Mathematics bombshell: God 'confirmed in Bible'

Non-Random Equidistant Letter
Sequence Extensions in Ezekiel
Continued
By R. Edwin Sherman, FCAS, MAAA, and Nathan Jacobi, Ph.D.

Indications Based on a Conservatively High Discovery Rate

A concern regarding the above analysis is that the 19.4% discovery rate was based on a sample of only 50 initial ELSs from the Islamic Nations Experiment. Consequently, there is a high level of uncertainty as to what the true underlying discovery rate actually is. The question of how the above evaluation of the improbability of the number of lengthy ELSs in the Ezekiel 37 cluster would change if the actual underlying discovery rate were much higher needed to be addressed. A reasonable candidate for an alternative discovery rate that would be viewed as conservatively high is the 27.0% discovery rate indicated from the 50 initial ELSs found in Ezekiel (rather than in the control text),

A one million trial simulation was run to determine the probability that, if the true underlying discovery rate were 27.0%, the indicated discovery rate from a sample of 50 initial ELSs would be 19.4% or lower. That probability is 3.14%. Thus, given that the actual indicated discovery rate was 19.4%, the probability that the actual underlying discovery rate could be 27.0% or higher is only 3.14%.

Table 7 provides the same kind of comparison as displayed in Table 3—using the 27.0% discovery rate for Ezekiel from the Islamic Nations Experiment.

The chi square p-value indicated from Table 7 is 8.75 E -24. The largest p-value indicated by any assumed discovery rate is 7.32 E -20, corresponding to a rate of 30.6%.

One million trials were run of a simulation (based on that model) of the total number of ELSs with three or more extensions, given 295 initial ELSs and a discovery rate of 27.0%. For 480 of those trials the total number of ELSs with three or more extensions was 33 or greater, indicating odds of chance occurrence of 1 in 2,083 of 33 such ELSs in the Ezekiel 37 cluster. Our conclusion was that, even though the chi square p-value was inappropriately small, the null hypothesis should still be rejected at the 0.001 significance level. For 99 trials, the total number of ELSs with four or more extensions was 17 or greater, indicating odds of chance occurrence of 1 in 10,101. In the case of the actual number of ELSs in Ezekiel 37 with five or more extensions (11), none of the 1 million trials produced more than 9 such ELSs, indicating odds of chance occurrence distinctly less than 1 in 1 million.

Although the expected range in the number of ELSs consisting of three (or four or five) or more extensions discovered in the Ezekiel 37 cluster is highly sensitive to the assumed discovery rate, even at the conservatively high assumption of 27.0%, the null hypothesis is still rejected at the 0.001 significance level.

Many code researchers have noted that longer ELSs tend to be topically related to the surface text as well as to one another. If this is in fact the case, it should not be expected that high discovery rates would necessarily persist within every given section of the Bible and every topically related collection of initial ELSs.

In our opinion the content of the long ELSs in Appendix C is much more coherent than that of the Ezekiel ELSs in Appendix A. This is supportive of the claimed correlation of the content of the literal text and of underlying ELSs. Since the ELSs in Appendix C are tightly focused in location, more consistency in their content would be expected.

Commentary on the Content of the Longest ELSs in the Ezekiel 37 Cluster

While the above analysis strongly (if not conclusively) indicates that non-random encoding exists in the vicinity of Ezekiel 37, it is worth noting that the specific content of any single extended ELS is subject to various sources of uncertainty. Key sources are:

1) ELSs do not include attribution, making messages from untruthful sources appear to have equal validity with those from trustworthy sources. If attribution were eliminated from the Bible itself, false statements such as Genesis 3:4 would appear as ostensibly true statements.

2) Copying errors perpetuated over the centuries between the original manuscript of each section of the Hebrew Bible and the finalized Koren version of the Masoretic text (circa 1000 A.D.) could easily result in the elimination of original encoding and the creation of unintended, grammatically reasonable Hebrew ELSs.

3) In the absence of vowel markings, short letter strings often could be interpreted to represent alternative words.

4) The contemporary translator has the freedom to decide where spaces should be inserted to produce intelligible Hebrew. Given such freedom, and 3), significant variation in the "translation" of any given letter string between different Hebrew experts should be expected.

5) It is possible that extinct words from ancient Hebrew would provide a much different translation than usage of extant words from either Biblical or contemporary Hebrew.

6) Short ELSs are abundant in any Hebrew text or sequence of Hebrew letters. Such random ELSs may appear immediately prior or subsequent to, or may be intermingled with intended ELSs.

Given all of these sources of potential corruption of the content of individual lengthy ELSs, it is remarkable that a large differential still exists between the frequency and length of ELSs in the Hebrew Bible and those obtainable from a presumably non-encoded text.

It is surprising that some of the Islamic Nation ELSs from the Ezekiel text are ostensibly prophetic in their content. For example, the extended ELS, "Who of Sudan is alive? Are the poor there not soft and honest?" is reminiscent of the slaughter of over two million Christians by the Sudanese government in recent years.

Several Jewish and Christian books on Bible codes have been published, presenting both strongly positive and negative views. Not uncommonly conservative Jews and Christians have expressed concern that purportedly valid Bible codes might provide a source of new information that could conflict with the content of the literal text. This should not be a substantive concern because of the potential unreliability of the content of any given ELS. The fact is that the extreme improbability of some code clusters, as well as of a broad spectrum of other ELS phenomena, provide a form of objective, verifiable evidence that the Old Testament was not merely authored by human beings.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bibliography

Witztum, Doron; Rips, Eliyahu; Rosenbreg, Yoav. "Equidistant Letter Sequences in Genesis." Statistical Science. Vol. 3 (1994): 429-436.

Drosnin, Michael. The Bible Code. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.

Satinover, Jeffrey. Cracking the Bible Code. New York: William Morrow & Company, 1998.

Bible Code Digest. March, 2003. Isaac Newton Bible Code Research Society. July 15, 2003

click here: http://www.biblecodedigest.com/page.php/146.

Bible Code Digest. June, 2003. Isaac Newton Bible Code Research Society. July 15, 2003

CLICK HERE: http://www.biblecodedigest.com/page.php/169

Bible Code Digest. July, 2003. Isaac Newton Bible Code Research Society. July 15, 2003

CLICK HERE: http://www.biblecodedigest.com/page.php/171

Thanks for the pings!

Non-Random Equidistant Letter
Sequence Extensions in Ezekiel
Continued
By R. Edwin Sherman, FCAS, MAAA, and Nathan Jacobi, Ph.D.

Appendix B—A Markov Chain ELS Extension Model

This addendum provides a derivation of formula (1), which is used to determine the expected number of extended ELSs (with varying numbers of extensions) to emerge from a search process beginning with n initial ELSs. We shall denote initial ELSs by the symbol I. After a Hebrew expert examines the string of letters resulting from taking every j-th letter before and after the initial ELS with a skip of j letters, one of two results will occur in each instance that there is an opportunity to find an extension of the initial ELS. If no extension is found, this will be denoted by N and if one is found, by E.

The following chart presents the complete range of outcomes from this process up through the location of four extensions to an initial ELS. From this chart, the formula for determining the expected number of ELSs with a given number of extensions is evident.

Each outcome is represented first by a combination of the letters I, E and N, indicating the order in which these events appeared in that letter string. In the middle section of the table is a row of formulae for the expected number of ELSs for each type of outcome in that column. In each formula, n is the total number of initial ELSs, d is the probability of finding a grammatically correct Hebrew extension of the preceding ELS, and (1-d) is the probability of failing to find an extension. It was assumed that d is independent of the number of extensions that have already been discovered—even though consideration of the different factors affecting d as the number of extensions increases suggests that d most likely declines as the ELS becomes longer.

