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Confusing History with Science

“Jesus: Darling of the Media” (Perspective, BR 12:04) repeats the same mistake that has dogged the quest for the “historical” Jesus almost from the start. Hershel Shanks writes that popular magazines have “failed to understand the difference between historical facts that are subject to verification, on the one hand, and miracles, on the other.” Shanks goes on to assert that historical “facts,” such as the question of Jesus’ birthplace, are subject to scientific proof or disproof, while questions involving supernatural events are not.

This is simply not true. No history is subject to scientific proof or disproof. Laboratory tests do not involve history because history cannot be replicated. All history is myth in that it is narrative built from evidentiary sources and constructed to explain the world or some part of the world.

Further, we test all history in the same manner. If we are to present good historical research, we test the history of Jesus’ life and teaching in the same manner that we test miracle narratives (in fact, given the evidence, in the only way we can test them). We examine and assess the coherence of the narratives, the sufficiency of narrated evidence and the reliability of witnesses. If, as Shanks contends, “science does not know of people who rise from the dead,” it also does not know of people who were born in Bethlehem (or Nazareth) in 3 B.C.E. (or 4 or 7 B.C.E.). “Science” simply cannot test these claims.