William Jennings’s Bryans’ defense against Clarence Darrow in the famous scopes trial of 1925 is one that has gone down in the history books for the United States. Bryan was questioned about his belief that the earth was created the way the Bible said it was. The questions that Darrow brought up were that of a logical nature. “Was Eve really created out of Adam’s rib?” “Where did Cain’s wife come from?” Simple questions that any person would like to know the answers too.
Bryan’s approach to Darrow’s questions is that a calm and collected man that knows what he is talking about. Bryan demonstrated a deep knowledge of the Bible, as Darrow demonstrated a knowledge of the evolution and ancient civilizations. Both them used this information in the way that they thought suitable to the case. When Bryan was asked a question that he had no answer he simply said that he did not know, and he didn’t seem to care much that he didn’t. Darrow was not satisfied when he gave comments such as “I do not know” or “ I simply go by what I read”. When that was his answer, Darrow pursued Bryan even more with little follow up questions that could almost be seem as pointless at times. Even if Darrow did ask a ridiculous question, Bryan answered it to the best of his knowledge.
Only few times did the questioning get out of hand by emotions towards the others point of view. Darrow seemed to have had the hardest time with such a task. A simple little phrase like “your fool religion” are the things that emotions seemed to get in the way. Bryan, I feel managed to keep himself well contained in his emotions, his responses demonstrated that he was there simply to answer the defendants questions and prove that he “was not afraid to answer any questions” that they may have.
All in all, Bryan defended himself and his beliefs very well in my opinion. The fact that he was able to keep up in the questioning based on knowledge that he learned from just the bible impressed me. Though I did feel that Darrow did seem to beat around the bush with the detail that he went into the when wanting to retrieve the answer he wanted. Besides that, Bryan defended himself well.
