Are there "undesigned coincidences" in the gospels

[Haven]

Western Michigan University philosophy professor and fundamentalist evangelical Christian apologist Tim McGrew has developed an interesting and, in his words, "compelling" argument for the veracity of the gospels that shows the documents have the "ring of truth."

In contrast to the prevailing views of Biblical scholarship on the authorship of the gospels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament#Authorship) and the methodology the authors used to gather information (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markan_priority), McGrew believes that the gospels were written by their traditional authors (John Mark, Luke the Evangelist, John the Apostle, and Matthew) as eyewitness accounts.

Among other things, he bases his views on "undesigned coincidences" between the four gospels, cases where one author reports a given event and another author provides additional details not present in the other's writing. McGrew feels that non-eyewitness authors working from common sources (Q and Mark) couldn't include such undesigned coincidences; only eyewitness accounts could produce such information. He also believes that individuals looking to fabricate mythical accounts from whole cloth couldn't possibly create such coincidences.

Although this is an unorthodox argument for, well, an orthodox view of the gospels, it seems (at least to my untrained mind ) to make some degree of sense in my opinion.

Here is the video with his argument (note, it's long):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wUcrwYocgM

Here is a "cliff notes" version of McGrew's argument:
http://thinkingmatters.org.nz/2011/08/t ... e-gospels/

Here's McGrew's response to an agnostic's critique of his hypothesis:
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2011/ ... nskis.html

Here's a list of a few of the "undesigned coincidences:"
http://www.crossexamined.org/blog/?p=190

Debate question: What do you think? Is McGrew right? Are there undesigned coincidences in the gospels? Do such coincidences indicate eyewitness accounts, or can they be explained through the traditional two-source hypothesis? Are such coincidences really undesigned, or could the authors of the gospels have colluded to make them up?

[Haven]

Last part:

Ed’s description of the fourth undesigned coincidence is disappointingly weak.

Tim points to the story about “the feeding of the five thousand,� which appears in both Luke and John, and which both agree took place around “Bethsaida.� John, a later Gospel than Luke, added that the apostle “Philip� was from “Bethsaida,� thus adding an apostle’s name and some words from “Philip� to the story in Luke.

But this is misguided. John does not say that the feeding of the five thousand took place in Bethsaida—that is, in fact, the whole point of the undesigned coincidence. Having missed the point, Ed hastens to assure his readers (and perhaps himself) that there is nothing to see here:

There is no mystery in that case, just later legendary accretion. The story of the feeding of the five thousand has been embellished.

Funny, that the “embellishment� just happens to have mentioned Philip, and that this dovetails, quite indirectly, with the description in Luke and a detail from the first chapter of John. Ed wants to say that this is just an example of “amalgamating names and details from earlier Gospels in order to create new stories peculiar only to the Gospel of John.� But that sort of undesigned coincidence is precisely the sort of thing that a hypothesis of legendary accretion, amalgamation, and embellishment does not explain.

Once again, McGrew may have something here -- I see no sign of embellishment in that passage. However, there is another, more plausible explanation than eyewitness testimony.

Keep in mind that John is not a synoptic gospel, and the author of John (who may or may not have been John the Apostle) used different sources in writing his story. It is possible that one of John's sources knew that Phillip was from Bethsaida, and John -- knowing of Luke's story -- provided extra detail by stating that fact.

However, even if John's statement on Bethsaida was a genuine undesigned coincidence, it still does not demonstrate eyewitness testimony. After all, one coincidence, is, well, a coincidence.

He does not even bother to summarize the fifth undesigned coincidence from my talk, saying simply that:

Tim’s fifth example involves the ending of the Gospel of John wherein is found a scene that’s indebted to something in an earlier Gospel, Matthew. No mystery there, not when you consider the chronological order.

But there is a mystery, for John gives us the same scene (13:31-38), but he does not include, in his own telling of it, the detail required to explain what we find in John 21:15. I cannot tell whether Ed misunderstands this point or is simply deaf to its implications.

I guess I don't understand the implications of this, either. Not such what McGrew's point was.

Ed’s attempt to explain the sixth undesigned coincidence is not very helpful, so at this point I will give it in more or less the words I used in my talk. Luke 23:1-4 reads:

Then the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.� And Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?� And he answered him, “You have said so.� Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no guilt in this man.�

As it stands, this sequence of events is completely baffling. The Jews make a grave accusation, Pilate questions Jesus on this very point, Jesus admits to the charge—and Pilate promptly declares him to be innocent. Ed wants to cast doubt on this characterization by pointing to the Anchor Bible Commentary, where the Greek idiom is treated as more enigmatic. I find more persuasive the arguments that his answer was understood as affirmative, and many translators apparently agree. But for the sake of the undesigned coincidence, it hardly matters; for Jesus to give even a coy and enigmatic answer in response to a charge this direct and grave would hardly be grounds for declaring him to be innocent.

Ed doesn’t even try to deal with the double undesigned coincidence between this scene and the parallel scene in John 18. Instead, he tries to claim that the real explanation for Luke 23:4 can be found by an appeal to—wait for it—Marcan priority. But does this even make sense? Here is Mark’s account of the trial before Pilate (15:1-5):

Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate. “Are you the king of the Jews?� asked Pilate. “Yes, it is as you say,� Jesus replied. The chief priests accused him of many things. So again Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.� But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.

Since it is a postulate of Ed’s faith that the roots of the other Gospels must be found in Mark, he feels honor bound to say that this somehow explains the report in Luke that Pilate found Jesus innocent. But how? Ed does not tell us. He notes that Matthew, Luke, and John all have details not found in Mark, but that fact alone provides no traction for the hypothesis of legendary embellishment. Certainly Pilate’s amazement at Jesus’ silence, as recorded in Mark, does not provide nearly as good an explanation either of the fact of Pilate’s saying that he found no guilt in Jesus (if we take Luke’s account to be factual) or of the development of Luke’s story (if we take it to be mere fancy) as John’s account gives.

Once again, this can be explained through the later gospels abridging Mark. The extra details in MT, L, and J can be explained via Q and other sources used by those respective authors. Unsurprisingly, there are no undesigned coincidences here.

So, there you have it: McGrew's version of the argument from undesigned coincidences refuted. Hope you guys liked it . I'd love to see a response from a proponent of the argument as to the points I've raised here.


Peace, Love, and Reason,

Haven