An Englishman, John Singleton Copley, better known as Lord Lyndhurst, is recognized as one of the greatest legal minds in British history. He was the solicitor-general of the British government, attorney-general of Great Britain, three times high chancellor of England, and elected as high steward of the University of Cambridge, thus holding in one lifetime the highest offices ever conferred upon a judge in Great Britain.
After Copley’s death, some personal papers were discovered which contained his comments concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the light of legal evidence, and why he became a Christian: “I know pretty well what evidence is: and I tell you, such evidence as that for the resurrection has never broken down yet.”
Dr. Simon Greenleaf was a famous Royall Professor of Law at Harvard University who was primarily responsible for Harvard’s eminent position among law schools in the United States. Greenleaf produced a famous, three-volume work, A Treatise on the Law of Evidence, which is still considered one of the greatest authorities on the subject in the entire literature of legal procedure.
With a lawyer’s skill, Greenleaf put his principles to work as he examined the historical evidence surrounding the resurrection of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Bible and other historical writings. After a very careful examination, he wrote a book entitled An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice.
Also, the Lord Chief Justice of England, Lord Darling, once said that “no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true.”