The eyewitness testimony of those who say they experienced the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is found throughout the New Testament. Luke 1:2 tells us that the events described in that Gospel came from eyewitnesses. The Apostle Peter writes in 2 Peter 1:16 that he and the other apostles were eyewitnesses to the majesty of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 9 and 15, Paul says that he has seen the resurrected Jesus himself. Surely eyewitness testimony from an honest person is the best and most trustworthy evidence we can hear.

Eyewitnesses always lead us to the truth, don’t they?

According to a growing body of scientific research, perhaps they don’t. The American Psychological Foundation gave its 2013 Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement to Elizabeth F. Loftus who has shown that eyewitnesses, however unintentional, often give a distorted testimony. Dr. Loftus, and other researchers in her field, study memory distortion and the creation of false memories. Eyewitnesses, who believe with all their heart that they are telling the truth of what happened, can actually be reporting a distorted memory. False memories are caused by many things, including leading questions, hearing the reports of others, or even expectations of what a witness thinks others want to hear.

Studies consistently show that around 30% of people are susceptible to developing false memories. Under some circumstances, over 50% of people tested develop false memories.

False memories are sometimes a distortion of an event witnessed, but sometimes they can be a completely fabricated event. Participants in these studies, through misinformation and intentional suggestions, have been given completely fictitious memories, such as riding in a hot air balloon, getting lost in a mall, or getting sick from a certain food. These false memories are personal, carry strong emotion, affect behavior, have detailed imagery, and can persist indefinitely if not corrected. Memories have proven to be quite malleable.

Can we then truly trust the eyewitness testimony of Peter and the other apostles about the resurrection of Christ and other miracles?

How can we tell the difference between vivid memory illusion and the actual truth? While there are conflicting results in studies that have tried to find a clear method of distinguishing false memory from actual memory, three ways of identifying true memories have stood out.

The first way, shown through scientific study, to increase confidence that a memory is true is to consider the exposure time to an event. Repetition and long exposure times greatly reduce the likelihood of developing a false memory associated with an event.

The apostles did not just see one miracle, but many miracles. The resurrected Jesus appeared not just once, but several times. Jesus would appear and then leave their sight for a time only to reappear again at a later time. He also stayed with them for 40 days before his ascension. The apostles had repeated encounters with miracles during the life of Jesus and repeated encounters with Jesus after his resurrection. They also had these encounters over a long period of time. This gives strong weight to their memory of those events being accurate and not a distortion of what actually happened.

The second way to gain confidence that memories are accurate is to consider the continuity of memories with events before and after the reported event. True memories have a set of associated, contextual memories that do not exist for false memories.

The Gospels and Acts give a narrative that includes a continuum of memories leading up to the miracle stories and describing what happened after each event. The Gospels and Acts report a consistent timeline of events that lead up to the resurrection of Jesus and what happened in Jerusalem after His ascension. These are all contextual memories that give the resurrection and other miracles a clear place in the timeline of the apostle’s lives. This provides evidence that these events are not false memories.

A third way to gain confidence, according to scientific studies, that memories of eyewitnesses are not false memories is demonstrated confidence in the narrative being told. Increased confidence is associated with increased accuracy of memory. When a memory is corrupted or false, measurable hesitation occurs when retelling the event, and the person does not always stay committed to the memory under pressure.

The apostles demonstrated strong confidence in the narrative they wrote and preached. The book of Acts shows us how bold the Apostles and other eyewitnesses of the resurrection became when preaching about Jesus. None of them ever backed down, even under the pain of death, from preaching the truth about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Science tells us that not all eyewitness testimony is true testimony, even for witnesses who think they are being honest. But the quality of the eyewitness testimony we have been given in the New Testament holds up even under the pressure of 21st century research. The three agreed upon tests for considering the reliability of eyewitness testimony are all met in the New Testament witness to Jesus Christ.