Can we really know the past? I mean, we know that John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas, right? What about Abraham LincolnandJohn Wilkes Booth? Can we truly know that the assassination happened at Ford’s Theater in Washington? After all, historian and Christian scholar Michael Licona notes that “History is an interpretation of an interpretation of an irretrievable event.” In Lincoln’s case, the problem is that the eyewitnesses to the event are all long dead. That reality makes anything we write today about Lincoln’s assassination an “interpretation of an interpretation.” Very much the same is true of all historical events, including the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The apostles interpreted what they saw and recorded it in the gospel accounts. After all, the Gospel accounts are first-hand accounts of a historical event. Christians, in fact, hold these accounts to be more than, but certainly no less than, just that: history. Today, people from around the world read the Gospels and, in doing so, interpret the writer’s interpretation of those irretrievable events of Jesus’ life. And that, critics argue, is where all the problems with our ability to know history begin.
Christian apologist Norman Geisler offers several reasons critics give for why our knowledge of history may be challenged. First, critics argue that unlike scientific research in the laboratory, where a natural phenomenon plays out for all to observe, history offers no way to go back and observe anything. The moment is long gone. That is to say, it is truly an “irretrievable event” that cannot be observed. Even so, is that really necessary? It seems to me there is no need to time-travel back to the event because eyewitnesses observed it in the past and diligently recorded what they saw. This is especially true of eyewitness accounts such as the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life.
Second, critical historical accounts are often fragmentary, drawn from several sources that are themselves incomplete. However, as Geisler points out, just because the fossilized geological record is fragmentary does not mean that significant and accurate conclusions cannot be reached about the history of a particular geological stratum. Several secular accounts, by no means friends of Christianity, including Josephus, Tacitus, Mara bar-Serapion, and others, reinforce uniformity, even though they are fragmentary. Even so, when it comes to the accounts of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, every single possible detail is not necessary to construct a coherent story of theevents.ThefourGospelaccounts are independent testimonies to the events observed and are told from different perspectives, giving them particular uniformity.
Third, opponents argue that bias is ever-present and inevitably intrudesontheinterpretationofany historical event. It is unavoidable, to say the least. Unsurprisingly, these biases have their foundation in the historian’s worldview. For instance, an American recounting of the events on Normandy Beach during D-Day is no doubt different from those told by Germans. The same is true of Booth, who held a very different worldview from Lincoln. However, across the body of evidence for any particular historical event, the true story inevitably bleeds through the bias. For example, the more sources of evidence used to interpret a historical event, the less bias will influence the interpretation. All told, about 15 Christian and non-Christian historical sources mention Jesus, His death, and resurrection written within 100 years of His life.
Finally, things get considerably more difficult when the miraculous is claimed as part of the historical event. Miracles are, by definition, supernatural events whose causes cannot be determined by historians because there simply is no objective means to verify them. Further, accurate historical reporting involves analyzing all the evidence, then interpreting and reporting the best explanation given the available evidence. That means historians, acting within the scope of history, can legitimately investigate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, but they cannot say whether it was God who raised Him from the dead. That is actually a theological question rather than a historical one. That’s fine! After all, there really aren’t many contenders for having resurrected the man who claimed to be the Son of God.
So, while it is sometimes argued that historic events are not objectively verifiable, such arguments are themselves biased and weak because that is just not how history, nor the world we live in, works. And it is not how justice works either. The fact is every judicial trial around the world relies upon the interpretation of evidence from past events. To say we cannot know history is to say we can never know the guilt or innocence of a person: any person at any time and anywhere. Without trusting that we can know history, justice fails. But we can trust, and do know history with great accuracy, including the eyewitness historical accounts portrayed in the Gospels. For if we profess history to be unknowable, then are we not so much unlike the man who looks at his face in the mirror and goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like (cf. James 1:23-24)? No, we are hardly like that man.
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Gloria in excelsis Deo! Ty B. Kerley, DMin., is an ordained minister who teaches Christian apologetics, and relief preaches in Southern Oklahoma. Dr. Kerley and his wife Vicki are members of the Waurika church of Christ, and live in Ardmore. You can contact him at: dr.kerley@isGoddead.com.