The beginning of the search process is represented by the leftmost column of the table, where there are n instances where I, an initial ELS, appears. Each column represents the range of outcomes that would result in the indicated number of final extensions.

The only way that zero extensions will be found is the situation where no extension is found either before or after the initial ELS (denoted by NIN). The probability of this occurring for any given initial ELS is (1-d)2. So the expected number of final ELSs that have no extension is n(1-d)2.

There are two ways that a final ELS can have one and only one extension: NIEN and NEIN. The expected number of final ELSs that are of the NIEN type is nd(1-d)2, as is the case for the NEIN type. So the total expected number of final ELSs with exactly one extension is 2nd(1-d)2, as shown at the bottom of the "One" column.

There are three ways that a final ELS can have exactly two extensions: NIEEN, NEIEN and NEEIN. For any given column (representing k extensions), I can appear in the 1st, 2nd… or (k+1)st position after the first N. Thus the total expected number of final ELSs with exactly k extensions will be

[QUIX NOTE: I’M not very up to snuff at posting equations. If they don’t come out right—please—please check the original doc at the site] (1)

(k+1)nd ^k (1-d) ²

The above model is an example of a Markov chain, since the outcome of any trial depends at most on the outcome of the immediately preceding trial and not upon any other previous outcome, and the probability of each state is clearly defined. When the state N occurs, it is an "absorbing state."

As a check on formula (1), it should be possible to show that the sum of (1) for k ranging from 0 to infinity is n, the total number of initial ELSs. That derivation is as follows:

Since n and (1-d)2 appear in each term, we can factor them out of an expression for the total number of final ELSs, to get

n(1-d) ² [Ó (k+1)dk],

where k ranges from 0 to infinity.

If we multiply each term of this power series by d in both the numerator and denominator, we obtain

{[n(1-d) ² ]/d} [Ó (k+1)(d ^{k+1} ].

If we shift the value of (k+1) by one for each term, so that the series is summed from k = 1 to infinity, rather than from k = 0 to infinity, it becomes

(2)

{[n(1-d) ²]/d} [Ó kd ^k ].

According to formula 40 on page 8 of Summation of Series, collected by L.B.W. Jolley:

Ó nx ⁿ = x/(1-x) ² ,

where x < 1, and the series is summed from n=1 to infinity. If we substitute k for n and d for x in this formula, we have

Ó k(d ^k ) = d/(1-d) ² .

By substituting the expression on the right for the power series expression in (2) above, we get

{[n(1-d) ² ]/d} [d/(1-d) ²] = n.

Appendix C – Comparison of the Number of Lengthy

ELSs Found in Ezekiel 37 with Those Expected by Chance

ELSs 46+ Letters Long [Expected: 0.092, Actual: 6. A/E = 65.0 ]

• (61) There is quarrel in his speeches. A living brother uttered words to them and to me. And Zubaidah turned to his sea, without then lying for a whole week. Oh, the mountain of her interior will bear a testimonial to her name.

• (53) The island was restful, elevated, and it happened. Where is Libya? And you have disrupted the nation. She changed a word. He answered them with combat. Why the navy and the smell of the bottom of the sea?

• (52) For where has God consumed from you? And in it are stones of substantial sickness for us. You will indeed delay their diagnosis, because of His own reflection in the one who solves.

• (52) The trouble of the new-born one is vigilant and honest because of the ruin. Get out as if Iraq had been sent out. The majority is aware that, rest in peace, you will come -- the villainy with light. You will understand the heart of granite.

• (48) Let the oppressed be congratulated, saturated from Him at 2001. And let them be guarded by the echo of the Father's Son, supported by the U.S. I will see but He has the knowledge.

• (47) Rabbi, behold! The temple mount is dormant. And He will deliver the fallen, as well as my mother, as she will see. She will lead a dried out enemy with her guilt offering.

ELSs 39-45 letters long [ Expected: 0.32, Actual: 5. A/E = 15.6 ]

• (45) Imprison your burden there, to immerse her distinct feature, and in my waters to anthrax, king of all. Embrace it in the sea.

• (41) From the salt of betrayal and from fire, a sand dune provided the foundation for a peace treaty. Yah -- indeed God -- came to the heights of the mountain.

• (41) Hussein is a vapor. Like a guarded lamb, God is keeping Jews and Levites whole. And the cell inside your dwelling will become a torture chamber.

• (40) God delivers the joyous. I will indeed inflict pain upon the rock. I am the God who strikes. They wiped out the nakedness.

• (40) Third temple, the fullness of the illness will take place. And a land will emerge from a tight place. God is lofty, and it is time for a prince.

ELSs 32-38 letters long [ Expected: 1.36, Actual: 6. A/E = 4.41 ]

• (34) He will suffer pain and restlessness. But the halo is His, and for her the monument will be Baghdad.

• (34) The joyful God is ruling. What is in it for me? And the red heifer is crying from the fire and the guilt offering.

• (33) The rest of my terminal illness is spreading, Saddam, as if from a missile made for you. Where is he? Or who is the tyrant?

• (33) You were harnessed. Contemplate my might. Let Zubaidah be kept in the limelight. Will they strike the sea?

• (32) Hussein, his shoulder is dead. And it is appropriate that he prevented home-building everywhere, and is echoing in me.

• (32) The major dryness of hand in her is in your image. While setting the stage, become Russia.

ELSs 25-31 letters long [ Expected: 5.6, Actual: 16. A/E = 2.86 ]

• (30) He loves me that much. Watch in me the rehabilitation since Sept. 11, when his sea was rendered bitter.

• (30) N. Korea, exalt, rejoice, see that my creed is the truth. Here, their congregation is in her.

• (29) And from Armageddon God has screamed to us. And who has ambushed whose shadow?

• (29) She has her army cells, which will be prepared and precise. The inside of Haman is water.

• (29) We will get the foreigner, Tom Brokaw. Something smells. Consider the flag valuable.

• (28) The temple mount is poor in my faith. God and Father as a friend of the mountain. And he stopped from giving birth.

• (27) Armageddon, relieving my heart, will waste away a quarter dead. And God is my refuge.

• (27) Bear the end of the fool's gift, 2001-2; show the substance of the contemplation.

• (27) Carry the mountain. Zubaidah will tell something of value as a gift as the monument of the sect is finished.

• (26) An idol to reflect his lot, Taliban. I will thus rise eastward.

• (26) From a daughter of his. Where are they from? It is my season of the third temple – please.

• (26) His people have been easily established, and the Iran you loved has died by me.

• (26) To her and to the secret he rendered at the nose of the beast, anti-semitism is dead.

• (25) He was saved in the sea of Hamburg, without any commandment in them for the rabbi's lamb.

• (25) If she is a whore to the six, N. Korea is God's gift in proliferation.

• (25) The farmer of Rome came. Bin Laden is dead. The deep throat burned everything.

The message of the Bible from the virgin birth; Christ coming in the flesh etc. is ALSO IN THE CODES.

And so is just about everything else you'd choose to search for, since the "ELS" method used can produce such a vast amount of letter combinations that you could find significant portions of, say, the lyrics of the latest #1 pop song there as well.

Which, according to the surface text, would indicate that such is from Holy Spirit.

Hardly.

But authentic codes could be from NOTHING ELSE BUT HOLY SPIRIT BECAUSE THEY ARE SO INHERENTLY PART OF THE TEXT! SHEESH.

Calm down, no need to shout. And you're quite simply incorrect that such finds could be "from NOTHING ELSE" but "HOLY SPIRIT" -- quite clearly they could be (and mostly likely are) from combinatorial chance.

There's NO VOODOO STATISTICS INVOLVED.

Sure there is.

