Monday, April 25, 2011

Examining the witnesses to the resurrection

     One of the admins on the Queen Queequeg blog claims that a former magistrate has examined the witnesses to the resurrection. This sounds like an incredible feat as it was my understanding that they were both unidentifiable and deceased. However, bring them in; I would like to cross-examine them. Now, let me explain why a cross-examination is important. A corrupt prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict anyone he wants. How? Because he can massage the "evidence" as presented to the grand jury and no one is allowed to cross-examine his witnesses. Here we have someone who already wants to convince people that the resurrection was real performing a rather dubious direct examination. I would like the opportunity to cross.

1 comment:

Paul Baird said...

I can't see that comments are enabled for that post, which is a pity.

What we have here is a rather poor cross appeal to authority.

ie Clarrie Briese is modern day Chief Magistrate of Criminal Law in New Zealand, and therefore an authority in that field, morally and academically.

It is, however, fallacious to attempt to transfer that authority into another field ie Biblical history and specifically the Resurrection.

Clarrie Briese can post his views on the Resurrection as he pleases, but unless his authority is directly relevant then his views have no more value than yours or mine based on reading the same source material.

What Clarrie does not, wittingly or unwittingly, address are the searing criticisms not of athiests but of the Jews and Muslims, who know the texts that Biblical scholars quote, and know them in as much detail.

Their dissenting voices are routinely unheard but remain extremely relevant.