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Yes, doing empirical-historical research is necessary to bearing Christian witness, because it is necessary to doing Christian theology, which is necessary in turn to bearing Christian witness. This is so, for among other reasons, because there is no other way to establish critically that and why one of two necessary presuppositions of such witness is true or credible. I refer to the presupposition that the Jesus whom it attests to be the Christ, and who, as such, is the explicit primal ontic source authorizing it, is not a merely mythical, but a genuinely historical, figure, who lived and worked at a certain time and place in human history. The other reasons why doing empirical-critical research is necessary to bearing Christian witness all have to do with its being as historical as its explicit primal source, and as therefore also requiring to be understood empiricalhistorically empirical-historically if it is to play its proper role in authorizing Christian faith, witness, and theology.

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