ELS Bible Codes --
God's Signature

---

ASTRONOMY PHOTOS AND EVANGELISM COMBINED

---

SOME PRELIMINARY REMARKS

Everyone is very skeptical when they first hear about the Bible Codes.  I was, and so was every one of the leading researchers.

Every Christian's initial attitude is:

"If it were true, it would be great, but it sounds like a 'dream come true'.  How come nobody ever found these things before?  This sounds like one of those cases where a bunch of Christians will jump on the band wagon, then it will be disproven, and everybody will be saying 'Christians are superstitious fools.  Remember how they were all running around claiming there were codes hidden in the Bible?'"

YOUR UNSUPPORTED OPINION AS TO WHETHER BIBLE CODES ARE REAL IS COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT.  MINE TOO.  EITHER THERE IS RELIABLE EVIDENCE THAT BIBLE CODES ARE REAL OR THERE ISN'T -- THAT IS WHAT MATTERS!

If you are Christian, think of what you already believe: The God that created everything took on a human body, lived among men, and let Himself be whipped and crucified by the Romans until His human body died.  ON THE THIRD DAY HE AROSE FROM THE DEAD, IN A RECREATED, PHYSICAL, RESURRECTED BODY.  He appeared to hundreds over the next 40 days and then ascended into Heaven. He will come back and judge every person who has ever lived.  Why did He let Himself be beaten and killed?  He took the punishment for sinners -- people who hate Him.  He did this because He loves us and doesn't want to have to punish anyone! Anyone who believes He did this and who sincerely repents of their sins and then earnestly tries to follow God's commandments, will be credited with the sin punishment that Jesus endured and will receive eternal life.  (See Major Christian Doctrines and the Apostles' Creed.)

Would God put hidden codes that only the final generation before His return could find?  The skeptical generation, the only one with computers?   Isaiah 55:8, NIV "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.

In reading about the Bible Codes, as with everything on this site, I simply ask that you keep an open mind and check out the evidence for yourself.  However, unlike the rest of this site, this page has very little information, from a field that, until about 1995, was researched by only about 10 people worldwide, all non-Christians.  This page presents about a "thimbleful" of ice and tells you it really did come from an iceberg!

The next time you are in a major bookstore or a Christian bookstore, check out the books by Grant Jeffrey or Yacov Rambsel.  You don't even have to buy one -- just flip through one.  Their books show the Hebrew text, the spelling of the words in Hebrew, etc. Unlike English, Hebrew is fairly phonetic.  If you really want to know for yourself, you can look at the Hebrew alphabet (listed in their books) and sound out the words, and then look at the Hebrew text and count off the letters.  I particularly recommend Grant Jeffrey's book cited below for this.  It has the letters marked.  (I haven't put examples on the site because there are no standard Hebrew fonts that display the same on every browser.)

BIBLE CODES CAN NOT BE USED TO TELL THE FUTURE!

BIBLE CODES DO NOT CONTAIN NEW TEACHINGS!

CHRISTIAN BELIEFS ARE NOT BASED ON THE BIBLE CODES!

Suppose that research ultimately proves there are no "codes" in the Bible.  Christian beliefs are based on eyewitness testimony, fulfilled prophecy, investigations and other evidence, not on the Bible Codes.  Although the Bible Codes agree with and support the historical teachings of Christianity, not one Christian doctrine or teaching was developed on the basis of Bible Codes.

BIBLE CODES - PROOF OF DIVINE INSPIRATION

Thanks to the advent of modern computers, Biblical scholars have finally been able to find irrefutable proof that the Bible is directly inspired by God -- not just in a general way, but each individual letter of each word.  This proof consists of thousands of words hidden in codes.
 

Equidistant Letter Sequences (ELS) Explained

These hidden words generally are encoded as Equidistant Letter Sequence (ELS) codes.  For instance, take the first sentence of the preceding paragraph and count every fifth letter, and see what we get:
 

ThankS to thE adveNt of ModerN compUters BibliCal scHolarS have FinalLy beeN able To finD irreFutabLe proOf thaT the BIble iS direCtly iNspirEd by GOd not Just iN a genEral wAy but Each iNdiviDual lEtter Of eacH word. TSENMNUBCHSFLNTDFLOTISCNEOJNEAENDEOH See any words in the chosen letters?  Any groups of related words, such as: "his name is Timothy", McVeigh, Murrah, Building, slaughter, Oklahoma, America and the exact day of the month and time of the bombing of the Oklahoma Federal Building? In the original Hebrew texts of the Old Testament and the Greek texts of the New Testament there are such word groups -- thousands of them!  And they describe events that occurred hundreds, sometimes thousands of years after the texts were written! The codes about the Oklahoma bombing are in the Book of Genesis, written by Moses THREE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO !!!

