Does the Bible code really work?
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One sees bible code results on the internet sometimes. I wanted to find out how accurate it was, so I tried it.
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In support of the code
The Bible code initially became known because some Jewish researchers (Doran Witztum, Eiiyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenberg) found a prediction that Yitzhak Rabin would be assassinated. I think they predicted a date that turned out to be true also.
Reference:
http://www.torahcodes.co.il/pdf_files/pub/wrr.pdf
In opposition to the code
McKay, a critic, promptly produced an ELS analysis of Moby-Dick predicting not only Indira Ghandi’s assassination, but the assassinations of Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, and Yitzhak Rabin, as well as the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Reference:
http://skepdic.com/bibcode.html
So who is right?
One thing I found fascinating is that this works at all, with any book claimed.
Is there something inherent in the written word that not only is aware of the present work, but is perceptive enough to feel the pulse of future events?
Since a free sample download was available on the internet, I downloaded it. For one thing, the free sample is very limited. It will let you do a certain number of things, and then it quits, asking you if you want to buy it. So, you have to install, delete, and reinstall it repeatedly to continue to use it for multiple tasks.
I used the Bible Codes free sample, by Oracle.
While many people share the same names, one has to distinguish them by unique identifiers. Finding John Smith is a useless venture, since there are millions of them. However, in my case, it was a bit easier, since my name is odd.
At first, I found myself. Interesting. Try to find another Marianne Tioran in the world. Google it and see, it is just me. I never thought I would be that unique, but anyhow, that name is present multiple times in the Bible.
I used unique identifiers for my kids, like nick names, profession, etc, to narrow it down.
The matches I found
Son’s given name – profession – my first name
Son’s given name – daughter – nicknames – all connected
My married last name – maiden last name
Son’s full name – my maiden name
My daughter’s real name (very unique also) – her nickname
My nickname – daughter’s first name
My nickname – daughter’s nick name
My nickname – son’s nick name
Son’s nickname – daughter’s nick name
Friend’s full married name – my full married name
Friend’s first name – her son’s first name – my married last name
My full name – work partner’s full name – name of scientific paper where we are both authors.
My name – friend’s name who lives in another country – 2nd friends name who lives in USA ( we all know each other)
Conclusion
Well, for me, it did mention me in the Torah. My children and a few friends also. It was the unique combinations of associations that seemed fascinating.
There is a comment in the Bible that there is a Book of Life that God has, where the names of the righteous are written down.
Maybe God uses His own Torah to accomplish this. Just speculation. However, since Hitler has also been found in the Torah, maybe there is more to it than this.
Is the life of every sinner and saint somehow hidden in the Word of God, to prove God knew about everyone of us?
I think this Bible Code is something that might be entertaining, and possibly inspiring to try on an individual basis.
It does take a lot of work. Some runs can take all night, just searching for one word. They can also stop when you want to take it to the next command, and then you lose everything and have to start over.
Everything depends on what you decide to enter in the search.
I will not recommend this for foretelling the future, or anything like that, since only God is all knowing.
But it is interesting that maybe before we were created, that both saints and sinners were known to God. What we do with our lives, and how we relate to God, is up to us.
Hopefully, on judgment day, all key words that God has entered will show that our lives and associations are good ones, and He beckons us to enter into His glory.
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Marianne;
This was an interesting You Tube on the Bible Codes entitled:
The Shocking Obama Assassination The Real Bible Code Matrix:
Kittii
Hi Marianne,
I don’t know if the bible code really works or not …. but if it does … we won’t have long to wait to find out ….since the book of Ruth predicts the Rapture tomorrow ….
Check it out.
http://pub48.bravenet.com/forum/static/show.php?usernum=4086901292&frmid=13&msgid=848107&cmd=show
Marianne;
I just ran across a new video on the Bible Codes; post 2008 election. The one above was pre-election. I wasn’t looking for it either. Here’s a few lines from the video:
Obama Mania in Europe: Their Man has Won!
This is the Secret services code name for our New President:
RENEGADE
The dictonary definition of RENAGADE IS
a. “lawless” one
b. rebel
c.”deserter” from a faith, apostasy
d. “deserter” from an allegiance.
Obama: 7 Strange Coincidences; What are the Chances? Gematria and Bible Code information here.
Kittii
all names , even sinners will be in gods book , for at one time they were gods creation & not yet sinners , question i have for god , is if he knew the sins they would commit ………? This would include Lucifer ? Wouldn’t it ? But maybe Micheal cast him down with out permision . damm even he’s a sinner then >
hi Darcy
I do not think the Book of Life applies to angels, whether they be good ones or fallen ones. I have never heard angels mentioned in reference to this book.
Angels willfully sinned when they had the savior Jesus present with them in heaven, rejecting him then also, so they are fallen forever.
Man sinned, in ignorance of who the Savior was, and had to wait for him, in a fallen, weakened condition. Man did not have the knowledge, insight or revelation that angels did.
Amazing!
Shalom from Jerusalem,
here is a ‘code’ for the end of days in Psalm 119, ough I was kicked of this message board, go to ‘fulfilledprophecy.com, go to ‘Discussions’, go to ‘temple Watch’, scroll down to ‘next’ (page two) to ‘Psalm 119 time Frame for the End of Days.’
In the Name,
Michael
Computers are part of a seal that was opened……..
http://christmaslie.webs.com/intro.htm
kitti
Do you know what your point is? I do not have time to read that whole page. And the video is just sensationalism.
Even if Christmas has been paganized, it does not mean that Christ was not born, and we have nothing to celebrate.
