Disinterested Testimony

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