Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Undesigned Coincidences in the Bible

Philosopher Timothy McGrew has a nice series of short articles on undesigned coincidences in the Bible.  A link to all six of them can be found in the middle of this webpage:
Apologetics 315

"[T]here is a third kind of evidence that lies within Scripture itself, a kind that requires only attention to one’s own Bible and a willingness to read thoughtfully. This is the evidence of undesigned coincidences.
The term itself, coined over two centuries ago, is perhaps not the best description for modern readers, since we rarely use the word “undesigned” today. But the meaning is not terribly difficult to grasp. Take two texts (for the sake of the argument one need assume nothing about them except that they both purport to recount some historical events) and compare them. Of course, they might have nothing in common; in that case, there is no material for this sort of argument. But they might touch on some of the same characters and events. If so, we may examine them to see whether the manner in which they discuss these things fits together obliquely, in ways not likely to have been deliberately chosen for that effect—undesignedly."

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