Hi Kittii,
I agree with you that Christmas is not biblical, but is this the
way to go about presenting your views ?
Do you think that anyone with just a modicum of intelligence is
going watch this video? The whole presentation is truly demonic!
Would be interested in a sane presentation of your views, though!
Thanks.
God bless.
nice video. 🙂
Kittii,
Thank you..that was interesting and calming! I’m not sure how
Hanukkah equates with the new covenant, but will look into it.
God bless.
Richard;
I never learned that Jesus wasn’t born in December by Messianic Jews. I learned it from Chuck Missler and I also learned about “CHRIST-MASS” on a short blurp Chuck Smith did on one of the cassetter tapes of one of his teachings. How shocking is that for someone who for 30 some odd years celebrated it? I shared it with another Calvary Chapel Christian, an ex-Mormon and her response was the same: Why are we celebrating it then? I didn’t celebrate it for 10 years in the 90’s. I raised my daughter celebrating it before this and decorating Christmas trees. I even embarrassed her when I took all my propaganda and documantation in the 90’s to her “Christian School, Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa”. Nobody listened. I since relented. Unfortunately, she still resents it. No one in my family sees the Bible in a Jewish way like me. We are all raised in the Episcopal Church.
But the same feelings welled up in me when I ran across this link
http://christmaslie.webs.com/intro.htm
I believe in standing up for the truth and I hate lies. I pulled my daughter out of public school in junior Highschool when there were 5 chapters on Islamic History, and even someone was supposed to come to the school to share about the Islamic faith(that didn’t happen)There was more chapters on Islamic History than on United States History and I decided to put her in Christian School.
Marianne, you should read the link. It has a lot of great videos. It’s your loss if you don’t. It’s very educational. Easter and Christmas are not biblical. But you know that. I posted this for the Jews benefit, because so called “Chrsitians” won’t change.
My daughter’s boss is Mexican/Jewish and they celebrate Hanukkah. And he told her how hard it is for Jewish kids who don’t celebrate Christmas and celebrate Hanukkah.
And by the way, it might of been nice of you to do a post on Hanukkah since it is in the New Testament and out of considertion for the Jews. Why didn’t you? Maybe then I wouldn’t be posting this and you wouldn’t be so snippy to ask me “What’s my point?”
hi kitti
I guess for a long time no one knew when Jesus birthday was….so they came up with dec 15. no excuse however, for picking a pagan holiday to do it on. We can calculate it now.
There are a lot of topics to post on. I have to decide what to do and when to do it. Hannukah comes every year, and so there are other chances…..I would use it to connect the message with JEsus when I do decide to post on it.
Kittii,
Thanks for sharing your experiences…and your stance is commendable!
It really does come down to what our understanding of what ‘being no
part of the world’ really means; and the extent to which we are willing to worship God in spirit and in truth.
If there is one thing that is going to result in ongoing persecution and ridicule, it is the withdrawal from the “festive season” ; seen by
unbelievers as an act of mean spiritedness; and from believers as an act of extreme legalism.
I have not celebrated Christmas for about thirty years now,and I must
say that the decision not to do so, has resulted in a closer relation-
ship with God,because the decision was the natural progression from
a deep desire to know the truth; which does set us free, thus bringing
us closer to God.
However, because I found this an easy decision to make,despite the
consequences, I cannot presume that others will find it easy, even when
presented with the truth; since we are by nature approval seeking
“creatures”; and likewise decisions I have found difficult, have been
relatively easy for others; and this is true of all of us.
Love, patience and understanding are prerequisites in all cases for
those who know and love the truth and desire others to come to God
through Jesus,so that they too can be saved, because they really do
want to please God by worshiping Him in spirit and in TRUTH.
Although it is true that ‘all who seek the truth will find it’;we
must be careful to present it in a dignified, Christ-like manner;
because it is our conduct that gives power to the words of truth
we speak; and this is always what our words will me measured by.
Most of us fall short in this regard; I certainly do; but our aim
to be Christ-ike, should always be our goal!
God bless.
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=3302
We frequently use the familiar term, gospel, or good news. Where is the
first place it appears in the Bible?
The great discovery is that the Bible is a message system.
In Genesis Chapter 5, there is the genealogy of Adam through Noah.
In our Bible, we read the Hebrew names. What do these names mean in
English?
These are the meanings of their names. This will amaze you.
Hebrew English
Adam Man
Seth Appointed
Enosh Mortal
Kenan Sorrow;
Mahalalel The Blessed God
Jared Shall come down
Enoch Teaching
Methuselah His death shall bring
Lamech The Despairing
Noah Rest, or comfort.
That’s rather remarkable:
Man (is) appointed mortal sorrow; (but) the Blessed God shall come down
teaching (that) His death shall bring (the) despairing rest.
Here’s the Gospel hidden within a genealogy in Genesis.
It demonstrates that in the earliest chapters of the Book of Genesis, God
had already laid out His plan of redemption for the predicament of
mankind. It is a love story, written in blood on a wooden cross which was
erected in Judea almost 2,000 years ago.
Truly, our God is an awesome God.
Hi Kittii,
Yes He is an awesome God, and these little gems all serve to
increase our faith; and keep our “body” bright.
We MUST keep our “eye” simple !…………….. Matt 6:22-23
Thank you !
God bless.
Hi could you do a research for pastor benny hinn in the bible code
dear Sugand
Doing a bible code scan is a lot of work. I only have the free trial version, which means I have to do many searches to get what I want.
The name of the free or purchased program is Oracle. You can download it from the internet, try it, and then purchase it if you like it.
