Coincidence II.4: Gossip, Gossip
The Alleged Coincidence
Mark and Matthew tell us that at Jesus’s trial before the Sanhedrin, witnesses accused Jesus of threatening to destroy the Temple. The passages are:
Some stood up and gave false testimony against him, saying, “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’” (Mark 14:57–58) 1
Now the chief priests and the whole council were looking for false testimony against Jesus so that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.’” (Matt. 26:59–61)
These accusations are puzzling, however. As McGrew points out, “none of the Synoptics, including Matthew and Mark, contain any such statement by Jesus. Nothing about destroying the Temple. Nothing about rebuilding it in three days. Nothing at all to explain the origin of this accusation.” 2 So why do the accusers make these claims about Jesus?
According to McGrew, the answer can be found in John. When Jesus cleanses the Temple, John tells us, “The Jews then said to [Jesus], ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up’” (John 2:18–19).
Now we have our coincidence, in which John, Mark, and Matthew each tell only part of the story. John records the original saying of Jesus. Mark and Matthew record what witnesses said at Jesus’s trial, but their accusations are a “twisted or garbled version” of what Jesus actually had said.
These passages coincide, then, because Jesus’s claim in John 2:19 explains why there were witnesses at Jesus’s trial who thought Jesus claimed he’d destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days.
First Failure: No Evidence for Reliability
Let’s assume for a moment that Jesus’s prediction in John can explain the false testimony found in Mark and Matthew, that the false testimony could be a “twisted or garbled version” of the prediction. 3 Would we have evidence that both Jesus’s prediction and the false testimony are reliable?
No. Since Jesus’s prediction in John and the false testimony in Mark and Matthew are clearly referring or alluding to Jesus’s resurrection, they can easily be explained as the inventions of Christian storytellers.
Regarding Jesus’s prediction in John, it obviously could have been invented in order to portray Jesus as one who knew he was sent by God to die and be raised. Nothing implausible about that.
Regarding the false testimony in Mark and Matthew, it could have been invented to create dramatic irony. The accusers think they are saying something false to incriminate Jesus, but the reader knows they are unwittingly speaking the truth: Jesus will in fact rebuild a temple—his body—in three days. The joke’s on them.
There’s nothing implausible about this explanation. It certainly can’t be refuted by denying the irony; it’s present in the accusations whether or not there really were witnesses at Jesus’s trial who made these accusations. And it’s made more plausible by the fact that irony can be found throughout the Passion narrative. 4
Of course, McGrew and other apologists would vociferously object to these explanations. But that’s irrelevant. The point is that since the prediction and the false testimony can be explained as inventions, McGrew’s explanation can be rejected. The coincidence can be explained without presuming reliability. Whether the details are historical or inventions, the coincidence occurs because, by chance, John mentions only the prediction and Mark and Matthew mention only the false accusations.
Second Failure: No Evidence for Eyewitness Testimony
Because the coincidence can be explained even if the prediction in John and the false accusations in Mark and Matthew are inventions, the coincidence also cannot constitute evidence for eyewitness testimony.
And indeed, McGrew doesn’t provide her standard argument for eyewitness testimony. If she did, it’d go like this: If storytellers invented the false accusations, then they’d be sure to explain where the false witnesses got the idea that Jesus said he’d destroy the Temple and raise it after three days.
As we’ve seen, this argument is never convincing because it based on erroneous assumptions. One of these assumptions is that, whereas storytellers want to avoid raising unnecessary questions by leaving details unexplained, eyewitnesses will leave details unexplained because they’re only concerned about describing what happened. Of course, this assumption is ridiculous. No one wants to raise unnecessary questions or leave details unexplained. All narratives—whether the source is an eyewitness or not—will leave some details unexplained because all narratives are constructed by humans, who aren’t perfect and make mistakes.
Another assumption of McGrew’s argument is that eyewitnesses can leave certain details unexplained because they are so focused on other details. 5 But surely the same can be true of storytellers. In this case, the storytellers were so focused on having Jesus’s enemies ironically speak the truth while falsely accusing him, that they didn’t think about or worry about explaining how the false witnesses came up with their accusations.
And so, this coincidence fails to provides evidence for eyewitness testimony. In addition, the coincidence can be explained without presuming eyewitness testimony. Whether the details are based on eyewitness testimony or are later inventions, the coincidence occurs because, by chance, John mentions only the prediction and Mark and Matthew mention only the false accusations.
