The Bible Codes

In recent years the subject of the Bible codes has come to the forefront of mainstream media outlets.  The topic has been popularized on talk shows, by best selling books, and through TV documentaries.  Some claim to have found Bible code matrices, which contain information about WWI, WWII, Shakespeare, John Kennedy, and The World Trade Center attack, even information about Jesus Himself.  For the fundamental Christian the topic poses many questions such as; what are the Bible codes?  Are they from God, satan, or coincidence?  What purpose, if any, do the codes serve?  In this article we will examine the facts about these phenomena and answer the above questions.

We will first answer the question; what is a Bible code?  A Bible code is an equidistant letter sequence code or for short an ELS code that has been found in the text of the Hebrew Scriptures.  An ELS code is a form of writing whereby one incorporates hidden messages within a text.  For example the following short sentence contains an example of an ELS code.  See if you can find the hidden message in the sentence.

            HE ATE THE LAST LUMP OF IT.

Here is how to find the message; Pick the first letter, skip 3 letters and pick the 4^th letter, then skip 3 letters and pick the 4^th letter, do this 2 more times and the word HELLO appears.

            HE ATE THE LAST LUMP OF IT.

This is a very simple example of what an ELS code is.  For years governments have used this type of code to send secret messages.  So when people refer to the Bible codes they are referring to ELS codes found in the Hebrew texts of scripture. Here is an example of a simple Bible code that is included on Research Systems Code Finder Bible Code Software.

  [1]

This is called a Bible code matrix.  A Matrix is an array of letters formed by taking the Hebrew text of a scripture portion with the word spaces removed.  The letters are then placed in a rectangular array.  The circled, or boxed letters in the above matrix are the letters of the encoded words found at various skip intervals in that matrix. Here is the list of words from the matrix above which were found encoded in the scriptures about a forest fire in Haifa.  The first term in the list, which is the center term of the matrix, sets the theme and letter array of the matrix.  The other terms listed below also appear in the matrix at various skip intervals as listed below.

Term                     Translation                   Skip  R Factor   (in Matrix)

ìëàðîéðøåàøòéPine Forest was consumed       16       8.278           11.066          

èéáà          AV 19                                    8         -1.153          1.635            

ñøä           destruction n.                         -8        -2.206          0.583            

ñøä           destruction n.                         90       -3.257          -0.468           

øôà           ash n.                                    8         -2.608          0.180            

øôà           ash n.                                    -16      -2.909          -0.121           

çéôä          Haifa                             2         -0.635          2.153            

The ELS reference is 16 characters between rows.

There are 7 displayed terms in the matrix.

The matrix starts at Genesis Ch 13 V 7 Letter 16 and ends at Genesis Ch 13 V 16 Letter 22.

The matrix spans 496 characters of the surface text.

The matrix has 31 rows, is 16 columns wide and contains a total of 496 characters.[2]

Now that we have a general idea of what a Bible code is let’s examine the facts about them to determine whether the encoded information that is being found in the above matrix and other Bible code matrices is from God, satan, or by coincidence? 