A fair-minded, thorough investigation of the current state of the science and art would have shown you that. The latest research is giving many atheist/agnostic mathematicians great consternation.

And giving many more of them a great deal of amusement. For example:

Drosnin's most chilling message was a prediction that World War III would start in 1996 with a nuclear attack on the state of Israel. [You'll note that this appears not to have occurred... *cough*. Ich.]
...
The Bible codes only worked well in hindsight when the searcher knew what words he might be looking for. Witztum pointed out that in addition to assassinations of Kennedy, Sadat and Rabin that could be found in the code, so could the assassination of Winston Churchill, who wasn't killed at all but died of natural causes.
Other critics found flaws not just with Drosnin's book, but with Rips, Witztum and Rosenberg's paper. Some were unable to duplicate the experiment with the same success as Harold Gans. Others pointed out that the bible in its current form is not letter by letter exactly the same as the original texts that have been lost to history. Even small variations would destroy codes, especially if those codes employed long skips between letters ( Drosnin's Rabin prediction employed a skip of 4,771)
Brendan McKay of the Computer Science Department of the Australian National University, in conjunction with Dror Bar-Natan, Maya Bar-Hillel and Gil Kalai of the Jerusalem Hebrew University, wrote an article which appeared in the September 1999 Statistical Science entitled "Solving the Bible Code." The article refuted the original 1995 paper, claiming that the method used to establish statistical significance was flawed.
McKay also demonstrated that any large block of text will yield ELS codes with seemingly meaningful bunches of words. In the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea signed in 1982, he searched for words after making the text more hebrew-like (removing the vowels). In it he found the code:
Hear all the law of the sea
as well as:
Nato need an agreement on the sea
The probabilities of finding them in the document he estimated as 95 out of a million and 21 out of a million respectively. The article asserted the authors of the original paper made mistakes in the way they designed their experiment by choosing particular forms of words that "tuned" their method to their data, thus invalidating the test.
McKay also used the text of Moby Dick to find "predictions" of the assassinations of famous figures including Trotsky, Ghandi, Robert Kennedy and others. One prediction was for the murder of Drosnin himself.
The problem with the codes is that if someone was looking for a prediction of a particular subject in any large block of text, it would not take too long before he could find encoded words that seemed to be related to it. If the searcher was looking for a prediction about a flying saucer crashing in New Mexico he would find at least some of these suggestive words:
ROSWELL, UFO, FLYING SAUCER, COVERUP, ALIENS, 1947, DISC, CRASH, AUTOPSY
and others. While the probability of finding at least a few of these is pretty high, the probability of finding any particular one may be very low.
The Bible Code controversy is not over, though. Neither Eliyahu Rips nor Michael Drosnin have backed down on their claims. Professor Rips has stated that he believes that the evidence for the codes was "stronger than ever" and Drosnin has said the critics have "told a lie.

The "Bible Code" is just a fancier version of playing records backwards and hearing "words" in the garbled sounds.

QUIX: REATTEMPT AT POSTING PART OF SECTION II WHERE THE GIF'S DIDN'T POST RIGHT:

The Islamic Nations ELS Extension Experiment

To directly address the question of the purported validity of Bible codes, there has been a clear need for an impartial comparison of a collection of Bible codes with a parallel set of codes from an admittedly ordinary book. This paper presents the results of this experiment. Dr. Jacobi was given 100 pre-defined initial ELSs, equally drawn from the Hebrew text of Ezekiel and from a Hebrew translation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Dr. Jacobi searched for extended ELSs around each initial ELS—absent any knowledge of the source of each letter string. The two collections of extended ELSs were then compared and analyzed. This is the first such experiment of this type we have conducted.

Using the Hebrew spellings of a group of Islamic nations3, INBCRS researchers4 located ELSs (with the five shortest skips) of these names of nations in a 78,064-letter portion of War and Peace and the 74,500-letter book of Ezekiel5 provided with Codefinder software6.

Dr. Jacobi was sent five occurrences with the shortest skips from Ezekiel (and five occurrences from War and Peace) of the name of each of the Islamic nations as an ELS. He was asked to document whether letters before and after the terms created longer terms. Throughout the experiment, and up until June 2003, Dr. Jacobi has not known which of the initial ELSs and surrounding letter strings were from which source text.

The experiment was conducted from August 2002 through January 2003 by intermittently including portions of both sets of letter strings. Dr. Jacobi never knew when we started doing so and when we finished. We continued to submit to him our regular supply of letter strings from other parts of the Bible on other topics as part of a number of research projects. His task was always the same—to indicate whether letters before and/or after the terms created longer terms. During that period approximately one-third of letter strings he examined were part of the experiment.

All ELS extensions found around 50 initial ELSs in Ezekiel and 50 initial ELSs in War and Peace were examined and recorded. An extension is a phrase or brief sentence that appears entirely on one side of an existing ELS. The extension must represent a grammatically reasonable continuation of the existing ELS. As such, it could either incorporate part of the existing ELS or be a stand alone phrase or sentence that could reasonably precede or follow the existing ELS. The average extension found in this experiment consisted of two Hebrew words that totaled seven letters. It is of course possible to find several extensions around an initial ELS to form one lengthy final ELS. For example, the following 53-letter-long ELS from Ezekiel 37 was formed by eight extensions found around the initial ELS of the Hebrew word for "combat": 1) The island was restful, elevated 2) and it happened. 3) Where is Libya? 4) And you have disrupted the nation. 5) She changed a word. 6) He answered them with combat. 7) Why the navy 8) and the smell of the bottom of the sea?

Table 1 provides a comparison of the search results on three different bases.

Appendix A provides a listing of all ELS extensions found in both search texts.

A key statistic estimated in this experiment is the ELS extension discovery rate. It is defined as the ratio of the actual number of extensions found to the number of opportunities available for finding an extension. At the beginning of each search of a new letter string, there are two opportunities to find an extension—one before the initial ELS and one after. If an extension is found, one new opportunity to find yet another extension is created. That opportunity will consist of the new letters that are now next to the extension that had just been discovered. There is no new opportunity on the other side of the ELS where an extension wasn’t found, since that opportunity has already been counted.

The discovery rate in the control text was 19.4% (=24/124). In Ezekiel, it was 27.0% (=37/137), which is 39.2% higher7. A standard statistical test of the null hypothesis that there is no difference in the underlying discovery rates (proportions) indicated that there was a 12.35% probability that the indicated difference could be due to chance. Therefore, the null hypothesis held up at the 0.10 significance level.

It has been our observation in the last four years of investigation that, if anything, the difference in the discovery rates is generally greater than the 8.1 %-age points indicated in this experiment, and appears to be in the range of 10% to 15%. If the 8.1 %-age differential were to hold up under a larger sample of initial ELSs, then the probability of chance occurrence of a differential as large as 8.1 % would drop below standard thresholds. For example, if the names of 82 (rather than 50) Islamic nations were included in the experiment, the differential were to remain at 8.1%, then p would drop below the 0.05 significance level. If the names of 140 Islamic nations were included, p would drop below the 0.01 significance level. This possibility suggests the potential value of expanding the sample size in an enlarged version of this experiment. Of course, it is possible that the addition of more initial ELSs might result in a diminution of the differential.

The possibility that differences in letter frequencies between the two texts might account for some of the difference in discovery rates was considered. A visual comparison of the individual letter frequencies indicated a very strong similarity between the two texts. The correlation between the two sets of frequencies was quite high (0.964827).

The services of another Hebrew expert, Moshe Shak, a Canadian engineer, were retained to investigate the degree to which the indications might be affected by differences in translations between Hebrew experts. The results are displayed in Table 2.

The discovery rate from Shak’s War and Peace extensions (18.7%) was very close to, but somewhat lower than, that from Dr. Jacobi’s extensions (19.4%).

