Food For Thought

Taken from "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel

Coincidence?

Could Jesus have fulfilled the prophecies by coincidence. Maybe several people in history have fit these predictions, but Jesus happened to have a better public relations agent and so now he's the one everyone remembers.

But reading a book by Dr. Peter Stoner, a science professor, undermined that objection. Stoner worked with 600 students to come up with their best estimate of the mathematical probability of just 8 Old Testament prophecies being fulfilled in any one person living down to the present time. Stoner then calculated that the probability of anyone fulfilling all 8 would be one chance in a hundred million billion. That's a figure with 17 zeroes behind it!

Want a more human, less mathematical, picture of those odds? Imagine the entire world covered with white tile that is one-and-a-half inches square-every bit of dry land on the planet-with a gold star painted on the bottom of just one of the tiles. Then picture a person being allowed to wander for a lifetime around all 7 continents. He would be permitted to bend down only one time and pick up a single piece of tile. What are the odds it would be the one tile with the gold star on its reverse side? One chance in a hundred million billion-the same as just 8 of the Old Testament prophecies coming true in any one person throughout history!

Now, you can agree or disagree with the estimates that the students came up with for Stoner's calculations. After all, prophecies can be difficult to quantify and assessments can vary. You could come up with your own calculations. But when I examined the prophecies myself, I had to agree with Stoner's conclusion: the chances of anyone coincidentally fulfilling these ancient predictions would surely be prohibitive.

Sample it for yourself, read Isaiah 53