Full Life Crusade

What is the Bible Code?

By Wesley Smith

In 1997 Simon & Schuster published a book entitled THE BIBLE CODE. It became the #1 bestseller on the New York Times bestseller list for non-fiction. The author's name is Michael Drosnin. Drosnin is a reporter, formerly at the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Citizen Hughes. He lives and works in New York City.

This book hit like a bombshell in the Jewish community. Thousands of Jewish people who had not taken the Bible seriously have returned to their roots and their synagogues. Teams of Jewish “revivalists” are now traveling the world preaching the basic message that Jews everywhere should return to the Torah (the first five books of Moses).

In a sense, there is a revival underway that is bringing tens of thousands of Jewish people back to faith. What was in this book that could have caused such a thing to happen? And how could it have happened in such a high-tech and sophisticated/scholarly generation as ours?

Before we explore the answers to these questions let's consider something the Bible has to say about the Jews.

“ . . . the Jews require a sign . . .” 1 Corinthians 1:22

Interesting! The Jews “require a sign”. Who would have thought that they would receive their sign in the persons of:

Sir Isaac Newton

Rabbi, H.M.D. Weissmandel

Dr. Eliyahu Rips

Doron Witztum

Harold Gans

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

Isaac Newton, English mathematician, has become world famous as a brilliant scholar because of his Theory of the Universe. Not only did he discover the force of gravity and the mechanics of our solar system; he was the first modern scientist. But what most people do not know is that Isaac Newton believed that there was a hidden code in the Bible. He was so certain of it that he spent more than half of his life pursuing this interest. He thought that if he could crack the “code” that it would reveal the future.

So determined was he in this effort that he learned Hebrew and wrote more than a million words on the subject of theology. These writings were discovered by John Maynard Keynes at Cambridge University. Newton had packed up the writings in 1696.

As Keynes read the papers he was shocked. The million or so words in Newton's own handwriting revealed that he believed that there was a hidden code in the Bible. He believed that the Bible was a “cryptogram set by the Almighty” and he wanted to read the riddle of the Godhead, the riddle of past and future events divinely fore-ordained.

Newton's lifetime quest failed for one simple reason: he did not possess a computer. The code could not be cracked until the computer had been invented.

There are two verses in the book of Daniel that are extremely interesting for our generation:

“But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” Daniel 12:4

“And he said, Go your way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.” Daniel 12:9

Many thinking people believe that we are entering the time of the end. It is striking that the words chosen in these verses have a very modern, familiar ring.

Any person who uses a computer knows what it means to “close” a file. With the click of the mouse the file can be reopened easier and faster than getting a notebook off of a shelf and “opening” it. These are modern times for modern people.

The concept that has eluded many of us is that God is more modern than we are. He is not the old man with the beard who has been by-passed and become passe'. No wonder so many non-believing Jews have come back to the faith of their forefathers. They have been confronted by the Living God, not boring doctrines from ages past.

Just finding out that someone like Sir Isaac Newton believed in the code and spent more than half his life trying to crack it is a revelation to most of us. If one of the greatest scientists of the modern era was consumed by the code, then, surely, we should at least be a little inquisitive about this “cryptogram of the Almighty!”

Rabbi H.M.D. Weissmandel

Living in Prague, Czechoslovakia in the early half of the 20^th century was a rabbi who became interested in the same theory that Isaac Newton spent half his life exploring. This was Rabbi Weissmandel.

Out of curiosity he tried to do without the computer what others before him had failed to do. He tried to crack the code. But he seemed to be getting nowhere.

Then, after hundreds of attempts he found something. He found that if he skipped fifty letters, and then another fifty, and then three more fifties, the word “Torah” was spelled out. It was a shocking discovery.

From there he moved to the book of Exodus. And, much to his astonishment, the exact same phenomenon was found. In the book of Exodus as he carefully counted fifty letters five different times the word “Torah” was spelled out again!

Then he moved to the book of Leviticus. He did not find the word “Torah” spelled out this time, but the word “God”! Now he had: “Torah”, “Torah”, “God”.

From there he proceeded to the book of Numbers and used the same counting method. This time the word “Torah” reappeared.

He hurried on to the fifth book of the Torah, Deuteronomy, and applied the same count. The word “Torah” appeared for the fourth time!

Now he had: “Torah”, “Torah”, “God”, “Torah”, “Torah”!

Any thinking person would know that this could not be a coincidence!

Dr. Eliyahu Rips

Dr. Rips is one of the world's leading experts in group theory. This is a field of mathematics that underlies quantum physics. He is a world famous mathematician. For many years he was a professor at the prestigious Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel.

Knowing the efforts that Sir Isaac Newton put forth in looking for the code, and being aware of Rabbi Weissmandel's discovery of the “Torah-Torah-God-Torah, Torah” some fifty years earlier, he applied his knowledge with use of a modern computer.

He was astonished by what he found! He discovered what Newton had spent half his life looking for. Dr. Eliyahu Rips discovered the Bible Code!

Many leading rabbis believe that when God gave the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai, that He gave it to him one letter at a time. The letters were white fire on a black background. There were no errors. There were 304,805 Hebrew letters in the Torah.

A Jewish scribe will spend a lifetime copying the Torah, letter by letter. He is meticulous beyond imagination. When he is finished there are no mistakes. That is why today there are still 304,805 Hebrew letters in the Torah.

