Lydia McGrew

I first heard of the "undesigned coincidences" argument ~3 years ago when Tim McGrew lectured at Texas A&M. At first, I was somewhat unimpressed yet intrigued at the same time. It's an extremely nuanced argument but once it clicked in my head, it's really quite brilliant.

Lydia McGrew has taken this obscure line of argument and refurbished it for a 21st century audience. This short work covers just the historical books of the New Testament (John Synoptics and Acts Pauline Epistles). Old arguments are re-presented, updated with the latest NT research and new arguments are introduced. It's an easy read and well-formatted with each coincidence sorted by explanatory direction. The tables at the end of each chapter make for a handy reference when you kind of remember that one coincidence but only vaguely.

The mileage varies on the strength of some of the arguments. Some are close to knock-down, others are more conjectural. At some points, I thought McGrew relied too heavily on the psychology of the writers. E.g. "If he were making this up, he would've gone into more detail about XYZ". It wasn't so much as to detract from the work as a whole, but, a more robust defense of authorial intentions at the relevant points would've been preferred.

Formatting 4.5/5
Material 3.9/5
Cover art 5/5

Overall 4.1/5
Highly recommended… (altro)