Unintended Co-incidences

The stories in the different Gospels unintentionally fit together like pieces of a jigsaw.

"Detective J. Warner Wallace is a former-atheist-turned-Christian after looking at the gospels in a similar way he’d investigate crimes. Reading these as a skeptic caught his attention. Here’s how Wallace describes undesigned coincidences:
“When I first read through the Gospels forensically, comparing those places where two or more gospel writers were describing the same event, I was immediately struck by the inadvertent support that each writer provided for the other. The accounts puzzled together just the way one would expect from independent eyewitnesses. When one gospel eyewitness described an event and left out a detail that raised a question, this question was unintentionally answered by another gospel writer (who, by the way, often left out a detail that was provided by the first gospel writer)." [1]

There are many undesigned coincidences between the four gospels and many other Bible books. The book: Hidden in Plain Sight by Lydia Mc Grew goes into great detail about all these undesigned coincidences in the Gospels and Acts.

​

Feeding of 5000

Gospel of John 6:5: Jesus asks Philip: "Where can we buy bread?" asks Philip

Gospel of Luke 9:10: Event took place in area of Bethsaida.

From John 1: 44: Philip is from Bethsaida

So asking a local where to get bread from makes sense.

​

Lead in to Beheading of John the Baptist

Mark 6:14 and Matthew14:2 - Herod says all the miracles are happening because John the Baptist has risen from the dead

Matthew  14:2 specifically says: Herod says it to his servants (why does Matthew add this?) 

Luke 8: List of women who follow Jesus: one is Johanna wife of Herod's household manager

So there is a way we could know what Herod was saying to his servants 😊

​

References:

Undesigned coincidences in the Gospels: Surprising Evidence for Jesus' feeding of the 5000, August 7, 2019 by Erik Manning 

Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts – March 1, 2017, Lydia Mc Grew