Statistics and the Bible Codes
Could the Bible Codes be there by chance?
September 16, 1999
By the Staff of thebiblecodes.com

The Controversy

        Many people have asked us about the paper that was finally published in "Statistical Science" this month. It is a refutation to the earlier paper entitled "Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis," by Doron Witzum, Eliyahu Rips, and Yoav Rosenburg (referred to as WRR). That paper was published in 1994, in the same journal. It is the one that is mentioned right away in most books you'll find on the codes, and was the first major statistical work done on the codes.
       This paper was ignored by the media, just like every evidence for the Bible is, and was never even mentioned. It got most of it's attention when The Bible Code by Michael Drosnin came out in 1997. That is when the phenomenon exploded, because of the popularity of that book. As you'll find mentioned all over at this site, we think Mr. Drosnin's book is one of the weakest on the codes, and that's the reason why it's the only one that the media would mention.
        ABC News, among others, quickly jumped on the chance to report that a rebuttal to the 1994 paper had been published by the same journal. The article can be found at: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/biblecode990910.html
        The actual paper can be read at (you'll need the Adobe Acrobat Reader):
http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/StatSci/StatSci.pdf
        Please read the rest of our article before going to those links. Like most of ABC's news articles on Christian topics, you'll need to read to the very bottom to find the truth. The opening line, "An international team of statisticians is debunking the controversial “Bible code,”..." is very deceiving. That "international team" consists of 4 independent statisticians from Australia and Israel. Brendan McKay is from the Australian National University, and Dror Bar-Natan, Maya Bar-Hillel and Gil Kalai are professors at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. (Throughout the rest of this article, and around the internet, they are referred to as "MBBK"). Their paper is as controversial as the original was. The media and the authors of the paper would like to try and convince you that all of the scientific community is in agreement--that is a lie (as you'll see in a bit). The paper was written back in May, and published on the web in June. We published a brief reply to it on June 13, at our news page. The 45-page report was not published in Statistical Science until this month.


The Use of Statistics

        First of all, as many readers of this article will be new to our site, it is important to clarify our position on the use of statistics to determine the validity of the codes. Dr. Barry Simon, the facilitator of the "Mathematicians Statement on the Bible Codes," (which you'll see later), told our webmaster that statistics cannot be used to determine whether or not the codes were significant. That means - they can't be used to prove "the codes are significant," but they also can't be used to prove "the codes are not significant." He said there was no real a priori. This is one of the major flaws of MBBK's paper.

        Doron's claims do have much merit in our mind, considering that the MBBK paper is filled with accusations, and lacking in supporting evidence. Also, WRR has gained support from some of the world's finest mathematicians, as you'll see later in our article. So while we are temporarily satisfied with MBBK's paper, we will wait for WRR's response to come to any conclusions. Here is a brief excerpt from Witzum's brief initial response to the "outrageous claim" mentioned above:

        Another important concept to grasp, is that even if the MBBK paper successfully rebuts WRR's paper, that does no harm to the Bible Codes. The reason, is because all this amounts to, is two groups of statisticians arguing on methodology.
        "We proved it."
        "No, your math was wrong. We proved the opposite."
        "No, your math was wrong."
        "Yeah, well you are mishandling the data."
        "No, you're mishandling and obscuring the data."
        In the mean time, the rest of us non-statisticians out there can only watch, and pick sides when it comes to the stats. There is something simple than anyone can do, that doesn't even involve math, to test the codes. We'll get to that later. As far as the statistics go, even though McKay's paper was convincing, we think we should wait for WRR to reply, because they are saying how terrible and off the MBBK paper was. We have a tremendous deal of respect for WRR, because of their pioneering work, and all the criticism and accusations they have taken. We do have one disagreement with them (about what is and what is not significant, and how to go about proving that), which will be addressed in a bit.

        We are not mathematicians, but we are fully capable of using simple knowledge, and our experience with the codes. There is one major error in all of the statistical work, both for and against the codes.

The Error is at the Start

        There is an error right from the start, in every statistical test done on the codes. This error makes all of MBBK's work, all of WRR's work, a lot of the work by some Christian codes proponents, all of the work by Dr. James Price, and every other scientific test done on the codes that we know of, in error. The mistake is in the structuring of the codes. This is also that one disagreement we had with WRR, that was mentioned above.
        Let's start with WRR. Their original experiments dealt with word pairs. Finding related words such as "hammer," and "anvil" (two bones in the ear) in close proximity to each other. We can tell you from our experience, that this could happen by chance. It could happen many times by chance in any big book. WRR was quick to find that out. They then had their experiments expanded, however, much of the statistical work was still done on just a few related words being found encoded in close proximity to each other. Their method of statistics concluded that this was significant, and could not happen by chance.
        We are not mathematicians, but from our own researching experience, in both the Hebrew Tanach and control texts, we can tell you that a few related terms can be found together by chance. For example, we took the terms "Yeshua," "Messiah," and "Savior," (4, 4, and 5 letters in Hebrew), and ran a search in the Hebrew version of War and Peace. The matrix below is an example of many simple 'codes' that were found. "Savior", shares a letter with "Jesus", as well as the other "Jesus". "Messiah", runs perpendicular to "Savior". This is found by chance. Click the matrix to see the results, and find out why this is not a significant code finding.