Third Failure: Reliable Eyewitness Testimony Is Not the Best Explanation
Not only can invention explain the passages and the apparent coincidence between them, but the passages are also better explained as inventions.
Let’s start with Jesus’s prediction in John. This prediction appears only in John, the last Gospel to be written. Thus, it’s neither early nor independently attested. Furthermore, Jesus’s prediction has no historical parallel; while other Jewish prophets did predict the eventual destruction of the Temple, they referred to the actual Temple, not their bodies. 6 Instead, Jesus’s prediction in John looks exactly like something later Christians would invent, after belief in Jesus’s resurrection arose. In other words, it doesn’t pass any of the standard historical criteria: It’s not early, independently attested, historically plausible, or unlikely to be invented. Therefore, it’s not likely historical.
Does the coincidence with the false accusations in Mark and Matthew outweigh these considerations? That is, since Jesus’s prediction in John can explain the false accusations in Mark and Matthew, should I change my mind and decide that, despite failing multiple historical criteria, the prediction is historical?
Definitely not. Not only is there more evidence against the prediction being historical, but, as I explained above, the false accusations can easily be explained as Christian invention.
Another problem with McGrew’s explanation is that Jesus’s prediction in John cannot explain the false accusations as they’re found in Mark. (I concede, however, that it can explain Matthew’s version of the false accusations.) The accusers in Mark say that Jesus was referring to two temples, one physical and one not physical. But where would they this get this idea? In his statement recorded in John 2:19, Jesus is referring to only one temple: his body. Although the listeners think he’s referring to the physical Temple, they still think he’s talking about one temple. None of Jesus’s enemies would take Jesus’s claim to rebuild the Temple in three days and “garble” it so that Jesus is now claiming to rebuild a new, second temple “not made with hands”. Instead, the second, nonphysical temple is clearly an allusion to Jesus’s resurrection, and is a telltale sign that the accusation was invented by a later Christian storyteller.
Thus, this coincidence fails not only because the passages can be explained as inventions of Christian storytellers, but also because there’s strong evidence that they are, indeed, inventions.
Conclusion: A Failure in Plain View
This alleged coincidence fails to be evidence for reliable eyewitness testimony. The coincidence exists because Mark and Matthew mention the false accusations only, and John mentions Jesus’s prediction only. But this is the case whether the passages and the traditions therein are historical or invented. And since these traditions can easily be explained as Christian inventions, there’s no reason to think the coincidence is the result of reliable eyewitness testimony rather than invention. In fact, the opposite is true: There’s strong evidence that the prediction found in John and the false accusation found in Mark are indeed Christian inventions.
- Unless otherwise noted, I use the NRSVue for all biblical translations. ↩
- I’m using the Kindle version of McGrew’s book, Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts (DeWard, 2017), making page numbers useless. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from McGrew in this post come from Chapter II, section “4. Gossip, gossip”. ↩
- I say “Let’s assume” because I don’t think Jesus’s prediction in John can explain Mark’s version of the false accusations, as I’ll explain below in section “Third Failure: Reliable Eyewitness Testimony Is Not the Best Explanation”. ↩
- For another example of irony in the passion narratives, consider how Mark has Jesus beaten and ridiculed for being a prophet (14:64) immediately before his prophecy about Peter’s triple denial of Jesus comes true (14:66–72). (Matthew follows Mark’s order, but Luke reverses it: Peter’s denial comes immediately before Jesus is mocked for being a prophet. See Luke 22:54–65.) For this and other examples of irony in Mark’s and Matthew’s accounts of the trial, see the following discussions in John Muddiman and John Barton, eds., The Gospels, Oxford Bible Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2010, Kindle edition): Dale Allison, “Matthew”, sections “(26:47–56)” and “(26:57–68)”; and C.M. Tuckett, “Mark”, sections “(14:53–65) The Sanhedrin Trial” and “(15:16–20) The Mockery”. ↩
- For examples, see her arguments in the following posts: “Coincidence I.1: ‘He Was Before Me’”; “Coincidence I.2: How Did John the Baptist Know That Jesus Was the Son of God?”; “Coincidence I.4: ‘Unless You Eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and Drink His Blood’”; “Coincidence I.5: Why Did Jesus Wash His Disciples’ Feet?” In all these coincidences, McGrew argues that the eyewitness sources were too focused on certain details to explain them or other details. ↩
- Prophets like Jeremiah (7:12–14; 26:1–6), Ezekiel (24:21), Daniel (9:26), Micah (3:12), and Jesus ben Ananias (Josephus, Jewish War 6.300–309). ↩