I know my name is connected with him in the code, but I do not know what the association is. I have been to some of his meetings, so that might be the meaning for me.
That is all the search I did, since it takes much work.
One search word could take an entire day.
marianne
http://www.lazerbrody.typepad.com/
Sunday, 27 February 2011
2012: Fasten Your Seat Belts
Here’s some food for thought in light of the lightning-fast changes in the world and in light of our posts this past week:
One thing is sure – it’s time for teshuva. You don’t want to put your head in the ground, especially when the ground is trembling.
http://torahcode.us/torah_codes/documentary/documentary1.shtml
The Making of A Torah Code Documentary
A Torah code documentary is being planned. See the promotional. The purpose of the documentary is to help us recognize that there are mysteries in the world that cannot be explained by ordinary mechanistic explanations. One of these mysteries are the Torah codes of which there are many illustrations on this website. Another mystery is the Mayan civilization, their writing, their culture, their astronomical observations, and their various calendars. Here we discuss some of the amazing coincidences, that are really not coincidences, involving the various people having roles in the planning and making of the documentary. To read the short description of who all the people are, you may view the power point presentation.
http://www.pinlight.com/about.htm
Torah 2012 Earthquakes
Pinlight is delving into the paranormal in this documentary on UFOs, hosted by the expert on the Nephillim, LA Marzulli. One of the leading experts in the field and author of several books on the topic including the most recent Alien Interviews Marzulli looks at the current manifestations of UFO activity worldwide and relates these experiences to what ancient texts say about them, as well as current understanding. There is no doubt that UFOs are here and not going away. What does this mean? What are interdimensional beings? What are Orbs and why are all these things happening now? Has humanity finally become enlightened enough to accept new life forms? This documentary will bring LA Marzulli, a favorite on the wildly popular Coast to Coast AM, into a realistic discussion on UFOs, entities, and actual facts that are surrounding them. The film also continues with an in depth interview with Dr. Roger Leir at his offices. Dr. Leir is known worldwide for his surgical removal and scientific testing of alien implants. See the teaser above.
L.A. Marzulli will be on Coast to Coast AM on December 22nd with George Noory talking about the film and the Bethlehem Star.
Go to The Watchers page.
Directed by Richard Shaw, Pinlight.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/knightzone/2010/06/02/torah-code-2012-earthquake-in-california-within-30
I was on a website http://www.teachinghearts.org/dre17hrev14.html
and I found this….
Habitation of Devils: (Spiritualism and the Occult). It is media businesses that have become the breeding ground for the developing interest and dissemination of occult theories. Sadly, this is the American culture of spiritualism, sex and violence that we export everywhere.
Fables and Myths. The world chooses to believe in fables as they reject God.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, And they will turn their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4: 3-4)
» Harry Potter. Young children are willing to devote many hours to learning about the occult but not the Bible. The book promotes witchcraft and goddess worship.
» The Davinci Code. A strange shift has happened since this book first appeared. In the beginning, it was described as fiction. Now it appears that people are willing to accept the lies as possible facts. The book tries to prove that Christ was not divine. This is the work of Antichrist. At the same time, the book promotes goddess worship. The author skillfully mixes some truth with fiction and promotes this as a possible alternative history while he sometimes pretends to claim that it is fiction. He is believing his own lies.
And every spirit that does not confess Jesus Christ is not from God; this is the spirit of the Antichrist of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. (1 John 4: 3)
This is a clever diversion by Satan who wants us to look at these fools as the Antichrist while we excuse the danger in the church. The real Antichrist will be a popular religious person in the church pretending to represent God.
» The Bible Codes. The secular world will quote this nonsense as prophecy while they ignore interpretations that are coming through. The Bible Codes methodology will predict anything because it is based on finding random disconnected words in any order. The codes predict war with Iran in 2006 (which did not happen). My fish could have said that! Blindfolded! The fact is that the codes will predict war in any year that has a number.
Psychics. Politicians and business men and many wealthy people regularly consult psychics for advice.
Occult Deception. Many movie stars are willing to use their influence and star attraction to lure people into occult religions. The Moonies have somehow gained respectability among politicians. Scientology seems to be the religion of the stars. Other stars are attracted to occult forms of many religions such as Kabala and Sufi.
http://www.outersecrets.com/real/biblecode2a.htm
If you can speak one language, does that mean that you can speak all other languages, and do so without having to learn any of these other languages? Obviously not.
In World War II, if a spy sent encoded information to his home country, does that also mean that the enemy can instantly read this code language because all code languages are alike? Obviously not.
In truth, all languages, code or not, are all different.
However, in the land of Bible Codes, people have applied a completely different set of rules.
In short, one Bible Code language was analyzed by statistical analysis experts, and the conclusion soon drawn was that “Bible Codes” were just a farce, just coincidental, just plain bogus. These statistical analysis experts, with their PhD’s in this and that, in short had foolishly concluded that if you examine just one code language, just ONE, you are therefore examining all other endless numbers of possible code languages at the same time.
Sadly, most religious folk of today, instantly fell for such trickery
hi Sean
I agree that this code is highly speculative. I did this for fun.
SeanP,
What makes you so confident to conclude that your Group 1 is any better than your Group 2? Maybe you have them backwards?
Experts Group 1:
“Bible Code language was analyzed by statistical analysis experts, and the conclusion soon drawn was that “Bible Codes” were just a farce, just coincidental, just plain bogus.”
Experts Group 2:
“These statistical analysis experts, with their PhD’s in this and that, in short had foolishly concluded that if you examine just one code language, just ONE, you are therefore examining all other endless numbers of possible code languages at the same time.”
