Testimony

Originally posted by Grand_Moff_Gav
To you, how reliable is a person's testimony? What factors do we need to take into account?

The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints states that God and Jesus (Why they separated in their communication I'll never know) came to Joseph Smith one night and told him about the future of Christianity, an angel then came and directed him to find some golden plates which he translated with some friends- Mormonism was born.

This statement is based on the testimony of Smith, three witnesses and another eight witnesses, all who testify to have seen these Golden Plates and maybe even the angel. Is this testimony reliable? Smith made himself President of a Church and became quite powerful, also, many of the 3,8 witnesses were his relatives who also gained...however some of the witnesses fell out with Smith and subsequently were kicked out the Church...but they never retracted their testimony...does this add to its reliability?

In court, Mr. Peter Anderson, a black mechanic was on stand for murder, the key witness of the prosecution was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and obviously hated blacks- however he did tell the truth under oath and Mr. Anderson was indeed guilty of the murder...however...would you believe the key witness? Or would you assume his testimony unreliable due to his membership of the KKK?

In both these examples, the testifiers have something to gain so it is understandable that their testimony would be treated with suspicion.

However, take the apostles, who post-Christs' death wandered the known world spreading Jesus' gospel (writing it down was a Roman thing and it was common for stories to be spread by word of mouth though as we see from some letters they could write and did) anyway they apostles didn't really have a comfortable life running from the Roman Empire but they did it anyway, indeed they were killed for spreading these words...but not just killed, Crucified one of the most gruesome painful deaths imaginable. Why? They didn't gain very much, didn't profit from the riches that their Church would eventually get...so is their testimony reliable? They choose extremely painful deaths to spread what they believed to be the Word of God...religious fanatics perhaps? Though...they had known Jesus in life, and seen him die...if their testimony is false...who made up the resurrection, why and why were they willing to die for this lie?

Ok, final example, your friend comes to you and tells you something that you find hard to believe...say the world at the back of the wardrobe...is the person mad...you'd probably think they must be but upon closer inspection you could conclude they're not, they don't lie...so must we assume their testimony is correct?

If their is no motive for lying, or in fact an incentive not to lie why would they?

there have been a couple of statements that head in the right direction for credibility of witnesses' testimonies. There are things that support accepting accounts and things that diminish them.

1 - credibility of the witness - Is he honest, good memory, etc
2 - corroboration - are there any other witnesses or any physical evidence
3 - ulterior motives - does the witness stand to gain anything from his testimony

I think that these are the main things used to weigh testimonies in both legal and historical settings. using these we can look at your examples.

Joseph Smith - on point one, we've got a blank. We have many witnesses from the time who claim he was a stand-up guy, but we also have many people who didn't (some of them ended up killing him). There seems to be no neutral accounts on the matter, people were either his friends or his enemies.
On point 2 corroboration. Yes, at least with regard to the Book of Mormon there were 3 people who claimed to see both the angel and the gold plates. there were another 8 who saw the plates only. Now we go back to credibility with them. In this case almost all of them were considered honest and reliable men by those around him. As you said some of them left the church, but maintained their testimonies despite their estrangement. That weighs in on accepting them.
Point 3 - Well, None of the early mormon leaders gained much monetarily. Joseph Smith was bankrupt most of his life, in fact, he was trying to pay back people who had been burned by the collapse of the kirtland bank right up about to his death. You could count prestige as a motive, but not for those who left the church never to reconcile with it.
In the Case of Josephe Smith and the other witnesses of the Book of Mormon, I think that you have to accept that they believed it. Either it happened or they were all decieved somehow.

Your KKK guy didn't have a lot of info, but point 1 seems to be agains be against believing, I don't know what corroboration there was to point 2, and point 3 is against believing again. I'm guessing that there was some other corroboration in this case, otherwise, I doubt many would convict based on the testimony alone.

The early apostles - 1 - unknown as most of the things we know about them are from themselves. Although there are some writings that survive from the 2nd century that are only second hand that suggest that they were held in esteem. 2 - Again they seem to corroborate each other, this supports their testimony. 3- as you said they died for what they believed. There really was no up side, unless you count the prestige of the poor and outcast. As for deluding themselves, I could buy that if they just lived miserable lives, but I can't really see any sane person going dying when just recanting would spare them.

Oh, I forgot, there was one other criteria used in history, legal too i think. How close to the source was it? 1rst hand account? 2nd or 3rd? how close to the event were things written down. I think those are obvious here. Josephe Smith wrote down or told his experiences to others almost as they happened(with the exception of the first vision which was happened when he was about 14 and first written down in his 30's). I assume that the trial was within a couple of years of the event, and the first testimony of the apostles was written down at least 30-50 years after the fact

Having impaired perception, having impaired memory, having inconsistent testimony, having bias, prejudice or expectations, not having a reputation for telling the truth, later discussions with other witnesses and stress must be considered.

The problem isn’ t as much that people lie (although it certainly happens), but that people don’ t perceive what they think they perceived and that their memories are very unreliable. Even if we reasonably accurate perceived some experience, it does not necessarily stay perfectly intact in memory.