Your analogies vis a vis the Codes are off the wall in logic and in fact of research, imho.

Good one. You pretty much KO'd this thread on the 2nd post!

Quoting Scripture for destructive purposes is

AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT KETTLE OF FISH!

And I think part of you knows it.

NO, THEY DID

*NOT* AT ALL SHRED THE CODES.

Their 'research' and pontifications have been shown to be, essentially, hogwash.

Not only so, their methods and practices in the way they handled the topic and in the way they publicized their biases about the topic are quite equal with the charlatan methodologies and publicity practices of all kinds of shady characters. It was really a dispicable display of the religion of science hostile to the supernatural.

I'd be ashamed to defend them or refer to them as experts of any kind.

It has been demonstrated that all 'findings' below the criteria for chance events are that--CHANCE EVENTS!!!!

Silly rabbit!

The top men in Dr. Price's field would describe and dismiss his "finds" as nothing more than random. Whuch is all they are.

Ditto for the "Bible Codes".

Dr. Price's finds could be produced from any book any time.

Case in point: Assassinations Foretold in Moby Dick!.

This was made in response to "Bible Code" author's statement:

When my critics find a message about the assassination of a prime minister encrypted in Moby Dick, I'll believe them.
-- Michael Drosnin, (Newsweek, Jun 9, 1997)

The statements of the Bible codes describe people, the pertinent dates of their lives (death etc), places and the persons connected with them historically (naturally these connections would have been made BEFORE the historical occurences) definite times and on and on...

...but the "extraction" of the "codes" (i.e., choosing what letters to pull out of the text to make the "codes") was done AFTER the historical occurrences... Drosnin was able to hunt down seemingly appropriate sequences of letters IN HINDSIGHT.

Feel free to provide an example of any such date-specific "code" having been found BEFORE the event it describes. We'll wait.

Drosnin's own favorite examples are laughable. He says that he found the start of the Iraq war about a week before it occurred -- but at that time just about everyone already knew the war was about to start. And the really funny one is the Jupiter "prediction". Drosnin says:

What was the most startling revelation? DROSNIN: "But of course also the Gulf War, also found in advance, or the collision of the comet with Jupiter,also found in advance."

Drosnin brags that he "found" a "Bible code" entry about the Jupiter collision "months in advance", as if this is somehow an amazing feat of prognistication. What he "forgets" to mention is that NASA had already calculated the orbit of the comet and announced the date of the collision over a YEAR in advance. So again, this was Drosnin "finding" something in the Bible text IN HINDSIGHT -- to match an already *known* event and date.

THESE are the things that "complicate" the Bible codes and put the probability numbers beyond the stratosphere.

I submit that you know less about "probability numbers" than you think you do. Nothing you've listed "complicates" the Bible codes in a way that makes their probability unlikely through chance alone.

Either you are very ignorant of up-to-date research as well as a solid expose of McKay et al

or

your biases are causing you to distort reality 100% out of whack.

TRYING AGAIN ON THE GIFS THAT DIDN'T POST:

Evidently you haven't read the research I just posted as well as plenty of other documents about the latest research over the last year.

Or,

your biases are such idols in your life that they distort hard reality wholesale into the land of OZ.

I haven't seen a lot of evidence that you are open to being persuaded or influenced much at all by facts . . . but just in case I'm mistaken . . .

HERE'S SOME SPECIFIC RESPONSES TO THE SKEPTICS:

Squaring Off with Bible Code Skeptics

How the Mathematicians’ Statement is Mistaken

By Ed Sherman

Dr. Barry Simon is the IBM Professor of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he is also Executive Officer (chairman) of the Mathematics Department. He has spearheaded the circulation of a petition providing a “Mathematicians’ Statement on the Bible Codes.” By the end of May 2000 this petition included the names of 54 Ph.D.s in either Mathematics or Statistics.

The Statement makes the following assertions:

“The almost unanimous opinion of those in the scientific world who have studied the question is that the theory is without foundation.”

The WRR study “suffers from major problems concerning both its execution and the interpretation of its conclusions.”

“A vastly more systematic and thorough investigation” would be needed to support any substance to the codes.

“Word clusters…will be found in any text of similar length. All claims of incredible probabilities for such clusters are bogus.”

Skeptics are like arteries. They can either be healthy or hardened. Healthy skeptics can serve many constructive purposes in society. They can help us to question things that on the surface may appear valid or true and perhaps point out why something seemingly credible is not. Their observations can refine and enhance the quality of scientific investigations into various matters. That is all very well and very good.

Hardened skeptics, on the other hand, are a regressive influence on society. They can close minds that otherwise would be open and stifle inquiry that should not be actively discouraged.

The Mathematicians’ Statement is, without question, a succinct expression of skepticism. Is it, however, an expression of healthy or hardened skepticism? It would take only a small number of changes in form and wording to transform the petition from a document that appears to bear the marks of an unhealthy skepticism to one that could be accepted as an expression of healthy skepticism -- even by the most ardent of code supporters. Is there a willingness to improve the petition’s wording in order to remove such questions? We will be contacting Dr. Simon to explore that possibility.

Surprising Leaps of Faith?

An explicit purpose of the statement is to testify to the “fact” that the scientific community is almost unanimous in its denial of any substance in the phenomenon of Bible codes. In attempting to do so, its author(s) may have employed one or more surprising leaps of faith in the name of science. We will delve into the awkwardness of these leaps in this and at least one subsequent issue of the Digest.

That a rush to judgment has apparently been slapped onto a clearly embryonic field of inquiry by “open-minded” scientists is quite disturbing. Furthermore, the presence of 54 Ph.D.s on such a statement carries with it a sense of intimidation against any scientist who would dare to take a different position. Such an atmosphere is clearly not conducive to the dispassionate search for truth. This could have easily been avoided by toning down the petition’s language to more accurate statements. It would then represent a truly respectable document worthy of the distinguished scholars who have signed it.

The Petition makes the very bold statement that “the almost unanimous opinion of those in the scientific world who have studied the question is that the theory is without foundation.” Was a scientifically-designed poll of scientists taken in order to arrive at this conclusion? If so, why weren’t the specifics of the poll published rather than implicitly suggesting such a possibility within the petition? One gets the impression that the real situation is that the petitioners are of the opinion that their opinion is the almost unanimous opinion. Perhaps they arrived at this conclusion by quickly checking around among their like-minded peers? How statistically valid a poll would that be? Such a strong statement should be backed up by some sound sampling. Wouldn’t this be especially true since the tenor of their remaining assertions is that it is critical that everything should adhere to high standards of statistical testing? Or are the petitioners guilty of falling well short of such standards and of thereby doing the very thing that they accuse other code researchers of doing?

Wording Could Be Improved

If no statistically sound poll of scientists was taken, we would suggest that the petition’s statement on this matter be changed as follows:

CURRENT WORDING: “On the contrary, the almost unanimous opinion of those in the scientific world who have studied the question is that the theory is without foundation.”

SUGGESTED WORDING: “It is the belief of the undersigned that the great majority of those in the scientific world who have studied the question are of the opinion that the theory is without foundation.”

ALTERNATIVE SUGGESTED WORDING: “It is the opinion of the undersigned, after studying the question, that the theory is without foundation.”

A quick scan of the Statement reveals a major difference between it and the nature of most petitions: it carries no date as to when its wording was finalized. Furthermore, though the petition includes 54 names (as of May 31, 2000), no date of signature is shown in conjunction with any signatory. Is this omission an oversight? Or was it intentional? If it is the latter, it would be a strong, implicit statement that its conclusions are final and utterly conclusive. It will never need updating based on the examination of new evidence. If so, is this based on the notion that the research done to date has been extensive enough to be a clearly representative sample of all the possible research that could be conducted on Bible codes? Certainly not. If anything, the petition claims that the quality of the research done to date has been lacking. If that is true, then the only proper conclusion to be drawn is that the whole matter has not been appropriately researched and tested. Therefore, it is much too early to attempt to put a damper on this area of investigation and inquiry.

