The following is from the Errancy Discussion list from
1-13-98. Farrell Till explains the term, "disinterested".
Till convincingly argues that this is the type of
testimony that is needed in order to give us sufficient
reason to believe that the apostles and Jesus Christ
actually existed. But, sadly, this type of testimony
is conspicuously missing (please excuse the transcription
quality):
Sayeedul Islam wrote:
I wanted to know exactly what you meant by
"disinterested source"? I don't really know
if you mean a source that has no inclination
towards either side of a discussion or if
you mean something else. I personally don't
believe there is any historical writing that
has ever been written without some sort of a
bias or perspective. Please clarify.
TILL
In English the word "disinterested" means "free of
bias and self-interest, impartial, or indifferent."
You are undoubtedly right when you say that probably
no historical writing has ever been written without
some sort of a bias or perspective, but relatively
speaking, one can evaluate records to determine if
they are fundamentally free of bias. Let's take,
for example,the testimony of the 11 Mormon witnesses,
who signed affidavits swearing that they either
saw the angel Moroni deliver golden plates to Joseph
Smith or else saw and handled the plates. However,
these witnesses were known to be leaders and adherents
of the newly proclaimed Mormon faith. Even when we
look at their names, we can immediately see reasons
to be suspicious of their testimony. Five of the eleven,
for example, had the surname Whitmer, an indication
that they were probably all related to David Whitmer,
another one of the witnesses and a leader in the
Mormon movement. Three of them had the surname Smith,
one of whom was Joseph Smith, Sr., the father of the
man who allegedly received the special revelation
from God. These facts about the witnesses exclude
them from all possibility of being considered
disinterested witnesses.
When we examine religious literature as a whole, we
see very little indication that these writings were
produced by disinterested parties. The writers of
the NT, for example, were obviously adherents of the
Christian faith, and their intention in writing was
not to produce accurate historical records of what
they wrote about. They wanted to further the cause of
Christianity, and the writer of John's gospel came
right out and admitted that this was his purpose:
"Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence
of his disciples, which are not written in this book,
but these are written that you may believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you
may have life in his name" (20:30-31). Such writings as
this cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered
"disinterested testimony."
Goodguy has sarcastically compared my questioning the
historicity of the apostles to questioning the
historicity of Napoleon, but the two are not comparable.
There are disinterested records of Napoleon. If documents
produced in a country that was hostile to Napoleon
referred to him, then it would be safe to assume that
the authors of the documents were not trying to further
any of Napoleon's political causes. Hence, we can
consider this disinterested testimony to Napoleon's
existence. In calling disinterested testimony basically
reliable, I am not establishing any standards that I
am not willing to apply to the Bible. The Babylonian
Chronicle refers independently of the Bible to
Nebuchadnezzar and details some events that are
recorded in the books of Kings and Chronicles about
this Babylonian king; hence, it becomes reasonable
to accept the historicity of Nebuchadnezzar because
independent confirmation of the biblical record is
known to exist. The Bible tells the story of Jehu,
a king of Israel, in 2 Kings 9-10 and 2
Chronicles 22. Jehu's historical existence can be
reasonably accepted, because the archaeological
discovery of the Black Obelisk of Assyria provides
independent confirmation of Jehu's reign. The
Obelisk pictures a king bearing tribute to
Shalmaneser III, and an inscription says that this
was "the tribute of Jehu, son of Omri." The Bible
mentions King Mesha of Moab in 2 Kings 3, and the
discovery of the Moabite Stone revealed a narrative
attributed to King Mesha; hence, this would
constitute confirmation independent of the Bible record.
There are other examples that I could cite, but these
should be sufficent to show the difference between
disinterested, independent confirmation of biblical
records and just the blind acceptance of anything the
Bible says simply because it is in the Bible. This is
the problem that confronts Goodguy in the present
controversy over the apostles. He has no disinterested
confirmation of his claim that the apostles died for
their belief in the resurrection. All that he can do
is cite what is said in biased records left by avowed
Christian writers and highly improbable traditions.
Farrell Till
