Amaleq13

The request I had originally made that was cross-posted with your post which answered it.

judge

14.78643% is the usual number bandied about.

None of the writers of the various biblical books claim their books or letters are "divinely inspired", as far as I am aware. This idea comes much later.

Decypher

The hypothetical itself, that I have put forward an alternative explanation, is more than enough to undermine the idea that inconsistencies are any kind of proof of honest reporting by witnesses. That is my view anyway.

But if you disagree, can you explain what is wrong with the "if" in my reply?

Solo

My guess is you would not get very far with that legal theory. The mere fact that two people are saying exactly the same thing happened cannot give rise to an allegation of coaching. To allege coaching and fraud, you would have to have some other evidence to what happened which contradicted the accord of the two witnesses.

Again, if a witness is sworn in a court of law, he or she is asked for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. What you seem to be saying is that if the court admits the Bible for the swearing protocal, it does not really mean to be that strict. A little faulty memory you say, goes a long way to establishing a witness' credibility. I don't buy that and no decent judge would. The devil is in the details, my friend, and you as a lawyer should know that well.


It would not be extraordinary at all if the gospels were describing a witnessed, historical account of crucifixion, they agreed at least on what what the man Jesus' last words on earth were.


Which carries exactly what evidentiary value ? How could such an opinion be examined, I wonder ?

Jiri

andrewcriddle

In England at any rate, there have been cases where the accused has been acquitted when the main testimony against him was the evidence of two policemen, and the defence emphasized the suspicious detailed agreement of the two supposedly independent police accounts.

Andrew Criddle

Solo

So what you are saying is that you are familiar with the facts of these cases, and in each the determining factor in the verdict was corroboration by two independent police investigators, which were judged to be not credible by different courts, simply because in each case defence emphasized suspicious detailed agreement.

Is that what you are saying, Andrew ?

Jiri

andrewcriddle

I am going on the story as reported in the newspapers at the time.
(I can remember one case in detail and I'm pretty sure there have been others)

In English Law it is forbidden (legally forbidden) to ask a jury why they convicted or acquitted, so statements of what were the critical factors are informed speculation.

Andrew Criddle

(I've tried to find relevant material on the web but with limited success
http://www.journalonline.co.uk/article/1000240.aspx
describes a case in which convictions were quashed on Appeal, largely because of the identical nature of the police accounts. Appeal Courts as distinct from juries give reasons for their decisions. )

Solo

Interesting article, Andrew.

For the sake of English Law I am relieved that the case did not uphold Gamera's theory, in which an uncanny agreement in testimony is "evidence" the testimony is fraudulent. As I said, the court would likely severely chastise an attorney who would try to cast aspersions in this wise without a cause. So in this case, there indeed was evidence by the defendant to the effect he never said the words attributed to him by the four policemen.

It was only with counter-evidence which denied the defendant said what was attributed to him that the theory of conspiracy arose. In the context, it became apparent that a twenty-four word statement would not likely have been reproduced nearly word for word by four different men, and an expert testified cleverly to the improbability of such an event occuring. This of course was not weighed in isolation from other evidence. The appelant had some criminal past. The police did not record the confession until later, did not report it. Etc, etc.

Finally, would a court under a different set of circumstances entertain the statistical profiling of recall ? What if the testimony was both to words and deeds ? If the statement was shorter ? If the statement was the same length but the testimony was given by four individuals reproducing something said during a dinner at a MENSA club ?

At any rate, given the nature of events in the gospels, to argue that they are historically vouched for because they disagree in minor details seems a bit...well, far-fetched.

Jiri

Random Evil Guy

so if there were no inaccuracies, the bible would have been historically fraudulent? not to mention, how does one go from there, to claim that the opposite would be true as well. meaning, if there are inaccuracies, somehow that implies it is historically accurate?

aa5874

I will now begin a word search for twenty-four word statements of Jesus by the four authors of gMatthew, gMark, gLuke and gJohn, to see if there are any that were reproduced nearly word for word.