My apologies in advance for the messed up formatting and mathematical notation in this post.
I always liked the mathematical calculation of Jesus fulfilling OT prophecies concerning the Messiah:
Don't have Stoner's book available right now (in storage), but his calculations are widely available on the web. Lamb and Lion posted an article based on his work:
"Peter Stoner’s Calculations Regarding Messianic Prophecy
Peter Stoner calculated the probability of just 8 Messianic prophecies being fulfilled in the life of Jesus. As you read through these prophecies, you will see that all estimates were calculated as conservatively as possible.
- The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2).
The average population of Bethlehem from the time of Micah to the present (1958) divided by the average population of the earth during the same period = 7,150/2,000,000,000 or 2.8×105.
- A messenger will prepare the way for the Messiah (Malachi 3:1).
One man in how many, the world over, has had a forerunner (in this case, John the Baptist) to prepare his way?
Estimate: 1 in 1,000 or 1×103.
- The Messiah will enter Jerusalem as a king riding on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9).
One man in how many, who has entered Jerusalem as a ruler, has entered riding on a donkey?
Estimate: 1 in 100 or 1×102.
- The Messiah will be betrayed by a friend and suffer wounds in His hands (Zechariah 13:6).
One man in how many, the world over, has been betrayed by a friend, resulting in wounds in his hands?
Estimate: 1 in 1,000 or 1×103.
- The Messiah will be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12).
Of the people who have been betrayed, one in how many has been betrayed for exactly 30 pieces of silver?
Estimate: 1 in 1,000 or 1×103.
- The betrayal money will be used to purchase a potter’s field (Zechariah 11:13).
One man in how many, after receiving a bribe for the betrayal of a friend, has returned the money, had it refused, and then experienced it being used to buy a potter’s field?
Estimate: 1 in 100,000 or 1×105.
- The Messiah will remain silent while He is afflicted (Isaiah 53:7).
One man in how many, when he is oppressed and afflicted, though innocent, will make no defense of himself?
Estimate: 1 in 1,000 or 1×103.
- The Messiah will die by having His hands and feet pierced (Psalm 22:16).
One man in how many, since the time of David, has been crucified?
Estimate: 1 in 10,000 or 1×104.
Multiplying all these probabilities together produces a number (rounded off) of 1×1028. Dividing this number by an estimate of the number of people who have lived since the time of these prophecies (88 billion) produces a probability of all 8 prophecies being fulfilled accident[al]ly in the life of one person. That probability is 1in 1017 or 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. That’s one in one hundred quadrillion!"
More
Do statistics prove the Bible’s supernatural origin?
christinprophecy.org
The current edition (2017) of
Evidence that Demands a Verdict references this on pages 230-231. It's on pages 166-167 of the 1979 edition.
An article on a separate website includes more of Stoner's work in a very visual way:
"Stoner says that by applying the modern science of probability to just these eight prophecies, “… We find that the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is 1 in 1017.” That would be one in 100,000,000,000,000,000. In order for us to be able to comprehend this staggering probability, Stoner illustrates it by supposing that:
“… we take 1017 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 he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. 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 in their own wisdom.
“Now these prophecies were either given by inspiration of God or the prophets just wrote them as they thought they should be. In such a case the prophets had just one chance in 1017 of having them come true in any man, but they all came true in Christ [Mashiach].
“This means that the fulfillment of these eight prophecies alone proves that God inspired the writing of those [eight] prophecies to a definiteness which lacks only one chance in 1017 of being absolute.” [Stoner, Peter W.
Science Speaks. Chicago: Moody Press, 1963, pp 100-107.]
Stoner considers 48 prophecies and says, “… We find the chance that any one man fulfilled all 48 prophecies to be 1 in 10157.
“This is a really large number and it represents an extremely small chance. Let us try to visualize it. The silver dollar, which we have been using, is entirely too large. We must select a smaller object. The electron is about as small an object as we know of. It is so small that it will take 2.5 times 1015 of them laid side by side to make a line, single file, one inch long. If we were going to count the electrons in this line one inch long, and counted 250 each minute, and if we counted day and night, it would take us 19,000,000 years to count just the one-inch line of electrons. If we had a cubic inch of these electrons and we tried to count them it would take us, counting steadily 250 each minute, 19,000,000 times 19,000,000 times 19,000,000 [nineteen million times nineteen million times nineteen million] or 6.9 times 1021 years.
“With that introduction, let us go back to our chance of 1 in 10157. Let us suppose that we are taking this number of electrons, marking one, and thoroughly stirring it into the whole mass, then blindfolding a man and letting him try to find the right one. What chance has he of finding the right one? What kind of a pile will this number of electrons make? They make an inconceivably large volume.” [ibid., pp 109,110]
The chances of finding the correct electron out of the pile of electrons that Stoner uses for this last illustration is something on the order of picking one single correct electron out of all of the electrons in all the known mass of the entire known universe.
Such is the chance of any one man fulfilling any 48 prophecies. Yet Yeshua Ha'Natseret fulfilled not just 48 prophecies, not just 61 prophecies, but more than 324 individual prophecies that the Prophets wrote concerning the Mashiach.
_______________
The notation 10157 is the representation of the number 1 followed by 157 zeros, and it looks like this:
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000000,000,000,000,000.
This is approximately the total number of electrons in all the mass of the known universe."
More
There's only one or two copies of the 1958 edition of Stoner's book,
Science Speaks, on the Zon right now, and the price
More reasonably priced copies are available elsewhere.
While looking for copies of
Science Speaks, I discovered the estate of Peter Stoner has a revised product freely online, with proper attributions, including the original publisher, Moody Press
I like the old way Moody had of doing things, as illustrated in the conclusion of Chapter 3, Christ of Prophecy:
"If you are this nonchristian man or woman may I entreat you to accept Christ as your personal savior now? Confess to Him your sin of rejection, recognize Him as your Creator, your God. See Christ upon the cross as a sacrifice for your own sin. See in that sacrifice the great love of God,who gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. See the love of Christ when He refused to come down from the cross but said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
You must either accept Christ as your personal savior or reject Him. There is no middle ground. You are either saved, with your name written down in heaven where you will spend eternity, or you are lost and will spend eternity in hell with Satan and all that is evil.
When the children of Israel strayed from God and began to worship idols, Joshua went out before then and said:
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve ... but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods; for the Lord our God, he it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed.
Will you not say with Joshua: "As for me and my house,we will serve the Lord"?
consider the two following statements as contracts between yourself and God. One of these contracts is in effect as you finish reading this book. Which one do you now choose?
1. I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and accept Him as my personal Savior. By this act my sins are all blotted out and I become a son of God, a joint-heir with Jesus Christ. I now have eternal life and shall spend eternity in heaven with Christ.
Signed.............................
Dated .............................
How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? -Hebrews 2:3
2. I will not accept Jesus Christ as my savior. I realize that this is the greatest sin against God that any man can commit and in so doing I affiliate myself with Satan. I shall live a life in sin against God, and for this decision I shall spend eternity in hell with Satan.
Signed.............................
Dated ............................."
