Judge: “Call your next witness, please.”

Counsel: “Your Honour, I call Jesus Christ to the stand!”

Imagine Our Lord and Saviour reciting the oath to tell the truth, withstanding cross-examination and presenting the most epic first-person account of how He vanquished death itself through His glorious Resurrection on the third day. What a picture.

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Peter Martino’s new book, Resurrection on Trial: A Judicial Inquiry into the Christian Claim of the Resurrection of Jesus (Sophia Institute Press), does not, in truth, subject the Messiah Himself to scrutiny. The attorney and law professor at St. Thomas University College of Law in Miami instead offers a novel approach to considering and championing the foundational belief of Christianity through the prism of a legal case rather than a theological matter.

Believing that Christ purchased eternal life for all who believe in Him, of course, represents the ultimate act of faith. Nevertheless, Martino, a man whose curriculum vitae is defined by over 40 years of examining hard evidence, applied that acumen to produce this work of analytical rigour.

The former U.S. Navy nuclear submarine officer (1985-1990) and chief operating officer of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Infrastructure Protection (2003-2004) weighs Scripture, early historical sources, philosophy, science and arguments from prominent believers and skeptics and then presents a cogent judgment in the style of a Supreme Court opinion.

Notably, Martino had to embark on his own journey to Jesus to ready himself to pen this book. For many years, the man raised in a Catholic household engrossed himself in “systems and things that can be proven” and admitted that his “faith became distant.”

The now 62-year-old’s journey toward the truth found in Christ began with his Amazon Alexa device misunderstanding one of his spoken commands. Erringly, Martino was directed to a podcast of American author Eric Metaxas discussing his book Is Atheism Dead? He found what he heard so intriguing he decided to read the text. This work of Christian apologetics sparked a journey of reading many more books and an increasing desire to know the Son of God and believe His ultimate miracle.

“I'm not the kind of person that usually believes things from blind faith,” declared Martino. “I now believe that we probably use the word faith improperly. I like the Greek version of it, which means ‘trusted confidence.’ And I can now say I have trusted confidence in the Resurrection, having done this research.”

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His central thesis is that the cumulative strength of all the evidence surmounts and overwhelms accounts attacking various portions of the Biblical record. Paul’s conversion and early testimony, reported sightings of Christ after death, frightened disciples transforming into courageous evangelists, early witnesses enduring persecution even though there was seemingly no material benefit and the Resurrection proclamation catching fire in the city where Jesus was sentenced to death in sum is potently convincing.  

But presenting an affirmative case only represents a job half done. Disproving competing claims from skeptics was required to bring this work to fruition.

“I addressed the Bart Ehrmans of the world, the Gerd Lüdemanns and everybody that made an argument — I even went after Stephen Hawking — and took their claims apart,” said Martino. “I did it as a lawyer. It wasn't hard because I followed the evidence, and I was able to disprove things, and then I looked at their methodology.”

Ehrman, the self-described “agnostic atheist” Bible scholar teaching at the University of North Carolina, textually criticizes the historical Jesus, the New Testament and the early Christian movement. Lüdemann is a German Biblical scholar seeking to discredit the sayings and history of Jesus. Hawking, the late famed English astrophysicist and cosmologist, is not the only scientific figure whose claims Martino refutes in Resurrection on Trial. He challenges the non-believing consensus shared by many in this field that miracles and the account of how God created the universe cannot be so because it violates the natural laws.

“If you accept that God created the universe — I do — then God acts outside the universe rather than inside the universe,” said Martino. “If God acts outside, the natural laws of the universe can be altered by Him. Furthermore, what are natural laws? They are what we look at empirically, observe, (hypothesize) and then we test under the scientific method. That's what's happened for decades, centuries, millennia. But there are many things that we haven't learned about the way the universe operates. Our understanding of natural law continues to grow.”

Humanity’s journey to gain greater understanding of our world’s mysterious nature mirrors the personal wisdom-seeking metamorphosis Martino has embarked on in his own life, just on a grander scale.

During his years in the military, Martino and his compatriots hunted for truth about America’s enemies and how to achieve victory. As president and CEO of the XRT financial software enterprise in the 1990s, he sought to verify the fiduciary wherewithal of various companies. Now, he said, “I’m seeking truth on a much higher level.”

The trusted confidence he has gained during his journey kindled a desire to spread the good news about Christ resurrecting from death, not only through his new book but also in person. Seatmates during a recent flight to Boston and the rental car agent were keen to discuss.

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“There's definitely interest because I’m approaching it from this perspective — I'm not asking them to believe anything I'm saying. Follow the evidence with me. When you follow the evidence, and you reach the conclusion, I think it's really compelling,” said Martino.

Visit sophiainstitute.com to learn more.