        The point to this, is that we are saying, and agreeing with the skeptics that code findings with a few short related terms found in the same area are not significant. Many of the codes found in the WRR experiment were like this, so without having a dozen years of mathematics in college, we can tell you that those are not significant. It's simple logic. If the code can be found in any text similar in size, it's by chance. So if their statistics say they were, then their method was in error. However, a lot of the codes they have reported are significant, but those were not in the original 1994 paper. Most of the significant codes in the Bible have been found in the last 2 years.

Why the MBBK Paper is No Threat to the Codes

        The MBBK paper rebuts only the 1994 WRR paper. They say those codes were not significant, and they may be right. The problem that we have with all of this (as stated before as an attention grabber), is that MBBK's paper is a successful attack on WRR's method, but a worthless attempt at refuting the phenomenon as a whole. It does a good job of answering those small, insignificant codes, and showing that those cannot be significant. However, people who have visited this site know that you won't find any of those types of codes at our site (unless it is noted that the code may not be significant), even though we have hundreds of code findings displayed. The real Bible codes are the codes that consist of complex matrixes. Complex matrixes involve usually over a dozen words (we've had some with up to 70 terms), that all relate to each other, and all are found in a fairly compact area. Many of the words, are not words that can be found just anywhere. These types of codes (complex code matrixes) are what we call "significant" codes. There are hundreds of significant codes that have been found in the Bible, and we know there are thousands that have yet to be found. The significant codes (which you won't find in WRR's report, and you won't find in Michael Drosnin's book) are what make the Bible Codes a real phenomenon that could not happen by chance..
        What disturbs us, is that the media and the public see that the MBBK paper has successfully refuted the WRR report, and that Brendan McKay's website successfully refutes Michael Drosnin's report, and then they say, "The Bible Code has been refuted. There are no codes in the Bible." That is wrong. The Bible Codes have not been refuted, those respective works have been refuted. Those respective works are outdated, and nothing compared to the evidence we have now. As WRR says, the evidence for the 'Bible Code' is now stronger than ever.


Should Statistics Be Used to Determine if the Codes are Significant?

        MBBK and WRR will continue to argue about this for a long time. Nobody has proven either way yet. It is our contention that statistics is not the best method. There is a much easier method, based on the following statement which nobody can disagree with:

        Anyone can be just as scientific as MBBK and WRR and use the Scientific Method. Set up a "control" to compare the Hebrew scriptures to. Make a list of 15-20 terms that describe a certain event. Search for all of those in the Tanach (Hebrew Old Testament), and then use a control text similar in length, like "Moby Dick". See what you'll find. You'll probably find every term in both texts, but you'll only find a lot of them all together in the Tanach. Of course, this is only for people with Bible Codes software. For control experiments, CodeFinder is the best program. For those of you who are not willing to buy your own software, stay tuned to this site and you'll see a lot of "significant" codes. Remember though, you can never make a conclusion from one simple experiment. Try it over and over again with different terms and topics. The three mathematicians from Hebrew University (the "BBK" in MBBK) have admitted that conclusions should not be drawn from their experiments, and additional experiments are necessary.

Are There Any Mathematicians That Believe in the Codes?

        The following portion of this document is information taken mostly from Jeffrey Satinover's "Cracking the Bible Code." Email for specific page numbers. When reading all of the below arguments, keep in mind that we ourselves do not endorse the work of WRR. As a summary of comments made above, most of the codes examined in the 1994 paper appear to us to be insignificant, and thus whatever method that stated they were significant is probably in error. However, we, not being mathematicians cannot comment on the quality of the statistical work done by WRR. Below you will find just who does support WRR's work. Keep in mind also, that if WRR's 1994 paper was thrown out by everybody, it would do no harm to the codes, because that paper is nothing compared to the evidence we have now.

        Remember, to get into Statistical Science, the paper must be reviewed by several secular mathematicians. The WRR report was very well done, and drew the attention and respect of the world's finest mathematicians from around the world.
        
