Testimony of the Evangelists

The Testimony of the Evangelists, Examined by the Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice is an 1846 Christian apologetic work by Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853), an early professor (1833-1848) of the Harvard Law School (founded in 1817).

He limits the scope of his book to an inquiry "to the testimony of the Four Evangelists, bringing their narratives to the tests to which other evidence is subjected in human tribunals" (p. 2).

On the basis of this legal rule, Greenleaf briefly profiles those traditionally attributed as authors of the Four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, concerning (in the case of John and Matthew) their firsthand knowledge of the life of Jesus of Nazareth and (in the case of Mark and Luke) their intimate personal links with Jesus' original band of disciples.

He then argues that the various miracles reported in Jesus' ministry occurred in open or public contexts where friend and foe alike were witnesses (pp 39–42).

Lastly, Greenleaf examines the problem of uniform testimony among false and genuine witnesses, and finds there is sufficient circumstantial evidence to support the accounts of the Four Evangelists.

"[2] As a Christian apologist of the mid-Nineteenth century, Greenleaf was one of many writers who contributed to the debates that ensued on both sides of the Atlantic concerning the historicity of the gospel accounts in general, and specifically the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Part of his argument relied on earlier Christian apologists such as William Paley, Thomas Hartwell Horne, and Mark Hopkins, and he cites their works in The Testimony of the Evangelists.

Here he followed the basic appeals to logic, reason, and historical evidences on behalf of the Bible generally, and in defence of the possibility of miracles occurring.

His technical arguments concerning the evidentiary weight of the eyewitness passages found in the gospel narratives, the criteria for cross-examining that eyewitness testimony, and the claimed status of the gospels as competent evidence, have been relied on and restated by several American Christian apologists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as Clarence Bartlett (As A Lawyer Sees Jesus), Walter M. Chandler (The Trial of Jesus), Pamela Binnings Ewen (Faith on Trial), Francis J. Lamb (Miracle and Science), Irwin H. Linton (A Lawyer Examines the Bible), Josh McDowell (More Than A Carpenter, The Resurrection Factor), Howard Hyde Russell (A Lawyer's Examination of the Bible), Joseph Evans Sagebeer (The Bible in Court), and Stephen D. Williams (The Bible in Court or Truth vs Error).

Greenleaf takes no cognisance of this position and asserts that when an instrument is admitted under the said rule the court is bound to receive into evidence its substance as well unless the opposing party is able to impeach it ...