There's been a great deal of news about the so-called bible codes over the last few years. Quite by accident I learned of one of these codes at a local book store. My husband noticed a book for sale called "Bible Code II: The Countdown" by Michael Drosnin. I was intrigued but skeptical. I did some research on the Internet and was astounded at how many web sites are devoted to this subject. We want to cover this subject because it is so popular currently, however, we want to say up front that we are not convinced that these codes are from God. Jesus himself warned, Matt 24:4 "Take heed that no man deceive you." He was discussing the time shortly before His second coming when He gave His disciples this warning and another, Matt 24:11 "And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many". One of the tests that the Bible gives to tell if a prophecy is true is that it will indeed come to pass. There have been many false prophecies that never came to pass. This is what makes these bible codes so confusing...many of the "prophecies" or predictions "hidden" in the code have come to pass throughout history. So, if we use the Biblical test, these codes may contain legitimate messages that God meant for us to understand. We can not pretend to know the mind of God and for God anything is possible, so we are leaving the authenticity of these Bible codes within the realm of possibility. But, we are by no means endorsing them in any way.
Since so many people today are convinced that the "Bible Codes" are real, we will take this page to analyze and explain them a bit. Probably the most popular of these codes is the one I first mentioned. Michael Drosnin has written two books on this subject and spent a great deal of his own time, money and effort traveling around the globe meeting with world leaders to warn them of events foretold by this code. Mr. Drosnin's first book quickly became an international best seller after it was published in 1997. That book describes an ancient code that is supposedly encrypted in the Bible that "may reveal our future." Indeed, many scholars have believed that such a code existed and have tried to "crack" this code for hundreds of years. Apparently, Sir Isaac Newton tried to crack this code, but without the aid of modern-day computers, was unable to do so. A few years ago an Israeli mathematician broke the code with a computer and Michael Drosnin, an investigative reporter by trade wrote a book about it. Mr. Drosnin became convinced that this code was capable of revealing future events when he says he "found" the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin predicted in it more than a year before his murder.
The thing I found most interesting after some of my own investigation, is that Mr. Drosnin (raised a Jew) is a professed atheist! I did not read Mr. Drosnin's first book, but the omission of Jesus in his second book "Bible Code II: The Countdown" made me wonder what this code had to say about Him. So, I got on-line and ordered my own "CodeFinder" software to do some experimenting. This software is pretty advanced. It allows you to analyze the 304,805 Hebrew letters in any combination. Some of the "encoded" messages that Mr. Drosnin found appear within the layers of the Hebrew characters...some with many letters "skipped" to form the searched for word or phrase. I questioned the validity of performing searches with so many characters skipped, so I limited my searches to fewer skips than Mr. Drosnin and others have conducted. It's also interesting to mention that this software allows you to search different sections of the Bible. In other words, you can look up the name of Jesus (pronounced Yeshua in Hebrew) in just the Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible) if you want to. The software is so sophisticated that it provides an English to Hebrew dictionary so you don't need to know the Hebrew characters to perform searches. I thought it would be interesting to search for the name of Jesus - the Messiah the Jews rejected in the most holy writings of the Judaic Torah.
I found the name of Jesus 79 times in the Torah with absolutely no skips - The name of Jesus was spelled out - each character in line with the next! As an experiment, I let the program search for Jesus with up to 100 skips (similar to searches Mr. Drosnin has published) and found Jesus in the Torah code 15,620 times! If you are a person who firmly believes in the validity of the Bible Code, how can you explain the name of Jesus appearing among the text of the Torah - the Judaic scriptures studied by the same Jewish leaders who denied Him as their Messiah/Moshiach/Savior/Christ? The word Messiah appears with the name of Jesus 33 times with absolutely NO SKIPS! If you believe in the validity of this code, you would have to conclude that it is saying that Jesus is the true Messiah. It's also interesting to note that when you do a search with other names that others might claim to be their messiah, no matches come up! In other words, the names Mohammad, Buddha, etc. never appear with the word Messiah - no matter how many skips you allow the program!
Not only does the name of Jesus appear with the word Messiah, but many other words associated with our Lord and Savior appear in the Bible Code together with His name. When I conducted a search with no more than 10 skips the name of Jesus appeared 2939 times, with Messiah 92 times, with the word virgin 194 times, with the word Bethlehem 2 times, with the word Lamb (with a capital L - not just the animal=lamb) Jesus appears 2478 times, with the word sacrifice 97 times, with the word pierce 1 time, with the word crucify 2 times, with the word covenant 156 times, with the word descendant 7 times, with the name David 390 times and with the word ascension 12 times. Now, I'm no mathematician, but the odds of that happening by accident seem pretty astronomical to me!!
If I don't have your attention already, I'll finish about my own experiment by saying that I found eight words that appear with the name of Jesus in the Bible code within the same "grid" that describe much of His birth, death and resurrection. The following words appear with the name of Jesus 22 times or more on the same grid: Messiah, virgin, Lamb (actually appears 46 times), sacrifice, pierce, covenant - David, and ascension. That last word, ascension appears intermingled with the name of Jesus on the same line of Hebrew characters, with no skips between! Most amazing to me was my search that revealed the words, Jesus, true, Messiah - searching through the Hebrew characters of the Torah, with no more than 10 skips, these three words appear together 1,125 times! If you believe in the messages of the "Bible Code" those three words say it all!
