You probably have seen the TV specials on the History Channel about the Bible Codes, and the controversy over whether they are real or not. Well, I certainly cannot shed any definitive light on that question. Nevertheless, Bible Codes are intriguing, and something to ponder.

What are Bible Codes? Bible Codes are hidden messages found in the Torah by skipping equal amounts of letters. To find a given word, the skip distance is set to 1, and each letter of the text is examined to see if it matches the first letter of the search word. If it does, the second letter is examined until a match is made, or the text is exhausted. If no match is found, the skip distance is increased by one and the process is started anew. This technique was not practical until the invention of the modern computer.

This in itself is not very convincing, as the same thing can be done with any book. However, when a relevant search word is discovered, it often is surrounded by related relevant words at levels far above chance. If there is truth to the Bible Code theory, the present problem would be determining a true prophecy from false ones which can be found by a similar search of any large literary work. So far, no one seems to have found a solution as I will show by example.

Some of the codes which seem quite accurate and indeed prophetic are:

Hurricane Katrina: “I will break – this city as one breaks a potters vessel, that cannot be made whole again – And I will make this city an astonishment”.

The London train bombings: “London will descend – They will die -7th of July – Train – Disaster”.

Others are completely off though. For example, the codes declare that Aug 3, 2006 will begin a world war:

“Violent 08/03/06 Since the blood will profanate the earth – They which are poison and a chief/place of the father God – Prostate Rome”

and

“Aug 8, 2006 – A fire like a terror – In that day there shall be a great shaking in the Land of Israel”.

I’m pretty sure that those events did not happen.

Other prophetic future events include a Yellowstone supervolcano eruption in 2009, and a likely hit from the current state of the economy:

“We will be depressed; in 2009 is the peak”.

More economic prophecies from the codes which seem to fit current reality are:

“Suitable, you will crush with a financial crisis in the year 2008”

“The treasuries are desolate”

“The Plan is an injustice against them. Paulson panicked them”

“Paulson is suitable. And the seven years of famine began”

There are lots more, and you can find them at exodus2006.com if you are interested.