Bible Code

From SkepticWiki

[edit] Definition

Bible Codes, also known as Torah Codes, is based on the idea that hidden messages are contained in sacred texts, and to extract this code requires a would-be code-seeker to count every nth character (where n is an integer) in a text until you run across a sequence that contains specified keyword. This particular technique is known as the Equidistant Letter Sequence (ELS) formula.

[edit] Discussion

The ELS formula has been likened to arranging the letters of the document into a grid n characters wide, and then treating them like the "word search" puzzles seen in newspapers, circling vertical words as they are discovered.

Its proponents insist that, if the original text in its original language is used, the words so discovered constitute a "hidden message" that was planted in the text by its authors (and, be extension, a hidden message from God if the work is supposed to be divinely inspired). The original language of the Torah is biblical Hebrew. Biblical Hebrew has the disctinction of not using vowels; only the consonants of a word are spelled out, and the reader must fill in the appropriate vowel sounds himself. The name "Sarah," for instance, is spelled with only the Hebrew-alphabet equivalents of S, R, and H. This makes finding words somewhat easier than in a language that requires vowels. For example, if I wanted to show that the Torah predicted the Holocaust by finding an ELS containing the name "Hitler", I would only need to search for "HTLR".

The three primary objections to the authenticity of Bible Code are:

Any sufficiently long text will be able to produce "codes". For example, the novel Moby Dick "predicts" all of the same famous assassinations that appear in the Bible [1].
Bible Code has no predictive value. Literally any sequence of words can be found in the Bible, but the problem is that no "prophetic" sequence of words has ever been discovered until after the events foretold have transpired. In these cases, none of the prophecies can be said to have predictive value, but rather they are indicative of retroactive shoehorning.
No long codes are ever found. Making long sequences of codes is easy if you keep trying. Anyone can write codes of whatever length they want, applying nothing more than their time and vocabulary, and a little imagination. It's just a matter of creativity. Just make a grid, with words being filled in around the information you wish to encode—akin to even a simple puzzle for children. This paragraph is a clear demonstration of how this can be encoded easily. You have the capability yourself if you try. These unremarkable words actually can contain a code, devised by Shane Killian, quite longer than those seen in the Bible. This can easily be achieved—this took just a few minutes, and if any writer of the Bible really wanted, he could hide a litany of messages no one could deny were deliberate. To see the encoded message, all that you have to do is start at the very first "S" and, after the punctuation and spaces are removed, take every 27th letter. (Click here for the solution.)