A new undesigned coincidence?

Have you ever heard of the argument from undesigned coincidences?

If not, you’re in for a treat! It requires an incredibly detailed reading of the New Testament, but if you put in the effort, you’ll be stunned by how these documents fit together.

Dr. Peter Williams explains the nature of the case in his fascinating book, Can We Trust the Gospels? (emphasis addeed):

The Gospels show particular signs of authenticity that have been labeled undesigned coincidences. The Cambridge theology professor John James Blunt (1794–1855) crystallized a form of this argument, and the same argument has been developed more recently by Lydia McGrew… In an undesigned coincidence, writers show agreement of a kind that it is hard to imagine as deliberately contrived by either author to make the story look authentic. Often the agreement is so subtle and indirect that all but the most careful reader are likely to miss it. If you suppose that Gospel writers put in such agreements to make their narratives appear authentic, then you imagine that they are among the most brilliant of all ancient authors. The idea that several of the Gospel writers might have done this independently is even less plausible.

Perhaps one undesigned coincidence would be unremarkable. But in fact, there are so many of these that it requires an entire book to cover them, like Dr. Lydia McGrew’s excellent work Hidden in Plain View.

And now, I want to share with you one newly identified undesigned coincidence.

It’s similar to a case that Dr. McGrew provides in Chapter 3 of Hidden in Plain View. In this chapter, she discusses Matthew’s list of the Twelve apostles. She writes:

Matthew’s list in the Greek consistently and precisely sorts the disciples into pairs using the word “and.” That is to say, with that one exception, there are “ands” between the members of each pair but no “ands” between the pairs.

She links this microscopic detail to a different event, found in another record of Jesus’ life, the Gospel of Mark:

Mark’s account, which does not occur in the same passage as his list of the names of the disciples, contains a unique detail: And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. (Mark 6.7)

So is there borrowing between Matthew and Mark in this matter? Dr. McGrew notes:

Mark’s list of the twelve (Mark 3.16–19) follows almost the same order and contains all the same names as Matthew’s, but it is not, in any text family, grouped into pairs, because Mark puts “ands” between all the names. Thus Matthew’s grouping into pairs is not copied from Mark, and mere carelessness in copying from Mark would not explain the paired pattern in Matthew.

McGrew brings home the force of the argument:

Why would Matthew group the disciples in pairs? That’s unusual!

We learn the answer in Mark: “Jesus sent out the twelve two by two.”

How could this be? The best explanation is that Matthew was scrupulous in understanding and recording how the twelve were paired together (perhaps because he was one of them) and that Mark was scrupulous in noting and recording how Jesus organized the twelve on a missions trip (perhaps because Mark’s source was the Apostle Peter). Their independent accuracy in the smallest of details enables us to see further corroboration of their stories because of how they also fit together.

I think the Gospels contain yet another undesigned coincidence related to the Twelve.

This undesigned coincidence can be found in Following the Master by Dr. Michael Wilkins. In his book he provides the following chart:

Do you see it? Wilkins points out:

…within the Twelve is a recognizable division into groups of four. The first name of each of the groups remains the same in all of the lists (the first, fifth, and ninth places are occupied, respectively, by Peter, Philip, and James of Alphaeus). The order of the names within the groups varies except for the first name. The sequence of the groups is the same in each list. This grouping suggests that the Twelve were organized into smaller units, each with a leader.

Interestingly, Wilkins also notes the undesigned coincidence McGrew identifies:

…Matthew’s list gives pairings of disciples in the Greek text, which may reflect the commission of Mark 6:7, where Jesus sent the Twelve out two by two.

(A friend pointed out to me, in distinction to this chart, that “James, son of Alphaeus” appears consistently in all four lists).

What explanations can explain the repeated organization of the small group structure?

First, this pattern could have been staged as part of a conspiracy.

That is, Matthew, Mark, and Luke (both in his Gospel and again while writing Acts) worked together to organize the list of disciples in this specific way so their invented stories would seem more credible.

But why would the authors of an invented history about Jesus and his disciples manufacture this kind of obscure similarity when they listed the names of the disciples? Who would pay attention to such a tiny detail?

Further, in this scenario, why didn’t they also standardize the names of the disciples between their lists? Why do Matthew and Mark say “Thaddaeus” and Luke prefers “Judas, son of James”? And why does only Matthew record the pairings of the disciples?

(As for the different names, Wilkins explains, “this is simply literary preference for referring to the same person”).

A second option is that the pattern can be explained by chance.

But this also seems unlikely. Consider how much remains the same between these lists: the same person is listed in the first, fifth, and ninth positions. We also have the same sequence of groups in each list.

There’s an identifiable pattern. And it’s not what we would expect from a random arrangement of names.

A third option is that this pattern resulted from copying between the gospels.

For instance, perhaps Matthew and Luke copied their list from Mark’s list.

But this doesn’t explain the pattern either. Matthew has the pattern of “ands” that Mark lacks. None of the lists are identical to each other in the order of the names. Further, none of the lists contain the exact same names with the same identifiers.

Let’s look more closely. Here are Mark and Luke’s first four names:

Even if Luke started with Mark’s list, he’s made a number of changes.

However, among the first four apostles’ names, Luke has the same order as Matthew. So perhaps Luke borrowed from Matthew (or vice versa)? But let’s compare Matthew and Luke’s final four names:

In this section, the order and even the names themselves are different!

But why are we looking at the lists in terms of these three groups of four? That’s assuming my case, isn’t it? So let’s look at names 3-6 for a moment:

What jumps out to you? That Philip is in the same position in all the lists. In this section, no other name holds its position.

So how do we explain it? Perhaps this: Matthew, Mark, and Luke are all recording insider knowledge about how the Twelve were organized into small groups.

Why is this a reasonable hypothesis?

First, we already have reason to think the Gospel authors had this kind of insider knowledge. As Dr. McGrew argues in Hidden in Plain View, Matthew knows which disciples were paired with one another. And independently, Mark tells us that Jesus sent the disciples out two by two. So McGrew’s case raises the probability that the Gospel authors could provide their readers with detailed information about The Twelve.

Second, as discussed above, there’s a clear pattern that cries out for explanation.

Third, there’s a plausible scenario that would generate this pattern. I suggest to you that the best explanation of the patterns within these lists is the one Dr. Wilkins provides. So, Jesus organized these Twelve men into three small groups of four, appointed a leader for each group, and further instructed that within each group of four, the Twelve were to be paired into groups of two for the sake of mission. And this organizational structure within the Twelve was known and recorded by the authors of the Gospels, resulting in the undesigned coincidence we’ve discussed.

As Dr. McGrew so aptly named her book, this undesigned coincidence is hidden in plain view.

That said, here’s one problem with the case from undesigned coincidences: any particular example can look pretty weak on its own merits.

Why is that? One reason is they involve such small details. So you might say, “Ok, I see your case, but I don’t want to make too much of something so insignificant. Maybe there’s another explanation we haven’t considered.”

I’m open to the idea that I’ve overread the text. So go for it: I invite you to propose a better explanation for these patterns!

At the same time, when you read a few dozen of these examples, the case begins to build. It’s quite strange. How is it that the authors of the New Testament keep aligning their stories in these minuscule ways?

The explanation that rises to the top is that the Gospels contain accurate, detailed eyewitness testimony about the life and ministry of Jesus.