Believe it or not!!!!!!!!!!! The Bible Code 2 is now out!. Who would have thought people would be so gullible as to have encouraged the author to write another book, and worse still, he's cashing in on September 11th. Please exercise good taste and discernment and don't buy his book, especially if you are a Christian.

Please Read This First

It seems that Christians had all but forgotten Jerry Lucas’s and Del Washburn’s Theomatics: "God’s Best Kept Secret Revealed" published 20 years ago. These authors assigned numerical values to every letter in the Bible, calling the procedure the "mathematics of God." They claimed even more for their alleged "secret," saying it was a "key that would unlock a whole new dimension in the Word of God." Now, just twenty years later, who remembers or even cares?

Mathematical schemes and "keys" to the Bible are really nothing new. They surface regularly and have been promoted by the likes of Watch Tower founder Charles T. Russell, Anglican dispensationist E.W. Bullinger, Second Coming false 'prophet' Harold Camping , Kabalistic Jews and other cultic false prophets.

Ignoring the clear and plain message of the Bible takes us down a detour of speculation and away from the practical pursuit of obedience and growth. The speculative chasing of "Bible codes" is not something found in historic orthodox Christianity. Seeing the "inner" or "hidden" meaning of Scripture as opposed to the literal and historical meaning was a mania of the Kabalistic in the 14th century. These Jewish mystics guided by an early form of Theosophy, mystical psychology, Gnosticism, myth and superstition ignored the plain, straightforward meaning of the Scripture.

Even some misdirected Christian television presenters and stars including Paul Crouch, Hal Lindsey and Grant Jeffrey, have come out to publicize and promote the Bible code book, even writing companion volumes which build on this false foundation.

One of the Author Drosnin's claims goes like this:

"Criss-crossing the entire known text of the Bible, hidden under the original Hebrew of the Old Testament, is a complex network of words and phrases, a new revelation. There is a Bible beneath the Bible. The Bible is not only a book — it is a computer program. It was first chiseled in stone and handwritten on a parchment scroll, finally printed as a book, waiting for us to catch up with it by inventing a computer. Now it can be read as it was always intended to be read."

So what he is really saying is the Bible cannot really be read in the right way unless one has a computer and is able to read Hebrew. That effectively takes the Bible away from most people!.

I have read the "Bible Code", and seen documentaries and interviews with it's author, and have looked into the claims of this book. Even if the code were to be true (I seriously doubt it is), the nature of the claims would in no way affect the sufficiency of the Scripture. The Bible would still be accurate and provide us with all we need for salvation and sanctification. The Bible code would simply be providing some kind of key for the last days. Some Christians have gone wild over it claiming it proves the Bible, and makes critics and atheists have to give in and accept it. My advice to them is don't put too much stock in this book. It's research is non-existent and it's methods are not Christian.

Some say it give startling evidence for the last days. The evidence, however, suggest that it is not true. The same kind of things have been done with Moby Dick. Check out the web site which shows how the assination of Ghandi can be found in Moby Dick! Other web sites have written on this issue as well. Do a search for The Bible Code and you will see plenty of places dealing with it.

I question its validity, having noticed they were finding English words and names with the Hebrew consonants rather than Hebrew words, especially for Jewish names. Furthermore, the author Michael Drosnin advocates man’s ability, based on the so-called prophecies of the Code, to change the future. Is this in any way Christian?.

The heresies don't stop there though, Drosnin brings us a weak God who would be welcomed by liberal theologians when he says: "He could see the future, but he could not change it. He could only hide in the Bible a warning." Isaiah would say otherwise: 

I am God, there is none like me. Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient things that are not yet done, saying My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Drosnin’s major premise is that current events and world leaders like Yitzhak Rabin, Bill Clinton and Adolph Hitler have been recorded on the pages of the Old Testament in hidden codes all along. One obvious downside is that much of what Drosnin decodes is what could be labeled as 'after the fact revelation'. Prophecies such as the assassinations of President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Yitzhak Rabin are only identified 'after' they’ve happened!.