The ‘land of Bible Codes’ uses only one language, Hebrew. Were you not aware of this??
45squared, you say ” The ‘land of Bible Codes’ uses only one language, Hebrew. Were you not aware of this?? ”
I say….. No. My mind is not a closed mind, and so I did not fall for such an obvious case of deception. Believe it or not, God does also speak English.
http://www.outersecrets.com/real/biblecode2a.htm
See for yourself.
Your link is mostly about kabbalah, gematria, numerology. I did not see any Bible Codes there.
The New Testament is not used by most bible code researchers because there is no solidarity with regard to the original language of writing throughout, whether Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. Most likely these books were written in multiple languages without conformity to every jot and tittle in a single language standard format. Thus error is introduced into the letter use and count of these texts because of the required introduction of a third party translator. Conceptually there would be no errors, as a translator’s job is to translate correctly, but the exact letter use of the entire set of 27 books cannot be ascertained, because multiple languages involved, not to mention the fact that the peoples holding these writings were dispersed into all nations. Thus the early Christians did copy their text’s letter for letter, but they did not have the benefit of being one single people group / geographic nation, with one single current language, with one single originating source language. One could attempt to find valid codes in Greek, Aramaic, English, or whatever, but there remains this problem of unmatched quality when comparing these approaches to using the strictly Hebrew Tanach.
The Hebrew Tanach is decisively different however. The unearthed Dead Sea scrolls confirmed an unchanging text. To the ancient Jewish scribe, it was felt that to err on transcribing one jot or tittle of scripture would ruin the universe. So only in the ethnic group of the Jews, was there such a ‘life or death’ emphasis on repeating a near photocopy of the original in one single language, passed down for centuries.
And some Bible Code researchers take it one step further, by refusing to examine anything except the Torah (the five books of Moses).
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Here is a link to a great many codes found. I’m pretty sure all of them are strickly from the Hebrew Old Testament (Tanach).
http://exodus-codes.com/BibleCodes2.htm
Best Regards.
In recent talks on the following thread, the creation of humanity + Eden is being talked about.
https://heavenawaits.wordpress.com/angel-in-the-bush/#comment-102925
Here is a Bible Code recently found in the Gen2:7-9 creation of Adam, the phrase: “The Blood [of] Yeshua Messiah” + “Son [of] Father” + “guilt offering”
http://screencast.com/t/CucH6NbKe3y
I recently received the below email, summarizing 2012 ‘Pros & Cons’ to Bible Codes:
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What’s most important is the Torah we have today, that it is the one Torah, one letter sequence (to allow for codes) — and that it be the intended sequence for today and tomorrow, but not necessarily yesterday. The fact that Torah was different 2500 years ago (if it was) is not really relevant. 2500 years ago they did not have the computers that are necessary to find the codes.
So the goal, if the creator of codes had one, was that today’s Torah have the correct letter sequence. If Torah changed over time to get where we are today, that would only indicate that further intercessions into our world (beyond the original giving) occurred to get us the document we have/need today.
http://www.realbiblecodes.com/biblical-criticism.php
http://www.realbiblecodes.com/responding-to-critics.php
Biblical Criticism
There is an argument against the validity of Torah codes based on biblical criticism. The argument is centered on the premise that there have been transmission errors and this causes a difference between the Torah text that we have today and the one that was given on Mount Sinai. These purported transmission errors would delete some characters, add some characters, or substitute some characters. The effect of this would be to destroy whatever codes had originally been present in the Torah of Mount Sinai. Therefore, whatever Torah codes have been purported to be discovered in our time, must be nothing but a chance occurrence.
Richard Taylor writes:
The biggest single fallacy to be found in the Bible code theory has to do with its perception of the condition of existing manuscripts and printed editions of the Hebrew Bible. Without exception as far as I can tell, Bible code advocates have a view of the textual transmission of Biblical materials that is unrealistically optimistic. The Bible code theory necessarily presupposes an extremely stable transmission process for the OT text. The discovery of encoded messages is ex hypothesi determined by mathematically precise skips of letters (i.e. ELSs) in a text that must be assumed to have little or no disturbance as a result of scribal error. However, if the precise wording of the text is at places questionable due to the vicissitudes of the copying process, the hope of finding encoded messages by such a method is so seriously compromised as to be rendered impossible.
Some Bible code advocates seem oblivious to the realities of textual criticism in this matter. Drosnin, for example, with incredible naïveté claims that “all Bibles in the original Hebrew language that now exist are the same letter for letter.” This simply is not true. Other Bible code advocates in theory concede the damaging effect of textual variation, although in practice they proceed as though it were not applicable. For example, Grant R. Jeffrey, who espouses the value of the Bible code for validating the divine origin of Scripture, admits that “. . . even a minor change of spelling or choice of words would totally destroy the precise sequence of Hebrew letters that reveals these hidden words coded at evenly spaced distances throughout the text of the Torah. (Richard A Taylor, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Dec 2000, pp. 619-636.)
Professor Jeffrey Tigay of the University of Pennsylvania writes:
Whatever the purpose for which they use the alleged codes, their proponents depend on the assumption that the text of the Bible on which they base them is universally accepted among Jews and is completely identical to the original text. It is essential for them to insist on these points because the code consists primarily of finding words formed of letters that are equidistant from each other — ELSs. What turns these words into messages, or at least meaningful patterns, is the fact that when the text of the Torah is laid out in a grid whose dimensions are determined by the size of the ELS that forms these words, they appear unexpectedly close to, and sometimes even intersect in crossword fashion with, other words — either real words (with no letters skipped) from the Biblical text or other words formed of equidistant letters. This makes it obvious why proponents of the codes must assume that their text is accurate down to the very last letter, for if the spacing between letters in a “message” or in some meaningful pattern formed by equidistant letters is changed by even one letter, the equidistance, and hence the message or pattern, is destroyed.
