Episode 29 - Jonathan McLatchie on Undesigned Coincidences

Doubts Aloud Podcast

Episode 29 – Show Notes
This month we welcomed well known British apologist Jonathan McLatchie to share the show with us. Jonathan is a stalwart of the Unbelievable show and can be found here:
www. JonathanMcLatchie.com
https://www.facebook.com/groups/apologeticacademy/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr6nvYFyoCk5DsRgYRrhC_g
Jonathan has seen the importance of demonstrating the reliability of the gospels and has researched the use of ‘Undesigned Coincidences’ to do this. It is where incidental details of a story given by two separate authors mesh together in an undersigned way. It leads to greater confidence that the authors are each speaking about the same factual event rather than a legend.
Andrew and Jonathan talk first about the history of Undesigned Coincidences especially regarding the gospels, the approach dates back to the late 17thC and William Paley himself.
There are dozens of these apparent coincidences that scholars and then apologists has used. But we go on a deep dive on just one, from the feeding of the 5000 stories narratives which occur in all 4 gospels (starting Matt14.13, Mark6.30, Luke9.10 and John6.1). It is usually the example Jonathan mentions first.
The discussion seeks to see the relationship between Undesigned Coincidences and New Testament scholarship as it has developed in the centuries since it Paley.
The books and links we mentioned:
Friend of the show John Nelson’s blog
https://medium.com/the-reluctant-convert/some-thoughts-on-undesigned-coincidences-a1949c8bb4f9
“Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts” 2017 by Lydia McGrew
“The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices” 2019 by Lydia McGrew
6 blogs by Jonathan in response to Richard Carrier on Undesigned Coincidences:
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2020/03/yes-richard-carrier-there-are.html
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2020/03/can-scribal-errors-account-for.html
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2020/03/who-has-fabricated-data-lydia-mcgrew-or.html
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2020/03/is-redaction-usually-better-hypothesis.html
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2020/03/external-coincidences-and-acts-of.html
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2020/04/rounding-off-my-response-to-richard.html
Scholarly article “Fatigue in the Synoptics” by Mark Goodacre, 1998
http://www.markgoodacre.org/Q/fatigue.htm
Doubts Aloud Links:
Please leave us a review on iTunes and we will respond to any question asked there with the review.
Or give feedback and ask questions using : [e-mail]
Join the Facebook Group discussions:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1023280847835278/
Meet us all in person at the monthly (now via Zoom during Covid lockdown) “Unbelievable Christian and Skeptic Discussion Group” in central London, see:
https://www.meetup.com/Unbelievable-Christian-and-Skeptic-Discussion-Group-London