Drosnin further prophecies "I checked every year in the next hundred years. Only two years, 2000 and 2006, were clearly encoded with ‘World War.’ The same two years were also encoded with ‘atomic holocaust.’ They were the only two years in the next hundred encoded with both ‘atomic holocaust’ and ‘World War.’ There is no way to know whether the code is predicting a war in 2000 or 2006. The year 2000 is encoded twice, but 2006 is mathematically the best match. And there is, of course, no way to know if the danger is real. But if the Bible code is right, a third World War by the end of the century is at least possible, and a World War within the next ten years is a probability we cannot ignore".

Drosnin doesn't mention what format these dates take, which is a pity since I would find it fascinating and wondrous!. You see this should be something all 'date setters' should think carefully about. To the Jewish people the year 2000 is 5760, to Ethiopians, it is 1980, to Muslims it is the13th century, to Chinese it is the year of the Tiger or some other animal, no year necessary!. Christians can cringe too, is it 2000 or not?, according to whom?, Pope Gregory's calendar, or since the birth of Jesus was 5 Bc according to Archbishop Usher. Then is it 2000 or 2005?. Think carefully before answering!

Dr. Ronald L. Giese, Jr., Associate Dean at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, notes that "The Bible Code" is really a skip code. That is, a letter is found and then a word or message is created by skipping across an equal number of spaces. You can go forward, backward, vertical, horizontal, or diagonal. You can skip five letters or 50 letters (or any number for that matter). It is really nothing more than a giant Seek ‘N Find or Word Search puzzle with endless possibilities, given that you make up the parameter of the search as you go. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, just increase the boundaries by expanding the playing field with additional rows and columns. And while the technique may take thousands of hours by hand, a computer can accomplish the procedure in seconds.

Drosnin’s concept is further aided by the fact that the Hebrew language is made up of consonants and no vowels. Thus "Rabin" could equally be "Robin" or "Reuben." And although Hebrew is read from right to left there are no fixed parameters with the new code game and you can go in any and all directions. Drosnin readily admits: "You can’t find anything without knowing what to look for". I have tested this and found incredible false prophecies! I entered "Abraham Lincon" "Killed" "while" "Surfing" "by" "Sharks" "with" "Lasers" "Mounted" "on" "their" "head". And other such crazy nonsense. I got back many 'proofs' this prophecy was indeed hidden in the codes. Folks try some stupid supposedly fulfilled prophecy like "Bill Clinton abducted by aliens" or "Disneyland a front for world domination by the Illuminati" and you'll find it there!.

What is really misleading are the illustrations of Hebrew text with boxed or circled letters giving the impression that words are found in close proximity. Cases in point are the words "Yitzhak Rabin," "assassin will assassinate" and "Amir." "Rabin" is found in Deuteronomy 2, then we must jump to Deuteronomy 4 for "assassin will assassinate" and then all the way back to Numbers 35 for the word "Amir." It really sounds like a patch and paste method of random findings. One must know what to look for to create the messages and prophecies!.

Christians, quite frankly, have trouble enough obeying the plain and obvious things that we do understand from Scripture without making up other things. Deuteronomy 29:29 reminds us that, 

"Those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." 

Scripture is there to obey, not to trifle with. Jesus commanded us to 

"teach them to observe all that I have commanded you" 

(Matthew 28:20), not spend our days looking for secret hidden messages in random patterns of letters!.

It is always possible to find a kind of order or a series of random patterns within a chaotic system given enough possibilities. This is a form of mathematics called Mandlebrot. Brilliant graphic pictures can be painted or generated by computers using this technique. Applying it to literature, is well illustrated in the Moby Dick classic, as mentioned earlier. Two of Drosnin's ex colleagues showed that in Moby Dick there are 'prophecies' for the assination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza encoded in the text, overlapping such phrases as ‘the bloody deed’ and ‘he was shot.’

The pursuit of a Bible code is not about gain in any sense but about incredible loss. There is the loss of the Bible, the loss of the true knowledge of God and the Savior of mankind. It is about the loss of Bible doctrines regarding salvation and sanctification. Losing these we fail to search the Scriptures as we should (Psalm 1) and lose the information on how to find Christ and mature in Him (2 Timothy 3:14-17).

