The Bible or Torah Code is a purported set of encoded words within a Hebrew text of the Tanakh (Old Testament), but most especially the Torah or first five Books of Moses that, according to its advocates, have predicted significant historical events. Typical of such proponents was Grant R. Jeffrey in his sensationalist article, The Mysterious Hebrew Codes: Conclusive Proof that Man Did NOT Write the Bible, which in 1997 I favourably reviewed and which, together with other materials at that time appearing in increasing numbers, convinced me that the claims of proponents of the Bible Codes were true. 25 years later, after considerably more study by the many new critcis who have since entered the arena and have subjected the claims to rigorous testing, I have made a complete U-turn and returned to something akin to my former position.
Overview
What therefore follows replaces an earlier essay and commentary entitled, The Fifth Dimension written in 1997 as a kind of summary of Jeffrey's essay, before we had the kind of scientific, mathematical and statistical research work available that is absolutely necessary to be certain that this is a phenomenon justifying the claims of supernatural activity being made of it. Though as a ministry we were initially very cautious, and noted many false prophecies made by the so-called 'codes', we were inclinded to be a little too credulous, objectivity becoming lost that follows the excitement of a new and apparently revolutionary discovery. To be fair, though, we did include a link to those who were of a totally different opinion. We assumed, in order to explain the false prophecies, that the 'code' could be used to look back into the past with a great degree of accuracy but not into the future. A quarter of a century later, in the light of the very large body of evidence now accumulated, we can say with certainty that there is nothing of significance to be found using the 'codes', that they are almost certainly not the product of a supernatural mind, and that they are therefore of no benefit to the Body of Christ. If anything, they are a distraction and time-waster.
Rather than provide our own analysis here, which would require the mathematical skills we do not currently possess, we should like to recommend some of the works of others more knowledgeable than us. There are many more that could be recommended which may perhaps be added here in the future. For now we recommend the following off-site studies, in order of importance, that between them give a thorough overview of the alleged Bible or Torah 'Code' phenomenon. Four of these are produced by Christians, one by Talmudic Chabad Jews and the last by Atheists, in order to give some balance. Obviously we do not endorse all of the conclusions of these writers but present them nevertheless so that the reader may see that there is a broad agreement across the religious and non-religious spectrum. This is, after all, about mathematics, and the conclusion reached, either way, does not affect the belief system or world view of Bible-believing Christians and Messianics.
A Suggested Reading List
[1] Don Stewart, Is There a Secret Code in Scripture That Proves Its Divine Authority? The Bible Code (Christian) 
[2] Bible Codes Made Simple (Christian)
[3] Richard A. Taylor, The Bible Code: Teaching Them [Wrong] Things (Christian)
[4] Jeffrey H. Tigay, The Bible 'Codes': A Textual Perspective (Academic)
[5] Yehuda Shurpin, What is the Jewish Perspective on the Bible Codes? (Chabad Jewish)
[6] Brendan McKay et al, Scientific Refutation of the Bible Codes (Atheists)
Different Investigative Agendas
Though interest in the 'Codes' has subsided over the years, there are still a handfull of dedicated researchers and their respective Christian/Messianic and Jewish followers who are absolutely convinced that they are real and have devoted their whole lives to their study - from those who are theists to those who believe the Bible is a composition by ancient aliens who seeded the planet to catalyse its supposed 'evolution' (Panspermia) to those occultists who believe the code reveals something akin to the alleged Akashic Record which (from their persepective) is the truth hidden behind an exoteric 'fairy tale' (the Bible Story). The Akashic Record is believed by Anthroposophists and Theosophists to be an astral compendium of all universal events, memories and thoughts of each soul on its journey of multiple reincarnations - all that is happening, has happened, and will happen, a kind of 'celestial ethereal library), and a bit like the 'Force' of the science fiction series of movies, Star Wars (which popularises Buddhist and New Age beliefs). Accordingly, the Bible 'Codes' could well be an elaborate demonic hoax to sidetrack believers from the truth that saves to a gnostic-type pseudo-truth that cannot. The Bible/Torah 'Code's' adherants therefore come from a variey of backgrounds with different agendas.
