Today Brian Auten posted an a really great audio! It's an interview of Dr. Tim J. McGrew. The interview focuses on "Undesigned Coincidences in the
Gospels". I never heard of this line of reasoning before this discussion. Dr. McGrew said that it was once popular in the 19th century and he is now helping to popularize it. The idea is basically that missing information or unanswered questions are filled in by information, sometimes indirectly, given in other Gospel or historical documents. Often times the questions we have are not questions that the original readers would have had because they shared so much in common with the writer. McGrew makes a cumulative case that this is evidence that the Gospel writers did not copy from one another or copy from a
common source as many folks allege. McGrew explains his reasoning very well and I hope everyone will listen to this.
McGrew suggested three books one can read to get further information. You can get two of them from Amazon.com and I added links to them below. The third book, Dr. McGrew mentioned can be found at this link:
The Four Gospels from a Lawyer’s Standpoint (1893). You can get the link to the audio from Apologetics 315 given at the end of the post.
Another point of note is that McGrew has been criticized and attempted and failed rebuttal was made by Edward T. Babinski. Given that Babinki has contributed to
John Loftus' blog
Debunking Christianity often and is mentioned there highly, I find it
shady interesting that no mention of the exchange. Dr. McGrew's wife, Lydia, started the ball rolling back in January when she
posted his talk about Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels which he gave January 9, 2011 in
New Orleans. This was followed by a rebuttal by Edward Babinski called
Tim McGrew and the Ring of Truth -- The Undesigned Coincidences in Scripture? Or Redactions with Marcan Priority? . Dr. McGrew answered Babinski in article called
Tim McGrew replies to Ed Babinski's Critique of his Discussion of Undesigned Coincidences on Dr.
Victor Reppert's blog.
Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels by Tim McGrew - Apologetics 315