The edition of the Hebrew Bible used by the decoders is the popular Koren edition, published in Jerusalem in 1962. It is distinguished by its beautiful Hebrew font. But the history of the Biblical text shows that without special pleading it is practically inconceivable that this text, or any other known text of the Torah, is identical to the original text, letter for letter. While there was an ideal of an unchanging text, identical in all copies, this ideal was not achieved in practice as far back as manuscripts and other evidence enable us to see.
It is not that we lack good texts. All forms of the Tanakh used today are forms of what is known as the Masoretic Text, abbreviated “MT,” named after the medieval scholars (the Masoretes) who labored for several centuries to produce the most accurate text they could. The MT in use today is based on Masoretic manuscripts of the ninth and tenth centuries C.E., themselves based on older manuscripts. It has been largely unchanged since late Second Temple times (ca. the third century B.C.E., as reflected in the earliest of the Dead Sea scrolls from Qumran). But although the text has been largely unchanged, there is a large number of variant readings, most of which do not materially change the meaning of the text, but drastically affect the number of letters it contains. In fact, in the oldest complete manuscript of the entire Bible, Leningrad Codex B19A which was finished in 1009 C.E., the Torah has some 45 letters more than the 304,805 of the Koren edition. Furthermore, the text of the 3rd century B.C.E. was itself several centuries younger than the original, which was composed over the preceding several centuries — mostly between the thirteenth and seventh centuries B.C.E., though some books of the Bible were composed a few centuries later. In the centuries between the composition of the Biblical books and the early Masoretic text of the third century, many changes had befallen the text.
These changes are primarily of two types: spelling differences and other types of textual variants. The differences in spelling involve the way the text indicates vowels. As is well known, the Bible contains two different systems for indicating vowels. The fullest and most precise of the two consists of vowel “points” (nequdot), various configurations of dots and lines which stand for the different Hebrew vowels. This system, introduced in the Middle Ages, is used today in printed Bibles where it is superimposed on the older system, the one used in synagogue scrolls. The older system uses the consonants א, ה, ו, and י to indicate certain similar groups of vowels (e.g. ו represents u and o; י represents i and long e); when functioning as vowels these letters are called vowel letters or matres lectionis (Hebrew ‘immot qeri’ah), literally “mothers of reading.” These letters are not used with perfect consistency. “David,” for example, can be written דוד or דויד and “Shomer” can be written שמר or שומר. Spelling with the vowel letter is called “full” spelling,” and spelling without it is called “defective” (the latter term does not imply anything erroneous). The use of the vowel letters is attested in the oldest known Biblical manuscripts, the Dead Sea scrolls from the third and following centuries B.C.E., though not always in exactly the same places where they are used in the Masoretic Text of today. Moreover, archaeological evidence indicates that this system of spelling developed gradually; the evidence available indicates that it was not developed until after the time of Moses. The adoption of this system naturally affected the text of the Bible and the number of letters it contains.
Torah Codes: Responding to the Critics
Scientific research has confirmed that there are hidden codes in the Torah.[1] Given the consequences of this research, it was inevitable that some people would take exception to the findings. Despite the integrity of the research and the researchers, critics have made many strong attempts to refute the research and discredit the researchers.[2]
We are not under any illusion that any counter-arguments will have any effect on the critics. For most of them, the issue is not the existence of codes; it’s the implication, which runs contrary to their a priori assumptions about the divinity of the Torah. This view is best expressed by one of the critics. When challenged, “what evidence would be enough to convince you that the codes exist?” she responded “no amount of evidence. I know that the Torah was written by human beings!” For other reasons, even religious Jews can be ideologically bothered by the idea that the Torah has such hidden codes.
Scientific evidence rests on facts, demonstrated through repeated experimentation and independent verification. This has been done, and is the basis of our reliance on the authenticity of Torah codes. We present here some of the most common misconceptions and claims made by the various critics, as well as our responses.
========================================================================
Claim 1 – Scientists have disproven the idea of codes in the Torah:
Statistical Science recently published an article in which the authors claim to have “solved the bible code puzzle”. In truth, this article is a compilation of criticisms that have helped make the integrity of the Torah codes stronger than ever. At best, the critics have only raised questions of possible flaws in one of the early experiments.
Imagine Marconi demonstrating his invention of the first radio, bringing out a box of considerable size and turning it on. Naturally, skeptics who have never seen such a thing would be critical, and could claim that Marconi may have cheated; that really this box is so large that the voice coming from within is really just a crouched up human being. At this point, the critics would have the upper hand. But when a later generation comes along with a radio the size of a walkman, is there any validity left to the critics’ arguments? How would one look at the critics if they persisted in clinging to their obsolete theories of deception?
This is precisely the situation with the Torah Codes. The main point of the attack by the critics is the input data of the original Rabbis’ experiment of 1994 (see details below). The data was of a relatively complex nature, and was provided by an expert, Prof. S. Z. Havlin, who is an internationally known scholar in the area of Rabbinical bibliography. The critics, however, claim there is “wiggle room” in the data. We believe that their arguments are riddled with logical, procedural and grammatical errors. But aside from these, several recent codes experiments have been conducted which completely avoid the need for any expert opinion for the input data. The data collection is simple and explicit and leaves no room for choices or optimization.
