[...]
RS <<My standard is simple: prove it to me.>>
JB>Then obviously you have no standard.
Non sequitur.
JB>We need to spend a little time on this. Common law established
JB>several tests to determine testimonial authenticity. Here they
JB>are:
JB>1. Veracity (character)
JB>2. Bias (motive to lie)
JB>3. Competence (ability to testify)
JB>4. Conformity (with experience)
JB>5. Coincidence (with outside factors)
JB>6. Correspondence (with other testimony)
JB>Now, if you can demonstrate, with proof (not imagination), that
JB>the Gospel writers fall short in each of these categories, you
JB>may have a case.
The criteria listed represent *necessary*, not *sufficient*
conditions for accepting testimonial evidence under common law.
Even given a common law milieu, it would only be necessary to
demonstrate *any* of them to be false to cast doubt upon the
testimony in question. I'd be careful with that challenge, for
it would seem all too easy to build a case acceptable to
skeptics on criteria 1, 2, 4, and 6.
But we are not in a courtroom, and we have other sources of
information concerning the reliability of testimony. Studies
involving eyewitness accounts of staged or recorded events
indicate that even eyewitnesses who pass muster for at least
five of the six criteria listed may still give erroneous
testimony.
It turns out that the long-denigrated other class of evidence,
circumstantial evidence, has much to commend it over
testimonial evidence.
[...]
Wesley