The Odds of Eight Messianic Prophecies Coming True
In
1957 Moody Press in Chicago, Illinois published a book by Professor
Peter W. Stoner, called SCIENCE SPEAKS, An Evaluation of Certain
Christian Evidences.
Stoner
introduces the chapter on “The Christ of Prophecy” with a salient quote
from John 5:39, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have
eternal life; and they are they which testify of me…” We will return to
this passage.
On
page 71 Stoner notes, “I am making use of the well-known principle of
probability. If the chance of one thing happening is one in M and the
chance of another, and independent thing happening is one in N, then the
chance that they both shall happen is one in M times N. …Suppose one
man in every ten is bald, and one man in 100 has lost a finger, then one
man in every 1,000 ( the product of 10 and 100) is both bald and has
lost a finger.”
In
an e-mail correspondence I had with attorney Lee Stroebel. in January
of 2007, the former agnostic and author of THE CASE FOR CHRIST, THE CASE
FOR FAITH and THE CASE FOR EASTER noted that the statistical odds of
select Messianic prophecies coming true as documented in SCIENCE SPEAKS,
gave him confidence to believe in Christ.
It
is precisely because I wish to encourage you, my dear reader, to also
believe in Christ, that I summarize some of Stoner’s findings. In his
forward to this book H. Harold Hartzler, Ph.D, the Secretary-Treasurer
to “American Scientific Affiliation” writes the following. “The
manuscript SCIENCE SPEAKS has been carefully reviewed by a committee of
the American Scientific Affiliation members…and Executive Council…and
has been found, in general, to be dependable and accurate in regard to
the scientific material presented. The mathematical analysis included is
based upon principles of probability which are thoroughly sound and
Professor Stoner has applied these principles in a proper and convincing
way.”
As
we identify specific prophecies, we will inquire what would the
statistical probability be that “One man in how many men has fulfilled
this prophecy?” (p. 99f) The odds Stoner notes were initially proposed
by a Pasadena City College class in Christian Evidence conducted by
Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. As each prophecy was discussed,
students “agreed unanimously on a definite estimate as being both
reasonable and conservative.” (p. 100) Stoner taught this same class on
Christian Evidence 12 times and merged the odds which each group of
students proposed to come up with the statistics used in the chapter he
titles “The Christ of Propecy.”
The following eight prophecies were considered:
1)
“But thou, Bethlehem Epratah, though you be little among the thousands
of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be
ruler in Israel: whose goings forth have been from of old, from
everlasting.” (Micah 5:2) (Note: today the population of the earth is
larger than the 2 billion figure used when Stoner made his model.) To
arrive at the answer Stoner started with the average population of
Bethlehem from the days of the prophet Micah to this present time and
divided it by the average population of the earth for the same period.
It was discovered that this ratio was 1 to 280,000. Since that time the
earth has had an average population of 2,000,000,000. So the answer
would be one man in 7,150/2,000,000,000 or one man in 2.8 X10 to the
fifth power was born in Bethlehem.
2)
“Behold I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before
me…” (Malachi 3:1) How many men who have been born in Bethlehem have had
a forerunner sent by God to prepare his way? We will use the
conservative estimate of 1 in 1,000 or 1 in 10 to the third power.
3)
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem:
behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation;
lowly, and riding upon…a colt the foal of an ass. ” (Zechariah 9:9) The
question now becomes, “One man in how many, who was born in Bethlehem
and had a forerunner, entered into Jerusalem as a king riding on the
colt, the foal of an ass?” Because this question is too restrictive, we
will broaden it to read, “One man in how many, who has entered Jerusalem
as a ruler, has entered riding on a colt, the foal of an ass?” We will
use 1 in 10 to the second power.
4)
“And one shall say unto him, ‘What are these wounds in thine hands?’
Then he shall answer, ‘Those with which I was wounded in the house of my
friends.'” (Zechariah 13:6) One man in how many all over the world has
been betrayed by a friend and as a result suffered wounds in his hands?
We will use 1 in 10 to the third power.
5)
“And I said unto them, ‘If ye think good, give me my price; and if no,
forbear. So they weighed for my price, thirty pieces of silver.”
(Zechariah 11:12) Of all the people who have suffered betrayal, how many
have been betrayed for exactly thirty pieces of silver? We will use 1
in 1,000 or 1 in 10 to third power.
6)
“And the Lord said unto me, ‘Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price
that I was prized at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver,
and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord.” (Zechariah 11:13)
This specifies that the price is not to be returned, but rather cast
down in the house of the Lord. Then, without the person throwing them
down doing anything, those to whom the silver was returned would have to
give the silver to the potter. The reason the priests to whom the
remorseful Judas returned the money he received from them to betray the
Messiah did not put the funds back into the temple treasury was because
it was not money obtained in a kosher, an appropriate way. There was a
provision that the priests could spend discretionary funds to meet
specific needs. The field they purchased from the potter was
subsequently used as a cemetery for travelers and low income people.
None of the students had ever heard of another incident involving all
these criteria. So we used the estimate as 1 in 100,000 or 10 to the
fifth power.
