Michael Drosnin's recently published book, The Bible Code, is quickly
climbing the best seller lists, capturing the interest of scholar and
skeptic
alike with its assertion that hidden codes in the Bible can be used
to
predict future events. Debates on the veracity of Drosnin's work have
swept
through the media and through academic and theological circles at a
fiery
pace. As a mathematician and professional code breaker, I don't support
Drosnin's work for many reasons, most glaringly because Bible codes
can't be
used to predict future events, and because his work is logically flawed
and
uses none of the statistical methods necessary to validate intentionally
placed codes.
However, despite the controversy surrounding Drosnin's book, the phenomenon
of hidden codes in the Bible is real, and its implication should not
be
minimized. While it is tempting to lose oneself in a sea of prophesy,
what is
truly astounding is that serious scientific evidence supports this
contention
and points to a divine author of the Bible.
With discussions and advice on every topic from business and health
to
marriage and relationships, the Bible has guided people for thousands
of
years. The existence of hidden codes would be yet another piece of
"evidence"
that this anchor of faith, on which entire belief systems and ways
of life
have been built, merits careful and serious study. After all, if it
is of
divine origin, who wouldn't want to consult it on life's most important
issues?
While theologians and lay people alike have always found insights in
the
Bible, and the concept of "hidden" information encoded within the text
can be
found in the work of many of the classical Jewish commentators, computers
and
mathematics have now made it possible to examine the Bible in a way
never
before possible. In a carefully controlled experiment, the internationally
renowned mathematician Eliyahu Rips, physicist Doron Witztum, and Yoav
Rosenberg successfully searched the Hebrew text of the Book of Genesis
for
the encoded names and dates of birth and death of 32 rabbis who lived
between
the ninth and eighteenth centuries. Their study concluded that the
existence
of this information in the text could not be a chance occurrence. They
published their work in the prestigious peer review journal, Statistical
Science in August 1994. In the three years since publication, many
have tried
to find the "fatal flaw" in the "Great Rabbis Experiment," and none
has
succeeded. I myself, a cryptologic mathematician with nearly three
decades of
experience cracking codes for the United States Government, was initially
highly skeptical of their results, and was not only able to validate
their
work, but using their method was able to extend it by pairing the cities
of
birth and death with the names of the rabbis on their list. Statistical
analysis shows that the presence of these names, dates, and cities
cannot be
reasonably attributed to mere coincidence, the probability of such
an
occurrence being vanishingly small.
What conclusion can be made about these and other statistically verifiable
codes? Only one--that the information was deliberately placed in the
Bible by
its author. Yet the Bible has existed in its present form for thousands
of
years. How then, could its author have known such details about men
who would
not be born for centuries? Logic would dictate that the author could
not be
human, could not be bound by the limits of time. It would then be natural
to
conclude that the author is a divine being.
Whether you agree with me or not, the implication of the hidden codes
discovery is clear and profound: the search for God and the meaning
of human
existence should be as compelling a pursuit at the turn of the millennium
as
it was at the beginning.
So, if we cannot use the information in the hidden codes to look to
the
future, for what purpose can it be used? As I've suggested, only to
appreciate the nature of the Bible's author. Several major adult religious
educational organizations, including the one with which I'm affiliated,
use
the codes phenomenon as a tool to reinterest and reintroduce people
to the
Bible--to suggest that they take a second look at how its wisdom applies
to
their own lives.
Clearly the presence of hidden codes in the Bible hints at evidence
of great
mysteries yet to be revealed. The answers to which, however, cannot
be found
within Drosnin's or any other book, except for THE book, the source--the
Bible itself.
Harold Gans, Director of Research for Aish
HaTorah, spent 28 years as a
Senior Cryptologic Mathematician with
the National Security Agency, United
States Department of Defense.