It is difficult to understand why the critics, who are well aware of the existence of these papers, fail to even mention the existence of these new works. This deception leaves us wondering whether their goal is scientific truth or public relations.
Imagine Marconi demonstrating his invention of the first radio, bringing out a box of considerable size and turning it on.
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Claim 2 – The idea of Torah codes is not supported by Jewish tradition:
While there are even Rabbis who repeat this assertion, one would do well to look carefully at traditional and widely accepted Jewish sources that deal with the idea. The concept of “encoded information” and a “hidden text” in the Torah is a well-known and established part of Jewish tradition. The Ramban (Nachmanidies), Maharal, the Vilna Gaon, and others refer to “hidden information in the letters of the Torah” in their writings. There are sources that explicitly state that such codes do exist in the Torah. In other words, the existence of codes in the Torah is not something new. All that is new is the ability to find them with computers and evaluate them with modern statistical methods.
See Appendix A for more details.
The critics then turn to the issue of Rabbinic endorsement for codes research.
On March 2, 1997 a public statement was issued in Jerusalem by the renowned Rabbi Shlomo Fisher, wherein he testified that one of the greatest sages of our generation, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach ztz”l, met with the researchers on several occasions. He stated that Rabbi Auerbach not only gave his approval to Codes research but also encouraged its use in Jewish outreach efforts. Rabbi Fisher is also familiar with the research, and wrote his own letters of encouragement.
More recently, several other leading Rabbis have given written endorsements regarding the validity of codes research, the integrity of the researchers, and have endorsed its presentation to lay audiences.
See Appendix B for more details.
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Claim 3 – Scientists have disproved the existence of Torah codes by showing that such codes exist in other books, like War and Peace and Moby Dick:
For anybody familiar with the basic idea of ELS codes (see Appendix C for a simplified explanation), it is self-evident that one can find ELSs of words in any text. One could easily find “encoded words” on the side of a box of cereal, in this paragraph, and yes, even in Moby Dick. The question is not one of finding ELSs. The simple fact is that no critic has found, or even claims to find, the statistically significant effect found in Genesis. I.e. no critic has succeeded in taking an objective list of pairs of words, and shown that their ELSs appear near each other any more often than what would be expected in a comparably long text.
So what have the critics found? That theoretically one could cheat. That by surreptitiously not using an objective list of pairs of words, by playing around with many alternative spellings of words, by breaking basic rules of grammar, or by not considering minimal ELSs (see Appendix C), one could concoct a contrived list and deceive people into believing that an objective experiment was performed.
This is precisely the method used by the critics to create “counterfeit” codes in Moby Dick; this is also the technique used in most of the popular books on Bible Codes, as well as the plethora of Christian codes books claiming that “Jesus is Messiah”.
The only difference between the scientists opposed to codes, and the non-scientific use of codes (Michael Drosnin and the Christians) is that the critics admit that their results were obtained through selective choices of data, i.e. cheating. Their claim however, is that the original codes researchers cheated in this same way.
To summarize, there are no scientists who claim that hidden codes actually exist in different texts. Their claim is the opposite – that in fact, there is no such thing as a codes phenomenon in any text, and that the experiments performed and published are fraudulent. See Claim 5 for the researchers’ response to this claim.
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Claim 4 – There is too much “wiggle room” (i.e. flexibility) in the experiments to consider them as objective science.
Ironically, when the critics first made this claim, they provided several instances of where the researchers could have “wiggled”, involving certain choices of names, spellings of Hebrew dates, etc. When these apparent optimizations were examined by rerunning the original experiment, the original results changed from a significance level of 16/1,000,000[3] to 4/1,000,000. (See http://www.Torahcodes.co.il/docum4eng.htm for more information.)
In addition, one of the main questions regarding codes experiments is in the integrity of the data set, i.e. the set of words being searched for in the text. Doron Witztum and Eliyahu Rips, the original researchers who conducted the Rabbis’ experiment, were well aware of this factor. To avoid any accusation of cheating, the task of deciding on spellings and constructing the list was delegated to an outside expert in Rabbinical bibliography, Professor Shlomo Zalman Havlin, from the Faculty of Information Studies and Bibliography at Bar Ilan University.[4] Professor Havlin also pre-established a list of guidelines that would guide his determination of which forms and spellings of names he would take. The appellations used by the researchers were precisely those submitted to them by Professor Havlin.
When the critics questioned Professor Havlin about his methodology in establishing the list of names, he presented to them the guidelines he followed. Of course, when presented with this list of guidelines, the critics responded by claiming that he too must have been involved in the grand conspiracy! (His guidelines are available at http://www.Torahcodes.co.il/havlin.htm.)
To further bolster their claim of wiggle room, the critics, through many months of experimenting with different combinations of appellations and spellings, fabricated their own list (which they admitted was doctored), which does succeed in the Hebrew translation of War and Peace. Their list, however, is riddled with spelling errors, data taken from inaccurate or ambiguous sources, and, despite their insistence to the contrary, repeatedly breaks the original guidelines set by Havlin. A full 45 page refutation of every one of their inadmissible choices is available at http://www.Torahcodes.co.il/debate.htm.
Their response? To find an “expert” to back up their claim that their list was valid and accurate. The one expert they managed to find was Professor Menachem Cohen, a professor of Bible Studies at Bar Ilan University.
Is there any reason to think that a Professor of Bible Studies could proffer an expert opinion on Rabbinical bibliographic data any more than a professor of Chemistry, or a professor of English?[5]
For a sample of one of the many humorous errors in their list, see Appendix D.
