So I am having a debate with an apologist (testify on Youtube) and he says there is an undesigned coincidence in John, when Jesus ask Peter if he loves him more than the others:
John 21:15: When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
According to the apologist, the only way to explain this question is to look at a conversation in Matthew 26:33, where Peter boasts about loving Jesus more than the others:
Matthew 26:33. Peter declared, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you.
So the fact that John does not include the boasting but has a scene matching this conversation mean that there is an undesigned coincidence in the gospel of John, which increases its reliability. An undesigned coincidence is a piece of information that casually matches another piece of information somewhere else, suggesting that the accounts are reliable.
What do you guys think of this? I responded that Jesus was asking this question of Peter simply because Peter is constantly portrayed as the most prominent apostle, but he says Jesus would not turn things into a “who loves me more” competition.
That’s utter nonsense.
Jn 13:37 is all the context that is needed to make that exchange make sense. And I’m not sure you even need that.
Also, such an unintended coincidence, if indeed there even is one, could be explained by John knowing Matthew or at least the general story Matthew told (perhaps from some shared source–but that is hardly novel, we know for a fact that John at least shared some source with the synoptics, and that doesn’t prove that they are reliably recording history).
Jn 13:37 doesn’t quite say that Peter loves Jesus more than the rest. Matthew 26:33 is much more explicit in that regard.
The apologists says John could have known this conversation from Matthew but John would have included that part in his own Gospel, since his scene (21:15) hints at that previous conversation (where Peter boasts about loving Jesus more). The match happebed casually because John is describing things as they happened,
Some scholars speculate that John might have actually been intended as a supplement to the synoptics, presupposing their existence. I’m totally agnostic on whether or not John knew them. There are compelling arguments on both sides. Where oh where is your book, Prof Goodacre?
Sorry if I’m a bit slow here. Aren’t all coincidences “undesigned” by definition?
BDEhrman
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