The Lydia McGrew Podcast

Independence and the case of Mr. Jones

Today I'm taking a hypothetical police case in which a mother and daughter testify. Since they live together and haven't been kept separate before they testify, it seems like their testimony can't possibly be regarded as independent, right? And that lessens the force of their two testimonies for what they agree on, right? I mean, c'mon. They've got to be influencing one another.Here I illustrate the fact that independence is not a flat, simple thing. Dependence in the form of an undesigned coincidence can even be *good* for the confirmation of some H, because H unifies the testimonies better than ~H. The details can show us that the witnesses don't seem to be even unconsciously influencing each other's memories. All of that can be understood in terms of the mysterious case of Mr. Jones.If you want to get into more geeky details, here's a paper of mine on the value of varied evidence:https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ergo/12405314.0003.010?view=text;rgn=main

What model of the Gospels is confirmed by undesigned coincidences?

Anybody who is trying to study the Gospels honestly is trying to get a good model of what they are like. Those who think that the Gospel authors were writing in a genre in which they were licensed to change and fabricate even details are making non-deductive arguments for their own model. (And it's disturbingly misleading to say that these claims are restricted to just details, but that's not what I'm addressing in this video, except in passing.)So when I argued in The Mirror or the Mask that finding undesigned coincidences is in tension with the view that the authors considered themselves licensed to change facts, I was making a *probabilistic* point about model comparison and explanatory inference. This seems like a good time to review that point.Interested in more? Go here to buy The Mirror or the Mask:https://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Mask-Liberating-Gospels-Literary/dp/1947929070/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=mirror+or+the+mask&qid=1600272214&sr=8-1

Unexplained allusions: The little ladder at Civitella

It's important to remember that unexplained allusions are not just realistic details. In fact, they are awkward and puzzling and in that sense "unliterary." I illustrate this by reviewing the "dispute about purification" allusion in John 3 and then reading a passage from one of the widows of Civitella that contains an unexplained allusion.

Unnecessary details: The raincoat at Civitella

Unnecessary details provide a commonsense clue to truthfulness. See how this works in the testimony of a witness to the horrific Civitella massacre, which took place in 1944. We also find unnecessary details in the Gospels. "The Witnesses of Civitella," translation of testimonies, found here:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1535685X.1991.11015699Thanks to Luuk Van de Weghe for drawing my attention to this article in his book _Living Footnotes in the Gospel of Luke. https://www.amazon.com/Living-Footnotes-Gospel-Luke-Eyewitness/dp/B0CH23XGNWThumbnail, Civitella photo creative commons license: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Civitella_in_Val_di_Chiana,_piazza_principale.jpg

A very very unnecessary detail: "She was Estonian"

Two years ago I discussed Dirk Bogarde's visit to Bergen Belsen, his biographer's doubts, and the unexpected confirmation from an independent source. Go here to watch that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW1nLyn70ZE&t=922sI've been revisiting that topic recently in my research, and I was struck by an unnecessary detail in one of Bogarde's interviews that all by itself is noteworthy evidence for the credibility of his story. Discussing it gives me an opportunity to talk a bit more about what unnecessary details really are.Here is Bogarde's interview:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QaNCbig82Q