Possible Explanations
This is not, however, how Bible exegesis is supposed to be done, neither is there any hint in the Scriptures that such a secret code exists or that man should search for one. Moreover, a lot of false claims were made by some of the pioneers of this study that have since been thoroughly discredited. And whilst some of the predictions appear to have been fulfilled with a success rate not unlike those of psychics, such as the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (above) or Einstein's discovery of special relativity (below), there are better explanations for the phenomenon involving either chance or demonic deception...or both. The articles above deal some of these matters in some depth.
One important fact that the research articles bring out, and indeed our own materials, is that the Bible could not possibly lend itself to such an encoding. For such a highly letter-sensitive code to work, the exoteric script would have to be letter- and word-perfect throughout all time, something no scholar claims because it is well known that the originals, written as they were on fragile parchment and papyrus, do not exist any more. What we have before us are multiple copies of copies, with the inevitable accumulation of scribal errors along the way, not to mention deliberate corruptions such as those perpetrated by the Jewish Masoretes to carefully obscure prophecies about Messiah Yah'shua (Jesus) involving omissions or deletions of letters here and there that would mess up the equidistant spacing methods used to locate the 'coded' messages. This is true of both Old and New Testaments. And though the supposed 'exoteric' text may differ by a single letter, word or phrase here or there because of such scribal errors and the deliberate mutilations or religious sects, these are sufficiently minor as not to affect the overall saving message of the text. The Masoretic corruptions may be exposed thanks to the discovery of, for example, the more ancient and less corrupted Dead Sea Scrolls as well as the ancient Septuagint (LXX) translations into Greek that predate the Masoretic Text. As more and more manuscript discoveries are made, so more of these minor discrepancies are may be identified and rectified.
The pedigree of various Old Testament manuscripts and translations
How the 'Codes' are Supposed to Work
So how are the Bible 'Codes' supposed to function? Work on the Bible Code did not get seriously underway until the 1990's though the claim such a code existed has been made for sometime. The first claim was made by H.M.D.Weißmandel, a Czech rabbi, but he never published his work, though some of his students published it in 1958. Weißmandel wrote out the entire Torah on index cards, with 100 letters on each card, ten rows and ten letters each, and then looked for words spelled out with equidistant skips. He noticed that if he skipped 50 letters, and then another 50, the word 'Torah' was spelled out at the beginning of the Book of Genesis. And that the same skip sequence spelled out the word 'Torah' in the Book of Exodus. And in the Book of Numbers. And in the Book of Deuteronomy.
Not until the 1990's did Dr.Eliyahu Rips, one of the world's leading experts in group theory (a branch of quantum physics mathematics), was the 'code' discovered. It has been 'confirmed' by some mathematicians, code-breakers, and others but refuted by even more.
Basically, the claim is made that whole of the Hebrew Bible is a giant matrix of letters arranged rather like a jigsaw puzzle. An example using English will illustrate. The sentence:
"Rips explained that each code is a case of adding every....."
contains a hidden message if you skip every three letters:
Rips ExplAineD thaT eacH codE is a Case Of adDing Every....."
which spells out the message:
READ THE CODE
Do not be fooled by the seemingly impressive array of 'prophecies' allegedly 'discovered' in the Bible 'Codes'. Many of these have been embellished and exaggerated to create a more convincing case for the pseudo-science. These are some of the claims that have been made but remember the choice of word order is subjective only if letters are arranged horizonatally, vertically and diagonally, often criss-crossing one another (see the leading image of this article for an example):
 1. "On 18 January 1991 the enemy, Hussein, picked a day and fired a Scud missile."
During the Gulf War Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein fired a Scud missile on the Israeli Republic. This took place on 18 January 1991.
2. "The assassin Amir will assassinate Yitzhak Rabin"
The murder of Israeli Prime Minister Rabin by a Jewish fanatic called Amir in Tel Aviv had just taken place when I firstwrote The Fifth Dimension.
3. "Watergate. Who is he? President, but he was kicked out."
Congress impeached President Richard Nixon of the USA over the Watergate break-in.
4. "Economic collapse -- 1929 -- the Depression. Stocks."
In 1929 stocks in Wall Street crashed sending the world into a great economic depression.