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Claim 5 – The researchers who conducted the Famous Rabbis’ experiment (published in Statistical Science in 1994) cheated by intentionally manipulating the data while conducting the experiment:
This claim has already been refuted from a number of angles.
A) Independent Verification.
A number of independent researchers have confirmed the integrity of the data and methodology of the original experiment. Harold Gans, formerly a senior mathematician and cryptologist at the U.S. Dept. of Defense, conducted an independent experiment to verify the integrity of the data. He did so by searching for codes related to the places of birth and death corresponding to the precise listing of Rabbis used by Witztum and Rips. He obtained highly statistically significant results. The critics’ response? Yes, he too must have somehow been involved in the (ever-growing) conspiracy.[6]
Furthermore, Israeli mathematician Alex Lubotsky challenge the researchers by speculating why they didn’t run their experiment with a much simpler data set, composed of the names of the Rabbis the way they are referred to in Jewish tradition “so-and-so son of so-and-so”. Witztum took the offer as a legitimate question, ran exactly such an experiment, and achieved significant results! Note that this experiment was a) suggested by one of the critics, and b) has no “wiggle room”.
In addition, Dr. Robert Haralick, Boeing Professor of Electrical Engineering and an expert in Pattern Recognition at the University of Washington, has confirmed the statistical significance of the original Great Rabbis’ experiment by rerunning the experiment using an entirely different methodology.
B) New Experiments.
Many other experiments, including those by independent researchers, have further confirmed the existence of codes in the Torah. In brief:
a) Dr. Alex Rotenberg, a technical programmer in Jerusalem, conducted his own experiment looking for pairings of the names of the children of Haman (found in the Book of Esther 9:7-9) with their date of death, and obtained highly significant results. His experiment can be found at http://www.math.tau.ac.il/~tsirel/claims.htm.
b) Doron Witztum has recently conducted another new successful experiment, modeled after the original Rabbis’ experiment, searching for the names of personalities mentioned in Genesis (Adam, Isaac, the children of Jacob), finding that they appear in proximity to their dates of birth. The beauty of this experiment is the lack of even potential “wiggle room”. The data is taken directly from a Midrash, and the names are spelled exactly as they are found in the Book of Genesis. This experiment, as well as others, can be found at http://www.Torahcodes.co.il/researches.htm.%5B7%5D.
c) Several other successful experiments have also been reported. One of the strongest of these is an experiment looking for information relating to the 70 nations described in the Torah as being the descendants of Noah and his sons. These experiments can be viewed at: http://www.Torahcodes.co.il/whatsnew.htm.
C) The Challenge.
In the eyes of the critics, the central problem in the Rabbis’ experiment is the claim that the researchers could have cheated using the “wiggle room” available within the rules established by Professor Havlin. In addition to unequivocal refutations of their arguments, the researchers openly proposed a public challenge to the critics well over one year ago: to come to an agreement with us on the appointment of a new independent expert in Rabbinic bibliographical data, and to have him construct his own list of appellations using the original guidelines.
We are still waiting for their response to the challenge.
In addition, a simple logical argument shows that this criticism is meaningless.
Claim 6 – The Torah texts we possess today are substantially corrupt compared to original texts:
The simple fact is that the researchers ran their experiment on the Textus Receptus, by far the most widely used text in circulation in Jewish communities around the world. While there may be slight variations in other extant versions of Torah texts, the differences are much too negligible to have a serious detrimental effect on the results.[8]
In addition, a simple logical argument shows that this criticism is meaningless. There is a difference of opinion among scholars as to how much the text of the original Torah has been corrupted. Some say it has been corrupted by many errors, while others say that no more than a single letter is in question. Thus, one can reason as follows: (1) There is very strong statistical evidence that the codes are real; (2) If there are few errors in the Torah, the statistical evidence for codes will still be there, albeit not as strong had there been no errors at all; (3) if there are many errors in the Torah, the statistical evidence of codes would vanish completely. We therefore conclude that there are at most a few errors in the Torah, as some experts claim. The critics’ position that there must be many errors is thus logically untenable.
Codes Web Sites: http://www.Torahcodes.co.il.
Web site of Doron Witztum: http://www.ma.huji.ac.il/~rips.
Website of Prof. Eliyahu Rips: http://www.discoveryseminar.org/codes/codes.htm.
Aish HaTorah’s codes mini-site: http://members.xoom.com/bcodes.
Web Sites of Codes Critics: http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/diligum/Torah.html.
Web Site of Prof. Brendan McKay: http://wopr.com/biblecodes.
Appendix A – Some of the Jewish Sources for Codes:
• The great teacher of the Ramban, Rabbi Eliezer (Rokeach), in the introduction to his commentary on the Torah, describes “73 ways to understand and interpret the letters of the Torah”. Number 54 is called “the way of skipping”.
• An example of an ELS code is explicitly mentioned in a commentary on the Torah written by Rabbi Bachya in 1291 (chapter 1, verse 2).
• The renowned Rabb i Moshe Cordovero, head of the Rabbinical Court of Tzfat, wrote a book called Pardes Rimonim in 1549. On page 68, he writes that the secrets of the Torah are revealed in its letters through many means, including “skipping of letters”.
• In 1957, the students of Rabbi Michoel Ber Weissmandl published a book called Torat Chemed that contains many examples of letter skipping patterns found by their teacher.
Appendix B – Rabbinic Endorsements:
There are letters available to the public by some of today’s leading Rabbis. They deal with:
a) Confirmation that there is an accepted Jewish tradition that there are ELS codes in the Torah.
b) The reliability of the researchers and the accuracy of their data.
c) The encouragement to research and publicize the findings of Torah codes.
