01The numbers
Peter Stoner, chair of mathematics and astronomy at Pasadena City College, published Science Speaks with Moody Press in 1958; an American Scientific Affiliation committee reviewed the manuscript and endorsed its probability method.
Probability
Statistical Improbability of Prophecy Fulfillment
Peter Stoner, chairman of mathematics and astronomy at Pasadena City College, calculated that one man fulfilling eight specific messianic prophecies by chance runs at 1 in 10^17 — a manuscript vetted by a committee of the American Scientific Affiliation before Moody published it in 1958. Every text he used survives in a copy made before Christ was born.
high confidenceMathematical
THE CLAIM
Peter Stoner, chairman of mathematics and astronomy at Pasadena City College
- 1Peter StonerThe numbers
- 2Eight specific propheciesThe numbers
- 3Stoner's illustrationThe record
- 4Extended to forty-eight prophecies the figureThe numbers
- 5The dating premise is settledManuscript
- 6Psalm 22Manuscript
- 7Even shifting every oneThe numbers
WHERE IT STANDS
Firmly established
high confidence
The span, dated
c. 125 BC
Isaiah 53 copied whole
The Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran carries the suffering-servant chapter complete, some 150 years before the crucifixion.
1st c. BC
Micah and Zechariah on parchment
Minor Prophets scrolls from Cave 4, and a Greek Minor Prophets scroll from Naḥal Ḥever dated to the first century BC. The Psalms are the most-copied book at Qumran, with 36 manuscripts.
c. AD 30
The crucifixion
Every text Stoner used was already copied and circulating before this date. The argument stands or falls on that one historical premise, and Qumran settled it.
AD 70
The temple falls
Zechariah 11's thirty pieces of silver and Daniel 9's seventy weeks both presuppose a standing Second Temple. Whatever they describe had to happen before this date or not at all.
1947
The scrolls come out of the caves
The dating stops being a matter of trust and becomes a matter of carbon, palaeography and photographs anyone can consult.
Peter W. Stoner (1888–1980) chaired the departments of mathematics and astronomy at Pasadena City College and later taught at Westmont College. His book Science Speaks was published by Moody Press in 1958 and revised through 1976. Its foreword, by H. Harold Hartzler of the American Scientific Affiliation, states that the manuscript was reviewed by an ASA committee and its probability principles found to be soundly applied.
The method is compound probability. Assign each prophecy a deliberately conservative chance of accidental fulfillment, drawn from population and historical estimates; check that the events are causally independent; multiply. Stoner had classes of students work the estimates independently and adopted the most conservative figures they produced, so the inputs would err toward the skeptic.
The eight he used are specific and checkable: birth at Bethlehem (Micah 5:2); a forerunner preparing the way (Malachi 3:1); entry into Jerusalem riding a donkey (Zechariah 9:9); wounded in the house of his friends (Zechariah 13:6); the price set at thirty pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12); that silver thrown down in the house of the LORD and spent on a potter (Zechariah 11:13); silence before the accusers (Isaiah 53:7); execution by piercing of hands and feet, numbered with transgressors (Psalm 22:16; Isaiah 53:12).
His published estimates, prophecy by prophecy: Bethlehem 1 in 2.8 × 10^5; the forerunner 1 in 10^3; the donkey 1 in 10^2; wounded by his friends 1 in 10^3; thirty pieces of silver 1 in 10^3; the money thrown down and spent on a potter 1 in 10^5; silence before accusers 1 in 10^3; piercing 1 in 10^4. Multiplied, they give 1 in 10^28. Stoner then divided by his estimate of every human being who had lived since the prophecies were written, 10^11, because any of them might have been the man.
The result is 1 in 10^17 — one in a hundred quadrillion. Stoner's own illustration: cover the state of Texas with silver dollars two feet deep, mark one, stir the pile, blindfold a man and let him walk as far as he likes and pick up a single coin. That is the chance.
Extend the calculation to forty-eight prophecies and the figure becomes 1 in 10^157. For scale, current estimates put the number of atoms in the observable universe near 10^80.
The argument stands or falls on one historical premise: that the prophecies were written before the events. Qumran settled that. Isaiah 53 stands complete in the Great Isaiah Scroll, copied about 125 BC. Micah and Zechariah are attested in the Minor Prophets scrolls from Cave 4, and in a Greek Minor Prophets scroll from Naḥal Ḥever dated to the first century BC. The Psalms are the most-copied book at Qumran, with 36 manuscripts.
Every text Stoner used was on parchment before the crucifixion.
One detail deserves its own line. Psalm 22:16 — "they pierced my hands and my feet" — is the reading of the Septuagint and of the Naḥal Ḥever Psalms scroll (5/6ḤevPs), a Hebrew manuscript from the first century AD, against the Masoretic "like a lion." The Christian reading of the verse is not a Christian invention.
