The Odds

I promised at the beginning of my Christmas Prophecy series to answer a few questions. What are the odds that one man could fulfill all these prophecies? Is it likely that many other people in our world coincidentally fulfilled some of these prophecies also? Or could it be that Jesus organized this and made things in His life fit the Scriptures?

To answer those questions, I consulted The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict, by Josh McDowell. This book is an amazing resource! If you have questions about the validity of the virgin birth, the reality of the resurrection, the historical reliability and accuracy of our Bible, and more, please check this book out. Our faith is not based merely on feelings, but facts.

McDowell deals with every possible question and criticism. He even brings up incongruities and contradictions, like if Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, why do they record his death? McDowell was an atheist, and in college was challenged to prove the Bible to be untrue. He did intense homework, including travel throughout Europe to access various documents, and became thoroughly convinced for himself and became a believer.

If you, too, have doubts about Jesus, God, and the Bible, I challenge you to prove them. Check out Josh McDowell's materials and also C. S. Lewis'. C. S. Lewis was also an atheist. He was highly intelligent--he taught at both Oxford and Cambridge universities. (Christianity doesn't defy rational thought, it is actually the most logical thing in this world.) But he became a believer, too. You can find out why in his books. My favorite is Mere Christianity.

I covered 24 different prophecies about Jesus in my Christmas Prophecy series. There are actually 61 listed in Josh McDowell's book. If you include types of Christ and all the symbolism of the Old Testament, there are many, many more. What are the odds that one man would fulfill 24 prophecies, or 61, or what about just 8?

Let's examine just eight prophecies. These eight, specifically, were totally beyond the human control of Jesus. He could not have possible planned them.

1. Place of birth - Bethlehem

2. Time of birth - for more explanation on this one, see the book. I did not specifically go into detail on this one in my series.

3. Manner of birth - by a virgin

4. Betrayal

5. Manner of death - crucifixion

6. People's reactions (mocking, spitting, staring, etc.)

7. Piercing

8. Burial

These could not have been engineered by the Christ.

Now, this list of eight prophecies is slightly different, and this is where the odds come in. Peter Stoner published a mathematical analysis for Science Speaks, and it was carefully reviewed by a committee of the American Scientific Affiliation members.

1. Place of birth - Bethlehem

2. Preceded by a messenger (John the Baptist--Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1, fulfilled in Matthew 3:1-2) - I did not include this one in my series

3. Entering Jerusalem on a donkey

4. Betrayed and crucified

5. Sold for 30 pieces of silver

6. Money to be thrown into God's house & Money used to buy Potter's field

7. Silent before accusers

8. Crucified and with thieves

I am not a scientist or a mathematician, but I know the logic goes something like this. You look at each prophecy individually and figure the odds. Such as, what are the odds of a person being born in Bethlehem? I know Bethlehem has always been a small town, do you think there have been one million people born there over time? That would make the odds of being born in Bethlehem 1 in 1,000,000. What are the odds of someone being betrayed by a friend and the results are crucifixion? That one seems pretty slim. I know that Peter Stoner was even generous in his figuring of each individual item. Let's say 1 in 1,000 people in the world have been betrayed by a friend and crucified. How many people have been sold for 30 pieces of silver? Joseph was sold for 20. How many people are silent and don't even try to defend themselves in court, EVEN though they are innocent? That one seems incredibly slim, but again, shall we say 1 in 1,000? These aren't the real numbers, but that is to give you the idea of how Peter Stoner figured these. Then he takes all these and adds them together.

Doing all the calculations for each prophecy (remember, mine weren't the real calculations), Peter Stoner came up with this total. The odds that one man could fulfill all eight of these things is 1 in 10 to the 17th power. That is a 1 with 17 zeros behind it. It looks like this--100,000,000,000,000,000. That is a really, really big number. That's not millions, or billions, or trillions. That's one hundred quadrillion!!! So the chances of one person fulfilling all eight of these prophecies is 1 in one hundred quadrillion!

That's hard to visualize, so let's think about it like this. Suppose that was your chance of winning a lottery prize. Say I told you all you had to do to win the prize money is pick out the red-marked silver dollar out of a group of unmarked silver dollars. Not too bad, you say? Well, the area of unmarked silver dollars for you to pull from is the state of Texas. And those unmarked silver dollars cover the ENTIRE surface of the state, AND are stacked two feet deep. I've just thrown the red-marked silver dollar in there somewhere, you have one chance to pull it out. Are you going to try Dallas, how about Houston, how about up in the panhandle, how about down near the Rio Grande? I hope now you can see how utterly impossible these odds are! And that is just for eight prophecies! Jesus fulfilled many, many more. (If you would like to dig into this further and see the probability of Jesus fulfilling 48 prophecies, you need to check out The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict, by Josh McDowell, or even track down a copy of Science Speaks, by Peter Stoner.)

Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord of lords. He could not just merely be a man that taught some good moral lessons. You just can't leave it at that. If he taught some good moral lessons, but wasn't really God incarnate, then that says he was either a liar or a raving lunatic. Do you want to listen to the moral lessons a liar has to teach? That makes him a hypocrite. Same with lunacy. I don't know about you, but if I know someone is certifiably insane, I'm not going to trust their teachings. That leaves the only other alternative, that Jesus was in fact God, come in the flesh, the Bible is true, every Word, and I had better make sure I am right with the God of the universe. I have a choice to make. You have a choice to make.

"You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." --C. S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity