Into the courtroom, attorneys may bring expert witnesses.  [W. Mark Lanier, Christianity on Trial: A Lawyer Examines the Christian Faith, pp. 190-91 (2014)].  Identified by topic, some of my top choices for experts include the following.  For those who have passed, their books serve as their expert reports.

Resurrection

For the Resurrection, top choices for experts include Gary Habermas (historical defense of Resurrection) and N. T. Wright (historical basis for empty tomb and bodily Resurrection).

Dr. Gary Habermas (Distinguished Research Professor, Liberty U.)

  • Scope of Testimony:  Historical Evidence for Resurrection
  • Publications. Over 50 books, 80 book chapters, and 100 articles, with many focused on the Resurrection.
  • Leading Scholarship.  Most extensive & in-depth analysis appears in recent 4-volume series – On the Resurrection – spanning over 3,000 pages & 4,500 sources (2024-25).
  • Winning Debate.  Overwhelmingly won Resurrection debate over leading atheist at the time (Anthony Flew).
  • Historical Standards.  Strong command of historical evidence & standards in defending Resurrection.

Dr. N. T. Wright (English New Testament Scholar)

  • Scope of Testimony: Empty Tomb & Bodily Resurrection.
  • Publications. Over 100 books (not including book chapters) focused primarily on the New Testament.
  • In-Depth Scholarship. Massive 4-volume series – Christian Origins & the Question of God (over 5,000 pages), including The Resurrection of the Son of God (817 pages) and Jesus & The Victory of God (over 700 pages).
  • Historical Research. Thorough analysis of Christian, Jewish, and Greco-Roman history on Resurrection.
  • Key Finding # 1. “we shall discover substantial unanimity of the basic point: virtually all the early Christians for whom we have solid evidence affirmed that Jesus of Nazareth had been bodily raised from the dead.” [pp. 9-10].
  • Key Finding # 2. “The two things which must be regarded as historically secure when we talk about the first Easter are the emptiness of the tomb and the meetings with the risen Jesus.” [Id., p. 686].

Eyewitnesses 

For eyewitness testimony for the New Testament, the top expert choice would be Richard Bauckham (historical evidence for New Testament eyewitnesses).  For a practical application, J. Warner Wallace has extensive experience in assessing witness testimony from written statements in cold-case homicides.

Dr. Richard Bauckham (English New Testament Scholar)

  • Scope of Testimony.  Gospels supported by eyewitness testimony.
  • Definitive Text.   Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (2017) (615 pages).  
  • Reviews.  Described by Dr. Habermas as “sophisticated” and “most noteworthy” work that “may well be the single best book of all here” on Gospel reliability.  
  • Women Eyewitnesses.  Superb chapter on “The Women and the Resurrection: The Credibility of Their Stories” in Gospel Women (2002).
  • Key Finding.  “in the period up to the writing of the Gospels, gospel traditions were connected with named and known eyewitnesses, people who had heard the teaching of Jesus from his lips and committed it to memory, people who had witnessed the events of his ministry, death, and resurrection.” [p. 93]

J. Warner Wallace (Former LAPD homicide detective)

  • Scope of Testimony.  Similarity of Gospel eyewitness testimony to written witness statements.
  • Background.  Served in multiple positions in L.A. Police Department, including as cold-case homicide detective.
  • Specialized Expertise.  Interviewed numerous witnesses and analyzed written witness statements. 
  • Key Finding.  “I had interviewed hundreds (if not thousands) of eyewitnesses and suspects.  I had become familiar with the nature of eyewitness statements, and I understood how testimony was evaluated in a court of law.  Something about the Gospels struck me as more than mythological storytelling.   The Gospels resembled ancient eyewitness accounts.” [pp. 19-20].

Miracles – Modern

Miracles still happen today.  For modern miracles, the top expert choice would be Craig Keener who has extensively documented such miracles around the world.

Dr. Craig Keener (New Testament Scholar & Professor)

  • Scope of Testimony.  Miracles still happening in modern times, thus contradicting skeptic claims that miracles are not possible.
  • Detailed Study.  Many modern miracles researched & confirmed worldwide in 2-volume work (Miracles)
  • Key Finding.  “Hundreds of millions of people worldwide claim to have experienced or witnessed what they believe are miracles.  Eyewitness claims to dramatic recoveries appear in a wide variety of cultures, among Christians often successfully emulating models of healings found in the Gospels and Acts.” [Miracles, p. 263].
  • Critical Confirmation.  Review by agnostic scholars who found data for Keener’s present-day miracles to be “highly probable.”  See  Habermas, On the Resurrection: Evidences, p. 90].

Miracles – Ancient

In recent times, scholars have generally conceded the historical record of Jesus’ miracles.  For these New Testament miracles, the top expert choice would be Gordon Twelftree.

