Sermon Stats

In sermon notes in a church bulletin it stated, "The probability Jesus could have fulfilled even eight of these prophesies is 1 in 10 to the 17th power (1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000)". This was a statistic taken from a book, although I don't know the title. I thought there is a math application in there somewhere.

I thought that small a number might be almost incomprehensible to most. Maybe to everyone. It

reminds my of something David Letterman said once regarding buying a lottery ticket. A particular lottery was at a near record amount and lots of people were buying them. He wanted people to consider that if you buy a ticket, your chance of winning is only slightly more than if you don't buy one. Incidentally, I was in the audience for one of his shows during his final month. Hilarious. I am including a picture for no other reason than I love Dave. Back to math.

I considered a couple of ways to tie this probability to other situations. How does this probability compare with chances in rolling a die? In flipping a coin?

Well, the chances of rolling a "6" are one in six. How many consecutive rolls would correspond to the above probability?

1 / 10¹⁷ = 1 / 6^x
10¹⁷ = 6^x
Taking the common log of each side, we get:
17 = x(log6)
x = 21.85

So, at least 21 consecutive rolls coming of 6.

Similarly with flipping the coin. The coin has only two outcomes, so:

1 / 10¹⁷ = 1/2^x
After a few steps we get x = 56.47

56 heads in a row. Unlikely.

If worried about church vs state issues, a teacher could come up with other kinds of problems. The actually probablility of winning a certain lottery, winning the grand prize in the McDonald's Monopoly Game. For example, I just looked up on-line that the probability of getting the Boardwalk piece - 1 in 602,000,000.

Good Luck.