ELS Bible Codes --
God's Signature


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?'"


UNSUPPORTED OPINIONS ON WHETHER BIBLE CODES ARE REAL ARE USELESS.  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 RENEWED, 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, just keep an open mind and check out the evidence for yourself.  This page has very little of the available information, from a field that, until about 1995, was researched by only about 10 people worldwide, all non-Christians.  This site presents about a "thimbleful" of ice and tells you it really did come from an iceberg!

Books are available from Grant Jeffrey or Yacov Rambsel.  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.)


Tanakh, Hebrew Bible, and Old Testament

First, what are the differences between the "Hebrew Bible" and the "Old Testament"? The "Hebrew Bible" is the text of the original Hebrew and Aramaic biblical texts in the traditional Jewish sequence, regardless of the language. So the 1985 New Jewish Publication Society of America Tanakh is the "Hebrew Bible" in English, not in Hebrew.

The differences between the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament are 1) the books are arranged in a different order, 2) some of the verse numbering is different, and 3) some books considered separate books in Christianity are considered a single book in Judaism. Christianity talks about "the 4 Major Prophets and the 12 Minor Prophets". Judaism considers the latter to be a single book, "The Twelve".

Chapter and verse numbers were introduced by Cardinal Stephen Langton, an Archbishop of Canterbury. In some cases what is actually a single unit was split at the wrong point. For instance, the last verse of Genesis One is actually Genesis 2:3. Also, the first verse of each psalm was numbered verse 1--even though in many instances the "verse" is actually instructions to the music director.

Judaism did not immediately adopt the idea of chapter and verse, but when it did some corrections were made. For instance, normally the second "verse" of psalms is numbered 1 because that is the actual beginning and the first "verse" is not numbered.

Christianity divides the Hebrew Bible into five major sections and orders them, Torah (Pentateuch), Historical books, Wisdom Literature, Major Prophets, and Minor Prophets.  The final book of the Old Testament is the minor prophet Malachi.

Judaism divides the Hebrew Bible into three major sections, Torah, Nevi'im, and Kituvim.  (Teaching "Law", Prophets, and Writings).  (The vowels are pronounced like in Spanish or German, so transliterated "i" rhymes with "me", not "my".) Those are combined in an acronym Tanakh (where the kh sounds like clearing one's throat.) The final book of the Hebrew Bible is Second Chronicles. So Tanakh is just another term for Hebrew Bible, and the English version would be called a Tanakh too.

But, again, the overall text of the Hebrew Bible/Tanakh and the Old Testament is the same, just different sequences and chapter/verse numbers.

Bible Codes have to use the Hebrew-language Hebrew Bible text, not the Old Testament sequence.


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.

TSENOCTIAOHIYAOIUEFTBDTSDDUARYADUTFW

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 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 !!!

A number of books were written on this phenomenon in the late 1990's.

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 a smattering of 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.  


MODERN NON-BIBLICAL EXAMPLE OF HIDDEN TEXT

Sounds crazy? Before showing some Bible Code examples, here's an example of an essay by a quantum physics student which he "Rickrolled" by slipping in the entire chorus lyrics to the Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". Story of the essay

I've studied about the early history of quantum physics for years and I can tell you that his essay is not just meaningless "filler"--Gudiseva accurately describes the events.  

Think it's easy? -- Try it! ... Decades ago I handwrote a letter to my 4-year old niece in which I wrote each letter of her name at the beginning of a line, and then I filled in the rest of each line. So each of her names was a separate paragraph, and the overall text discussed a single topic.

Of course, with handwritten text you can easily change the spacing to make it look normal. And I only had to match single letters, not even whole words.

If you do try that, you have to darken or highlight the "special" word or letter, otherwise no one will even notice the hidden text (... well, except a handful of rabbis about 600 years ago who first noticed Bible codes ....)

Or maybe you could do something ... Noteworthy ...

I guess it wouldn't hurt to point out that neither I nor Gudiseva were prophesying future events in our hidden text!

 


CODES ABOUT JESUS IN THE 'SUFFERING
SERVANT' PASSAGE OF ISAIAH 52:13-53:12

 
Name Begins   Word   Ltr   Interval  
Yeshua Shmi
("Jesus is my
name")
53:10 11 4 -20
Nazarene 53:6 11 3 47
Messiah 53:11 1 1 -42
Shiloh 53:12 21 4 19
Passover 53:10 13 3 -62
Galilee 53:7 1 2 -32
Herod 53:6 4 1 -29
Caesar 53:11 7 4 -194
The Evil
Roman City
53:9 13 2 -7
Caiaphas
(high priest)
52:15 7 3 41
Annas
(high priest)
53:3 6 5 -45
Mary 53:11 1 1 -23
Mary 53:10 7 3 6
Mary 53:9 13 3 44
The Disciples 53:12 2 3 -55
Peter 53:10 11 5 -14
Matthew 53:8 12 1 -295
John 53:10 11 4 -28
Andrew 53:4 11 1 -48
Philip 53:5 10 3 -133
Thomas 53:2 8 1 35
James 52:2 9 3 -34
James 52:2 3 4 -20
Simon 52:14 2 1 47
Thaddeus 53:12 9 1 -50
Matthias 53:5 7 4 -11
Let Him Be
Crucified
53:8 6 2 15
His Cross 53:6 2 2 -8
Pierce 52:10 15 3 -92
Lamp of
the Lord
53:5 5 7 20
His Signature    52:7 8 4 49
Bread 53:12 2 3 26
Wine 53:5 11 2 210
From Zion 52:14 6 1 45
Moriah 52:7 4 5 153
Obed 53:7 3 2 -19
Jesse 52:9 3 1 -19
Seed 52:15 2 2 -19
Water 52:7 9 1 -19
Levites 53:3 3 6 19
From the
Atonement
Lamb
52:12 12 2 -19
Joseph 53:2 1 2 210


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


CODES ABOUT JESUS AROUND EXODUS 30:16
 
Name Begins  Word Ltr   Interval   Ends   Word   Ltr  
Yeshua 30:16 19 1 12 30:18 1 2
Nazarene 30:16 15 3 8 30:16 20 4
Messiah 30:13 12 3 60 30:18 3 2
Shiloh 30:14 7 1 40 30:16 12 2
Passover 30:9 7 4 -9 30:10 1 3
Galilee 29:19 7 3 -39 29:21 8 3
Mary 30:15 7 2 60 30:18 11 1
Mary 30:16 13 1 61 30:20 8 2
Mary 30:17 5 3 92 30:23 14 2
Peter 30:16 2 2 32 30:17 1 2
Matthew 30:20 8 2 20 30:21 6 2
John 29:19 9 1 14 29:20 12 2
Andrew 29:27 15 4 115 29:36 7 4
Philip 29:24 9 4 50 29:27 4 5
Thomas 30:18 14 4 11 30:19 7 2
James 30:7 6 2 -59 30:10 14 5
Simon 29:19 7 3 -39 29:21 8 3
Nathanael 30:4 8 2 -100 30:12 8 2
Judas 29:13 9 2 24 29:15 2 1
Thaddaeus 30:16 2 2 32 30:17 1 2
Matthias 30:20 8 2 20 30:21 6 2
Let Him Be
Crucified
30:20 1 1 8 30:20 8 1

 
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.

CodeFinder Bible Codes Software


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Last updated June 4, 2024