Dr. Gordon Twelftree (New Testament Professor)

  • Scope of Testimony.  Miracles in New Testament satisfy recognized historical criteria for authenticity.
  • Publications.  Author of multiple publications on miracles in the New Testament.
  • Historical Criteria.  Applied well-recognized historical criteria to evaluating miracles in the New Testament.
  • Assessment.  “From a historically critical examination of the Gospels, there is good evidence and grounds for saying that the historical Jesus not only performed miracles but that he has an extraordinarily powerful healer of unparalleled ability and reputation.”  [Jesus: The Miracle Worker, p. 345]

Reliability – New Testament

For the overall reliability of the New Testament, the top expert choice would be Craig Blomberg who has written and lectured extensively on this topic.  In addition, Lydia McGrew would testify on how the Gospel accounts and Acts fit together like “puzzle pieces,” just as real eyewitness testimony does.

Dr. Craig Blomberg (American New Testament Scholar)

  • Scope of Testimony.  Overall reliability of New Testament.
  • Publications.  Authored or edited over 30 books, primarily on the New Testament.
  • Broad Expertise.  Strong command of Scriptures, historical evidence, and rebuttals to skeptics’ allegations.
  • Overall Reliability.  Analysis of full range of topics on New Testament reliability, ranging from authorship, dating, textual validity, and miracles to corroboration by Christian & non-Christian sources and archaeology.
  • Key Finding.  “the amount of solid scholarship that has been produced in the last forty-five years internationally that supports the historical trustworthiness of this or that portion of the Bible has grown exponentially.” [New Testament, p. xxi].

Dr. Lydia McGrew (Analytic Philosopher in Epistemology)

  • Scope of Testimony.  Reliability of New Testament based on undesigned coincidences.
  • Leading Current Expert.  Detailed & updated analysis of “undesigned coincidences” where independent eyewitness accounts fit together like “puzzle pieces.”
  • Key Finding.  “The occurrence of multiple undesigned coincidences between and among these documents supports the conclusion that the Gospels and Acts are historically reliable and that they come from people close to the facts who were attempting to tell truthfully what they knew.”  [p. 14].
  • Corroboration.  “I was immediately struck by the inadvertent support each [Gospel] writer provided for the other.  The accounts puzzled together just the way one would expect from independent eyewitnesses.”  [Wallace, p. 202; see above].

Reliability – Acts

 For the reliability of Acts (which corroborates the core Gospel facts like the miracles, death, and Resurrection of Jesus), the top expert choices would be Colin Hemer (leading scholar on Acts) and A. N. Sherwin-White (classical historian).  In both cases, we would submit their written reports on the historical reliability of Acts.

Dr. Colin Hemer (Classical & New Testament Scholar)

  • Scope of Testimony.  Overall reliability of Acts.
  • Combined Expertise.  Both a Classical historian and New Testament scholar.
  • Deep Research.  Produced “a steady stream of meticulously researched essays” before writing leading history on Acts.
  • Key Finding.  “these [corroborating] perspectives all converged to support the general reliability of the [Acts] narrative, through the details so intricately yet often unintentionally woven into that narrative.” [p. 412].
  • Corroboration.  “With painstaking detail, Hemer identifies 84 facts in the last 16 chapters of Acts that have been confirmed by historical and archaeological research.”  [Geisler & Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, p. 256].

Dr. A. N. Sherwin-White (Ancient Roman Historian & Scholar)

  • Scope of Testimony.  Historical reliability of Acts.
  • Roman History Expertise.  Multiple publications on Roman history, including The Roman Citizenship, The Letters of Pliny, Roman Foreign Policy, & Ancient Rome.
  • Historical Criteria.  Applied same historical criteria to Acts that other historians applied to ancient Roman history.
  • Key Finding.  “For Acts the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming. . . . [A]ny attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matters of detail must now appear absurd.  Roman historians have long taken it for granted.” [p. 189].

Deity of Jesus

  For the deity of Lord Jesus Christ, the top expert choices would be two of the leading scholars on the early Christian worship of Jesus: Larry Hurtado and Richard Bauckham.

Dr. Larry Hurtado (English New Testament Scholar & Professor)

  • Scope of Testimony.  Historical analysis of early Christian worship of Jesus as Lord & Son of God.
  • Leading Scholarship.  Recognized as one of leading scholars on early high Christology of Jesus Christ.
  • Historical Analysis.  Researched Christianity in context of Jewish monotheism in the Second Temple period.
  • Key Finding.  “In the earliest Christian community, Jesus was already understood to be risen and exalted to God’s right hand in heaven, active in the community by his Spirit, and coming in the future as ruler and judge of the world.” [p. 128].

Dr. Richard Bauckham (English New Testament Scholar)

  • Scope of Testimony.  Historical analysis of early Christian worship of Jesus as Lord & Son of God.
  • Leading Scholarship.  Recognized as one of leading scholars on early high Christology of Jesus Christ.
  • Historical Analysis.  Researched Christianity in context of Jewish monotheism in the Second Temple period.
  • Key Finding.  “In the earliest Christian community, Jesus was already understood to be risen and exalted to God’s right hand in heaven, active in the community by his Spirit, and coming in the future as ruler and judge of the world.” [p. 128].