God's Not Dead 2 (2016)

J. Warner Wallace: Jim Warner Wallace

Quotes 

• Tom Endler : Would you state your name and experience for the record?

  Jim Warner Wallace : My name is James Warner Wallace. I'm a retired homicide detective from Los Angeles County.

  Tom Endler : And are you the author of the book "Cold Case Christianity"?

  Jim Warner Wallace : Yes, I am.

  Tom Endler : Can you share the subtitle of the book with the court, please?

  Jim Warner Wallace : "A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels."

  Tom Endler : Would I be correct in saying that your... your duties as a homicide detective include investigating cold-case homicides?

  Jim Warner Wallace : Yes, that is and was my expertise.

  Tom Endler : Don't most of those cases get solved with DNA evidence?

  Pete Kane : Objection. Leading. And counsel is testifying again, Your Honor.

• Tom Endler : How many of your cold cases were solved through the use of DNA evidence?

  Jim Warner Wallace : None. Not one. That's, uh, often popular on TV, but our department's never had the good fortune of solving a cold case with DNA.

  Tom Endler : Well, how do most of these cases get solved?

  Jim Warner Wallace : Often by examining eyewitness claims, witness claims that were made many years earlier, even though often our witnesses are now deceased.

  Tom Endler : Forgive my ignorance, Mr. Wallace, but how is that possible?

  Jim Warner Wallace : Well, we have a number of techniques we can use to test the reliability of an eyewitness, including something called forensic statement analysis. That's a discipline where we scrutinize the statements of eyewitnesses and look at what they choose to minimize, what they choose to emphasize, what they omit altogether, how they expand time or contract time. And when we examine these kinds of eyewitness accounts, we can usually tell who's lying and who's telling the truth, and even who the guilty party is.

  Tom Endler : And did you apply this skill set anytime outside of your official capacity?

  Jim Warner Wallace : Yes, I applied my expertise to the death of Jesus at the hands of the Romans, and I actually looked at the gospels as I would any other set of forensic statements. Within a matter of months, I determined that the four gospels, written from different perspectives, contained the eyewitness accounts about the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

  Tom Endler : And did you consider that the four accounts might be part of a conspiracy, designed to promote belief in a fledgling faith?

  Jim Warner Wallace : Yeah, you have to consider conspiracies when assessing eyewitness accounts, but successful conspiracies typically involve the fewest number of people. It's a lot easier for two people to lie and keep a secret than it is for 20. And that's really the problem with the conspiracy theories related to the apostles in the 1st century. There are just far too many of them trying to hold this conspiracy for far too long a period of time. And far worse, they're experiencing pressure like no other, unimaginable pressure. Every one of these folks was tortured and died for what they claimed to see, and none of them ever recanted their story. So the idea that, um, this is a conspiracy in the 1st century is just really unreasonable. Instead, what I see in the gospels is something I call unintended eyewitness support statements.

• Tom Endler : What's an unintended eyewitness support statement?

  Jim Warner Wallace : [to the judge]  If I can borrow your Bible?

  [taking and opening it] 

  Jim Warner Wallace : Let me go to the Gospel of, uh, Matthew for an example of this. I'll start with a passage in which Jesus is in front of Caiaphas at a hearing. It says here, "Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. Others slapped him and said, 'Prophesy to us, Christ. Who hit you?'." Now, that seems like a very simple request, given that the people who hit him are standing right in front of him. What... this makes no sense. What... why would it be prophecy to be able to tell you who hit you? But it's not until you read Luke that you get an answer to this. He says, "The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. They blindfolded him and demanded, 'Prophesy, who hit you?'." So, now we know why this was a challenge, 'cause Luke tells us the thing that Matthew left out, that he was actually blindfolded at the time this took place. This is very common, this kind of unintentional eyewitness support that fills in a detail that the first witness left out. After years of scrutinizing these gospels using the template that I use to determine if an eyewitness is reliable, I concluded that the four gospels in this book contained the reliable accounts of the actual words of Jesus.

  Tom Endler : And that's to include the statements quoted by Ms. Wesley in her class?

  Jim Warner Wallace : Absolutely.

• Pete Kane : Detective Wallace, I'm not gonna try to match biblical knowledge with you. But isn't it true that these gospel accounts vary widely in what they say, that there are numerous discrepancies between these accounts?

  Jim Warner Wallace : Absolutely, but that's exactly what we should expect.

  Pete Kane : I don't quite understand that.

  Jim Warner Wallace : Well, reliable eyewitness accounts always differ slightly in the way they recall the story. They're coming to it from different geographic perspectives, their history, even where they are located in the room. When I examined the gospels, I was trying to determine if these were accurate, reliable accounts, in spite of any differences there might be between the accounts.

  Pete Kane : Ah, and as a devout Christian, you feel you succeeded?

  Jim Warner Wallace : Ah, Mr. Kane. I think you misunderstand me. When I began this study, I was a devout atheist. I began examining the gospels as a committed skeptic, not as a believer. You see, I wasn't raised in a Christian environment, although I do think I have an unusually high regard for the value of evidence. I'm not a Christian because I was raised that way or because I hoped it would satisfy some need or accomplish some goal. I'm simply a Christian because it's evidentially true.

  Pete Kane : Motion to strike, Your Honor.

  Judge Stennis : Granted. Jury's instructed to ignore Detective Wallace's last remarks.

  Pete Kane : No further questions.