The Lydia McGrew Podcast

Today I wrap up the discussion of an undesigned coincidence between Matthew and Luke concerning the parable of the wicked tenants. Differences of detail between otherwise similar stories needn't be taken to indicate non-factual redaction. Plausible explanatory relationships between Synoptic Gospels are a good illustration of this point.

Here I discuss the Synoptic parable of the vineyard or parable of the wicked tenants. I'm going to suggest (next time) an undesigned coincidence between Matthew's telling of this parable and Luke's telling. Here I set up some methodological issues. I acknowledge *freely* that there are very close verbal parallels among the three versions in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. I also acknowledge t...

Anyone who has made an argument from undesigned coincidences in the Gospels has likely encountered hasty dismissal because of "Something something Synoptic problem." And no matter how often one makes it clear that one *does* understand the Synoptic problem, the skeptics (or snobby biblical critics, whether skeptic or Christin) will continue making this same claim: "These people don&...

We've been talking about internal evidence of independence for a couple of weeks now. Now let's see how this works in a Gospel example of an undesigned coincidence. John's record of a thing Jesus said after cleansing the Temple explains Mark's record of what the hostile witnesses said about Jesus at his Sanhedrin trial. But get this: This saying of Jesus in John occurs in a passage...

Here I discuss a modern example of the way that internal evidence of independence can allow us to use two reports as evidence even when we know that the people giving the reports might well have known one another and might have spoken to each other. The substack piece that I use in this video is found here (free content): https://www.furtherup.net/p/blood-witnesses?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fbloody%25...

In this methodological discussion I'm talking about what kind of independence is relevant to undesigned coincidences and about how we can know that two accounts have that kind of independence. Too many critics of the idea seem to be under the impression that only "witness separation" independence could possibly underlie any important undesigned coincidence. If the authors or speakers...

I'm kicking off a new series on undesigned coincidences with the question, what does it mean to ask if we can refute the argument from undesigned coincidences? Obviously you can't tell a priori that any source is going to be supported as a historical document by evidence of undesigned coincidences. So in that sense of course we can't just sit in our armchairs and say that we know a pri...

Stephen wasn't one of the Twelve, and we don't even know if he claimed to have seen Jesus after his resurrection. So is the stoning of Stephen irrelevant to the trilemma argument for the Twelve? Nope. If a leader of your community was lynched by a mob for preaching a sermon, and if more and more people from your community were then dragged out to jail (as happened in the persecution from S...

Acts 5 and 6 are very important in seeing the boldness of the Twelve in proclaiming the Gospel. Acts 6:2 is explicit that the Twelve (who were named in Chapter 1, remember) were still leading the Jerusalem church at this time. Acts 5 details the repeated arrests of the Apostles, their being beaten, and their determination to keep on publicly proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus.

Acts 4 describes the arrest of Peter and John and the warning they receive from the Sanhedrin not to keep preaching about Jesus. Does this mean that from now on the book of Acts is "just the Peter and John show" and that it provides no reason to think that the rest of the twelve disciples continued risking their necks for their message? Not at all. Acts 4 provides continued evidence of t...

Some skeptics have claimed that even if we take Acts at face value as a history of the earliest Christian movement, it doesn't support the claim that the original disciples of Jesus risked death for the claim that they had seen Jesus risen. This video examines what Acts actually says in the first two chapters. It emphasizes the identities of the eleven disciples who remained after Judas's...

This week I'm starting a series about this question: Does Acts support the idea that at least twelve specific, named individuals were willing to risk their lives for the claim that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead? Some skeptics have claimed that *even if we take Acts at face value* in its account of the early days of Christianity, it still doesn't support this claim. They may downp...

I wrap up the series on development theories of the Gospels with a discussion of John's use of the phrase "the Jews." Some of these uses are undeniably "negative," in the sense that the phrase is used to refer to a group of people that is negatively portrayed in the story. Does this mean that John is portraying the Jewish people as a whole negatively? Does this mean that he...

In an attempt to make John's Gospel sound like the pinnacle of so-called "anti-semitic" portrayals of Jewish responsibility for Jesus' death, Bart Ehrman makes the false statement that the chief priests carry out the crucifixion in John. Here is the audio in which he discusses his development theory, beginning around minute 17: https://www.premier.plus/unbelievable/podcasts/episo...

Bart Ehrman claims that the Gospels' crucifixion stories become increasingly anti-semitic. According to Ehrman, Pilate becomes more innocent in Jesus' death and the Jews more guilty as we go through the Gospels chronology. Here I argue that this is all bunk, focusing on the three Synoptic Gospels. Ehrman misrepresents Mark, points to one verse in Matthew, and then switches to a completely...

In this methodological episode I lay out some basics about even getting started with a development claim for the Gospels. The idea here is supposed to be that "finding" these developments provides evidence in itself that the Gospels are not, or at least not fully, historical. What would it take for such an argument even to get off the ground? What are some things that skeptics and critic...

Do the resurrection stories get gradually more "developed" as we go from earlier Gospels to later Gospels? Nope. You can choose one definition of "development" to argue that they do, but if you choose a different and equally legitimate (or illegitimate) definition of "development," they don't. Which just goes to show, once again, that development theories of the G...

Development theories about the resurrection stories usually start with the observation that, if the longer ending of Mark is non-canonical, Mark "doesn't have" any appearance stories. This assumes, further, that Mark originally ended after verse 8 (which I'd say is probably false). But it also treats the alleged absence of appearance stories as if Mark was *denying* appearances....

Is there development in the Passion narratives because Simon of Cyrene isn't mentioned? What about Jesus giving the sop to Judas Iscariot? Did Jesus really say, "I thirst"? Here I discuss the strained "evidence" brought to support the claim of development in the Gospels in Jesus' Passion. I also show how contrary evidence is dealt with in an ad hoc way. Be sure to invit...

New Testament scholarship is full of development theories of the Gospels, based on an evolutionary model. Mark is supposedly the most primitive, and from Mark onwards there is supposedly development through Matthew and Luke to John. This supposedly concerns things like Christology (getting gradually higher and higher, culminating in John), alleged anti-Semitism (supposedly greatest in John), and t...

Mark says Jesus "couldn't" do many miracles in Nazareth because of the people's unbelief. Matthew says he "didn't." Is this a sign that Matthew is redacting Mark in the service of a higher Christology? Nah, probably not! Scholars who explain trivial wording differences by such redactive agendas are often relying on cherry-picked data. Watch for more evidence!

Was Jesus rejected at Nazareth, his home town, only once or more than once? I'm arguing that the incidents recorded in Mark and Luke are different incidents. Here I examine the only really close parallel between the two stories--the fact that Jesus says to the people in the synagogue that a prophet is without honor in his home town. I argue, using both the "How Dad Are You?" meme and...

This week I start comparing Mark 6:1-6 and Luke 4:16-30. These passages portray Jesus being rejected in his home town of Nazareth, but there is at least a weak prima facie case from narrative order that they describe different events. Plus they don't really sound all that much alike. Something I meant to say in the video (but forgot to say) is that we don't want to reach for achronological...

Is a bias against miracles the only problem we need to guard against in biblical studies? By no means. Many problematic methodological assumptions have become entrenched in the field. Even if they may have originated due to an anti-supernatural bias long ago, they have become disconnected from that origin and have taken on a life of their own. Even Christian scholars often mistake these biases for...

Today I'm discussing one argument that might be made against the max data proponent from the perspective of a "classical" approach to apologetics. The classical approach says that you *must* (for epistemological reasons) argue for theism before arguing for a historical miracle like the resurrection. Here I consider an argument that the classicist might make: The max data person asks...