Letters are available in the original Hebrew, as well as translations, from: Rabbi Shlomo Fisher (his own letter, plus one attesting to the endorsement of the late Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach ztz”l), Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky, Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, Rabbi Shmuel Deutsch, Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, and Rabbi Matisyahu Solomon.
It is worthy to note as well, that not one Rabbinic authority has endorsed the claims of the critics.
Following is a letter of approbation from the renowned Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe.
2 Marcheshvan 5759
It is known that a way exists to discover hints and matters from the Torah by reading letters at equidistant intervals. This method is found in the commentary of Rabeinu Bechai on the Torah and the works of Rav Moshe Cordovero. More recently, the tzadik, Rav Weissmandel, revealed wondrous things with this method. To my surprise, I have heard that opponents to this method have arisen claiming that various deceptions were performed by those who are involved in this method today. It is astonishing to me that they were not intimidated to state their claims after the Gaon Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach gave his clear agreement to the method of equidistant intervals, and after Rav Auerbach’s son, the Gaon Rav Shmuel, censured them. I am uncertain of these opponent’s intentions. Are they troubled that at seminars to make people religious, that these astonishing matters are sometimes taught, and their effect on the listeners is profound? Is this what is bothering them? Whatever the reason of those who oppose this method, it is certainly not a dispute for the sake of heaven, and we must strengthen those who are engaged in this method, for it is a totally honest endeavor. May they be encouraged and see blessed results to their deeds, and may they continue to increase the honor of our holy Torah and its influence on all who seek the Almighty’s closeness. May the Almighty help those who engage for the sake of heaven in this honest discipline of studying equidistant intervals, Shlomo Wolbe.
Are they troubled that at seminars to make people religious, that these astonishing matters are sometimes taught, and their effect on the listeners is profound? Is this what is bothering them?
Appendix C – What is an ELS code?
To fully understand the method of finding and evaluating the codes, one must read the full technical description given in the paper in Statistical Science. (Vol. 9, issue 3, June 1994) However, the following simplified explanation will give the reader a rough impression of the nature of the research. The claim made by the researchers is roughly as follows:
1) ELSs (Equidistant Letter Sequences) are words spelled out in a text by skipping an equal number of letters.
2) Any word may appear several times at different skip intervals in the same text – i.e. the word “hammer” may appear in a text every 4th letter at a certain point, somewhere else every 29th letter, somewhere else every 245th letter, etc. One of these occurrences will be the “minimal” ELS. (In this example, the ELS of 4.)[9]
3) We observe that in the Hebrew text of Genesis, the minimal ELSs of related words (i.e. “hammer” and “anvil”) appear encoded in close proximity to each other.
4) We perform objective experiments on large sets of pairs of words and demonstrate that this effect (called “the proximity of related ELSs”) occurs much more often than would be statistically expected.
Appendix D – The debate over spellings of names:
When the critics manipulated their list of names to make it succeed in War and Peace, they consistently violated basic rules of spelling and grammar. At times, they went even beyond, and had difficulty even just looking up names. Here we will cite only one flagrant example:
They attempted to prove that Rabbi Moshe Zacuta’s name does not appear in the form “Zacuta” (אתוכז) (as was used in the original experiment), but only as “Zacut” (תוכז). To this end they cite the title page of his biography, where the name “Zacut” indeed appears. Had they turned one more page they would have seen that in the Polish title the name appears as “Zacuta”, and in the German as “Zakuto”.
For a detailed analysis, see the full refutation of the critics’ data at http://www.Torahcodes.co.il
[1] See the article ELSs in the Book of Genesis, printed in Statistical Science, June 1994. The research was conducted by Doron Witztum, along with Professor Eliyahu Rips, a world-renowned mathematician.
[2] At one point, in lieu of any of their arguments being accepted for publication, the critics went so far as to gather a petition of scientists who are opposed to the research being carried out. When was the last time a scientific issue was decided by petition?
[3] The original published statistic was 16/1,000,000, or p=.000016. The experiment was later re-run on a more expansive set of control tests and achieved the result of 59/100,000,000. After taking into account possible optimizations, the results changed to 19/100,000,000!
[4] An expert in linguistics, Yaakov Orbach ob”m, was also consulted regarding the proper way of referring to Hebrew dates.
[5] Note too, that independent Rabbinic authorities, in a public letter, stated that “we checked the rules according to which Professor Havlin formulated his list of names and titles of Torah leaders, and we found that it was commensurate with both professional standards and common sense.. The list is in keeping with the principles. We found that all the claims concerning the opponents’ individual claims concerning deviation from the principles to be false”.
[6] To quote Harold Gans: “It is important to note that the list of places of birth and death were obtained using a precise and detailed linguistic protocol to ensure accurate data and accurate spelling. In spite of the fact that this experiment directly corroborates [the Witztum-Rips] Famous Rabbis experiment, and has been public knowledge for over eight years, no one has ever succeeded in producing a counterfeit of this experiment. The strict use of a precise protocol effectively blocks any attempt to cheat.”
[7] Professor Rips ran a similar experiment, focusing only on the names of Jacob’s twelve sons, and also using other variant sources for the dates of death. He too achieved significant results. His experiment is available at http://www.ma.huji.ac.il/~rips
[8] The one other well accepted text of the Torah is the standard one used by Yemenite communities, in which there are 8 variations over the 304,805 letter text of the Torah. When tests were run on the Yemenite version of Genesis, the results remained significant.
[9] Other ELSs that are not the minimum, but are minimal over large areas of the text are also considered, but their effect is pro-rated in kind.
Bible Code Website update.
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