Many books have been written on this phenomenon since about 1995.  They are available at most major bookstores.

It is important to realize that serious researchers do not consider just two or three possibly related words to be a 'Code'.  Numerous Code examples have been found with 40-70 related terms!
 

A few  words about Drosnan's book The Bible Codes

Journalist Michael Drosnan is unanimously credited as the person who brought Bible Codes research to the attention of the general public in his bestselling book The Bible Codes. However, all serious researchers agree that Drosnan's book has serious flaws. Drosnan did not discover the phenomenon; He is not a Bible scholar, he is not familiar with computer programming or statistical analysis and he is not well-versed in Hebrew -- He learned Hebrew solely for the purpose of learning about the Bible Codes.  In a number of instances he simply mistranslated Hebrew words.  No serious researcher bases any claims about Bible Codes on Drosnan's book.  Several major Bible Codes researchers have issued public statements declaring Drosnan's work faulty in both its methodology and some of its conclusions.  Several of those statements are available on the Internet.
 

ELS Bible Codes can be found manually.

It is important to realize that finding and verifying Bible Codes isn't a computer trick -- the sets of codes described below are detailed in Jeffrey, Grant R. The Handwriting of God. Toronto, Ontario: Frontier Research Publications, Inc. 1997.  The codes in Isaiah were discovered manually, by Bible codes researcher and author Yacov Rambsel.  All Bible codes can be confirmed manually by anyone who has an English-Hebrew Interlinear Bible.

Jeffrey's book includes the Hebrew text for Isaiah, with dozens of examples.  

 
These names include all the significant people involved in the life and ministry of Jesus.  Obed and Jesse are ancestors of Jesus.

 
Exodus 30:16 Receive the atonement money from the Israelites and use it for the service of the Tent of Meeting. It will be a memorial for the Israelites before the LORD, making atonement for your lives.

"Why does the name Mary appear three times and the name James appear twice?"

John 19:25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother [Mary], his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

Matthew 10:2-4 [2] These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; [3] Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; [4] Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Any detective and any lawyer will tell you that it's the details that reveal whether someone really knows what happened.
 

"Can Bible Codes be used to predict the future?"

One of the major proofs that the Bible is indeed the word of God is prophecy.  Bible Codes are pretty much limited to prophecies -- no new moral principles, parables, etc. have been discovered in the Bible Codes.  Hence, it seems fairly obvious that we can use Bible Codes to predict the future.

However, this is one instance where something that seems obviously true is actually false. Unlike prophetic passages in the Bible, Bible Codes can not be used to make long-term predictions, for several reasons:

1. The information is not neatly placed in a single, obvious location, such as a single paragraph.
    

2. The information is too specific to be useful beforehand.  Who ever even heard of Timothy McVeigh before he bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma?
    

3. Random words can be found in any text in any language if you try enough combinations. What makes the Bible Codes unique is that only in the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament can a lot of words related to a single event be found in close proximity. Until an event has occurred or is about to occur (e.g., an upcoming presidential election), there is no way to tell what words are related to the event.
    

4. The information is in "keyword" format, not sentences.  Until an event has or is about to occur, there is no way to tell related keywords from random words.
    

5. Keywords relating to various unrelated events may exist in the same location.

Point 5 is particularly important.  In many instances, the same letter may be part of several different Bible Code words.  In other words, the exact same yod could be the first letter of Yeshua (Jesus) coded at 10-letter intervals, the first letter of Yochanan (John), coded at 60-letter intervals, the third letter of Miryam (Mary) spelled backwards (i.e., left to right) at 200-letter intervals, the first letter of Yisrael (Israel) spelled backwards at 15-letter intervals, and the first letter of Yahweh (Jehovah) spelled backward at 270-letter intervals.  Yeshua might have four words related to it but not related to Yisrael, and Yisrael might have three words related to it but not to Yeshua.  Since the other coded words are all in the same vicinity, how could you tell decades or centuries beforehand which coded words were related to Yeshua, which were related to Yisrael, which to Miryam, etc.?
 

