Martin fails to prove that the New Testament writers were unreliable because of their purpose. Martin seems to think that the New Testament writers were so incredibly biased by their theological purpose that they distorted facts as they felt necessary.
Martin's comments elsewhere (Ibid., p. 78-81) seem to imply that different accounts of an event should agree on every detail, or almost every detail. Can different accounts disagree on minor details while agreeing on the essentials, or do the accounts need to agree in every detail, no matter how small?
Martin writes, "eyewitness accounts are generally more reliable than accounts that are second or third hand. If the accounts of the Resurrection were second or third hand, this would tend to decrease their evidential weight". However, many Christians claim that all of the resurrection accounts are eyewitness testimony, or were based on eyewitness testimony.
Second-hand testimony like Luke could therefore be more reliable than the exuberant accounts of the alleged eyewitnesses themselves.
The Contemporary Debate on the Resurrection
Secular Objections to the Resurrection
Assessment
Martin's Arguments
While I agree in general with Martin's five factors for determining the reliability of the New Testament evidence for the resurrection, I think there are serious problems with Martin's approach in The Case Against Christianity. Let me briefly explain what I think these flaws are.
The Purposes of the Gospel Writers
This seems to be the weakest of Martin's five factors. He writes, "if an author's purpose in writing a document leads us to believe that the document was not a reliable historical account, then this would lower the evidential weight of the document" (Ibid.). True, but it is unclear when we would know this to be the case. What type(s) of purposes would be convince Martin that a document was not a reliable historical account? How much would the account have to be shaped by said purpose? How would we know? And doesn't every author have biases? This criteria seems both vague and flimsy.
Martin fails to prove that the New Testament writers were unreliable because of their purpose. Martin seems to think that the New Testament writers were so incredibly biased by their theological purpose that they distorted facts as they felt necessary. However, he fails to give any examples of this. If their bias influenced their writings to such an extent, surely such examples would be easy for Martin to find. Without such examples, it is unclear what Martin thinks the writers' purpose was, or how their purpose distorted historical information, including facts concerning the resurrection.
The Inconsistency of the Resurrection Story
I think this factor is rather vague. What does it really mean to say that accounts are "consistent"? Can different accounts disagree on minor details while agreeing on the essentials, or do the accounts need to agree in every detail, no matter how small? Martin's comments elsewhere (Ibid., p. 78-81) seem to imply that different accounts of an event should agree on every detail, or almost every detail. However, numerous Christians have claimed that all of the New Testament sources agree that Jesus died, was buried, and rose on the third day. If that is true, what should be the proper impact of Martin's "inconsistencies"? From what he has written, it is unclear whether we should accept such a minimal level of agreement as evidence of a historical event.
But let's assume for the sake of argument that the New Testament documents must be inerrant in order to be historical. Considering the importance of the inconsistencies argument to Martin's overall position, one would therefore expect him to deal with proposed harmonizations of the inconsistencies he mentions. However, Martin does no such thing. Entire works have been written specifically to address the problem of Bible difficulties in general, and the resurrection accounts in particular, most notably John Wenham's Easter Enigma. It was inexcusable for Martin to claim that "anyone who persists in the attempt [to harmonize the resurrection accounts] must alter the texts and declare the differences to be trivialities" (Ibid., p. 81), but then not even address some of the attempts to harmonize the resurrection accounts. He doesn't even acknowledge such attempts in his bibliography!
The Lack of Eyewitnesses
Likewise, Martin's third factor for determining the reliability of eyewitness testimony is equally unclear. Martin writes, "eyewitness accounts are generally more reliable than accounts that are second or third hand. Consequently, if the accounts of the Resurrection were second or third hand, this would tend to decrease their evidential weight" (77). However, many Christians claim that all of the resurrection accounts are eyewitness testimony, or were based on eyewitness testimony. For example, the author of Luke 1:1-4 claims that
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed.
If the author of Luke did write an historical account based on the eyewitness testimony that was available at the time, that would minimize the effect Martin's second factor would have on the reliability of the testimony. Moreover, a second hand writer like the author of Luke might be able to "compare" different historical traditions, and rely solely on the "more reliable" traditions. Theoretically speaking, then, second-hand testimony like Luke could therefore be more reliable than the exuberant accounts of the alleged eyewitnesses themselves.
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