Bible Codes Too Recent a Field of Inquiry

Is the petitioners’ apparent rush to judgment due to some kind of a priori reasoning? If it is, the statement does not reveal this as the basis for such finality. It would be most helpful if such reasoning would be disclosed.

Since the study of Bible codes is a very recent field of inquiry, it is only fair to ask how such certainty could possibly have been reached in so incredibly short a period of time. Could it be that this statement is as premature as the Catholic church’s medieval dictum that the earth is the center of the universe because no clear evidence to the contrary had yet emerged?

Throughout the ages, scientific theories have come and gone, or have at least been modified, as new evidence has been discovered and/or new experiments have been conducted. How is this different? What if someone were to discover a word for word equivalent in Hebrew of the Gettysburg Address as one continuous ELS with a skip of +3 in the Book of Deuteronomy? That kind of ELS might be 500 letters long. How many names would drop off Dr. Simon’s petition if that occurred? Or has the final verdict been rendered, never to be appealed?

In all fairness, the statement does contain elements that allude to the possibility (presumably highly remote) that it could be subject to future revision. It states that “the work so far” [emphasis added] has not “established a prima facie case.”

ONE WAY TO REMOVE ALL OF THESE TYPES OF QUESTIONS ABOUT THE INTENTIONS OF THE PETITIONERS AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE STATEMENT IS TO ADD THE DATE OF ITS FINAL DRAFTING AND TO INCLUDE A DATE OF SIGNATURE FOR EACH SIGNATORY. WE WOULD RECOMMEND THAT BOTH OF THESE CHANGES BE MADE, SO THAT IT IS CLEAR THAT THE STATEMENTS MADE ARE CONTEXTUAL AND RELATED TO RESEARCH CONDUCTED AND DISCLOSED PRIOR TO THE INDICATED DATE(S).

The Statement also refers to the conducting of “a vastly more systematic and thorough investigation” as the kind of event that would be necessary to cause a change in position by most of the petitioners. WE WOULD RECOMMEND THAT THE ADVERB “VASTLY” BE REPLACED BY “SIGNIFICANTLY.” The adverb “vastly” bears an implication that has the same feel as what it would be like to add leaping over the Empire State Building as a new event in the next Olympics. Is the “vastly” adverb an indication of a degree of hardness to the skepticism expressed in the petition? Or is it an expression of frustration on the part of the petitioners that all of the time they have devoted to investigating this topic has been, in their, opinion, a waste of time?

Imagine a group of paleontologists in the 1700s issuing a joint statement to the effect that no fossils would ever be found substantiating the existence of any life forms that have since become extinct? Making such a statement would be a bold and risky venture. Whoever made it would be subjecting their reputations to the possibility that some new turn of the shovel would unearth the bones of a creature quite unlike any alive today. All it would take to transform that kind of fossil scientist into an endangered species would be for someone to unearth a pile of bones from one Tyrannosaurus Rex. Is this perhaps analogous to the Mathematicians’ Statement on the Bible Codes? Is there a need for this bold Statement to be refined by adding some qualifiers?

Orthodox Judaism

From the point of view of orthodox Judaism, there is a theory that has been widely held for a long time. It is based on the belief that God dictated the entire Torah to Moses, letter by letter, without spaces. Many who hold to this belief also believe that the whole history of the world is encoded within the Torah. Obviously, for this to be true, it would be necessary that the entire Torah be utterly thick with codes. Is this “the theory” that Dr. Simon is referring to? It would appear so.

The “simple Simon” view of things is that they are either totally black or white. No ELSs in the Bible are real or most of them are intentional, and they are everywhere dense in the text. Therefore, we can test the latter theory by conducting only a small number of experiments. We do that by pre-selecting a topic and a set of words judged to be relevant to that topic, as well as a section of text. We search for codes and compare what we find with what we would expect to be there due entirely to chance. If there isn’t a significant difference between actual code appearances and expected, the Bible code theory is bogus. If there are substantial differences, we have evidence that the theory has merit.

What if reality is more complicated than that? Suppose there is a third alternative—that if any codes are real, they are fairly rare. That, in fact, is the finding of Dr. Randall Ingermanson in his book, Who Wrote the Bible Code? If this theoretical physicist is right, the simple Simon approach to testing the hypothesis that some Bible codes might be real could easily produce a false result. The experiment will indicate there are no real codes when some might exist.

A more realistic view of the range of possible theories would be that we have these options:

No real Bible codes exist.

Real Bible codes are fairly rare.

Real Bible codes are fairly common but are not dense within the text.

Real Bible codes are everywhere dense within the text.

As we saw in the discussion above, our assumptions about which group of these options could be true will affect the type of tests we would include in our experiment. If we are not careful we can fall into the trap of false presumption that typifies code skeptics today. They design and conduct experiments that implicitly based on the notion that only 1 or 4 could be true.

If we are really open minded, however, we should also admit that 2 and 3 may be distinct possibilities. That kind of admission results in some serious inconvenience, however. If either 2 or 3 could be true, we will not have the luxury of only performing a relatively small number of experiments to determine whether or not some Bible codes could be real. In that event, even if all of our experiments produce negative results, we would not have any assurance that our painstakingly designed and implemented experiments had produced the correct result—as long as that result is negative.

If Bible codes are rare, our pre-selected set of topics/words/sections of text may have simply not included those codes that are real. This is a very frustrating circumstance for scientists whose goal is to dispense with any theory purporting that some Bible codes are real. Therefore, it is better not to mention this so that the well designed experiments will yield the desired conclusion that no codes are real, and the whole controversy can be efficiently brought to a pleasing end.

Short-Sightedness

The petitioners would have us believe that the experiments conducted prior to their petition are sufficiently thorough to lead us to a decision as to whether Bible codes are real. That’s implied in their gambit of concluding that these past experiments have not had convincingly positive results, and so, there is no substance to the purported phenomenon. This is a grotesque line of implicit reasoning, however.

Since the main tack of the skeptics is to point out deficiencies in past experiments, we should consider the possibility that all they may have demonstrated is that past experiments have been deficient in either their design, implementation or interpretation, or any or all of these. And, if they succeed in proving their contention, all we really can conclude is that past experiments have been flawed, and therefore do not provide clear evidence that real codes do not exist.

The problem is that that conclusion doesn’t help us answer the ultimate question of whether some yet-to-be-discovered-and/or-analyzed Bible codes are real. All we would then know is that we don’t know much of anything. It would be much more honest intellectually to issue a statement to the effect that, to date, no investigations have yielded any convincing evidence that some Bible codes are real. Unfortunately, the Mathematician’s Statement makes giant leaps beyond that kind of pronouncement. Therein is demonstrated the awkward faith of determined skeptics.

A more objective and realistic picture of the range of possibilities regarding the nature of code experiments and cluster examples that have appeared to date in print would include the following:

Published examples are representative of the types of Bible codes that are yet to be discovered.

Published examples are much more improbable than most undiscovered codes.

Published examples are much less improbable than many undiscovered codes.

Without doing much more research, how could anyone have any basis for deciding which of these alternatives was the correct one?

As if the situation were not already complicated enough, there is an additional difficulty. How could we recognize a real code if we had indeed encountered one? Doing this would presumably involve finding some way to calculate the probability that it could appear by chance. Yet one of the assertions set forth by Professor Simon is that calculations of that type do not conform to the rules of probability and statistics. So we are dead in the water as far as being able to recognize the real thing if it ever showed up -- if Professor Simon’s inference is correct.

