A Lawyer’s view of the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus 1 Jesus: Dead or Alive? A Lawyer’s view of the evidence for the Resurrection Neil Foster 1 Have you noticed that in recent years it seems that we now have two major mainstream religious holidays in Australia? I exclude Christmas, of course- hardly any Australians see any religious significance in that any more! But to some extent Easter is seen as still having some religious significance. The other holiday, though, which is really overtaking Easter as a “religious” holiday, is Anzac Day. This is increasingly becoming the day of the year when shops are shut- at least in the mornings. It is the day when crowds attend “religious” services. In fact, there are some interesting similarities between the two holidays we are celebrating. On both occasions we remember an event that involved a heroic sacrifice, which is said to have ongoing consequences today. Anzac Day we remember, of course, not as a victory, but simply because so many Australians were prepared to lay down their lives for their country. Similarly, Jesus’ death on the cross is seen as a sacrifice for the benefit of others. The key similarity I want to mention today, however, is this: that both Anzac Day and Easter Day are based on specific, verifiable, historical events. Of course, being history neither is “verifiable” in the scientific sense of being able to be repeated or directly observed (until someone invents the time machine!) But we can ask and answer the question as to whether or not these things happened by well-developed and well- tested techniques used by historians and by the courts. After all, every court case is something of an historical investigation, at least where questions of fact are important: the judge, or the jury if there is one involved, has to determine what actually happened at some point in the past. For Anzac Day we of course still had, at least until fairly recently, people who were alive and who were there on the day, who could tell us what they remembered. We have access to books written by those people, books written by others who interviewed those people, things dug up from Anzac Cove- a whole range of things that tell us what actually happened on April 25, 1915. We have almost exactly the same material to make a decision about the events of the first Easter. Of course that happened a long time ago, probably in 33 AD, nearly 2000 years ago. But what I want to stress is that that we have reports and evidence of the same sort- works written by eyewitnesses, works written by people who interviewed eyewitnesses, things we can dig up from the same era. And what I want to outline to you today is that that evidence can be assessed and weighed up, and supported as reliable, by the legal principles used in courts every day to make key decisions about people’s lives. 1 BA/LLB (UNSW), BTh (ACT), DipATh (Moore), LLM (Newc); Senior Lecturer, Newcastle Law School, University of Newcastle. Neil Foster