Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels

by J. Warner Wallace

Some biblical passages appear suspicious even before we find that they were missing in the earliest copies. These passages “stand out” because they seem to possess a different character (like the paramedic paraphernalia at our murder scene). Textual critics examined the story of the adulterous woman, for example, and recognized that the Greek words used in the narrative are far more similar to Luke’s use of language than they are to John’s. The passage seemed foreign to the gospel of John, even before the discovery that it was absent prior to the fifth century.

When I was an atheist, I recognized that the most significant claim of the alleged apostolic eyewitnesses was their claim related to the resurrection.

The book of Acts tells us that there were as many as 120 eyewitnesses in the upper room following Jesus’s ascension (Acts 1:15).

John appears to have lived the longest, surviving nearly sixty years after the resurrection.

To make matters worse, many of them were complete strangers to one another prior to their time together as disciples of Jesus.

The apostles, on the other hand, were aggressively persecuted as they were scattered from Italy to India. According to the records and accounts of the local communities, each of them suffered unimaginable physical duress and died a martyr’s death.

These men and women either were involved in the greatest conspiracy of all time or were simply eyewitnesses who were telling the truth. The more I learned about conspiracies, the more the latter seemed to be the most reasonable conclusion.

the relationship between martyrdom and truth.

History is filled with examples of men and women who were committed to their religious views and were willing to die a martyr’s death for what they believed.

You and I might die for what we believe today, trusting in the testimony of those who were witnesses thousands of years ago. We were not there to see Jesus for ourselves, but we may believe that we have good reason to accept their testimony. Our martyrdom would therefore be a demonstration of this trust, rather than a confirmation of the truth.

The original eyewitnesses, however, were in a very different position. They knew firsthand if their claims were true or not. They didn’t trust someone else for their testimony; they were making a firsthand assertion.

it’s unreasonable to believe that these men died for what they definitely knew to be untrue.

Many of our friends and family members are quick to jump to elaborate conspiratorial possibilities even when there are simpler explanations on the table. Given what I now know about the difficult nature of successful conspiracies, I can help the skeptics in my world as they assess the claims of the apostles. You can too. We all need to take the time to understand the elements of successful conspiracies so we can communicate them to others.

These accounts were eventually entered into the “court record” when they were established as Scripture at the Council of Laodicea in AD 363. It was here that early Christian leaders first identified and codified the canon of the Christian Scripture, the official list of twenty-seven

no “courtroom” recognized the evidence of the Gospels prior to this important church-council meeting.

The “original reports” in the “Christian cold case” were written on papyrus, an excellent material if you are looking for something that was readily available in the first century, but a terrible material if you are looking for something that won’t fall apart when handled frequently.

As a result, we no longer have the original writings (sometimes called “autographs”).

Of all the documents written by Christians in the first and second centuries, the texts we most care about are those that made it into the canon of Scripture.

the existence of true evil necessitates the presence of God as a standard of true virtue.

But let’s return to the very real issue of evil behavior. Why would God allow people to kill each other if He loves us and is powerful enough to stop it? While this question has emotional power, we have to ask ourselves if there might be a reasonable explanation. Are we thinking it through evidentially, or are we reacting emotionally? Are we rejecting the existence of God because there is no rational explanation for the existence of evil, or are we resisting volitionally because we stubbornly refuse to accept any explanation that might be offered? Theodicy “The theological discipline that seeks to explain how the existence of evil in the world can be reconciled with the justice and goodness of God” (Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Wiley Publishing Inc., Cleveland, Ohio, 2010). I can think of a number of very good reasons why God would allow people to behave immorally, even though He loves His creation and is certainly powerful enough to stop evil. Ask yourself this question: Which is more loving, a God who creates a world in which love is possible or a God who creates a world in which love is impossible? It seems reasonable that a loving God would create a world where love is possible and can

be experienced by creatures who are designed “in His image.” But a world in which love is possible can be a dangerous place. Love requires freedom. True love requires that humans have the ability to freely choose; love cannot be forced if it is to be heartfelt and real. The problem, of course, is that people who have the freedom to love often choose to hate. That’s why freedom of this nature is so costly. A world in which people have the freedom to love and perform great acts of kindness is also a world in which people have the freedom to hate and

In addition to this, from a Christian perspective, we are all eternal creatures who will live beyond the grave. If this is true, then questions about why God might not stop evil are a bit premature. At best, we can say only that God hasn’t stopped evil yet. But God has all eternity to act in this regard. Our eternal life provides the context for God to deal justly with those who choose hate and perform acts of evil. God is powerful enough to stop evil completely, and He does care about justice. But as an eternal Being, He may choose to take care of it on an eternal timeline. Compared to eternity, this mortal existence is but a vapor, created by God to be a wonderful place where love is possible for those who choose it. If there are good reasons why God might permit evil in this life (such as the preservation of free will and the ability to love genuinely), concerns about

All of us need to recognize that we make decisions every day with less-than-perfect knowledge and missing information.

Criminal cases require the highest legal standard; they require juries to come to a decision that is “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Many of the people we are trying to reach are willing to deny the truth of God’s existence on the basis of an emotional or volitional response, rather than on the basis of good evidence. This is not to say that all atheists are irrational, emotional, or willfully resistant. Many have taken the time to make a reasoned case of their own. It’s our responsibility as Christians to make the effort to know our friends and family well enough to understand the nature of their denial.

THE GROWING ATTACK FROM SKEPTICS I became a Christian in 1996. Until 2001, the Jim Wallace I knew prior to 1996 was the most sarcastic atheist I had ever known. I can remember some of my conversations with Christians prior to becoming a believer, and I am now embarrassed by the way I behaved; many of my coworkers continue to remind me of those days.

