Peter Stoner in “Science Speaks” (Moody Press, 1963) takes just eight of the Old Testament prophecies concerning Christ – not all of them, just eight – and shows that coincidence is ruled out by the science of probability. He says, “We find that the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is 1 in 10(17th).” That would be one in 100,000,000,000,000,000. And then to help us understand this staggering figure, he illustrates it by supposing that “we take 10(17th) silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas (approximate area : 263,000 square miles). 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 he wishes,” anywhere in the state. But he must pick up the silver dollar that was marked. What chance would he have of getting the right one? “Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote them in their own wisdom.”

Evidently this business of fulfilling prophecy isn’t so easy. No wonder the psychics miss so much of the time!

By Marjorie Lewis Lloyd, Signs of the Times, August 1976. Thanks to Dale Galusha dalgal@pacificpress.com