5. "Man on the moon -- spaceship --
20 July 1969 -- Apollo 11."
On 20 July 1969 Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, the first ever to do so.
6. "Shoemaker-Levi will pound Jupiter on 16 July 1994."
In July 1994 we witnessed the largest explosion ever seen in our solar system when a comet discovered by astronomers Shoemaker and Levi in 1993 bombarded the planet Jupiter with a force of more than a billion megatons, creating a fireball the size of our own earth. This prophecy was allegedly codes twice - in two different locations..
7. "Hitler -- evil man -- nazi and enemy -- slaughter -- Germany -- Berlin. Eichmann -- the ovens -- Zyklon B -- extermnination.
The attrocities of the nazis during the Second World War are well known, including the gas, Zykon B, used by Adolf Eichman in the concentration camps....three thousand years ago.
8. Shakespeare -- presented on stage -- Macbeth, Hamlet."
Two of the great bard's famous plays.
9. "Wright brothers -- aeroplane."
Not just Apollo 11, but the first manned flight by the American pioneers is allegedly coded.
10. "Edison -- electricity -- light bulb."
The American inventor of electricity and the electric lightbulb.
11. "Newton -- gravity."
The great English scientist Sir Isaac Newton discovered the Law of Gravity and explained the mechanics of our Solar System. It is also claimed by the 'code' that he would seek for this Record is also is recorded.
12. "Einstein -- science -- they prophesied a brainy person -- a new and excellent understanding -- he overturned present reality -- theory of relativity"
This is just a small sample. What seems suspicious to me is that many of these modern words like 'stocks' and 'gravity' had no equivalent in ancient Hebrew for whom these were unknown terms. And as far as dates are concerned, these have to have been extrapolations based in the original Hebrew calendar and not the modern Gregorian ones with their 'modern' pagan month names like 'April'. More than likely, the relatively 'modern' Jewish Talmudic calendar must have been used with all its errors, the ancient Hebrews using a luni-solar system. Even more fantastic (and in my opinion even more unconvincing) is that the discovery of Bible 'Code' itself is supposedly 'predicted' by the 'codes'...a case of self-fulfilling prophecy because this is precisely the same self-fulfilled device that Joseph Smith, the Mormon 'prophet', implanted in his own work of fiction, the Book of Mormon to 'prove' that it was he who was 'prophesied' in an allegedly ancient book now shown to be a product of the 19th century Mid West of America:
13. "The Bible Code -- sealed before Elohim (God) -- to shut up the words and seal the book until THE END."
Again, the word 'Bible' was unknown 3,000 years ago, a word not even mentioned in the exoteric text. This would have to have been an extrapolation based on a Hebrew work like sefer (scroll) or davar (word).
The 'code' that has perhaps been the most sensationalistic (which has made millions of dollars for both authors and publishers alike) are some of the alleged claims that nuclear war is on the way, and when (though, again, ancient Hebrew would have had no clue as to what 'nuclear' was). What follows are some examples that were 'discovered' back in the 1990's. You need to know something about the geopolitical situation back then to appreciate the 'coincidence' of some of these 'prophecies' being found in the 1990's. This was before NATO invaded and destroyed Libya, resulting in the murder of its leader, Colonel Gadaffi, in 2011 who was considered to be one of the major exporters of terrorism at the time. So consider some of the 'prophecies' that were conveniently 'discovered' 20-25 years ago.
After Israeli Prime Minister Rabin's death, it was widely believed that he would be succeeded by Peres in the coming national Israeli elections. But Jonathan Netanyahu won -- as, it is claimed, the 'code' predicted -- and against the polls. The 'code' went on to allegedly warn:
We are still waiting for that war to happen...if it ever does...a 'war' that is sufficiently vague as to mean almost anything. Wars are continually waged between nations. We have had many wars since then.
Because of the vagueness of future prophecies it was concluded by supporters it was in the 'nature' of the coding to make it more difficult to find events relating to the future than it is to find events and persons relating to the past. Certainly, that's common sense if you're dealing with a fraudulent system in the first place because you don't know what words to 'search' for in the future so it becomes largely guesswork. Choosing the words you want is to effectively 'load' the search. And how do you know how to spell modern words (like Gadafi and Hitler) in an ancient language? There are many possible ways of doing so, witness the different spellings resulting in the transliterations of Hebrew words into English in Messianic Bible translations.