Dr. Rips began asking the computer to pick out every 2^nd letter, then every 3^rd letter, then every 4^th letter, etc., etc. In merely a few seconds the computer spit back the information. And the information spelled words—spelled out things like: Hitler- Auschwitz; Shakespeare- Macbeth- Hamlet; Newton- Gravity; Edison- Electricity- Light Bulb; Wright Brothers- Airplane; Einstein- Science-A Brainy Person.

“It was the happiest time of my life,” Rips confessed.

This is the sign that has drawn countless numbers of Jewish people back to believing that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. And it is also shocking many professed christians into once again taking the Bible seriously.

It is a sign! “ . . . the Jews require a sign.”

Doron Witztum

Dr. Rips knew that he had made an amazing discovery, but he was unable to prove it in a way that would be accepted by his peers, and the rest of the world. Then he met Doron Witztum. Dr. Witztum is a Jewish physicist who is brilliant, but unknown to the world of science.

But Witztum completed the mathematical model that Rips had been laboring over. Dr. Rips considers him a genius. Together they published a paper explaining to the scientific world their original experiment, “Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis.”

The abstract on the cover page reads: “Randomization analysis indicates that hidden information is woven into the text of Genesis in the form of equidistant letter sequences. The effect is significant at the level of 99.998%.”

The odds of finding the encoded information by random chance were found to be 1 in 10 million!

They submitted their paper to “Statistical Science”, a leading American math journal. The editor, Robert Kass, a professor at Carnegie-Mellon, was skeptical. But he had it checked out by other math experts.

Much to everyone's surprise the paper passed the review process, which is standard in all serious scientific journals. Kass sent the paper out to be examined three times. This was unprecedented. Each time the paper passed every scrutiny, every test.

So the Rips/Witztum paper was published in “Statistical Science”, 1994, Vol. 9, No. 3.429-438.

Seven years later no one has been able to refute their findings about the Bible Code. It is a sign for the modern mind, indeed!

Harold Gans

Harold Gans, a statistician, spent his life making and breaking codes for American intelligence. He was the senior code-breaker at the top secret National Security Agency near Washington.

When he heard about the discovery of the Bible code by Rips and Witztum, he was more than skeptical. But because of the reputation of these two men in scholarly circles, Gans decided that he would examine their paper.

Although he originally thought the Bible Code was foolishness, he soon changed his mind. After carefully examining the paper in a 440-hour experiment his results made him a believer.

“It sent a chill up my spine,” Gans confessed.

The Pentagon code-breaker discovered that men who lived hundreds of years after the Bible was written had their names encoded in the Scriptures. His conclusion: The Bible Code is real!

The Genius of Vilna wrote, prophetically, in the 18^th century: “The rule is that all that was, is, and will be unto the end of time is included in the Torah, from the first word to the last word. And not merely in a general sense, but as to the details of every species and each one individually, and details of details of everything that happened to him from the day of his birth until his end.”

Examples of what has been found in the Bible Code:

_________________________________________________

In the text of Genesis 46:3-4

Eichman

Consumed

A great people

In Auschwitz

By the hand of the SS

Gas

Zyklon B (the exact name of the gas used)

Hitler

Germany

Nazi

In the text of Genesis 15:5

Man on moon

Spaceship

Apollo 11 July 20, 1969-5730 in the Hebrew calendar. (The date Neil Armstrong stepped on the lunar surface.)

Found in the text Genesis 41:45

Zaphenath-Paneah

Decoder of the code

Found in the text Genesis 6:6

Hiroshima

Atomic holocaust

Japan

1945 (5705 in the Hebrew Calendar)

Found in Genesis and Deuteronomy

Lincoln

Booth

Assassinated

Found in the text Daniel 12:4,9

Computer

Found in the text Genesis 9:6

Jesus' Crucifixion

Found in the text Genesis 7:4,8

Jesus,

Crucifixion

Messiah

Found in the text Genesis 3:12, 22; 4:12

Accident

Photographer

Lady Di

You took my blood

Found in the text Genesis 49:2,3,8,10,15,24

Wedding

Vineyard

Cousin

John

Airplane

Accident

Kennedy Jr.

Martha

Piper

Found in the text Exodus 16:16; 25:12

Titanic sank

President Kennedy

To die

Dallas

Oswald

Marksman-sniper

Ruby

He will kill the assassin

R. F. Kennedy

S. Sirhan

2^nd ruler will be killed

______________________________________________________ Worst terrorist attack in American history

Oklahoma

Terrible, frightening death

Terror

Murrah building

Killed

Torn to pieces

Timothy McVeigh

April 19, 1995

Two years after the death of Koresh

______________________________________________________ Communism

Fall of

Russian

China

______________________________________________________ Scuds

Russian

Missile

Sadam Hussein

3^rd of Shevat (first scud fired Friday, January 18, 1991

Iraq

2^nd of Shevat (when the war actually began)

Schwarzkopf

America

In Saudi Arabia

At Tel Aviv

5751 (1991)

______________________________________________________ A Prince will be shot

A parade

1981

A slayer of the soul-murdered

Sadat

8^th of Tishri (October 6, 1981)

A conspiracy

Chaled Islambooli (Even that day's New York Times had it wrong, reporting the name as “Istanbooli”.)

I know that this is beyond the mind of man. But the main result the Bible Code is having on thinking people is that it is giving them a renewed respect for the Bible. I personally believe that this is a significant step toward the time when “all Israel shall be saved” (Romans 11:26).