ELS Bible Codes --
God's Signature

MODERN NON-BIBLICAL EXAMPLE OF HIDDEN TEXT

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 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 June 2024, no such books have appeared.

Grant Jeffrey 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, 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/Syriac is a Semitic language related to Hebrew and Arabic and was the language Jesus and his disciples spoke. A number of scholars believe that at least portions of the New Testament were written in Aramaic and translated into Greek. Reinhold indicated to me that the few people doing Aramaic research do report finding codes.

However, Jewish scholars are not interested in looking for "Christian" codes and very few gentiles study Aramaic, which is mainly taught only in Jewish seminaries to rabbinic students who can already read biblical Hebrew fluently, and who study it because the Talmud, a major Jewish theological work, is written in Aramaic. Also, the only real purpose of Bible Codes is to show that the Hebrew Bible really is divinely inspired. So once that was accomplished, the general public lost interest overall.

It is important to understand that even in the Old Testament there are other types of codes in addition to ELS codes. For instance, there are reports of code matrices based on the first letters of words. However, the area of non-ELS codes 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.  But keep in mind that most Codes research is conducted by self-funded amateurs who have at best a modest knowledge of biblical Hebrew.

Most reported code matrices are two-dimensional, i.e., one letter is at the center of a rectangle formed from equidistant letters.  But researchers report indications that some matrices appear to be three dimensional, i.e., words not only can be formed by moving left, right, up, down, or diagonally, but can also extend forward or backward.  However, no commercial software handles three-dimensional arrays and researchers are having difficulty figuring out how to depict such codes visually in two-dimensional media. Additionally, of course, public interest in Bible Codes has waned and, unfortunately, in the public mind Codes now tend to get lumped in with astrology, psychics' pronouncements, "ancient astronaut" claims and mythology of ancient cultures.

"What about translations?"

Bible Codes have only been found in the original language text of the Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible)—and in the Aramaic New Testament, not the Greek New Testament or the Apocrypha.

Once in awhile someone claims to have found Bible Codes in the King James Version, citing three or four "clusters" of 2-4 words. Serious researchers no longer even mention clusters of less than five words, because true Code clusters routinely contain ten or more words. Many have been found with more than 25 words.

"Are there Bible Codes in the Apocrypha?"

There are no Bible Codes in the Apocrypha!

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

"What about secular books?"

Codes have only been found in the Hebrew Old Testament and Aramaic 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 Aramaic New Testament 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".

"If this is true, how come I've never heard of it?"

The "story" of Bible Codes "died" for a number of reasons:

1. "Yesterday's News". The basic message of Bible Codes is that they exist, they prove that the Bible is supernaturally inspired, and because of the Codes we can tell which writings are divinely inspired.
   
   Because they don't contain new teachings and they can't be used to tell the future, it doesn't matter whether researchers find 200 or 10,000 codes.
   
   

2. No codes were found in the Greek New Testament.
   
   Mainstream Christianity (e.g., Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant) mainly emphasizes the New Testament. So if there are no Codes in the [Greek] New Testament, that opens the door to claims that the New Testament is not divinely inspired. Even though that is not the case, someone advocating a position will try to avoid mentioning things that could weaken that position.
   
   

3. Back when there was a lot of public interest about Bible Codes, a few high-profile Christian leaders disputed the claims without investigation and without presenting evidence.
   
   A small number of high-profile Christian leaders publicly spoke out against Bible Codes although they did not do any research or consult anyone who had done research. They simply assumed they were baseless, something like gematria, etc., and publicly denounced them. Other lower-level Christian leaders--e.g., pastors of individual congregations--simply assumed that those high-profile leaders would not speak out without adequate investigation and so they accepted and repeated the misinformation of the high-profile leaders.
   
   

4. The few researchers are amateurs. Once they confirmed that Codes exist and found some, the general public lost interest. Eventually so did the researchers.
    

5. Most researchers are not knowledgeable in Hebrew or Greek.  Most researchers at best can read biblical Hebrew words and know some basic biblical Hebrew grammar. Some of them learned some basic biblical Greek, tried to find Greek codes and couldn't, so they gave up.
   
   

6.  Very few people know any Aramaic. Basically, the only people who know some Aramaic are Jewish biblical scholars with masters- or doctoral-level study in Jewish Studies, such as rabbis, cantors, and professors, because the Talmud, a major work of Jewish theological interpretation, was written in Aramaic.
   
   Out of the handful of Bible Codes researchers, only some studied some Greek to do New Testament research.  When it was determined that there were no Greek codes, even fewer went on to learn some Aramaic. Maybe a dozen or so worldwide. And by that point the general public had lost interest in the topic because no one was talking about Greek codes.
    

But God's Bible Codes are still witnesses
even if people don't talk about them.

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