The Lydia McGrew Podcast

Today I wrap up the discussion of an undesigned coincidence between Matthew and Luke concerning the parable of the wicked tenants. Differences of detail between otherwise similar stories needn't be taken to indicate non-factual redaction. Plausible explanatory relationships between Synoptic Gospels are a good illustration of this point.

Here I discuss the Synoptic parable of the vineyard or parable of the wicked tenants. I'm going to suggest (next time) an undesigned coincidence between Matthew's telling of this parable and Luke's telling. Here I set up some methodological issues. I acknowledge *freely* that there are very close verbal parallels among the three versions in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. I also acknowledge that these could very easily be a result of literary dependance. But at the same time I bring out and question the assumption that if, say, Matthew had a memory of this, or if Luke had a witness of the parable, they would never have made literary use of Mark. Why not? If it has been years since the event, one might as well make use of someone else's memory of it. But the differences are as undeniable as the similarities. And I don't think that we should assume that the differences cannot be due to memory. Memory is naturally paraphrastic. This is the *legitimate* place for the notion of paraphrase--recognizable, casual variation. And I suggest that it could very well be true that both Jesus' audience and Jesus himself affirmed that the owner of the vineyard would come and destroy the wicked tenants. This sets the stage for the suggestion of an undesigned coincidence, coming up next time...!

Anyone who has made an argument from undesigned coincidences in the Gospels has likely encountered hasty dismissal because of "Something something Synoptic problem." And no matter how often one makes it clear that one *does* understand the Synoptic problem, the skeptics (or snobby biblical critics, whether skeptic or Christin) will continue making this same claim: "These people don't understand the Synoptic problem." What emerges is that "understand" here means "agree with a particular view," and that view is the erasure of Matthew or Luke as real sources of additional content within any passages that are similar to Mark. In those passages, a hardline criticl scholarly view is that anything different or new from Matthew or Luke must be an outright invention without factual basis. This video shows how internal evidence of independence and a connection between Matthew and Luke, in a passage where Matthew resembles Mark (are you following this?), calls into question this erasure of Matthew's status as a source in his own right. The phrase "to his servants," unique to Matthew (Matt. 14:2) in his account of Herod and John the Baptist, fits very well with a comment made by Luke in a completely different context.

We've been talking about internal evidence of independence for a couple of weeks now. Now let's see how this works in a Gospel example of an undesigned coincidence. John's record of a thing Jesus said after cleansing the Temple explains Mark's record of what the hostile witnesses said about Jesus at his Sanhedrin trial. But get this: This saying of Jesus in John occurs in a passage that constitutes one of the most famous alleged contradictions between John and Mark--the early Temple cleansing.

Here I discuss a modern example of the way that internal evidence of independence can allow us to use two reports as evidence even when we know that the people giving the reports might well have known one another and might have spoken to each other. The substack piece that I use in this video is found here (free content): https://www.furtherup.net/p/blood-witnesses?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fbloody%2520sunday&utm_medium=reader2 If you like what you read there, consider subscribing to Bethel's substack, Further Up.

In this methodological discussion I'm talking about what kind of independence is relevant to undesigned coincidences and about how we can know that two accounts have that kind of independence. Too many critics of the idea seem to be under the impression that only "witness separation" independence could possibly underlie any important undesigned coincidence. If the authors or speakers knew one another, if they could have talked to each other after the event, that's supposed to spell DOOM for any undesigned coincidence argument from their testimony. But matters aren't that simple. Learn here about external and internal evidence of independence and how the more we have of one kind, the less we need of the other kind. Here is one of my older videos on multiple attestation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGVlEhtv0Zo&t=5s

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.

Stephen wasn't one of the Twelve, and we don't even know if he claimed to have seen Jesus after his resurrection. So is the stoning of Stephen irrelevant to the trilemma argument for the Twelve? Nope. If a leader of your community was lynched by a mob for preaching a sermon, and if more and more people from your community were then dragged out to jail (as happened in the persecution from Saul of Tarsus), that would mean that it would take courage to go on saying what that person was killed for saying. And the Apostles stayed in Jerusalem during the persecution from Saul. Later, James the son of Zebedee (one of the Twelve) was killed by Herod Agrippa I. Acts has lot to say about the courage of the Twelve under persecution. Acts strongly supports the claim that they were attesting to Jesus' resurrection at the risk of their lives.

Acts 5 and 6 are very important in seeing the boldness of the Twelve in proclaiming the Gospel. Acts 6:2 is explicit that the Twelve (who were named in Chapter 1, remember) were still leading the Jerusalem church at this time. Acts 5 details the repeated arrests of the Apostles, their being beaten, and their determination to keep on publicly proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus.

Acts 4 describes the arrest of Peter and John and the warning they receive from the Sanhedrin not to keep preaching about Jesus. Does this mean that from now on the book of Acts is "just the Peter and John show" and that it provides no reason to think that the rest of the twelve disciples continued risking their necks for their message? Not at all. Acts 4 provides continued evidence of the united front and boldness of the twelve apostles. Be sure to listen to the end to hear one very interesting piece of evidence about the use of the word "apostles" in these chapters!