About the Bible Codes
Last Updated: November 24, 1999
Some people call it the "Torah Codes", or the "Bible Code," and others, "Bible Codes." Either way, the Bible codes are one of the most fascinating discoveries of this century. We are referring to the discovery of Equidistant Letter Sequence (ELS) Codes in the original version of the Old Testament. The Bible describes in detail, people and events from the 20th century. Encoded in the text are words and phrases that describe people and events, and many times related words are found clustered together, to form a code. Despite a harsh barrage of criticism especially this year, the Bible Codes Phenomenon is now stronger than ever, and can only point to Divine Inspiration of the Bible. The codes have been the topic of discussion in newspaper and magazine articles (such as TIME and Newsweek), and radio and television shows (such as Oprah Winfrey). As you'll see later, the codes have been misrepresented, and misunderstood by many thanks in part to these national reports. Most of these reports are focused on Michael Drosnin's book "The Bible Code," which we, and most experienced researchers are highly skeptical of.
Equidistant Letter Sequence Codes
The codes found in the Bible are called "Equidistant Letter Sequence" codes or "ELS" codes. This method has been used by spies for hundreds of years. Here is an old note, which appears to be non-sense, but spies used this note to communicate. In this example, the phrase "meet at 8" is encoded at an ELS of 7 (every seventh letter, starting with the first letter of the code, which is "m")
The man
walked out the door
into the stands
that seated 8,000 fans.
"Meet at 8" encoded at an ELS interval of 7.
The spies would often make the notes much longer, just to throw everybody else off. The spy of course would have preset with his buddy to always look for every 7th letter. For the Bible, it could be every 7th letter, or every 700th letter, or every 15th letter, or every 2nd letter, or every 5,000th letter. It doesn't matter, as long as the distance between each letter is the same. Any interval will work. Even negative numbers work (the word is spelled out backwards). Understand that it is not easy to write text that not only has codes in it, but the text actually makes sense. In the Bible's case, the hidden codes show that the Bible has a foreknowledge of future events. See the Bible Codes Fact Sheet for a lot more detailed description of ELS codes, and to see how this method is able to prove that the Bible had to have been "divinely inspired" by a "higher-intelligence" which the Bible tells us is God himself. This site deals only with the ELS codes.
The Other Side of the Debate
There are still those skeptics who say that the codes found in the Bible can be found in any book similar in size. The common argument they hang on to is that you can find words like "Yeshua"
many times in any large book, which is true. What people then conclude, is that the Bible Codes must be there by chance. What they don't understand, is that there is a big difference between finding an accidental ELS encoded word, and finding a "significant
code" (multiple related terms encoded in a small area). If you honestly believe the codes can be duplicated by any large book, see
Answers to Claims.
There are mathematicians that are
skeptical of the codes, and there are mathematicians that fully endorse and
believe in the codes. Some mathematicians who are for the codes, published a
scientific paper in 1994. Since then, the two groups have been arguing and
arguing about the statistics, and the methodology that the researchers used. To
this day, the two groups are putting out rebuttals to rebuttals to rebuttals to
that original paper. They have turned to insulting each other, and accusing each
other. The mathematicians who are skeptical of the codes have drawn the
attention of the media. They have not issued any replies to any of the recent
findings in the past few years, but instead choose to continue to attack the
outdated reports from early this decade.
While the critics of the Bible Codes
continue to attack the pioneering findings of the early 1990's,
the evidence for the phenomenon is now stronger than ever, taking it full speed
into the new millennium. Only as the new computer programs get more advanced are
we able to see what truly is encoded in the Hebrew scriptures. The skeptics
can do nothing but
ignore the incredible amount of evidence that has been added to the pile in the
last year.
Where to get Started
(What You'll Find at this Site)
If you are interested in the Bible Codes, please see About this Site, to find out what you'll find at this site, and where to get started.