Ultimately, the question is simply, "Why do we need it?" God has spoken and His revelation is sufficient. The Bible Code is a false gospel, not a gospel at all, and as a book, it should be recycled as toilet paper.

Shaun Aisbitt

The Bible Code 2

'The Countdown'

It seems just when you thought people had had enough of false prophets and end time prophets of doom and their false predictions Michael Drosnin pops up again. Following the chaos and anarchy the millennium bug was supposed to bring, but didn't, despite many authors saying it would be the beginning of the end and the antichrist would make an appearance etc. you would think people would have wised up by now. But as P.T. Barnum once said "There's a sucker born every minute", and judging by the sales of 'The Bible Code" it appears Barnum was right. Well following on from the bible code comes The Bible Code 2 'son of the bible code!' "The Countdown".

'The Countdown' is even more ridiculous than it's predecessor, and unfortunately it also cashes in on fear in an uncertain world since September 11th. The author tries to say 'September 11th', 'Sin of  Bin Ladin', 'twin towers', 'airplane' and 'it knocked down' are all found using his code. Amazing how he found it after the fact!. It seems just the same as his previous book that the amazing prophecies he finds are always after the fact, never before, (as a side note, it's amazing that not one 'psychic', 'prophet' or 'spirit channeler' warned America before about Sep 11th, amazing isn't it? especially since many were on a live tv program the night before discussing their 'powers' and many of them said they forsaw "we were on the dawning of a great time of peace and spiritual harmony" how wrong can you get?!!!).

Drosnin reveals his true colours with his theory of the Bible not coming from God, because he's an atheist. Instead he believes the Bible came from superhuman spacemen, and even goes as far as to say the Bible is the first genuine scientific evidence we are not alone in the universe. Drosnin isn't a Christian or a Jew, and this fact should be noted by purchasers of his books for Christian bookstores. It sickens me to go into a Christian bookstore like Scripture Union in Dublin and see his books sitting there among Christian books as if it is for uplifting and spiritually building up. The guy goes against every normal form of Bible study, and into occultic methods of divination. How soon before the 'Book of Urantia' (a book alledgedly channelled from aliens but eventually owned up to as a hoax by it's real writer, but that truth doesn't stop the cult of Urantia Fellowship and it's breakoff cults), or the "Book of Mormon", "The Celestine Prophecies", "The Da Vinci Code" are sold in Christian bookshops?. One Christian shop in Dublin already sells 'Warldorf Steiner' writings (Christian Occultism?!!), 'God Calling' (another channelled book by 2 spiritists), 'A Course in Miracles' (You guessed it, channelled again!)But I'm going off on a high horse there, whoa Harvey...Back to the article! .

People who use his method get a string of Hebrew letters and remove the spaces by computer and play about with rows of letters in various lengths. They put them into rearranged blocks, they then read in any direction to find equidistant letter sequences, skipping, say, to every 13th letter. A “hit” occurs when an ELS word appears near a word with related meaning. 

The problem is, there is no vowels in ancient Hebrew, these are later additions in the Maseoretic texts for clarification. In some manuscripts there are side notes for not saying the sacred name of God and the Hebrew title of Lord is replaced there. So one letter out and the whole thing falls flat on it's face, but with the title Lord substituted in the text for the sacred name many times, the whole Bible Code becomes a sham. Also there is no definitive original Old Testament, just many copies in different ancient languages that agree 99.9%, they all agree 100% doctrinally though. Where there are variations they are small like in the spelling of a name, a number out here or there, sometimes there are different wordings but the same story. So how does Michael Drosnin deal with that problem, that there isn't one absolute 100% exactly correct Old Testament original?, in short he doesn't!. That whole area is skipped over like it never existed!. Why?, because it pulls the whole foundation out from under his theories and false prophecies, the whole Bible code and ELS system falls shattered to the dust where they belong, never to be dug up again. Truth is something false teachers 'paint' as negative, and warn their followers to avoid negativity.

Please Sign Our Guestbook View Our Guestbook

Return to Shaun & Jackie Aisbitt's Homepage