Undesigned Coincidences

A category of internal evidence where a detail in one Gospel account accidentally explains a puzzling detail in another; “accidentally” because the two authors show no awareness of coordinating their stories. For example: John 6:5 mentions that Jesus asks Philip where to buy bread for the crowd, which seems random; until Luke 9:10 reveals that the feeding of the five thousand happened near Bethsaida, and John 1:44 tells us Philip was from Bethsaida. Jesus was asking the local guy. Mark 6:39 mentions “green grass” at the feeding, which seems trivial; until John 6:4 notes that the Passover was near, which in Palestine means springtime. These are not the marks of a committee coordinating a consistent story; they are the marks of independent witnesses describing the same three-dimensional event from different angles, each including details the other omitted. The term was popularized by J.J. Blunt and later defended by William Paley and Lydia McGrew.