Daunting Challenge

As a professional mathematician, I could not make the leap from the notion that past calculations of probabilities were done incorrectly to the implied conclusion that there isn’t any way to do it correctly. In fact, this situation served as a daunting challenge. Shouldn’t there be some way to do such calculations properly?

Even if this were an unsolvable problem, it seems that there must be some way to make relative distinctions between codes, with some being assessed as more probable and others as much less so. It ought to be possible to create a scale, or a rating system, much as exists in the field of geology, for the relative hardness of rocks. We know that diamonds are much harder than chalk. Geologists have derived tests and scales to boil that down to some kind of a number rating. The same type of thing should be done for Bible codes.

One would intuitively expect that there should be a range of possibilities regarding any given code (or cluster of codes). They ought to fall into one of these buckets:

Chance ELSs, which are likely to appear coincidentally. These would be of the type that could easily be found in almost any book.

Unusual ELSs, which are fairly improbable. Finding a similar example in another book is quite possible, but not very likely.

Intentional ELSs, which are extremely improbable. So improbable are such examples that it is unlikely that they could be found in any book.

To make real progress in breaking the ideological deadlock that surrounds Bible codes, developing concise tools that can clearly distinguish between these types of codes would be most beneficial. If we don’t have the tools to rank and test different codes, we end up lumping them all into one vast category. This leaves us with the choice of either accepting or rejecting all ELSs—lock, stock and barrel. Mankind would then be doomed to vague thinking about the controversy. Hunches become embellished with intuitively appealing, simplistic arguments. Quick leaps are made to hoped-for conclusions. Hunches become entrenched after being cloaked in appealing thought garb. Intellectual innuendoes haunt what could be a habitat of science.

In reality, precisely calculating the probability that a given cluster could appear by chance is enormously complex. The approach presented in Ed Sherman’s book, Breakthrough, doesn’t fully solve this problem. However, what it does do is to provide a reasonable upper bound for that probability. If we can say that we know that the likelihood of chance appearance is definitely smaller than, say, 1 in a trillion times a trillion, then we don’t really need to know what the real, smaller probability is. We will already have reached a clear-cut conclusion: the cluster is not a coincidence. And that is all that is really important.

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A Review of Dr. Ingermanson’s Critique of BCD Methodology

By Ed Sherman

This article provides our responses to Dr. Randall Ingermanson’s criticisms of the BCD method of calculating the combined probability of chance occurrence of a cluster of ELSs. In essence what he is saying is that our approach is inherently wrong.

When two experts differ so sharply, it is usually because of major differences between the assumptions each has made. And that is the case here.

In our opinion, Randy’s conclusions are based on intuitively appealing but incorrect assumptions about the nature of ELSs. ELSs are very strange animals that behave quite differently than what one would naturally expect. Secondly, his criticisms are out-of-date because they are based on a much earlier version of Ed’s book, Breakthrough. Consequently, Randy’s criticisms were targeted against an approach that we haven’t used for almost two years. We significantly modified that initial methodology to effectively eliminate the kinds of problems that Randy is concerned about.

In his newsletter, Dr. Ingermanson stated that “there is now an attempt to factor out wiggle room by multiplying by a large factor that accounts for some of the freedom in choosing words to search for.” That isn’t what we do. We don’t apply one huge factor to the product of all the naïve probabilities. We adjust each naïve probability (of chance occurrence of each ELS) to reflect the possibility of having searched for far more ELSs of like kind than we actually looked for, and then we multiply the probabilities together. This difference between Randy’s understanding of what we do and what we actually do is quite critical.

Subtle Distinction

In his review, Randy stated that our approach “doesn’t really deal with the main methodological problem. It isn’t valid to just multiply all those probabilities together in the first place. Probabilities are always less than 1. When you multiply them together, the product rapidly approaches zero.”

While Randy’s concern is quite valid if the probabilities are spread somewhat uniformly between 0% and 100%, it is not true if most of the probabilities are close to 100%. For example, if you multiply 0.999 times itself 1,000 times, you get 36.8%, which isn’t close to zero—even though it is the product of 1,000 probabilities. This subtle distinction makes all the difference in whether or not Randy’s assessment of our methodology has any validity.

Case in point: If you take the product of the adjusted probabilities of random occurrence of all 1,133 ELSs in the Isaiah 53 cluster that weren’t included in our comparison chart with the Hanukah cluster, that product is 39.319%. So it just isn’t true that merely multiplying together a large number of probabilities will result in a number near zero. When we apply our method to most examples in published books, we end up with cluster probabilities that are typically quite unimpressive. Many of them are greater than 50%.

Applying Our Method to a Model Cluster

We also applied our method to a model cluster of over 2,000 ELSs where each ELS appears exactly as many times as it would be expected by chance to appear. The resulting probability was 43.6%. That’s hardly close to zero—even though it was calculated as the product of over 2,000 probabilities.

There are two reasons why most of the adjusted probabilities that we multiply together tend to be close to 100%. First, we heavily adjust the initial probabilities for wiggle room. The nature of this adjustment strongly forces most of them to be quite close to 100%.

Example: The odds of the exact ELS, “It will be understood, Jesus created,” crossing the key section of text in Isaiah 52-53 are 1 in 1,247 (0.08%). However, we adjust that probability to be that of finding, not only that exact ELS, but also any one of 13,367 alternative ELSs with approximately the same chances of appearing by coincidence. That adjusts the probability of chance appearance to 99.998%. Similarly, the odds of the exact ELS, “Jesus the Gift is Master and My Lord,” appearing by chance are adjusted from 1 in 107,000 to 1 in 3. Those are huge adjustments. We have deliberately designed this adjustment process so that it clearly overdoes things. We did that so that the final probability we have calculated will be greater than what the true probability is.

A Second Reason

There is a second reason why most of the probabilities tend to be close to 100%. Most of the initial probabilities already tend to bunch near the higher end of the 0% to 100% range. Why? Short ELSs typically appear numerous times. So naturally the probability of showing up by chance is near 100%. Long ELSs usually can’t be found because their probability of showing up is near 0%. [At the end of this article we provide a short discussion for this strange behavior.] So the probabilities for the bulk of ELSs a researcher looks for will, of necessity, be quite high. [FYI: for the Isaiah 53 cluster the average probability of all events is 97.6%.] Randy’s simple model where the average probability is 50% has no relevance to the analysis of ELS clusters.

The reality is that the thing that causes some of our cluster probabilities to be so astronomically small is that several quite unlikely events converged. In the case of the Isaiah 53 cluster, numerous lengthy codes on one topic cut through only two pages of Hebrew text.

An analogy: You observe two long lost friends running into one another. Conclusion: coincidence. You observe 10 pairs of long lost friends running into one another at the same hotel on the same day. Conclusion: It was planned. They call it a reunion.

Case in point: Someone finds one or two 10 letter long ELSs near one another. Conclusion: coincidence. We find 19 ELSs that are each 10 or more letters long (with many in the range of 18 – 22 letters in length) crossing Isaiah 52-53. Conclusion: Chance isn’t that capable.

Finally, as mentioned above, we performed a reasonableness test of how the BCD approach behaves. We modeled what would happen if we did a search for a typical list of ELSs and every one appeared exactly as many times as it was expected to by chance. In doing so, we simplified things slightly -- by assuming that every Hebrew letter appears just as often as every other one. That way we didn’t have to worry about variations caused by rare or common letters being part of any ELS.

