Posted: Sep 26, 2011 3:43 pm
Moonwatcher wrote: Edit: Ah, I see above you say it's not an argument for inspiration but only for some sort of historical authenticity to events described. The problem is that these stories are being recorded decades after the fact by people who were not witnesses after the story had those decades to grow in the telling and told in an era when things were not turning out as planned.
Aside from that, I'm not in "the camp" that denies there is any historical basis to the Gospels though there is no sure way to determine what might or might not be authentic at all or to what degree.
Yeah, I think that's all there is to this. It's really just a giant strawman argument. If skeptics of Christianity were claiming that the authors of the Gospels had got together and conspired to write fabricated accounts so that they were consistent w/ each other, then these "undesigned coincidences" would have some relevance. But is anyone actually suggesting that? Not as far as I know.
As it is, all it indicates is that the authors were working from some common source material, whether that be actual historical events or accounts of alleged events that are either part of an oral tradition or that had been set down in writing, or some combination of the three. I don't think anyone here is denying that much, and more than that cannot be said. The "undesigned coincidences" do nothing to strengthen the case for the historical accuracy of the Gospels.