Hidden Codes in the Torah
In 1997, THE BIBLE CODE, a book by Michael Drosnin burst on to the scene, proposing that there are hidden coded texts recording all of history in the Hebrew textus receptus (the Masoretic text) of the Torah. THE BIBLE CODE was the number 1 selling nonfiction book on the New York Times bestseller list in 1997. In view of the findings, the Bible can be seen as a 3-D hologram with the surface text as the outside layer and the hidden texts found at equidistant letter spacing (ELS) on the inside layers. Various computer programs are available to search for hidden code terms in the surface text of the Bible or Torah. A second book on the codes, CRACKING THE BIBLE CODE by Jeffrey Satinover, explains further the fascinating search for historical figures and events recorded in the codes.
On October 30, 1998 the first showing of a new two-hour TV documentary on the Bible codes aired on the PAX Network in the US. Outside the US, it will air on the International Discovery Network. SECRETS OF THE BIBLE CODE REVEALED included the scientific examination of the Bible codes, and gave air time to proponents and skeptics. PAX has the rights to repeat it up to 7 times in the next 2 years. The TV producers have a website at http://www.biblecodesecrets.com/ which gives the background on making the TV program, and offers the program on videotape along with many other TV programs they've done.
Christian books which touch on the Bible codes include Grant Jeffrey's THE SIGNATURE OF GOD (1996, chapters 10 & 11), THE HANDWRITING OF GOD (1997), and THE MYSTERIES OF THE BIBLE CODES (new in Oct/Nov 1998). Chuck Missler is coming out with a new book, THE COSMIC CODES, in Oct/Nov 1998. A Messianic Jewish pastor/rabbi, Yacov Rambsel, found (by hand) the name "Yeshua" embedded under the Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament (Tanakh), in his 1996 book, YESHUA, THE NAME OF JESUS REVEALED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT, and followed up with a second book in 1998, HIS NAME IS JESUS: THE MYSTERIOUS YESHUA CODES.
Yacov Rambsel is a Messianic Jewish pastor in San Antonio, Texas, who searched the Hebrew texts for a couple of decades by hand without the aid of a computer. While there are dedicated scholars like Yacov Rambsel, who would labor for decades to find a few of these hidden codes, the use of the computer speeds up the process immensely. For example, using the skip sequencing software, one could find all the examples where the name "Yeshua" is hidden under the surface text, in less than hour. This is more than someone by hand could find in a lifetime of diligent searching. I have a comprehensive article which compares the capabilities of a number of Bible/Torah code software programs. The capabilities of the code programs are discussed as well as speed tests showing the vast differences between the programs. I also include prices and links to all the program vendors online. Check it out, Hebrew codes software comparisons.
Dr. Eliyahu Rips, a renowned Israeli mathematician, found the codes along with Doron Witzum and Yoav Rosenberg, and published a peer reviewed paper in the Statistical Science Journal (1994, Volume 9, No. 3, pages 429-438), titled, EQUIDISTANT LETTER SEQUENCES IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS. The journal spent considerable time having the findings fully tested before they published the research article. Since then, they've found that the hidden codes are throughout all the books of the Tanakh, in the original Hebrew.
One test they ran was to pick out the names of the 66 Rabbis with the longest write-ups in the Jewish Encyclopedia. All 66 names were found embedded in the book of Genesis, along with either their birth date or date of death. In the review process for publication, Professor Harold Gans, a US cryptographic code-breaker expert, re-ran the experiment looking for the name of the city in which each of the 66 rabbis was known for, and found the name of the city hidden along with the name and date for each Rabbi. The odds against finding these hidden codes were over 10 million to one.
Another example given in the book, THE BIBLE CODE, is to look for the name Hitler. They found it, and close by to the term "Hitler" were the terms "evil man", "Nazi and enemy", and "slaughter". "In Germany" was found embedded near the terms, "Nazis" and "Berlin". The term "Eichmann" was found embedded with the terms, "the ovens" and "extermination". The term "Zyklon-B" the gas used to kill the Jews was found embedded near the term "Eichmann". I should tell you that the author of the book, THE BIBLE CODE, Michael Drosnin, is an agnostic, and is a former reporter for the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Dr. Eliyahu Rips is a practicing Orthodox Jew in Israel. So none of the people working on THE BIBLE CODES is a believer in Jesus.
They found imbedded in the Bible codes, both assasinations of the Kennedys along with their assassins and other information. They found the assasination of Prime Minister Rabin of Israel with the date and the last name of his killer, Amir. Very amazing don't you think?
They did a test looking for the name "Shakespeare" and found it embedded with the terms "presented on stage", "Macbeth", and "Hamlet" nearby. They found the names "Beethoven" and "Johann Bach" and nearby both is the term "German composer". "Mozart" is found embedded near the terms "music" and "composer". "Wright Brothers" are encoded near the term "airplane". "Edison" is encoded near the terms "electricity" and "lightbulb". "Marconi" is embedded near the term "radio". I'm giving all of these examples to show you the immensity of this find, history pre-recorded in the Bible codes over 3000 years ago. This is no fluke or fake finding!
New Bible codes research appears to show that all the major aspects of a person's life are encoded, along with dates of birth and death and places lived. Ordinary average people are in the codes and not just famous or renowned people. One advanced Bible codes matrix I created for the two-hour TV documentary is on the Nairobi Embassy bombing in 1998. It has 24 terms including embassy crossed by USA numerous times; the year, month, day, and time of the bombing 10:45 am; truck bomb is crossed by the make of the truck; all 3 suspects names are there plus the aliases they gave when first arrested. Each time I found out a new fact about the bombing, I looked and there it was in the viewable matrix. My research shows that the codes have a structured design.
Now I'd like to discuss the possibilities in the Bible codes connected with prophecy and looking for future events.
New 10/21/98. On another article on this website, Comparisons of Greek Bible Codes Software Programs, I compare four Bible codes programs which will search in the Greek New Testament (textus receptus). They require Windows 95/98/NT and will search for multiple terms at once. They also will do codes searches quite well in the Hebrew Torah & Tanakh. So here's the opportunity on a silver platter for you to do original research in an unproven area. My preliminary work has shown some real possibilities for codes in the Greek NT.
One last cautionary note before we delve into the prophetic implications. All those involved in the ELS research, caution that we don't know enough specific knowledge of how the Creator of the codes intended a nearness of terms at the same ELS, to apply and form a meaningful set of data. For example, if near terms are found at the same letter spacing, do they always apply to each other, or are there other nearby terms which are the intended correct association of terms? Without caution, we could mix up terms in close proximity and form a prediction of the future which was never intended by God our Father, the Creator of the codes and Author of the Bible. However, the evidence of past historical events recorded thousands of years ago in Bible prophecy and the Bible codes, means that future events are also there. We just need to exercise caution in our searching of the codes, as well as common sense. A software program called Bible Codes Plus was released to the public in October 1998 with dictionary search capability, a function which may make codes research about the future much easier. The problem with looking for future events in the codes, is that we often don't know what to look for. Dictionary searches are a new brute-force method of identifying all words/phrases in the displayed matrix.
Also, the philosophical question arises, just how much free will do we have, if the historical record was written down beforehand in prophecy and the Bible codes? The answer is that we have free will, but the Author of the Bible and the codes is God, who stands outside the creation and is not the creation itself as so many new-agers would have you believe. Being outside of the creation, He is able to view all of history and each person's life and choices and see what they choose. Pre-knowledge by God does not negate the free will given to each human.
