Jesus and Mathematics

Many individuals of many Christian denominations with the exception of a few, including Calvary Chapel attendees, do not study the Bible, verse by verse, chapter by chapter. If you do this, you would see the entire Old Testament is God's redemptive plan for humanity. In other words, the entire Bible is written about Jesus. 

Within the pages of the Old Testament, there are prophecies that point to the coming of the Messiah, from His birth to His death. Now is where the fun comes in! Dr. Peter Stoner, professor Emeritus at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California calculate the mathematical probability that ANYONE could fulfill such prophecies…prepare to be dazzled! And before you discount the work of Dr. Stoner, please know that he encouraged his peers to make his own calculations. When his own calculations were complete, he submitted them to the American Scientific Affiliation for review. The ASA concluded that his calculations were dependable and accurate (Peter Stoner, Science Speaks, Chicago: Moody Press, 1969, 4). 

“For example, concerning Micah 5:2, where it states the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem"

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Though you are little among the thousands of Judah,
Yet out of you shall come forth to Me
The One to be Ruler in Israel,
Whose goings forth are from of old,
From everlasting.” - Micah 5:2

 Stoner and his students determined the average population of Bethlehem from the time of Micah to the present; then they divided it by the average population of the earth during the same period. They concluded that the chance of one man being born in Bethlehem was one in 300,000, (or one in 2.8 x 10^5 - rounded). After examining only eight different prophecies, they conservatively estimated that the chance of one man fulfilling all eight prophecies was one in 10^17. To illustrate how large the number 10^17 IS (a figure with 17 zeros), Stoner gave this illustration: 

Suppose that we take 10^17 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They'll cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would've had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote them in their own wisdom.

Another way of saying this is that any person who minimizes or ignores the significance of the biblical identifying signs concerning the Messiah would be foolish. But, of course, there are many more than eight prophecies. 

In another calculation, Stoner used 48 prophecies, even though he could have used the 456, and arrived at the extremely conservative estimate that the probability of 48 prophecies being fulfilled in one person is the incredible number 10^157. 

How large is the number one in 10^157? Well it contains 157 zeros! Stoner gives an illustration of this number using electrons. Electrons are very small objects. They're smaller than atoms. It would take 2.5 TIMES 10^15 of them, laid side by side, to make one inch. Even if we counted 250 of these electrons each minute, and counted day and night, it would still take 19 million years just to count a line of electrons one-inch long (Stoner, op. cit, 109). This is the result from considering a mere 48 prophecies. 

Obviously, the probability that 456 prophecies would be fulfilled in one man by chance is vastly smaller.

 As Stoner concludes, '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 (Stoner, op. cit., 112).”

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