Long Odds on Jesus of Nazareth

A few days ago, and purely by chance, I happened to overhear a segment of the Mike Huckabee Show featuring an interview with Rev. Tim LaHaye (the co-author of the best-selling LeftBehind book series). During that approximately 10 minute interview, Rev. LaHaye stated that there were 108 "Bible prophecies" which had been "fulfilled" by Jesus of Nazareth. According to Rev. LaHaye, this is overwhelming "proof" that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. This is an impressive argument but, unfortunately, one that is so absurd that it would laughable if a few million people didn't believe it. In this relatively-short essay I will demonstrate that such claims of "overwhelming probability" are, at best, nonsense.

According to any number of Christian apologetic web sites such as RaptureReady.com and ChristianAnswers.net, among many others, Jesus of Nazareth is credited with being the fulfillment of no less than 48 individual "Bible prophecies." According to an essay published on the RaptureReady site by Mr. John Funk, and essentially repeated on every other such site, "... the probability of Jesus of Nazareth being the fulfillment of only 8 of those prophecies is 1 in 10¹⁷, or1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000."

As his authority, Mr. Funk cites a little-known work by the late Peter W. Stoner, PhD entitled Science Speaks: Scientific Proof of the Accuracy of Prophecy and the Bible, (3^rd ed. Chicago: Moody, 1969). In Chapter 3 of this book, "The Christ of Prophecy," Dr. Stoner assures us that all "Bible prophecies" supposedly regarding Jesus of Nazareth are true and then uses an arbitrarily-derived "set of numbers" to "prove" his argument.

In the interest of editorial brevity, Dr. Stoner's tortured math is not reproduced here. In order to fully appreciate the absurdity of Dr. Stoner's (and, indirectly, Rev. LaHaye's) contentions, the reader is encouraged to visit the above-given link to the "Christ of Prophecy" section of Dr. Stoner's book.

In order to lend credence to Dr. Stoner's conclusion, Mr. Funk cites a statement issued by an organization called the American Scientific Affiliation and infers that this group has certified that Dr. Stoner's calculations are indeed scientifically valid. Unfortunately, Mr. Funk neglects to mention two important facts.

First, according to its web site, the American Scientific Affiliation describes itself as a

"... fellowship of men and women of science and disciplines that can relate to science who share a common fidelity to the Word of God... The stated purpose of the ASA is 'to investigate any area relating Christian faith and science' and to make known the results of such investigations for comment and criticism by the Christian community and by the scientific community."

Given this "mission statement," it is most unlikely that this group is interested in endorsing anything that would contradict its dogmatic beliefs concerning Jesus of Nazareth.

Secondly, the American Scientific Affiliation's statement supposedly endorsing Dr. Stoner's work says nothing at all about the validity of Dr. Stoner's assumptions but only that mathematics are a correct application of probability theory if Dr. Stoner's data is presumed to be correct. As I will soon demonstrate, this organization was wise to withhold certification of Stoner's assumptions.

While Dr. Stoner's numbers are impressive, they cannot be supported if they are subjected to even the most cursory of examinations. In fact, Dr. Stoner's argument immediately becomes suspect when it is realized that he ignored the real question to be addressed which is "did Jesus of Nazareth 'fulfill' a given 'Bible prophecy?'" and instead focuses on the estimated probability that any given man selected from a "pool" of all men alive at a given moment would fulfill a given "prophecy." In actuality, the probability that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled any one of the eight prophecies reduces to either "yes" or"no," or "one chance in two."

We will begin our examination of Dr. Stoner's argument by reminding ourselves of three fundamental mathematical principles of probability:

1. Given any event in which there are only 2 possible outcomes (e.g. "true" or "false;" "heads" or "tails"), the probability of either event is "1 chance in 2" or 0.5.

2. In a series of independent events (events in which the outcome of a past event does not influence the probability of a future event) the probability that a series of consecutive events will occur is the product of the individual probabilities,i.e. the probability that two consecutive coin tosses will be "heads" is (1:2)(1:2) = 1:4, or (0.5)(0.5) = 0.25 and the probability of three consecutive "heads" is (1:2)(1:2)(1:2) = 1:8 or (0.5)(0.5)(0.5) = 0.125. This can be extended to state that the probability of the same event occurring n times in succession is 1:2ⁿ, or 1/2ⁿ.

3. The sum of the individual probabilities in the occurrence of an event, or in any series of events, cannot exceed 1.0. Thus, the probability of a series of n events not occurring is 1.0 - 1/2ⁿ.

It is obvious that the probability of Jesus of Nazareth "fulfilling" a given "Bible prophecy" is 1:2, or 0.5 (either he did or he did not). By (2) the probability that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled 8 prophecies is therefore 2⁸ or 1:256, (~ 0.00391, or ~ 0.4%) which is far, far less than 1.0 x 10¹⁷. When 2⁸ is plugged into (3), the probability that Jesus did not fulfill all 8 prophecies is 1:256-1 which becomes ~ 0.99609, or ~ 99.6%.

By the same principles of probability, the probability that Jesus of Nazareth could have fulfilled 48 individual prophecies (as claimed by the above-mentioned web site) would be 1:2⁴⁸, which works out to ~ 1:281,000,000,000,000 (1 in 281 trillion)! To put this ridiculously-large number into something at least resembling a perspective, consider the following example.

Let's say that you visit Las Vegas and decide to play "5-Card Stud" poker. According to John Hartley's The Little Black Book of Casino Games (White Plains NY: Peter Pauper Press, 2005), the odds of being dealt a single Royal Flush are ~ 1:650,000 or 1.65 x 10⁵. The probability of being dealt five consecutive royal flushes then becomes (1.65 x 10⁵)(1.65 x 10⁵)(1.65 x 10⁵)(1.65 x 10⁵(1.65 x 10⁵) = ~ 8.25 x 10²⁵. Thus, the probability that Jesus of Nazareth could have fulfilled all 48 prophecies is far less than the probability that you would be dealt five consecutive Royal Flushes!

Had Mr. Funk been both intellectually honest and familiar with the mathematics of probability he should have immediately recognized that that, even if Dr. Stoner's implausible assumptions were correct, the probability that Jesus of Nazareth was not who he was supposed to be would have been 1 in 10¹⁷- 1. Given the preceding discussion, I find it plausible to conclude that Mr. Funk et al are more concerned with matters of dogma than with the validity of their claims. In light of the preceding discussion, we see that Rev. LaHaye's claim of 1 chance in 2¹⁰⁸ is so preposterous that it defies attempts at the ridicule which it deserves.

In summary, I have presented a mathematical refutation of the recent claims made by Rev. Tim LaHaye that there is an overwhelming probability that Jesus of Nazareth must have been the long-awaited Messiah of Israel and, thus, the "Son of God." It would appear that Rev. LaHaye would be well-served by adding a competent mathematician to his staff.