleaf ever commented 

directly on this statement or not, but I wonder if he really 

believed that testimony of what someone had seen in a 

vision would be accepted in "any court of law."  If he 

really believed that visionary evidence was reliable evidence 

suitable for presentation in the courtroom, then he had no 

business teaching law.  As for the so-called testimony of 

the others, it was all hearsay.  Paul SAID that about 500 

"brethren" had seen Jesus at one time (1 Cor 15:6), but 

there are no records of anything that any of these 500 ever 

wrote themselves.  Hence, this kind of statement is hearsay 

of the crassest sort.  Furthermore, the same is true about 

the "testimony" of the women who allegedly saw Jesus while 

leaving the tomb. Where is the firsthand testimony that 

any of them left?  It simply doesn't exist.  Certain anonymous 

writers of books that are called "gospels" SAID that these 

women said that they had seen Jesus, and that is again 

hearsay evidence.  I don't know what Greenleaf thought 

about this kind of evidence, but if he had ever been my 

lawyer in a trial, I would have asked the court to appoint

another one if he had allowed without objections witnesses 

to testify that they had HEARD so and so SAY such and such.  

Surely Mr. Fitzpatrick has seen enough courtroom dramas on 

TV to know that secondhanded testimony would bring a 

lawyer immediately to his feet to object on the grounds 

that such statements were hearsay.

To conclude the matter of Greenleaf's competence in this 

area, let's look at another quotation from him that McDowell 

cited on pp. 243-244.

"The grave-clothes lying orderly in their place, and the napkin

folded together by itself, made it evident that the sepulchre 

had not been rifled nor the body stolen by violent hands; for 

these garments and spices would have been of more value 

to thieves, than merely a naked corpse; at least, they would 

not have taken the trouble thus to fold them together. The 

same circumstances showed that the body had not been 

removed by friends; for they would not thus have left the 

grave-clothes behind.  All these considerations produced in 

the mind of John the germ of a belief that Jesus was risen 

from the dead."

So once again we can see that Greenleaf's approach to 

proving the reliability of "evidence" in the NT was simply to 

assume that whatever the NT said was accurate. With that 

kind of reasoning, one could prove the historical accuracy of 

any book.  How could Greenleaf have known that the 

grave-clothes were left lying orderly in their place and 

the napkin folded together?  This is something that was 

said in "John's" gospel account, and so Greenleaf simply 

begged the question of NT accuracy.  All of this leaves 

Mr. Fitzpatrick right where he has been from the beginning 

of the debate, i.e., begging the question of NT accuracy. 

He will have to do better than that if he hopes to present 

a credible case for his position on the resurrection.

Farrell Till