News

6/18/2026 (Thursday)

2026 June Webinar: Goodness-of-fit Testing on the Name Frequencies in the Gospels & Acts vs. the Historical Data

Dr. Jason Wilson (presenter) and Dr. Luuk Vandeweghe (co-author)

Dr. Jason Wilson from Biola University will give a webinar presentation this June.

This presentation draws from our involvement in a scholarly debate over the last couple of years regarding statistical analyses of the name frequencies in the Gospels and Acts (GA) as compared to the historical reference distribution. Using the chi-squared goodness-of-fit test and other conventional statistical methods, our work has included: (i) a critique of the statistics used to argue against GA historical reliability, (ii) a demonstration that the GA male and (iii) GA female names fit the reference distribution from 4 B.C. to 73 A.D., (iv) a demonstration that the GA male names do not fit the historical reference distributions before or after 4 B.C. to 73 A.D., and (v) application of the method to ancient non-biblical Roman texts which provide independent validation. I will cover the methods and the main results, leaving plenty of time for questions and discussion.

The webinar will be held on Zoom; information and link are below:

Topic: ICS June Webinar

Time: June 18, 2026 01:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Meeting Link: https://messiah.zoom.us/j/96882298443

Meeting ID: 968 8229 8443

Passcode: ICS-June

2026 April Webinar: From Models to Ministry: Helping Christian Leaders Understand Their Data

Dr. Aric Labar will give a webinar presentation this April.

The webinar will be held on Zoom; information and link are below:

Topic: ICS April Webinar

Time: Apr 30, 2026

Webinar Recording: https://youtu.be/-2ovMsdCU9Q

2026 Feb Webinar: What Christians Should Know About AI

Stefan Jungmichel (Biola University) will give a webinar presentation on his book, What Christians Should Know About AI. Released in 2025, our ICS leadership team is confident that this is a timely discussion for our group. AI impacts each one of us, and we need a biblical framework to help us think about our work as we steward and interpret data. All ICS members are invited to attend this talk, even if you have not yet read the book.

The webinar will be held on Zoom; information and link are below:

Topic: ICS February Webinar

Time: Feb 19, 2026

Webinar Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLBw5x_zvgI

2025 JSM and Monday Annual Meeting

2025 Annual Meeting PPT slides

2025-2026 ICS Theme

We had 19 statisticians attend the annual meeting on Monday night, based on the attendance sheet.
We had 55 statisticians sign up for the monthly newsletter and are willing to connect with ICS. Welcome on board, our new members!
We had 16 statisticians sign up for our one-on-one mentoring program (14 prospective mentees and 2 prospective mentors).
Many of our free pens and Bibles were taken during JSM. At the end, only a few copies of the Bible are left. English Bibles (the book of John) were all gone! That is great!