Realistic Simulation

In our reasonableness test we realistically simulated what we actually do in a cluster search. A 1,000 letter long section of text (about two pages) is selected and we look for 100 different ELSs with 3 letters, 100 different ELSs with 4 letters, 100 different ELSs with 5 letters, 100 different ELSs with 6 letters and 100 different ELSs with 7 letters. We look for all occurrences with skips of 1 to 100. Each 3 letter ELS is expected to appear 20.68 times, each 4 letter ELS 0.98 times and each 5 letter ELS 0.0466 times. Since we are looking for 100 different ELSs of each letter length, if everything goes according to chance we would expect to find 2,068 total occurrences of the 3 letter ELSs, 98 occurrences of the 4 letter ELSs, 5 occurrences of the 5 letter ELSs and no occurrences of the 6 and 7 letter ELSs. So we have a pile of 2,171 ELS occurrences. Fully 95.3% of them (the 3 letter ELSs) have a probability of chance occurrence of 99.99999989557%. Another 4.5% of them (the 4 letter ELSs) each have a probability of chance occurrence of 62.6%. We assumed 80 of them were single word ELSs and 18 were two word ELSs. And 0.23% of them (the 5 letter ELSs) each have a probability of chance occurrence of 4.56%. We assumed that two of these are single word ELSs and three are two word ELSs.

Notice how the probabilities are distributed: over 95% are essentially 100%; another 4.5% of them are about 63%; and a smidgen (0.23%) are a bit below 5%. We are talking about a circumstance totally different than one where the probabilities are evenly distributed between 0% and 100%. Now we apply our procedure (in exactly the same way we did when gauging the Isaiah 53 cluster) to calculate the combined probability of chance occurrence of this cluster of 2,171 ELSs. The result? 43.6%! So even though we have multiplied together over 2,000 adjusted probabilities, our result is 43.6%. That’s hardly close to zero. Conclusion: it is not true that the extremely small probability we have indicated for the Isaiah 53 cluster is the natural result of having searched for and evaluated over 1,200 ELSs.

It is natural for someone to expect that the probabilities of random occurrence of a group of ELSs will be somewhat evenly spread between 0% and 100%. And evidently that is what Randy intuitively assumed in asserting that we aren’t doing things right. The problem is that ELSs are ornery critters whose behavior defies our natural expectations. Why is that? There is an explanation.

As mentioned above, short ELSs typically appear many times while long ELSs often cannot be found anywhere. Intuitively it makes sense that the total number of 3 letter, 4 letter and 5 letter ELSs that have at least one letter in a selected 1,000 letter long text will be about the same. And that is correct.

But then something happens when we go to calculate the probability that a given selected ELS will appear. Whenever we deal with an ELS that is one letter longer than another one, we multiply by 22 the number of alternative ELSs that could have appeared (instead of the one we have selected). For example, while there are 10,648 possible different three letter ELSs (22x22x22), there are 234,256 possible four letter ELSs (22x22x22x22) and 5,153,632 possible five letter ELSs (22x22x22x22x22). So, because the number of alternatives skyrockets, the probability of appearance of any one selected ELS drops like a rock if that selected ELS is longer. Conversely, that probability skyrockets when we shorten the selected ELS by one or two letters. That is why clusters of ELSs are heavily populated by shorter ELSs that appear numerous times and have a probability of chance appearance close to 100%.

Why does this matter? It results in a situation where the great bulk of probabilities entering into a cluster calculation are very close to 100%. Given that, Randy’s intuitively appealing objection is invalid.

PRAISE GOD FOR HIS BEYOND-TIME MAJESTY

PRAISE GOD FOR HIS FAITHFULNESS TO BE FUN, INTERESTING, AND GENEROUS WITH EVIDENCE FOR FAITH.

You're implying that Moses is a myth,

"There is simply no solid historical or biblical evidence that will definitely establish a date for the exodus. In fact, there is no direct extra-biblical historical evidence of the exodus itself."
-- Dennis Bratcher, Christian Research Institute

This quote is somewhat out of context (Bratcher still seems to believe that the Exodus did take place), but the point is that the actual independent evidence for the Exodus as described in the Bible is thin at best.

the Flood is a myth,

Here we're on much firmer ground (no pun intended). A worldwide flood would have left countless, unmistakable signs in the geologic record, and in the biological record (DNA, biogeography, phylogenetic continuity, etc.) No such evidence exists. On the contrary, the evidence indicates quite clearly that no such flood has ever occurred. For just one example out of a multitude, see for example The Geologic Column and its Implications for the Flood , written by a former literalist creationist (whose field work taught him the error of his previous beliefs).

Perhaps parts of you would be genuinely interested in the truth . . .

[QUIX NOTE: MOST RED OR BLUE EMPHASIS, AS USUAL, IS MINE]

CLICK HERE: http://www.biblecodedigest.com/page.php/54

Head-to-Head Comparisons of the Skeptics'
Best Example with Some Bona Fide Clusters

The Skyline Comparison: Hanukah
Cluster Vs. Longest Ezekiel 37 Codes NOW UPDATED

The “skyline” of Hebrew code buildings above is a tale of two cities represented by the Hanukah cluster of codes from War and Peace on the left, and the longest codes from Ezekiel 37.

This comparison shows the dramatic contrast between the two clusters, with the Ezekiel 37 codes lined up from right to left according to their location in the text, and the skeptics’ example from left to right. They both read from top to bottom.

Recently, we updated the skyline to include many new codes in the Ezekiel 37 cluster discovered since the comparison was first posted late in 2001. The tallest building in the example is the longest ELS in the cluster, the 61-letter code, There is Quarrel in His Speeches. A Living Brother Uttered Words to Them and to Me. And Zubaidah Turned to His Sea, Without Then Lying for a Whole Week. Oh, the Mountain of Her Interior Will Bear a Testimonial to Her Name.

The shortest of the codes in the Ezekiel 37 “buildings” are at least three times longer than the longest Hanukah code, which is seven letters long.

A Whole New Way of Looking at a Code Cluster

The Hanukah cluster is the best example put forward by Bible code skeptics that codes can be found in any book. It was assembled from a section of Tolstoy's War and Peace.

Quite a dramatic contrast is created when you compare the coincidental Hanukah cluster with a truly substantive cluster such as the one on the 911 attacks in Ezekiel 37. In fact, the contrast is even more dramatic with this new way of presenting the most significant codes in a cluster.

The new method allows for a way to show the longest codes in a cluster, and is based on the “mod” approach. Matrix—or crossword—presentations are valuable, but limited in that they show only the heart of a cluster and its shorter codes. But the longest and most significant codes often have large skips, so only one or two of its letters can be shown in one of these matrices.

In the case of the new approach presentation of the Ezekiel 37 cluster above, a horizontal line represents the Bible text of 2,500 Hebrew letters where the cluster is centered, running from Ezekiel 36:24 on the left, to Ezekiel 37:25 on the right. Laid out across that line are the most significant codes in the cluster, crossing it where the ELS intersects with it. A similar display procedure was followed for the Hanukah cluster.

Technical Note: The angle of each code is determined by its “mod,” and its appearance on a 180-degree protractor whose base is a vertical line on the left side of the text line, which is at a 90-degree angle to the protractor’s base. A fixed divisor is selected for all codes. Then the "mod" of each code is the remainder when the code's skip is divided by the divisor.

We presented these ELSs in English, but they could just as easily be laid out in Hebrew.

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Another Head to Head Comparison: Ezekiel 7 ELSs and Hanukah ELSs

Code skeptics would have people believe no Bible codes are real. Part of their case they rest on an initially convincing counterexample—an “impressive” looking cluster of codes about Hanukah they found in a Hebrew translation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Well, here’s a list of all the codes in the skeptics’ Hanukah cluster (by decreasing length):

CLICK HERE: http://www.biblecodedigest.com/img/Hd2HdHanu.GIF

Now compare the above list with these codes from the Terrorist Attack cluster:

Not only are there 22 codes in Ezekiel 7 that are each longer than the longest in the skeptic’s Hanukah counterexample, but many of them are dramatically longer.

