THE CHANCE OF FULFILLED PROPHECHY
The Old Testament contains over 300 references to the Messiah that were fulfilled in Jesus. What chance did Jesus or any other man have of fulfilling these prophecies? The mathematical laws of probability can give us a clue.
In his book Evidence That Demands A Verdict, Josh McDowell mentions the work of the mathematician, Peter Stoner, on just eight of the 300 prophecies: "We find that the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is one in ten (to the seventeenth power). That would be one in 100,000,000, 000,000,000.
In order to help us comprehend this staggering probability, Stoner illustrates it by supposing that we take ten (seventeenth power) silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as
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