On a method for the appraisal of evidences for Christianity

A friend of mine provided quite some interesting insights about how to go about the question about whether God exists, and whether Christianity is the correct religion. He says that it is necessary for one to consider the broad framework of the arguments being presented for Christ, and not to over-focus on one aspect of the case for Christianity to the exclusion of other evidences being put forth for the case. The various components of the case theory for Christianity varies in strength. They are usually disputable on their own. For example, historicity of individual instances of the bible may be disputed. Divine revelation alone remains dubitable because of problems such as the difficulty of attributing the experience to the Christian God. However, when all the evidences are examined in totality, they present a very strong argument for the truth of the Christian religion.

An analogy he gave was about how evidence works in the court of law. There may be more than one way to supply evidence. Witness testimony may be one of them. The presence of articles, and motives of the suspect may be another. Now, the evaluation of a case is made on the preponderance of evidences. One aspect of the evidence may be weak, or even inimical to the case theory. But the appraisal of the case theory is strengthened when the various evidences are taken into consideration.

I was thinking that there may be something about case theory fitting the evidences that strengthens the case theory. And this is especially so if the evidences are discovered after the case theory had been formulated. There are cases of archeological findings that corroborates with the historical narrative of the bible. For example, the finding of Noah’s ark in turkey, or the discovery of the ancient dwelling place of a particular clan that was mentioned in the bible. Now, on its own, these examples remain disputable. It is not conclusive whether the structure that was discovered in Turkey really was Noah’s ark. Or it may not be conclusive whether the various findings about the historicity of Jesus are true. But when taken together and compared against the case theory of Christianity as provided by the narrative of the Bible, the strength of the evidences is enhanced, as well as the case theory itself.

I am not sure what historians think about such a method of evaluating evidences for history. And I wonder what the court of law thinks of such a philosophy behind the appraisal of evidences as well. I am wondering whether the evidence module that I am going to take in law school next semester would enlighten me more about how evidences should be weighted and evaluated.