         The following is a listing of some prominent mathematicians from around the world who have publicly commented on WRR's report. (Not all of them have endorsed the truth of the findings, but all have commented on the high-quality of the research, and by implication, the bona fides of the researchers as well):

First, WRR:

Doron Witzum: the preeminent codes researcher, a mysterious, reclusive, ultra-Orthodox Jewish Torah scholar described as almost "saintly." Yet he had been a graduate student in physics specializing in studies of general relativity--an extraordinarily abstruse and difficult subject. 13 years ago, having been introduced to the hidden mathematical background of the Torah, he had left physics to devoted himself full-time to religious studies--and to the codes.

Eliyahu Rips: considered by some to be the discoverer of the whole phenomenon. A Lithuanian émigré and world-class mathematician who had arrived in Israel a fierce atheist (as are the majority of mathematicians). He held international stature as a group theorist (an esoteric domain at the cutting edge of both pure mathematics and theoretical physics), but after coming upon various mathematical structures in the Torah, the codes among them, he grew religious, and eventually Orthodox. He remains a full-time mathematician whose piety and involvement in the codes research are a source of consternation to his more conventional colleagues the world over.

Yoav Rosenburg: a brilliant young computer scientist. Has a tremendous background in advanced mathematical techniques that can be used to detect, with great accuracy, "fuzzy" signals in a sea of static. He was at work in Israel on his doctoral dissertation in that area, with specifically military applications.

Supporters of WRR's work, many known around the world:

Harold Gans: A senior codebreaker at the US Department of Defense, a man who for more than 25 years worked at the National Security Agency, making and breaking codes for American intelligence. Using his own computer program, replicated the Israeli results and then took them a step further. And Gans had set out to prove that the Bible code was a hoax, that it was ridiculous, that it was crazy. And instead he proved that it was real. Today, Gans still believes in and supports the work of WRR, although he is retired from the U.S. Government.

Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro: one of the most famous mathematicians in the world, at Yale University. He is widely considered one of the world's finest mathematicians. He was quoted as saying, "If Rips was involved, you may be certain that there is no problem with the mathematics."

David Kazhdan: chairman of the Department of Mathematics at Harvard, was quoted as saying in a 1996 newspaper interview, "The phenomenon is real; what it means is up to the individual." Mr. Kazhdan is now more tentative, and remains undecided, but says he is still open-minded.

Robert J. Aumann: the most famous mathematician in Israel. Now at Hebrew University, and a member of both the Israeli and the United States academy of sciences, told the Israeli Academy of Sciences that the 'Bible code' is an established fact. No one has a closer knowledge of the experimental work that Dr. Rips has done than Dr. Aumann. He supervised the gathering of the material and the carrying out of the experiment as an independent observer over the course of many years. Note, Brendan McKay claims that Professor Aumann now says that he is undecided on the codes. We were unable to find proof for or against McKay's claim.

Persi Diaconis: a prominent and highly respected statistician in the Department of Mathematics at Harvard who after reviewing the work, was unable to find the flaw that he expected to be there. He had himself devised an extraordinary elegant method to reanalyze the Israelis' data in place of more conventional methods. WRR used his very method to substantiate their findings. Persi is a fierce skeptic just because he believes the idea of codes in the Bible is ridiculous, but he has not challenged the work of WRR to our knowledge.

Gerald Schroeder: another physicist with an impressive career behind him. Long at MIT, Schroeder had subsequently worked for the United States Department of Defense, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the United Nations. He had been part of the team that developed the means for detecting clandestine underground nuclear explosions and personally owned the patent for the device used to detect and measure the intensity of airborne radioactivity. After publishing more than seventy scientific articles, he, too, left it all to come to Jerusalem where he lectures to people from all over the world about the interface of science and religion.

Professor Daniel Michaelson: another mathematician in the circle of codes researchers (in fact, he had helped develop the field). Michaelson maintained appointments both in the Department of Mathematics at UCLA and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He, too, began as a severe skeptic, but eventually became convinced that the codes are real. Like Rips, he left behind his secular life to assume the ways of the ancient tradition.

Robert E. Kass: editor of Statistical Science at the time of the '94 WRR paper. Chairman of the Department of Statistics, Carnegie-Mellon University. Said, "Our referees were baffled: their prior beliefs made them think the Book of Genesis could not possibly contain references to modern-day individuals, yet when the authors carried out additional analyses and checks the effect persisted. The paper is thus offered to Statistical Science readers as a challenging puzzle." Note that Robert does not support or endorse the work of WRR, and he now supports the new paper by MBBK.

Dr. Andrew Goldfinger: a senior physicist at Johns Hopkins University, and number two man at the Space Computer and Technology Group there. Goldfinger was also past chairman of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. He has reviewed and now endorses the work by WRR.

