Undesigned Coincidences – How Minor Details in the Gospels Suggest Eyewitness Testimony, Part II

In part I of this post, I introduced the idea of Undesigned Coincidences from the book, Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts by Linda McGrew. For those previously unacquainted with the idea of Undesigned Coincidences, I wrote about how the inclusion of minor details in the Gospels and Acts not only provided evidence that the books were written by eyewitnesses, but can also add depth to Biblical understanding when reading the details in conjunction with information found in the other Gospels, Acts and the Epistles.

Just to review, an undesigned coincidence is defined by Ms. McGrew as:

An undesigned coincidence is a notable connection between two or more accounts or texts that doesn’t seem to have been planned by the person or people giving the accounts. Despite their apparent independence, the items fit together like pieces of a puzzle.

Destroying and Rebuilding the Temple

One example of an undesigned coincidence discussed by Ms. McGrew notes that both the Gospels of Matthew and Mark speak of an accusation that was made against Jesus before the Sanhedrin on the night of his arrest, and the two Gospels use similar language:

57 Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: 58 “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.’” 59 Yet even then their testimony did not agree. (Mark 14: 57-59)

59. Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, so that they might put Him to death. 60. They did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward. But later on two came forward, 61. and said, “This man stated, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days.’”(Matthew 26: 59-61)

There are a few things of interest in these passages. The first is the nature of the accusation. The accusers noted that Jesus either said he would or was able to build the Temple. This was a particularly egregious crime to propose. It would be like claiming in the 21st Century that a person was claiming that they would destroy the Vatican or the Mosque in Mecca. On a more American note, it would be like saying that he would destroy some major point of American Pride which remains the seat of the government like the Capital, the White House or the Supreme Court. What a terrible crime to accuse someone of contemplating.

But Ms. McGrew notes that it is rather odd that the accusation isn’t just limited to the claim that Jesus would or was able to destroy the temple. Instead, the accusation includes the claim that Jesus also said he either would or was able to rebuild it again in three days. She notes:

But if this were merely a story that the witnesses made up out of whole cloth as an attack against Jesus, it could easily have been made even more inflammatory. For example, why did the witnesses say that Jesus said that he would rebuild the temple? Why not just accuse him of destroying it? And why the detail about three days?

What this testimony sounds like to the unbiased ear is no a pure fabrication, but rather a twisted or garbled version of something the accused person actually said.

I personally find this very insightful. Why in the world would Mark and Matthew report that the witnesses included the claim to be able to rebuild it in three days if it wasn’t really said? Wouldn’t the accusation have been more damning just to claim that Jesus threatened to destroy the temple? But no, both Gospels record that the witnesses claimed Jesus also said he would or could raise it again in three days. Why did they claim that?

The Claim to Destroy and Rebuild

Now you are probably thinking that they added this bit of information because we know the Bible passage that says that Jesus said exactly such a thing. What the Bible records Jesus as saying is:

The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?”

So, the logic would naturally follow, the reason that Matthew and Mark added this accusation was because they had reported that Jesus had actually said those words.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t work. The reason it doesn’t work is because neither Matthew nor Mark (nor Luke, for that matter) report the words I just quoted above. In fact, neither Matthew or Mark ever claim in their Gospels that Jesus said anything about destroying the temple, he said nothing about building it back up, and he certainly didn’t say anything about it taking three days. The words quoted above come from the Gospel of John – John 2: 18-21.

The Standard Evolutionary Chronology Problem

To understand the significance of this, it is important to recognize that those who claim the Gospels were fiction usually have an evolutionary chronology wherein Mark was written first, then Matthew wrote his work based largely on Mark, then Luke wrote largely based on Mark and Matthew, and finally John wrote his Gospel much later. If that is the case, how is it that Mark and Matthew included in their versions of the trial at the Sanhedrin a claim that was not recorded anywhere in their own Gospels, but only recorded in the Gospel of John which allegedly had not been written at the time?

Obviously, if this standard evolutionary chronology is correct, they couldn’t have included it because of what John had written at the time that they wrote their Gospels because John hadn’t been written at that time. Instead, the most reasonable basis for Matthew and Mark reporting these accusations against Jesus at the trial before the Sanhedrin is because that accusation was really made before the Sanhedrin, and the Gospel writers are accurately reporting what they heard or what the witnesses they are basing their Gospel on told them was said.

Perhaps the skeptic is now saying, “Well, obviously, it was said in Mark and Matthew first, but the mention in John is only to clear up what Mark and Matthew were referencing.” In other words, the author of John saw this mention to a claim that Jesus would tear down and rebuild the temple, and so he made up a story to put into his own Gospel that would build on the reference. But that doesn’t seem to work either. Why not? Because the author of John does not include the accusations of the witnesses that Jesus would destroy and rebuild the Temple in his own account of Jesus’ trials.

Think about it for a moment: If the author of John made up the story about Jesus claiming to tear down and rebuild the Temple to explain the reference in Matthew and Mark, why in the world wouldn’t he have included Jesus’ statement being used as an accusation against Jesus at the Trial of the Sanhedrin in his own Gospel – especially when the Gospel of John has the longest, most detailed account of the trials? Was the author expecting that his readers would necessarily have heard the Gospels of Matthew and Mark and so he didn’t need to include it in his own Gospel? That seems highly unlikely.

Ms. McGrew ties it together this way:

It is only by putting the two together that one gets the whole story: Jesus makes the cryptic statement about his own ability to raise up the Temple in three days if it is destroyed. He intends it as a prophecy of his resurrection, though he doubtless knows that it will be confusing and annoying to his interlocutors. It is remembered against him, garbled somewhere in the retelling, and brought back up at his trial later as an accusation that he was making the equivalent of terrorist threats against the Temple.

One more note that Ms. McGrew does not mention is: What about Luke? If he is merely copying the accounts of Mark and Matthew, why didn’t he include the accusation in his account? Perhaps it is because he was relying upon what his eyewitnesses were telling him when he was writing his Gospel, and his eyewitnesses didn’t remember that detail. We cannot know that for certain, but we can know pretty well from this and other places that Luke was not wholesale copying Mark and Matthew, but had his own information sources from which he wrote.

The Bottom Line

The accusation against Jesus at the Trial of the Sanhedrin in Matthew and Mark is an example of an undersigned coincidence. Matthew and Mark didn’t use include the story that Jesus made the claim in their own Gospels, but did include the accusation. John includes the explanation of why Jesus was claimed to have made the threat that was twisted into the basis of the accusation in Matthew and Mark, but does not include the accusation in his own account. Luke includes neither the original account nor the accusation in his Gospel. The best explanation for how each of the authors presents (or doesn’t present) this material is that the authors are each simply relating either their own eyewitness testimony (as with Matthew and John) or they are faithfully relating what others who were eyewitnesses passed along to them (as with Mark and Luke).

Is this absolute, undeniable proof that the Bible books are either eyewitness testimony or a faithful recounting of eyewitness testimony? No, but it is another piece to the puzzle that, when fitted together, seems to form a really beautiful mosaic. I really recommend reading the book Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts. It won’t convince the skeptic by itself, but it will give whoever reads it some tasty intellectual food to chew on for a while.