The Proofs of Christ's Resurrection from a Lawyer's Standpoint
9781465668950
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The present treatise is intended to give what the author has often felt the need of—a compact and thoroughly reliable statement of the principal historical facts to the authenticity and integrity of the New Testament writings concerning our Lord, and the presumptions from them which establish his claims as our Divine Redeemer and Saviour. The question of his Resurrection from the dead is selected as the pivot, because everything hinges upon it. This question, whichever way it is determined, is decisive. It is a question which greatly concerns every one. It is a question of evidence, and as such is especially deserving of careful inquiry by members of the legal profession. For, as Prof. Greenleaf observed in his work hereafter cited,—“If a close examination of the evidences of Christianity may be expected of one class of men more than another, it would seem incumbent on us, who make the law of evidence one of our peculiar studies.” As the question of Christ’s Resurrection is the objective point of our inquiries, all other questions are subordinated to it, and examined so far only as deemed material to the main question. The author has availed himself of a lawyer’s privilege, and made use of the researches, arguments, and conclusions of others who may justly be regarded as authority, and to whom he has given credit as far as practicable, but has endeavored to form an independent judgment in view of all accessible sources of information. The work is, in the main, as published in a series of articles in the New Hampshire Journal, and also in the Vermont Chronicle, from March 5, 1881, to April 1, 1882, which will explain the use of the common version in the earlier chapters and the New Revision in the later ones. While the proofs have been marshalled around the principal fact, those to establish the subsidiary question of our Four Gospels and the Book of Acts have been largely centered upon the “Memoirs” mentioned in the confessedly genuine writings of Justin Martyr. Justin, in his First Apology, so called, written before the year one hundred and fifty of our era, and probably ten years earlier, has given a graphic account of the usages in the churches generally. In this account he says that, on the “day called Sunday,” Memoirs of Christ were read with the Prophets, in all their assemblies. Hence, when it is ascertained that these Memoirs were our Canonical Gospels, we make a long stride toward the conclusion of their undoubted authenticity and genuineness. To all questions of evidence which arise, the author applies legal principles and presumptions derived from experience and constantly acted upon in courts of justice. He asks of the reader a patient perusal to the end, for he confidently believes that the vital fact of Christ’s Resurrection, with all the grand consequences which necessarily follow it, is as susceptible of proof, from undoubted historical facts and solid argument, as any other event in history. The work is written for busy men in all the walks of life, and the writer has endeavored to make himself understood.