I became a Christian in 1996. Until 2001, the Jim Wallace I knew prior to 1996 was the most sarcastic atheist I had ever known. I can remember some of my conversations with Christians prior to becoming a believer, and I am now embarrassed by the way I behaved; many of my coworkers continue to remind me of those days. But my own level of prior sarcasm was quickly eclipsed by the atheists who began to write and speak against religion following the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. A new era in atheistic rhetoric began following that dreadful day, as prominent atheists responded to what they saw as evidence of the evil of “religious fundamentalism.” A number of books flooded the shelves of local bookstores. Sam Harris wrote The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason (2004) and Letter to a Christian Nation (2006). Richard Dawkins wrote The God Delusion (2006), and Christopher Hitchens wrote God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (2007). The attack from atheists and skeptics grew and took on a new form of immediacy, aggression, and sarcasm.

Many of our young adults have been taught (in universities and colleges and through movies, television, and books) that objective truth does not exist or simply cannot be known. As a result, relativism is a common feature of our cultural worldview. People

The Christian worldview is built on the eyewitness testimony of the gospel writers. For this reason, many skeptics attack the reliability of the Gospels as their primary tactic in trying to defeat the case for Christianity. This focused attack on the Gospels reveals the strength of our case.

While we are often willing to spend time reading the Bible, praying, or participating in church programs and services, few of us recognize the importance of becoming good Christian case makers.

Christians need to learn from that model as well. We need to master the facts and evidences that support the claims of Christianity and anticipate the tactics of those who oppose us. This kind of preparation is a form of worship. When we devote ourselves to this rational preparation and study, we are worshipping God with our mind, the very thing He has called us to do (Matt. 22:37).

If they were written that late, they were not eyewitness accounts. It’s really as simple as that; true eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus would have lived (and written) in the first century. The first criterion of eyewitness reliability requires us to answer the question “Were the alleged eyewitnesses present in the first place?” Like the unbelieving scholars, I answered this question by arguing that the Gospels were written in the second or third century, much closer to the establishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire than to the alleged life of Jesus:

While some modern critics challenge the authorship of Paul’s pastoral letters, even the most skeptical scholars agree that Paul is the author of the letters written to the Romans, the Corinthians, and the Galatians. These letters are dated between AD 48 and AD 60. The letter to the Romans (typically dated at AD 50) reveals something important. Paul began the letter by proclaiming that Jesus is the resurrected “Son of God.” Throughout the letter, Paul accepted the view of Jesus that the gospel eyewitnesses described in their own accounts. Just seventeen years after the resurrection, Jesus was described as divine. He is God incarnate, just as the gospel eyewitnesses described in their own accounts. In fact, Paul’s outline of Jesus’s life matches that of the Gospels. In 1 Corinthians 15 (written from AD 53 to 57), Paul summarized the gospel message and reinforced the fact that the apostles described the eyewitness accounts to him: For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles;

As a result, Luke often repeated or quoted entire passages that were offered previously by either Mark (350 verses from Mark appear in Luke’s gospel) or Matthew (250 verses from Matthew appear in Luke’s account).

Although Mark’s gospel contains the important details of Jesus’s life and ministry, it is brief, less ordered than the other gospels, and filled with “action” verbs and adjectives.

Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not indeed in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ.

As the years passed and the eyewitnesses aged, others made a more deliberate effort to place the narrative in its correct order. Papias seems to indicate that this was Matthew’s intent: Therefore Matthew put the logia in an ordered arrangement in the Hebrew language, but each person interpreted them as best he could.

Many careful readers of Mark’s gospel have observed that there are a number of unidentified people described in his account. These anonymous characters are often in key positions in the narrative, yet Mark chose to leave them unnamed.

something happened in the past in a particular way,

In 1947, a Bedouin herdsman found some unusual clay jars in caves near the valley of the Dead Sea. The jars contained a number of scrolls revealing the religious beliefs of monastic farmers who lived in the valley from 150 BC to AD 70. When this group saw the Romans invade the region, it apparently put its cherished scrolls in the jars and hid them in the caves. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain fragments of almost every book in the Old Testament and, most importantly, a complete copy of the book of Isaiah. This scroll was dated to approximately 100 BC; it was incredibly important to historians and textual experts because it was approximately one thousand years older than any Masoretic copy of Isaiah. The Dead Sea Scroll version of Isaiah allowed scholars to compare the text over this period of time to see if copyists had been conscientious. Scholars were amazed by what they discovered. A comparison of the Qumran manuscripts of Isaiah “proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text.”

of Jesus Christ the Nazarene—walk!” (Acts 3:6). The disciples were consistently described as having chosen a life of material poverty in pursuit of spiritual truth.

Jurors aren’t experts, yet they are required to make the most important decision in the courtroom. In fact, the experts introduced by the prosecution or the defense never cast a single vote. Our justice system trusts that folks like you and me can examine the testimony of experts and come to a reasonable conclusion about the truth.

According to Peter, all of us need to “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks [us] to give the reason for the hope that [we] have” (1 Pet. 3:15 NIV). While

Each of us has to answer God’s call on our lives as two-decision Christians. If you’ve already decided to believe the Gospels, take a second step and decide to defend them.

“What happens when an atheist cop takes the same forensic skills he uses to solve the toughest crimes—homicides with a trail that’s been cold for decades—and applies them to the eyewitness testimony and circumstantial evidence for the life of Jesus of Nazareth? A fascinating new approach to the question of gospel credibility, that’s what. Cold-Case Christianity is simply the most clever and compelling defense I’ve ever read for the reliability of the New Testament record. Case closed.”