Simon Greenleaf was a great legal scholar and the author of a seminal book of legal apologetics titled The Testimony of the Evangelists. Numerous apologists tell variations of an inspiring story about how evidence for Jesus' resurrection supposedly convinced this eminent professor to convert from atheism to Christianity, but in this essay Robert G. Miller shows that the story has no basis in fact. In addition, Miller reports that he contacted a number of apologists who have spread this urban legend, and provided them with the evidence demonstrating that it is not true. Although many honest and sincere Christians deleted or corrected previous misinformation about the legend, the most popular apologists (e.g., Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, and Norman Geisler) continue to promote the falsehood
In the summer of 2023 retired lawyer Robert G. Miller invited legal apologist John Warwick Montgomery, then-editor of the Global Journal of Classical Theology, to participate in a truly legal assessment the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, but Montgomery declined citing time constraints. So Miller turned to systematically inviting as many other legal apologists as he could think of to demonstrate the resurrection of Jesus. Unfortunately, he could not find a single lawyer who would even discuss the possibility of facing an actual opponent in a procedure closer to a real adversarial process in court. Miller therefore took the initiative by drafting an unopposed brief providing three independent reasons why apologists cannot prove Jesus' resurrection by legal principles, in addition to critiquing standard legal apologetic arguments for the resurrection of Jesus. In this follow-up open letter, Miller invites the incoming editor of the Journal to respond to his unopposed brief, either directly or by slating editorial board members to do so, or to at least issue a call for papers responding to the brief. Will legal apologist continue to skirt their 1 Peter 3:15-16 mandate to answer the call to anyone who requests it?
Christian apologists often claim to have "strong" evidence for Jesus' resurrection—but compared to what? The arguments of legal apologists are a far cry from those found in actual courtrooms, for a court will compare the case at hand against previous cases (or precedent) to determine the strength of the evidence for a claim. But in case law the physical facts rule prevents the consideration of claims of supernatural events, so no such precedent exists. In this essay Robert Miller nevertheless compares the kind of evidence that apologists offer for the resurrection of Jesus against the evidence appealed to by Spiritualists and Mormons for their claims, as well as against the sort of "corroborating" evidence used to prop up urban legends. Miller concludes that when it comes to evidentiary factors like public demonstration, hearsay, multiple attestation, and early recordation, the evidence appealed to by Spiritualists—as poor as it is—is still far superior to that appealed to for Jesus' resurrection.
A month prior, retired lawyer Robert G. Miller challenged the Dean of the Regent University School of Law, or any legal apologist willing to take his place, to participate in a genuine adversarial debate with him emulating typical legal procedures, to be facilitated by Internet Infidels online. Since legal apologists regularly claim to be able to demonstrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead using legal argumentation, Miller's aim was to put this assertion to the test. Sadly, however, despite efforts to reach out to various legal professionals directly, to date no legal apologist has agreed to Miller's challenge. In this update, Miller informs readers of the next steps that he is mulling over in light of legal apologists' failure to show up.
Within evangelical circles, legal apologetics denotes attempts to defend the Christian faith using legal arguments that would ostensibly "prove" certain central tenets of Christianity by the standards of the American legal system. Like other forms of apologetics, however, it is rife with buzzwords and relies on no identifiable criteria by which these tenets might be "proven" by established legal standards. Legal apologists also tend to respond to the arguments of fictional opponents to their "cases" for core Christian doctrines rather than engage real-world legal opponents. Since this has a more propagandistic than truth-seeking function, in this essay retired lawyer Robert G. Miller challenges the Dean of the Regent University School of Law—or any legal apologist for that matter—to accept his invitation to agree to initiate a real online debate with him by September 29, 2023 using long-standing legal standards to "prove" the central Christian doctrine that Jesus rose from the dead.