The Mathematicians On the Other Side

        To be fair to the other side of the debate, it should also be noted that over 50 "math experts" have signed a petition saying they were not convinced by the 1994 WRR paper. That petition can be viewed here, and our reply to it, here.
        The truth is, that most of the mathematicians in the world who are aware of the phenomenon, reject it. However, we believe there are several reasons for that, that should not be legitimate reasons.

Why Most Scientists Reject the Codes

        Below are several reasons why we believe the majority of scientists have rejected the Bible Codes:

1. They have only reviewed the WRR 1994 paper, which is outdated. They reviewed it, were not convinced, and dismissed the phenomenon as a whole and have refused to look at any "nonsense about the codes" since. Thus, they have failed to see the real codes. Where are they going to hear about them? Not from the media, and they won't read books on the codes...maybe this website?
2. Just like the Creation/Evolution topic. Although the majority of adult Americans believe the world was supernaturally "created," most scientists believe it was all a happening of chance. Why? "Science" means knowledge, and "scientist" is a word that describes someone who wants to know--or have an explanation for everything. That is the ultimate goal of science--to be able to explain everything around us, including how it all got there. The supernatural concept to most scientists, is insulting. They don't want to believe in God, they don't want to believe there is something they can't explain. The "Big Bang" theory has exploded, and been formally rejected by most scientists by the way (although you won't hear about it on the news). A new theory now comes out every month. None of them can explain the start of the universe. The big bang says everything was condensed into an "infinitesimal region" (which means "dot")... and that exploded, and there was the universe. What they don't realize, is that they can't explain where that dot came from. The Bible says, "In the beginning, God..." and science tells us, "In the beginning, dot...". Which takes more faith to believe in? Yet most scientists refuse to believe in a supernatural creation, even though they admit they don't have an explanation for the start of the universe at the moment. The same applies to the Bible Codes. They don't want to believe in them, so they don't allow themselves to be convinced. See the Conclusion to our latest BCFS.
3. Peer pressure. Scientists fear that going against the "community" will lower their personal status as a scientists. Remember, new discoveries are normally rejected at first by the scientific community. Galileo was put on house arrest for stating that the earth was not flat (for example).

Below are some links to pages where you can find out more about Math and the Bible Codes:

Michael Drosnin vs. Brendan McKay:  Read it at our site
An excerpt from a transcript of a radio debate in late 1997. A very lively exchange, 
and some good background information on the mathematicians involved with the codes.

Breaking Codes Through Mathematical Sequences: by By Susan Ornstein
http://www.j51.com/~jrsflw/codes.htm
A good source for background information on the discoveries of Harold Gans.

Scientists Prove Divine Author of Genesis: by Terry Watkins
http://www.av1611.org/genesis.html
A great overview of the 1994 WRR paper, although a little outdated.

Divine Authorship, by Jeffrey Satinover   http://www.vaxxine.com/compcare/divine.eht 
An excellent overview on the mathematical background and basis for the codes, although a little outdated.

Are There Really Codes in the Bible?

        There are ELS codes in every text. ELS codes can be found by chance. To this date, a significant pattern of complex code matrixes has been found only in the Bible. That is a fact. There is no reason to reject the "Bible Codes" phenomenon. Below you'll find links to answers to various claims around the internet against the codes.

September 21, 1999
All of the claims below are answered at our Answers to Claims section.

Dr. James Prices' Work: Dr. James Price runs all kinds of tests on how you can find thousands of words in single chapters, and you can find certain words just as many times in other texts, as you can in the Bible. These tests are true, but they prove nothing. The error again is that he does not realize the structure of the codes.

Lori Eldrige's Work: Lori Eldridge and others say that just as you can find "Yeshua is God," you can also find phrases like "Yeshua is Mean," or "Satan is god." Yes, that is true, but it proves nothing. They do not realize the structure of the codes. Lori was a former believer in the codes. We respond also to her reasons for no longer believing in the codes.

Dr. Brendan McKay's Work: Brendan McKay may be able to successfully prove that so far, nobody has developed a statistical method to show that the codes are significant. However, he tries to go a step further and say that all the complex matrixes found in the Bible, can be found in any book. He appears to have support for this, but it's all based on deception.

Misuses and False Interpretations of the Codes: Our webmaster has written a paper exposing all the false interpretations, and alleged purposes of the Bible Codes. He shows why the false interpretations are false, and what the real purpose is.

Christians Who Don't Believe in the Codes: Many Christians still do not believe in the codes, and some respected Christian organizations and leaders have condemned them. Find out why the codes are not divination or fortune telling, and why God allows us to search for hidden codes in His Holy Word.

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