Chapter 5: Respect the Chain of Custody: Make Sure No One Has Tampered with the Evidence!
Jason isn’t the only person who’s starting to think like a detective. You and Hannah decide to examine the skateboard for more evidence. You peel up the corner of the gold sticker and discover the initials “LB” scratched on the board.
“Are those Lincoln’s initials?” you ask.
“No,” says Hannah. “Remember? His last name was Singleton.”
You, Hannah, and Daniel decide to meet with Mr. Warren, the school custodian, who has worked at the school for three years. He’s friendly and helpful, and you ask him about the old shed. “It was locked up for years,” he says, “after we moved our tools to the storage area in the new gym.”
Hannah asks, “Did you know the skateboard was in there?”
Mr. Warren nods. “I almost forgot that thing. I heard about it from the custodians who worked here before me. A boy named Lincoln gave it to Mr. Templeton, the first custodian of the school. When he retired, he told the temporary custodian, Mr. Jenkins, about it, and Mr. Jenkins told me. I didn’t really want to throw it away, and one day a nice, polite girl asked if she could have it, so I gave it to her. Then sometime later it appeared in the shed again—and there it stayed, until you guys found it.”
Daniel asks an important question: “Mr. Warren, did you know the girl? What did she look like?”
Mr. Warren scratches his chin. “I don’t really remember—it was so long ago.”
“Did the skateboard have the gold sticker when you first saw it?” Hannah asks.
John considered his gospel to be an important piece of direct evidence (eyewitness testimony), just like Mr. Warren.
“No, that must have been added by the girl who owned it last,” he replies.
The following Tuesday, you report what you’ve learned about the skateboard.
“Hmm,” says Detective Jeffries. “I think you’re definitely on to something with the ‘LB,’ and you’ve also discovered something important that will help us answer Jason’s question from last week about whether the Gospels were changed over time. Let’s talk about the ‘chain of custody.’”
“What’s that?” you ask.
Evidence Tampering
We trace the “chain of custody” for each piece of evidence to see if it was changed over time. We ask two important questions:
“A record of who had the evidence and when. It’s like a chain. Each person in the chain is a link who handed the skateboard to the next person in the chain.” Jeffries steps up to the whiteboard again. “Let’s draw what we know. First, the skateboard belonged to Lincoln, then he gave it to Mr. Templeton, who later gave it to Mr. Jenkins, who gave it to Mr. Warren, who then gave it to a girl, who eventually put it back in the shed.”
“Now we know everyone who had contact with the skateboard, and we even know when the sticker was added,” says Jeffries.
But Jason looks confused. “So how does this help answer my question about the Gospels?” he asks.
“Well,” starts Jeffries, “you were wondering if anything was added to the story of Jesus. If we could somehow trace the chain of custody for the Gospels, we could figure out who had contact with them and if anything was added.”
“But why can’t we just look at the original copies to see what they say?” asks Hannah.
“Great question.” Jeffries pulls up a chair next to the cadets. He doesn’t even really fit in the chair but leans off from it with his long legs sticking way out in front of him. “This is a tough case, because the original Gospels weren’t as sturdy as the skateboard. They were written on papyrus, a paper-like material used in ancient times. It was good for writing, but not so good for lasting. So, we no longer have the originals. That’s why the chain of custody is so important. It can help tell us what the original Gospels said about Jesus.”
Jeffries stands up and returns to the whiteboard. “Let me draw a gospel chain of custody for you to show you what I mean.” He begins to draw the faces of ancient writers. “Let’s start with the apostle John. He wrote a book about Jesus called the gospel of John. But what if there wasn’t a single copy of John’s book around for us to read? How would we know what was in it?” asks Jeffries.
The cadets remain silent. No one seems to know how to answer.
“Keep in mind, we’re going to draw a chain of custody,” Jeffries encourages them.
You speak up. “Did John pass on his book to someone?”
“Now you’re thinking,” says Jeffries. “John had three students—Polycarp, Papias, and Ignatius. These men listened to everything John taught them about Jesus, and then they wrote their own letters describing the information they learned from John. These letters are not in your Bible, but they were preserved through history.”
Read Mark 13:31. What does this verse say about the words of Jesus? ______________ ______________
Jason is starting to get it: “So if I didn’t know what John said about Jesus, I could read what these three guys wrote about what John said?”
“Exactly,” says Jeffries. “And that’s not all. Ignatius and Polycarp then had a student named Irenaeus. He wrote about what he learned from his teachers. We can compare the writings of Ignatius, Polycarp, and Irenaeus to see if anything is being added to the story of Jesus.”
“Wow,” says Daniel.
“Oh, it’s even better!” continues Jeffries, now pacing back and forth in front of the whiteboard. “Irenaeus had a student named Hippolytus, who wrote about everything he learned from Irenaeus. So we can look at all these letters and books to see if the story and description of Jesus is the same.”
Jeffries compares the diagram for the skateboard with the diagram for the Gospels. “We know that the sticker was added to the skateboard based on its chain of custody. If we check the gospel chain of custody, we can answer Jason’s question.”
“So, what’s the answer?” Jason asks anxiously.
“When we read everything these men in the chain of custody had to say about what they learned along the way, we can see that nothing was added to the story of Jesus.”
“Nothing?” asks Jason.
“Nothing,” confirms Jeffries. “From the very beginning, Jesus was described the same way: He was born of a virgin, preached amazing sermons, worked incredible miracles, died on a cross, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. All the miraculous stuff was there from the beginning. It was not added later.”
“Wow, that really makes you think, doesn’t it?” Jason admits.
Jeffries nods his head. “You bet, and remember when we were talking about all the possible explanations for the resurrection? One of them was that the story of the resurrection was added many years later, right?”
“Yeah, I remember that,” says Daniel. “You never told us what you thought of it, though.”
I use the chain of custody to figure out if a piece of evidence has been altered. You can also use a chain of custody to see if the message about Jesus has been changed over the years. You’ll discover the witnesses’ accounts have stayed the same; nothing about Jesus was changed over time.
Jeffries leans in toward the cadets. “Well, now you know that explanation isn’t reasonable, due to the chain of custody.” Jeffries sits down and looks at Jason. “Keep searching. You’re all going to discover the truth about the skateboard and the truth about Jesus.”