Bible Prophecy – Mathematically Impossible! Chapter 15

 

Bible Prophecy – Mathematically Impossible!

At the end of the New Testament in the first verse in the book of Revelation, we find the following words,

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show to his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified by his angel unto his servant John.[1]

At the end of the revelation, John tries to worship the angel who brought him the end-time message. The angel says,

See you do it not: I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.[2]

A testimony is a document that confirms the will of the testifier: like a person’s will is a document giving evidence or proof or testament to his desires. The spirit of prophecy found in the Bible is the testament or proof or evidence that Jesus is God. The accuracy of God’s prophecies confirms or testifies that Jesus is the Christ. The accuracy of God’s prophecies confirms or testifies to the fact that the Bible is true.

In my condensed Bible concordance, I can find some forty-eight Old Testament Messianic prophecies, or prophecies concerning the coming of the Jewish Messiah, all of which were fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Nowhere in all of ancient Greek and Latin literature can there be found any real specific prophecy of a great historical event to come in the distant future. To the contrary, the Bible is full of countless, detailed, specific prophecies, all of which have been miraculously fulfilled and come true—except the final end-time prophecies which are either to be fulfilled in the near future or are coming to pass right now.

In 1957, Peter W. Stoner, a university professor at Pasadena City College in California, asked his twelve college classes what would be the chance of one person fulfilling forty-eight of the approximately 325 Messianic prophecies randomly? His book titled SCIENCE SPEAKS: An Evaluation of Certain Christian Evidences goes over the results.[3]

First Professor Stoner, with the help of the students from the twelve different classes, estimated the odds for just eight of the Messianic prophecies being fulfilled by one man. They made reasonable and conservative estimates which the students agreed upon unanimously.[4]

For example, they tried to figure out the odds of a child born in Bethlehem at the beginning of the first century becoming the Messiah. What were the odds of three wise men would come from the east and bestow gifts on the child and his family? What were the odds that they same child would escape the slaying of the male children of Bethlehem by Herod the Great? What were the odds of that child traveling specifically to Egypt and then returning later to live in Nazareth so that later he would be called a Nazarene?

Stoner then took the average result for each of the possible eight prophecies calculated by the twelve different classes. By multiplying the probability that was found for one of the prophecies by the other seven prophecies, he came up with the probability of one man fulfilling all eight prophecies. Making the reasonable and conservative assumption that the other forty prophetic possibilities would have nearly the same rate of probability, he did the math. He found that the odds of one person fulfilling all forty-eight prophecies would be one in 10 to the 157th power or one over 10 followed by 157 zeros, or one chance out of

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Mathematicians state that a number with a probability of 10 to the negative 50th power, or one in 10 to the fiftieth power is impossible.[5] Therefore, one times 10 to the negative 157th power would be even less possible. Scientists have calculated the number of electrons in the universe to be around one times 10 to the 80th power. So fulfilling forty-eight Messianic prophecies would be like the possibility of finding, on the very first attempt, one specific electron out of all of the electrons in all the known mass of the entire universe![6] It’s just beyond possibility for one person to accidentally fulfill all forty-eight prophecies of the some 325 total Messianic prophecies found in the Bible. Nevertheless, Jesus did it.

Attorney Lee Stroebel was the former agnostic journalist with the Chicago Tribune, who had received Illinois’ highest honor for public service in investigating reporting from United Press International. He said in 2007, that statistical information presented in Professor Stoner’s Science Speaks about the Messianic prophecies was one of the major factors which gave him confidence to believe in Christ. Lee went on to become a New York Times besting-selling author with his books: The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith and The Case for Easter.[7]

Notes:

[1] Revelation 1:1
[2] Revelation 19:10
[3] Peter W. Stoner; Science Speaks; Moody Press; Chicago, Illinois; 1957
[4] http://www.bereanpublishers.com/the-odds-of-eight-messianic-prophecies-coming-true/ (accessed 03/2016)
[5] http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/borelfaq.html (accessed 03/2016)
[6] http://jvmi.co.uk/who-is-yeshua/reasons-to-believe/prophecies.html (03/2016)
[7] http://www.leestrobel.com/Bio.php (accessed 03/2016)

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