documents had ever been heard of
until long after the authors were dead.

JUDGE: I never heard of such a case. I cannot allow you to quote these
papers. They are not evidence. Have you _any_ witnesses?

COUNSEL: No, m'lud.

That fancy dialogue about expresses the legal value of the evidence for
this important miracle.

But, legal value not being the only value, let us now consider the
evidence as mere laymen.

THE GOSPEL WITNESSES

As men of the world, with some experience in sifting and weighing
evidence, what can we say about the evidence for the Resurrection?

In the first place, there is no acceptable evidence outside the New
Testament, and the New Testament is the authority of the Christian
Church.

In the second place, there is nothing to show that the Gospels were
written by eye-witnesses of the alleged fact.

In the third place, the Apostle Paul was not an eye-witness of the
alleged fact.

In the fourth place, although there is some evidence that some Gospels
were known in the first century, there is no evidence that the Gospels
as we know them were then in existence.

In the fifth place, even supposing that the existing Gospels and the
Epistles of Paul were originally composed by men who knew Christ, and
that these men were entirely honest and capable witnesses, there is no
certainty that what they wrote has come down to us unaltered.

The only serious evidence of the Resurrection being in the books of the
New Testament, we are bound to scrutinise those books closely, as on
their testimony the case for Christianity entirely depends.

Who, then, are the witnesses? They are the authors of the Gospels, the
Acts, and the Epistles of Peter and of Paul.

Who were these authors? Matthew and John are "supposed" to have been
disciples of Christ; but were they? I should say Matthew certainly
was not contemporary with Jesus, for in the last chapter of the Gospel
according to Matthew we read as follows:

Now while they were going behold some of the guard came into
the city, and told unto the chief priests all the things that
were come to pass. And when they were assembled with the elders,
and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers,
saying, Say yet his disciples came by night and stole him away
while we slept. And if this come to the governor's ears, we
will persuade him, and rid you of care. So they took the money,
and did as they