Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts

by Craig S. Keener

who claims them, is circular. Yet to argue against miracles based on their mere rareness would, as one critic observes, exclude rare events that are attested as having happened. This critic offers the example of someone “being dealt a perfect bridge hand,” against which he calculates the odds as “1,635,013,559,600 to 1,” noting that someone in his circle was dealt this hand.[302] Likewise, Life reported an extremely improbable event, this one conceivably in a religious context (for those who regard such contexts as particularly problematic): on March 1, 1950, all fifteen members of a church choir arrived late for choir rehearsal scheduled at 7:15 p.m., all for distinct reasons (e.g., one’s car failed to start). That church building exploded at 7:25 p.m., and their lateness prevented any lives from being lost. With the probability of these separate events coinciding being as low as about one in a million, one scholar argues, Hume’s argument might force him to reject the magazine’s testimony.