Nevertheless, we have to face the fact that supposed clear-cut prophecies, with actual dates given, did not happen. Anyone who takes seriously what the Scriptures say about false prophecy ought to be seeing red flags immediately but the 'code' is an intoxicating thing for those in search of the sensational who are willing to be blinded to the false because they so much want the ones that did happen to be from Elohim (God)! This is one of those phenomena that attracts people to the occult because those highly demonised seem to be able to predict some future events. I knew one such person. Professional psychics and clairvoyants have techniques for extracting information from their clients without the clients knowing that they are making dislosures which the psychics then twist to mean they are actually 'seeing into the past', convincing the client that they really know their history. Additionally, there are those who claim to be able to 'remote view' the past with mixed success, though by what means is not clear. Psychics like Jean Dixon got some prophecies right but others wrong.
Here are some more controversial 'code' claims:
15. Libyan terrorists will launch a nuclear artillary attack on Israel from Jordan, destroying Jerusalem, which will precipitate a Third World War;
16. A great earthquake will take place in Los Angeles, California, in 2010 (it didn't happen but people have beenm expecting one based on scientific predictions for years);
17. Two great earthquakes will take place in China in 1976 and 2000 (the 1976 earthquake, which happened, killed 800,000 people - the one in 2000 did not take place);
18. Communism will fall first in Russia and then China (Russian Communism had aleady fallen but Chinese communism is still going strong) - another example of a self-fulfilling vague 'prophecy' since Communist Russia had already fallen by the time this 'code' was 'discovered so obviously Red China would be next to fall;
19. Assassination attempts will be made on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu;
20. An atomic holocaust will occur in Israel in the 'End of Days' (Last Days) (from whence in Hebrew did they get the word 'atomic'?;
21. At the 'End of Days' there will be a great plague but Elohim (God) will intervene to save the world (nothing new - this was predicted by John 2,000 years ago in the Book of Revelation so why include it in a 'secret code'?);
22. The Third World War will be caused by terrorists and will be a 'war to the knife' -- a war of total annihilation;
23. A great earthquake will take place in Kobe, Japan in 1995 and in Toyko, Japan between 2000 and 2006 leading to a great economic collapse (the Kobe earthquake had already occurred - but the 2006 one did not nor was there an economic collapse around this time);
The 'decoders' seem also to have 'found' some rather unconvincing 'wriggle room' to excuse themselves should any prophecy of the future fail by saying the prayers of the saints have the possibility of changing the outcome of prophecies. And whilst this is certainly true of explicitly stated conditional prophecies, it can only be true if the conditionality is clearly stated. No such conditionality is ever 'found' in the 'codes',no 'if's' for the Chinese, Californian and second Japanese earthquakes which did not happen on the dates mentioned. The Fukushima 'earthquake' (if that's what it actually was and not some underwater thermonuclear explosion) and tsunami occurred on 11 March 2011, too late and in the wrong place, for the prediced 2000-2006 Tokyo earthquake, a double fail. And since when has Yahweh ever given a vague prophecy with dates with a six year margin, let alone a year on the Gregorian calendar? (Usually these are extrapolations useing the inaccurate Talmudic Jewish calendar, as mentioned before).
The Bible 'Codes' were allegedly 'reserved' for the 1990's onwards because that's when the high processing power of computers became available needed to find them. Why? To convince the sceptics in an Age of Sceptism (Unbelief) to become believers? But is that how Biblical emunah or faith works? No! This is not how genuine converts are made. When such systems as these that convert souls and subsequently fail, so too do the testimonies of those converted by such means. I have known many supposedly brought to 'faith' by Gematria, Theomatics, Hebrew Numerology and Flat earthism to apostacise when those systems, which caused them to believe in Christ, failed them. They were building on a wrong foundation which alone is Christ.
This is not how Yahweh works because it is an appeal to the flesh, and the flesh can never produce the spiritual life. Only Christ can
(16 January 2023)
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