Leading code skeptics would no doubt like to have you ignore this comparison, because it simply overturns their case. They would likely say that our approach wasn’t “scientific,” but wouldn’t admit to the fact that by their definition most of what we know as “science” would be dismissed as bunk.

PRAISE GOD FOR HIS TIMELESS MAJESTY!

Actually, Grant Jeffreys has documented and photographed convincing proof of the Exodus from the Sinai. And more than a few items, as well.

ADDITIONAL PROOF THAT AUTHENTIC CODES ARE BEYOND CHANCE ETC.

New Evidence Overturns Skeptics' Case
Explosive 1,400+ ELS Cluster in Isaiah 53
Dwarfs Skeptics' Counter-Example

Opponents of Bible codes say that you can find meaningful clusters in any book. To support their case, they presented an example of a code cluster about Hanukah they found in Tolstoy's War and Peace.

While this example was fairly comparable to clusters Bible code researchers had presented back then, our researchers have unearthed clusters that look like mountains compared to the molehill of the Hanukah example. In this report we present a detailed side-by-side comparison of the Hanukah example and the most extensive cluster researchers have located to date-- the explosive Isaiah 53 codes. In short, what skeptics told us three years ago is now completely out of date.

[QX: RED COLOR EMPHASIS IN ORIGINAL]

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COMPARING CLUSTERS:

The Skeptics' Arguments Don't Hold a Hanukah Candle
to Extensive Evidence of the Reality of Bible Codes

Ever since the Bible codes were introduced, skeptics have been saying, "Oh, well, you can find codes like that in books like War and Peace and Moby Dick."

In fact, skeptic Brendan McKay even went so far as to collect a fairly impressive looking cluster of codes about Hanukah in a Hebrew translation of War and Peace. His findings have been posted for some time at

HERE: http://wopr.com/biblecodes/TheCase.htm

We took the time to examine this cluster and compare it to a truly significant one—the Isaiah 53 cluster.

The results, detailed below, reveal the irrelevance of the Hanukah example. The argument that you can find other supposedly meaningful code clusters in books other than the Bible—and the Hanukah cluster—have done much to reduce the credibility of Bible codes in the eyes of many. In the case of some codes presented in best-selling books this was appropriate, because it would be misleading to attach significance to clusters that are comparable to the Hanukah example. For this contribution, we owe Dr. McKay a debt of gratitude.

The Expanded Isaiah 53 Cluster Vs. the Initial Isaiah 53 ELS

In the forward to Yacov Rambsel's book, Yeshua, published in 1996, the author cites one ELS translated as "Yeshua (Jesus) is my name" from Isaiah 53. Grant Jeffrey also refers to this ELS in his 1996 book, The Signature of God. These authors cited this ELS as significant evidence that Jesus was the messianic figure prophesied in Isaiah 53. This claim was extensively criticized in a paper, Jesus Codes: Uses and Abuses, by Rabbi Daniel Mechanic, which is posted on the Aish site. We agree with most of the criticisms that Rabbi Mechanic cites in his report, which is, however, seriously out-of-date.

First, both Rambsel and Jeffrey have disclosed their finding of dozens of ELSs "relevant" to Jesus in Isaiah 53 in various subsequent books. In Jeffrey's 1998 book, The Mysterious Bible Codes, he lists 44 ELSs about Jesus in this passage, and addresses most of Rabbi Mechanic's criticisms. In Rambsel's 2001 book, The Genesis Factor, he cites 74 ELSs about Jesus he has found in Isaiah 53.

(Our Hebrew consultant, Dr. Nathan Jacobi, has reviewed all of the findings of Rambsel and Jeffrey—just as he reviews our own findings—and has rejected some of them as being incorrect or inappropriate in his opinion. We have therefore removed these ELSs from the expanded cluster presented in this report. [These ELSs were: From the Atonement Lamb, The Disciples Mourned and The Marys Wept.] He also considered The Evil Roman City to be only passable because of gender inconsistencies.)

Second, over the past two years, our own researchers have also located hundreds of additional ELSs on the same topic in this passage. We refer in this report to the "expanded Isaiah 53 cluster" as this entire collection of ELSs.

While the subject of the Isaiah 53 ELSs is the highly controversial one of Jesus Christ, the focus of this article is not to convince anyone of a particular viewpoint about who Jesus was, but to examine this cluster as potentially compelling evidence of the reality of Bible codes.

It is our general view that ELSs consisting of phrases or statements about Jesus should initially be regarded as no more than simply being ELSs relevant to the topic of Jesus. Unless their statistical significance can be demonstrated, it would be inappropriate to assert that such words or phrases are "proof" of their content. For example, the mere appearance of the ELS "true messiah" in this cluster is not, per se, proof of that belief, but is only a phrase relevant to the topic of Jesus, because it is well known that some people hold to that belief.

As noted below, the odds are 1 in 12 that the "true messiah" ELS could appear in the Isaiah 53 cluster simply by chance. Therefore, by itself, the appearance of this ELS within the cluster does not qualify as "proof" of that viewpoint.

The Comparison Says It All

Does the Hanukah example scuttle the potential validity of all Bible codes? New evidence answers with an emphatic "No." If anything, various clusters discovered in the last two years make this example look like a pile of sand next to Mt. Everest. The contrast between the Hanukah cluster and these new examples provides compelling evidence in favor of the validity of these clusters.

To illustrate this, let's look at a comparison of the Hanukah example with the most extensive and improbable code grouping discovered to date—the Isaiah 53 cluster about Christ's life, His crucifixion and the controversy over His claimed resurrection. No matter what your opinions of Jesus Christ are, the following comparison should make all skeptics reconsider their views about the reality of Bible codes.

Comparing the Clusters Charted on a Graphic Display

The first is a matrix of the Isaiah 53 ELSs in a 40-letter wide display. This is a continuous string of 720 letters from Isaiah 53:2 to 54:2, starting at the khet in upper right hand corner and ending at the heh in the bottom left corner. As in all Bible code search strings, spaces between words have been eliminated.

The focal code appears in two sections, in red with white letters. It shows up in two places because it has a skip of 20 and is laid out on this 40-column matrix. We used a 40-column matrix because it is graphically similar to the Hanukah matrix.

The letters in violet are places where the higher-rated ELSs in the tables are located in the matrix. Those in turquoise and yellow are where the letters of the rest of the ELSs appear in the text.

Keep in mind that the ELSs shown here are the most improbable of the hundreds of ELSs so far discovered in this passage. That represents less than 5% of the total number of Isaiah 53 ELSs listed below. Those in this matrix are only the ELSs shown in the tables in the Scrabble Factor section. The ELSs are not individually identified in order to keep the illustration simple. Some letters are touched by more than one ELS, and in those cases we used the code with the higher-scoring odds. ELSs with longer skips, such as "Son of Elohim" with a skip of 1,383, touch down only once in the matrix.

Matrix Showing Hanukah Cluster

Here's the War and Peace array displayed in a 47-letter wide matrix, again a continuous string of 1,128 letters. The string starts at the yod in upper right hand corner and ends at the koof at the bottom left. The colors show the positions of the seven ELSs in the cluster.

It is self-evident that these two clusters are leagues apart. Consequently, the Hanukah cluster should no longer be used as a reasonable example of how codes similar to Bible code findings can be found in any book.

PRAISE GOD FOR HIS TIMELESS MAJESTY!

Actually, Grant Jeffreys has documented and photographed convincing proof of the Exodus from the Sinai.

I'm sure that such claims will help Jeffreys sell more of his books. Speaking of which, he wrote a book on the "Bible codes" -- don't you have any other hobbies?