Faith on Trial by Pamela Binnings Ewen Page B

shifts to the other side. When the burden of proof shifts, a skeptic should be held to the same standards you’ve used; that is, he or she must offer rebuttal evidence of equivalent weight. In the absence of convincing rebuttal evidence, in a court of law, the judge will instruct a jury that a verdict finding that the facts asserted are true is the only rational inference.
    i. When engaging in debate with another person, this shift in the burden of proof can apply at any stage, or level, of the discussion.
    1. Rule: When faced with a challenge that facts you are asserting, and for which you’ve provided evidence, are not true, the person making that claim must be required to present equally convincing evidence in rebuttal in order to move on to the next step in the discussion.
    c. Construct a closing argument to answer the question: How do you know the Gospel stories about Jesus are true?
    d. Why is it our problem to defend Christian faith?
    e. Consider staging a debate or your own trial on these issues, or related questions.

Notes
    Introduction
    1. Sarah Boxer, “Science Confronts the Unknowable,” The New York Times, January 24, 1998, A15. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation was the grantor.
    2. W. Browne, “Physicists Study the Honeybee for Clues to Complex Problems,” The New York Times, April 7, 1998, B14.
    Chapter 1
    1. Darlene Routier was sentenced by a jury to death by injection on February 4, 1997. Even though the evidence was circumstantial and no eyewitnesses were ever found, the jurors took only ten hours to reach a verdict of guilty. See John W. Gonzalez, “Jury Orders Death Penalty for Routier,” Houston Chronicle, February 5, 1997, 1.
    2. Federal Rule of Evidence 402. The Federal Rules of Evidence used herein are as amended on December 1, 2011.
    3. Federal Rule of Evidence 401.
    4. Federal Rule of Evidence 401.
    5. McCormick on Evidence (4th ed.), ed. John W. Strong, vol. 1, Section 185, 773.
    6. Ibid., 777.
    7. Fifth Circuit Pattern Jury Instructions-Civil. 2006. Section 3.1 General Instructions for Charge.
    8. John W. Gonzalez, Houston Chronicle, February 1, 1997, 29.
    9. Fifth Circuit Pattern Jury Charges: 3.1. In a civil case where a party may ultimately be deprived of individual rights, for example, termination of parental rights, evidence may be required to be “clear and convincing,” a slightly higher standard. See Strong, McCormick on Evidence (4th ed.), vol. 2, Section 340, 442.
    10. John Noble Wilford, “Wary Astronomers Ponder an Accelerating Universe,” The New York Times, March 3, 1998, B11.
    Chapter Two
    1. Philip Wesley Comfort, ed., The Origin of the Bible (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 1992), 181, 195.
    2. Ibid., 183.
    3. Ibid., 180, 190–91.
    4. Bruce Manning Metzger, The Text of the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 34; also see: F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? 5th rev. ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 16–17.
    5. In legal terminology “hearsay” is an oral statement or a written assertion (and sometimes conduct) other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. See Federal Rule of Evidence 801.
    6. Federal Rule of Evidence 803 (16).
    7. Federal Rule of Evidence 901(b)(8).
    8. Compton v. Davis Oil Co., 607 F. Supp. 1221, 1229 (Dist. of Wyoming, 1985).
    9. “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Tarsians,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. A. Cleveland Coxe (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1986), 107.
    10. Seutonius, “Suet. Vita Claudii, xxv.4,” in Documents of the Christian Church, 2nd ed., selected and ed. Henry Bettenson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), 2. Also see: A. N. Wilson, Paul: The Mind of the Apostle (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 94–106.
    11. Paul Wilson, The Mind of the Apostle, 99–100.
    12. Tacitus, “Annales, xv.44. The Neronian Persecution,” in Bettenson, Documents of the