7)
“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth:
he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before the
shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7) What are
the odds that an innocent man who has been betrayed, oppressed and
afflicted and is on trial for his life will not offer a single word in
his own defense?” We will use 1 in 1,000 or 1 in 10 to the third power.
8)
“For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have enclosed
me: the pierce my hands and my feet” (Psalm 22:16) When David wrote
these words, death by crucifixion had yet to be invented. The question
is, “One man in how many from the time of King David on, has been
crucified?” (p. 105) We estimated that it would have been 1 in 10,000 or
1 in 10 to the fourth power.
Next,
“If these estimates are considered fair, one man in how many men, the
world over, will fulfill all eight prophecies? Let’s run the math. We
have 1 in 2.8 X 100,000 X 1,000 X 100 X 1,000 X 1,000 X 100,000 X 1,000 X
10,000. This gives us 1 in 2.8 X 10 to the twenty-eighth power. Let us
simplify it by calling it 1 X 10 to the twenty-eighth power. Written out
we have 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.” (p.105f)
What
are the odds that any man living from the day of these prophecies down
to the present time? To get this answer, we divide our 10 to the 28th
power by the total number of people who have lived since the time of
these prophecies. At the time this book was published we come up wit 88
billion people or 8.8 X 10 to the tenth power. To simplify it let’s
round it off to 10 to the 11th power. The odds of any one man who lived
from the the the prophecies were made until the present time and
fulfilled all eight prophecies is 1 in 10 to the seventeenth power.
Can
we visualize this with an illustration? Suppose we took an atheistic
professor, blindfolded him and covered the state of Texas two feet deep
with silver dollars. Then we put a check on one of those silver dollars
and mixed them up. The odds of one person fulfilling just these eight
prophecies would be the same as this atheistic professor selecting the
silver dollar upon which we have placed a check, in his first try.
There
are some 300 – 350 prophecies which were written in the Old Testament
to help us identify which person is the promised Messiah. Suppose we add
eight more prophecies to our list? And assume that their chance at
being fulfilled by just one man is the same as the eight prophecies just
considered. Those odds would be 10 to the 28th power X 10 to the 17th
power or 1 in 10 to the 45th power.
How big would a
ball of silver dollars be using this number? Its diameter would be
thirty times the distance from the center of the earth to the sun. Let’s
take that same atheistic professor, put a space suit on him, place a
check on one of those silver dollars and shoot him out into space. Do
you think he would pick the silver dollar with a check on it the first
time? Maybe if we left his blindfold off.
Now
let’s keep the same odds and chose 48 prophecies. The odds of one
person fulfilling them all would be 1 in 10 to the 157th power. The
silver dollar is too large to make a comparison. It takes 2.5 X 10 to
the 15th power of electrons laid side by side to make a line single file
one inch long. Light travels at 86,000 miles per second. Suppose we
made a solid ball of electrons extending all directions from the earth
to the distance of 6 billion light years.
Dr.
Stoner continues, “Suppose again we had this great amount of electrons,
10 to the 157th power of them, and we were abler to make 500 of these
tremendous balls, 6 billion light-years in radius, each minute. If we
worked day and night it would take us 10 to the 10th times the 6 billion
years back to creation to use up our supply of electrons.” (p. 111)
Please put a check on one of these electrons. Now lets take this same
atheistic professor and ask him to find the marked electron on his first
try.
Remember,
these are the odds of one man fulfilling just 48 of the 300-350
Messianic prophecies. Whom among us can deny Christ’s credentials? The
universe is not large enough to contain the evidence.
Let’s
simplify it. Suppose we took all the Messianic prophecies and placed
the odds of any one man fulfilling them at 1:4. We would end up with a
number larger than the one we obtained by calculating the odds from the
48 prophecies. Stoner adds, “Any man who rejects Christ as the Son of
God is rejecting a fact proved perhaps more absolutely than any other
fact in the world.” (p. 112)
Suppose
you were a highway patrol officer and you stopped a person for going 80
in a 60 mph zone. Suppose the person said, “But I know the law says the
speed limit is 60, therefore, I ask you not to ticket me.” What would
you say to the driver? Let us return to the opening passage where Christ
is teaching in John 5. “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye
have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will
not come to me, that ye might have life…Do not think that I will accuse
you to the father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom
ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he
wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my
words?” Now that you have learned additional facts which document the
Messiah’s identity, you most likely will give intellectual assent that
what the scriptures say is true. In the same way, the person caught
speeding may give intellectual assent regarding the posted speed limit.
But even as knowledge will not be enough so that the policeman decides
to not ticket the speeder, so knowledge of the Messiah’s identity is not
enough. I must also come to the Messiah of whom Moses writes in order
to get eternal life. So must we all.
{Aside:
Some of my scholarly readers are experts on Moses and the creation
account in Genesis. They will enjoy chapter 1 of this book. The odds of
Moses correctly guessing the sequence and substance of 13 aspects of
creation (as he recorded it in Genesis) by chance are 1 in 331,351,040.
(p. 47) There is enough fascinating evidence here to make many
outstanding lectures. Stoner adds, “If you wish to know the definiteness
of the evidence in chapters 1-3 combined, you will have to multiply all
of the individual probabilities together. The result is an
astonishingly large number, 1 in 1.7 X 10 to the 245th power.” (p. 113)}
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