First let me state that it is true that if you have a large enough text you can find random ELS codes, which happen by way of coincidence, in any text.  However by applying statistical analysis one can determine if a term or terms, which have been encoded, were encoded by coincidence or by design.  For example you will find the word “hello” encoded thousands of times in a large book such as War and Peace.  Through statistical analysis of the term you would see that the word has the likelihood of occurring quite frequently merely by chance.  Therefore you could conclude, if you found it in a matrix from War and Peace, that it was probably encoded by coincidence.  However if you found a large word or even a sentence encoded in a Bible matrix, then through the application of statistical analysis, if its odds of occurring by chance were large enough, you could conclude that the word, phrase or sentence was probably encoded by design. That would be especially true if it was encoded in close proximity to other words that all related to a theme.  The Bible code report above lists the terms found, at what skip, and then gives each term’s r-value in all of scripture, and it’s r-value in the matrix.  The r-value is a statistical term for the odds at which that term appeared.  For example the first term has an r-value of 8.278.  This means the odds that this term occurred at random is 10 to the 8.278 power to one, or by calculating it we find the odds as 189,670,592 to one.  You find the odds for all the terms occurring in the matrix by adding together all the in matrix r values of the terms, except for the first term which you use the straight r value for the entire search text, and then raising 10 to the power equal to the sum of the r values.  Thus for the matrix above; the combined r-value is 12.240, which yields odds of about 1.7 trillion to one.  Many consider that a matrix in the Hebrew text must have odds greater than 10 to the 7^th power to be considered to be beyond randomness.  Thus we could conclude that the matrix above was by design and not chance.  If the above matrix and report does not convince you that Bible codes are more than random occurrences then take a look at the two World Trade Center matrices that were found by Bible code researcher Roy Reinhold.  I consider Roy to be the premier Bible code researcher in the world.  His WTC matrices are too big to fit on this page but can be viewed at his Prophecy Truths website by clicking on these links; WTC matrix I, WTC matrix II.

The odds of all the terms and sentences listed in the report occurring in the WTC matrices linked above are 1 in 2.72 x 10 to the 340th power and 1 in 1.8 x 10 to the 82^nd power.   Odds this high emphatically deny the possibility that the matrix occurred by chance.  Many scientists consider odss greater than 10 to the 25^th power to be beyond chance in the universe.  With odds that high one has no logical choice but to conclude that the terms were not encoded by coincidence.  Thus if the terms were not encoded by coincidence that leaves us with two other choices, they were either encoded by God, satan or as some claim aliens.  Knowing that God wrote the scriptures by inspiration through holy men and He preserved His word to this day, there is but one conclusion; that God put them there.  To conclude that satan put them there would infer that God’s word has not been preserved to this day, and that the Bible has been changed by copiers and the codes were added by them.  When you consider the complexity of the codes this hypothesis becomes even more implausible, for the Bible codes are so complex that it would take the use of a super computer to create them.  Aliens did not write the codes either.  In earlier chapters we have already presented evidence that refuted that notion and have shown that aliens are merely demons.  Thus we conclude that; the Bible codes are from God.  Some attribute Daniel’s statement in Dan. 12:9;  “And he said, go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.”  As meaning that God closed up and sealed information about the end times by use of the Bible codes.

Now that we have logically and scripturally concluded that God was the author of the Bible codes we will now consider the purpose for the Bible codes.  I believe that the main purpose of the Bible codes is to scientifically prove to a scientifically skeptical world that the Bible is God’s Word.  The complexity and odds of many Bible codes that have been found thus far to date by virtue of their statistical significance offer irrefutable proof that only God could have written the Bible and that the Bible is God’s Word.  For in order to create the codes one had to possess an extremely high intelligence surpassing the ability of any computer, and one also had to possess a perfect knowledge of the future.  The only one who possesses those attributes is God Himself.  Thus if one analytically evaluates the Bible codes, and is honest with himself, and the facts, he will have no other choice but to conclude the Bible is God’s word.  In fact several people in the scientific community have become Christians as a result of the Bible codes phenomena. 

In my experience many Christians have categorically rejected the Bible codes as heresy or folly without examining the facts.  I feel that this is inappropriate.  One should always examine the facts before making a judgment.  For if the Bible codes are truly of God then those who reject them will in effect be guilty of rejecting a part of the knowledge of God.

Another question often arises in connection with Bible codes and that is can they predict the future?  Bible code scholars have hotly debated the answer to that question.  I believe that it is possible for a Bible code to predict the future as long as the code emphatically and statistically has no other possibilities of interpretation than what the code is suggesting about the future.  In most cases this would be very difficult to accomplish.

This article has just briefly introduced the topic of the Bible codes for a more thorough explanation read one of the many books on the subject, or visit The Prophecy Truths website at http://www.ad2004.com Or, the Bible code digest site at http://www.biblecodecritic.com/