What are the chances of Jesus’ fulfilling of prophecies as just being coincidental?
There are at least 330 prophecies in the OT fulfilled in Jesus Christ! Twenty-nine (29) were fulfilled in one day! Such prophecies were spoken at various times by many different people during the ten centuries from 1500 B.C. to 500 B.C. The science of probabilities demonstrates that it is nigh to impossible Jesus fulfilled these prophecies by coincidence. In one study (by Peter Stoner), eight (8) prophecies were considered.
The likelihood of anyone fulfilling just these eight by chance was calculated to be 1 in 10 to the 17th power. This would be like finding on the first try, while blindfolded, a marked silver dollar in a pile of silver dollars two-feet high covering the entire state of Texas! In another study (also by Peter Stoner), forty eight (48) prophecies were considered. The likelihood of a coincidence was 1 in 10 to the 157th power! How big a number is 10 to the 157th power?
Counting at the rate of 250 a minute it would take you 19 million times 19 million times 19 million years to count such a number! Remember, that is just calculating the chance of any one man coincidentally fulfilling 48 prophecies - Jesus fulfilled 330!
Look at it another way, your chances of surviving a fall from 10,000 feet without a parachute is 1 in 10 million - would you "willingly" jump and take such a chance? Yet to reject Jesus because one thinks fulfilling 330 prophecies was coincidental is infinitely more risky than jumping out of an airplane at 10,000 feet without a parachute! We would say that anyone who jumped out of an airplane with such odds against survival is either stupid, crazy or ignorant of the risks. What about someone who takes the chance of rejecting Christ in view of the overwhelming odds he is wrong about Christ???
With such overwhelming evidence can anyone truly think these things are only coincidental?
adapted by B.D. Phillips
