In all probability - Part I

 To dispute that Jesus walked on the earth is tantamount to saying that social networking sites such as Facebook have not made a mark on your life. To dispute that Jesus was the Messiah prophesied about about 60 times in the bible is near unthinkable.  It was through the fulfillment of prophecies in the Bible that Israel was told she would be able to recognize the true Messiah when He came. It's a wonder that many didn't know who he was when he rocked up on the scene. He was a pleb, an insignificant carpenter from Nazareth.


Today is not for prophesies. Today is for statistics and probabilities. Just like money, people understand numbers. So what exactly is probablility? It's an odd branch of mathematics also known as 'odds'. Ask the math minds of this year and they will tell you that it is the likelihood that a given event will occur. This applies as much to which horse will cross the finish line at the Durban July  as it does to what you could have pulled out of a lucky packet when you were at school.

Some interesting odds and ends...


- Your chance of being struck by lightning in a year = 7 x 105 or 1 in 700,000
- Your chance of being killed by lightning in a year = 2 x 106 or 1 in 2,000,000
- Your chance of becoming president = 1 x 107 or 1 in 10,000,000
- Your chance of a meteorite landing on your house = 1.8 x 1014 or 1 in 180,000,000,000,000
- The chance that you will eventually die. No chance. Your odds are  1 in 1.


One of the most interesting probability studies that has been conducted was by a Dr. John Stoner. (seriously? Stoner? Ja.) This guy is the author of Science Speaks. Google him, he's legit.  He applied the principle of probability, which states that if the chance of one thing happening is "1 in M", and the chance of another independent thing happening is "1 in N", then the chance that they shall both happen is "1 in M x N", as it pertains to fulfillment of Biblical prophecies.


To answer the question of what is the probability of one man fulfilling all of just eight prophecies, the principal of probability is applied. Therefore, multiplying all eight probabilities together (1 times 2.8 x 105 x 103 x 102 x 103 x 103 x 105 x 103 x 104) gives us 2.8 x 1028, or for simplicity sake 1 x 1028 or 1 in 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Too many noughts.


Now, there could be two possible ways that the prophets came up with these prophesies. They either received them directly from God or just wrote what they thought would happen. Given the time span between the prophesies and writings of the Old Testament and the fulfillment of them by Christ in the New Testament how can we even debate that the prophets were just guessing? To fulfill 8 prophesies it is staggeringly improbable, but 60 - next to impossible without divine intent.