Can you refute undesigned coincidences? Dirk Bogarde and Bergen-Belsen

I'm kicking off a new series on undesigned coincidences with the question, what does it mean to ask if we can refute the argument from undesigned coincidences? Obviously you can't tell a priori that any source is going to be supported as a historical document by evidence of undesigned coincidences. So in that sense of course we can't just sit in our armchairs and say that we know a priori that the Gospels and Acts are supported by them. But when skeptics dismiss the argument they sometimes give the impression that the whole concept of undesigned coincidences is some weird "Christian apologist thing" which can be dismissed en toto. This is obviously not true. Undesigned coincidences are just one type of corroborative historical evidence. It's obvious--yes, from the armchair--that under the proper not-far-fetched circumstances there could be such a thing as an undesigned coincidence (whether called that or not) that would have significant force in favor of the historicity of a given claim or hypothesis. And it's also obvious--yes, from the armchair--that a lot of evidence that an allegedly historical source knows what it's talking about is positively relevant to whether, y'know, it actually knows what it's talking about. In this broader sense, of course you're not going to be able to argue against undesigned coincidences *en toto*. To illustrate that this is more than a pure hypothetical, I discuss the case of the 20th-century British actor Dirk Bogarde and his alleged visit to the Bergen-Belsen death camp shortly after it was liberated by British forces. Bogarde's own biographer questioned the historicity of this visit, but corroborative, independent, testimonial evidence later led him to admit that Bogrde did indeed visit the camp. I should have said this *explicitly* in the video, but the case I discuss here is an example of a secular historian "using undesigned coincidences." We're often asked if they do use them. Coldstream is clearly impressed by the independent corroboration of Bogarde's claim to have been at the camp. Read more about it here: http://dirkbogarde.co.uk/dirk-bogarde-and-belsen Hat-tip to Eldest Daughter, Bethel McGrew, for this story about Bogarde.