This is a chapter summary of Peter J Williams, “Can We Trust the Gospels?”. For the book overview and chapter summary links, click here.
In this chapter, Williams explores certain details between the Gospels which would corroborate each other, yet are extremely unlikely to have been planned due to the nature of the details. He argues that it is not plausible that the authors could have put these details independently. The best explanation for them is that the authors gave true complementary accounts of actual events.
The first example of this is about the two sisters, Mary and Martha, as described in Luke and John.
In Luke 10:38-42, the story emphasises the contrasting personalities of the two sisters, with Mary more contemplative and Martha more practical.
In John 11:1-46, the story is about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Even though the focus of the story is entirely different, it was Martha who went out to welcome Jesus (as she did in Luke 10), while Mary stayed at home.
In John 11:32, Mary ‘fell at his feet’ to weep, which is similar to Luke 10 where Mary was also at Jesus’ feet.
In addition, as Jesus commanded for the stone to be moved, Martha was concerned about the odour, which is a practical detail.
Williams acknowledges that there are many possible explanations for this congruence, but he argues that the most logical and straightforward reason for it is that the Gospel writers were describing real people (a la Occam’s razor).
In the second example, Williams looks at the naming of 2 brothers, James and John, in the passages of Mark 3:17 and Luke 9:51-55.
In Mark 3:17, James and John are simply referred to as “Sons of Thunder”, without much further explanation.
In Luke 9:51-55, readers can make the link to the reference, as James and John are recorded as wanting to “tell fire to come down from heaven” (although the names “Sons of Thunder” were not mentioned).
The third example is between Josephus and the Synoptic Gospels.
According to Josephus in Antiquities 18, some Jews saw the defeat of Herod Antipas by King Aretas IV of Nabetta in AD 36 as ‘divine vengeance’ arising from the death of John the Baptist’s death. The link, however, is missing in Josephus’ account and can be found in the Gospels.
There is one other example in the book which will be briefly mentioned here, and the connections can be made by you, the reader of this summary.
In the account of the 5 loaves and 2 fish in John 6 and Mark 6. Some quick points are about the mention of a lot of people and the passover being around that time, the fact that Philip was singled out by Jesus in a question, when he was from Bethsaida and the miracle was near Bethsaida. There are even more details in the story, such as the rainfall around the time connecting to the mention of grass and the mention of barley bread and the relevance of the barley harvest being near the passover.
According to Williams, the argument is cumulative from simplicity. He noticed that the argument of undesigned coincidences impressed those who were less familiar with the text less, or if they only knew a few examples. In fact, if the information or stories were corrupted over time, it makes even less sense that peripheral details are congruent.
More on this topic can be found in:
- J.J. Blunt, Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings both of the Old and New Testament, An Argument of Their Veracity (1847).
- Lydia McGrew, Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts (2017).