Sometimes, Bible Codes can be used to get some information about near future events.

Sometimes, the Bible Codes can be used to get some information about events shortly before they occur, but near-term predictions can also be made by natural means such as analyzing historical trends, polls, etc.

"Are there any Bible Codes in the New Testament?"

In late 1998-early 1999 several writers stated on various television shows that they were preparing books about codes found in the Greek New Testament. However, as of August 2001, no such books have appeared.

Grant Jeffrey has published a book in which he claims to have found a few Greek codes. However, in an e-mail to me, Roy A. Reinhold, code researcher and webmaster of a major Bible Codes site, has indicated that the few "codes" Jeffrey claims are not "statistically significant". Furthermore, after extensive efforts with no success, Reinhold and several other researchers have stopped looking for codes in the Greek New Testament and are looking for codes in the ancient Aramaic New Testament texts. Aramaic is a Semitic language related to Hebrew and Arabic and was the language Jesus and his disciples spoke. A number of scholars believe that the New Testament was written in Aramaic and translated into Greek. If found, the presence of Codes in the Aramaic would prove this.

However, it is important to understand that even in the Old Testament there are other types of codes in addition to ELS codes. However, this area has not been well-researched, and most people interested in Bible Codes limit their research to ELS codes. It is entirely possible that something other than ELS codes will be found in the New Testament.  After all, significant amounts of research have only been going on for five years.

"What about translations?"

To those who insist on "King James Only" (and others) ... sorry ... to date, Bible Codes have only been found in the original language texts.

"Are there Bible Codes in the Apocrypha?"

There are no Bible Codes in the Apocrypha!  Until the mid-1500's, neither Jews, nor Protestants, nor Roman Catholics considered any of the Apocrypha to be divinely inspired.  In the mid-1500's, the Catholic Church added the Apocrypha to the Catholic canon in an effort to find 'scriptural' arguments against Protestant teachings.

The books of Tobit and the Maccabees have been checked.  They contain no codes.
 

"Are there Bible Codes in other religious books such as the Koran or the Book of Mormon?"

I am not aware of any research specifically on the Arabic version of the Koran.  However, since the Moslem Koran directly contradicts the Jewish and Christian Bibles on numerous fundamental doctrines, it is fairly clear they can't both be divinely inspired.  See The Falsity of Islam and the Moslem/Muslim Koran.

I am not aware of any research on the Book of Mormon.  However, regarding the Book of Mormon, there are numerous problems, e.g.: (a) it contradicts the Bible.  See The Falsity of Mormonism and the Book of Mormon. (b) Joseph Smith Jr. claimed the Book of Mormon is a summary and adaptation of materials he translated which were written on ancient gold plates in a language called "Reformed Egyptian" (which Egyptologists have never heard of!).
 

"What about other, secular books?"

Codes have only been found in the Hebrew Old Testament and, some claim, the Greek New Testament. Studies have been done with a Hebrew translation of "Crime and Punishment" and with other Hebrew-language religious literature from the Old Testament period.  Only the Hebrew OT and (possibly) the Greek NT work!
 

Bible ELS Codes are unique in two ways.

1. Supernatural Complexity: Hiding that much coded information of any type in any 'surface text' is far beyond the capabilities of any existing computer and any computer technology that can reasonably be envisioned.  Just putting that much information in the text would require supernatural abilities.
    

2. Prophetic: All the encoded information is prophetic.  All the information describes specific events that had not occurred at the time the particular book was written.
    

"Is there anything in the Bible about 'equidistant letter sequences'?"

As Jeffrey describes at page 119-120 in his Handwriting book (op. cit.), at a January 1997 conference at Tyndale Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas, in response to a question, Jeffrey had his computer search for the Hebrew word for "equidistant".  He found the Hebrew phrase "equidistant letter sequence" (shalav a'ot) encoded in the Hebrew text in each book Genesis through Deuteronomy.
 

The Holy Spirit signed the Bible -- EACH LETTER OF IT !!!

2 Timothy 3:16-17  [16] All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, [17] so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Peter 1:20-21 [20] Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. [21] For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

It is critical that no one underestimate the importance of the Bible Codes -- GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT SIGNED THE BIBLE -- EACH AND EVERY LETTER OF IT.  THE BIBLE CODES ARE THE SIGNATURE OF GOD!

Bible Codes researcher Yacov Rambsel found encoded the term me'chatimo, Hebrew for "His Signature"