Be clear about what a number like 10^17 is and is not. It is a compound of estimates a person chose. Move any single estimate by an order of magnitude and the total moves with it.
But there are eight independent terms: shift every one of them a hundredfold in the skeptic's favor and the result is still 1 in 10, which is a coin no one would bet a life on. The force of the argument lies in its order of magnitude, not its decimal places.
Two of the eight also carry an external time-stamp that no calculation supplies. Zechariah 11's thirty pieces of silver and Daniel 9's seventy weeks both presuppose a standing Second Temple, and both texts were fixed in writing centuries before it fell in AD 70. Whatever they describe had to happen before that date or not at all.
The modern form of the case has moved past a single multiplication. Philosophers of religion now run it as a cumulative-case or Bayesian argument — not "what are the odds against chance" but "which hypothesis better explains this whole pattern of texts and events," with priors and background knowledge stated openly. Richard Swinburne's The Resurrection of God Incarnate (2003) is the best-known worked example of that method applied to the central claim.
THE NUMBERS
What the number means
101085
Stoner's own picture: cover Texas with silver dollars two feet deep, mark one, stir the pile, and let a blindfolded man walk as far as he likes and pick up a single coin. Run the same method over forty-eight prophecies and the figure is 1 in 10^157 — past the end of this bar, and past the atom count of the universe.
- 1011 — people who have ever lived — Stoner's own divisor
- 1028 — the eight prophecies before that division
- 1080 — atoms in the observable universe
7 pieces of evidence
What this establishes
- 02The numbers
Eight specific prophecies — Bethlehem, the forerunner, the donkey, wounded by his friends, thirty pieces of silver, the potter's field, silence before accusers, pierced hands and feet — multiply to 1 in 10^28, and to 1 in 10^17 after dividing by the 10^11 people who have lived since.
- 03The record
Stoner's illustration: Texas covered two feet deep in silver dollars, one marked, chosen blindfolded on the first try.
- 04The numbers
Extended to forty-eight prophecies the figure is 1 in 10^157; the observable universe holds roughly 10^80 atoms.
- 05Manuscript
The dating premise is settled by manuscript evidence: every text Stoner used exists in a copy made before the crucifixion, Isaiah 53 in a scroll from c. 125 BC.
- 06Manuscript
Psalm 22:16's "they pierced my hands and my feet" is attested in the Septuagint and in the Hebrew Naḥal Ḥever Psalms scroll, not only in Christian sources.
- 07The numbers
Even shifting every one of the eight input estimates a hundredfold toward the skeptic leaves odds of roughly 1 in 10.
8 passages
Key verses
Berean Standard Bible
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come forth for Me One to be ruler over Israel— One whose origins are of old, from the days of eternity.”
Micah 5:2
“Behold, I will send My messenger, who will prepare the way before Me. Then the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple—the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight—see, He is coming,” says the LORD of Hosts.
Malachi 3:1
“Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!Shout in triumph, O Daughter of Jerusalem!See, your King comes to you,righteous and victorious,humble and riding on a donkey,on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Zechariah 9:9
“Then I told them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” So they weighed out my wages, thirty pieces of silver.”
Zechariah 11:12-13
“For dogs surround me; a band of evil men encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet.”
Psalm 22:16-18
“If someone asks him, ‘What are these wounds on your chest?’ he will answer, ‘These are the wounds I received in the house of my friends.’”
Zechariah 13:6
“He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth.”
Isaiah 53:7-12
“Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.”
Daniel 9:24-26
THE RECEIPTS
Sources
- Peter W. Stoner, Science Speaks: Scientific Proof of the Accuracy of Prophecy and the Bible (1958)
- Peter W. Stoner, Science Speaks (full text scan) (1958)
- H. Harold Hartzler, Foreword to Science Speaks (1958)
- Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict (1972)
- Israel Antiquities Authority, The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library (current)
- Richard Swinburne, The Resurrection of God Incarnate (2003)
◈Contested pointscontested
- Every input is a judgment call. Stoner's per-prophecy estimates are informed guesses, not measurements, and a product of eight guesses inherits all eight uncertainties.
- Some fulfillments are self-selecting. Riding into Jerusalem on a donkey is something a claimant who had read Zechariah 9:9 could arrange — and the Gospels say Jesus arranged it.
- The prophecies are chosen after the fact. The Hebrew Bible contains thousands of statements; counting the matches and ignoring the rest is the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, and several of Stoner's eight are read messianically only in Christian retrospect — Zechariah 13:6 in its own context describes a false prophet, not the Messiah.
- The fulfillment reports come from the community that read the prophecies, so text and testimony are not independent. Details like the potter's field and the thirty pieces may have been shaped in the telling by the passages they answer.