Does The Bible Have a Hidden Code?

Computers "Reveal" the Code

Before the computer age, man's ability to examine the Bible text in this way was limited.  In August 1994, however, the journal Statistical Science published an article in which Eliyahu Rips of Jerusalem's Hebrew University and his fellow researchers made some startling claims.  They explained that by removing all spaces between letters and using a sequence of equi-distance jumps between letters in the Hebrew text of Genesis, they had discovered the names of 34 famous rabbis encoded in the text, along with other information, such as their dates of birth or death, in close  proximity to their names.  After repeated testing,the researchers published their conclusion that the information encoded in Genesis was statistically beyond the possibility of chance-proof of inspired information deliberately hidden in code form in Genesis thousands of years ago.

Building on this method, journalist Drosnin ran his own tests, searching for hidden information in the first five books of the Hebrews Bible.  According to Drosnin, he found the name of Yitzhak embedded in the Bible texts by a sequence of every 4,772 letters each he saw that Rabin's name (read vertically) intersected with a line (Deuteronomy 4:42, running horizontally)  that Drosnin translated as  "assassin that will assassinate."

Deuteronomy 4:42 actually speaks of a manslayer who has killed unintentionally.   Thus, many have criticized Drosnin's arbitrary approach, claiming that his unscientific methods could be used to find similar messages in any text.  But Drosnin stood his ground, issuing this challenge:  "When my critics find a message about the assassination of  a Prime Minister encrypted in [the novel] Moby Dick, I will believe them.

Next time: Proof of Inspiration?

Watchtower, 2000