Does the court have reasonable grounds to dismiss the validity of the manuscripts themselves?
Yes; they're full of stories 'bout spooks and hob-goblins. Another thing, how many (just) courts would base their decision on the testomony of only one person - 'specially when they're the one whose credibility's been called into question?
Why must the probability factor come into play here?
Because, it's part of reason and logic - the only system we have for understanding any of our experiences.
Why must evidence be presented, apart from the original manuscripts?
C'mon, stop joking around.
"Why should we have evidence?"
"Why should we use logic?"
"Why should we be reasonable?"
WHY SHOULDN'T WE?!?
Jon
In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist... might come to the conclusion that each species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species. - Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
En el mundo hay multitud de idiomas, y cada uno tiene su propio significado. - I Corintios 14:10
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
A devout people with its back to the wall can be pushed deeper and deeper into hardening religious nativism, in the end even preferring national suicide to religious compromise. - Colin Wells Sailing from Byzantium
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Philosophy] stands behind everything. It is the loom behind the fabric, the place you arrive when you trace the threads back to their source. It is where you question everything you think you know and seek every truth to be had. - Archer Opterix [msg=-11,-316,210]