Eyewitness evidence
Since LICC's Word for the Week began in May 2001, we have written around 73 'words' on passages from Luke. So maybe now is the time to go back to Luke's surprisingly contemporary introduction. We are used to the arrival of police inspector, detective, even forensic pathologist, at the chaotic scene of a crime, beginning the process of sifting, interviewing, comparing, compiling all the data that will subsequently form a coherent summary of what happened and hopefully provide a satisfactory explanation. Whether it is Miss Marple, Morse, or, my favourite, Guido Brunetti, this is familiar territory.
Some might find this approach a little disconcerting as an introduction to the life of Jesus Christ. Is not religion more about meaning, faith and experience, than historical detail and eyewitness evidence? Nick Spencer's survey of agnostics' attitudes to religion and the Bible, found that even though most had not read the text, they were sure that it was mainly myth, nice stories perhaps, but unbelievable and certainly not historical truth. They mostly subscribed to the 'Chinese whispers' theory - that someone had told someone who told someone these strange stories, writing them down hundreds of years later, garbled and embroidered beyond any possible reconstruction.
These sceptics might be surprised by Luke's assertion that he is relying on eyewitness accounts. But of course when the eyewitnesses start talking about a virgin birth, healing miracles and the raising of the dead, their conviction that it is all fairy stories would be reinforced. So if there is any truth in the bible, for them it must be a kind of comforting 'spiritual' truth.
John, an eyewitness, wrote that 'these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that by believing you may have life'. The gospel writers were wholly convinced believers, who knew the evidence backed their belief. How can we, in our generation, communicate both the historical and spiritual authenticity of the 'the greatest story ever told'?
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