It Is Written | THE BIBLE MATRIX #1013-1 Store My Account Contact Site Map Home TV Program Events Resources Studies Make a Gift Partners About Us Program Outlines & Online Viewing | Upcoming Programs | Stations | Program Archives | Production | Global Television IT IS WRITTEN Television Series THE BIBLE MATRIX Production No. 1013 Speaker SHAWN BOONSTRA Script Editor SHAWN BOONSTRA Producer/Director FRED KNOPPER AN IT IS WRITTEN PRODUCTION The invention of the printing press revolutionized Christianity, because it made the information in the Bible readily available to the average person. More than 500 years have gone by since Gutenberg created the moveable type press, and for the most part, his technology has not changed much. Most of us still get the Bible the same way we did back then—written on paper and bound in a book. But today, there are people claiming that the personal computer is going to prove more revolutionary than the printing press in the development of our Christian understanding—and not because of e-books, or the Bible online, or the Internet, as useful as those things might be. Instead, they are talking about a mysterious code hidden in the Bible that they have discovered using computer technology—a code that seems to predict modern-day events and the end of the world. Is it for real? Stay tuned to find out. At the beginning of the last century, a Czechoslovakian rabbi by the name of Michael Weissmandel was thumbing through an old book when something arrested his attention. According to the book, there was a secret code woven through the Torah, or the first five books of the Bible written by Moses. It said that if you skipped every so many letters—for example, if you took every tenth or seventeenth or fiftieth letter—you would find definite patterns and words hidden under the text. He decided to try it, and sure enough, as he manually counted through the letters that made up the Torah, he discovered distinct patterns. Words began to surface, spread out at regular intervals in the Hebrew letters. But it wasn’t quite enough to convince the wise rabbi that there was a secret code in the Bible, because the sheer number of possible combinations available means that you can find some words in any text of any length. His work was laid to rest until recent history, when some students in Israel resurrected it—this time with the help of high-speed computers that were not available in Rabbi Weissmandel’s day. The students were able to check for patterns across great distances in the Bible—like at every 3,000th or 4,000th letter. Using their computers, three modern Israeli mathematicians claimed that they discovered indisputable evidence of a secret code in the Bible. They published their findings in 1994 in the journal Statistical Science, and according to their report, they went into the Encyclopedia of Great Men in Israel and took the names of the 34 historical rabbis who had the longest entries, along with their dates of birth or death and entered it all into a computer. The computer then looked through every possible combination in the book of Genesis, skipping every second letter, every third letter, every fourth letter, and so on until it had exhausted all possibilities. To their surprise, the computer found the names of all thirty-two men, along with the date of their birth or death. Was it a coincidence? The mathematicians didn’t think so, but the skeptics did. They demanded another test. This time a new sample of 32 names was used, and they got the same results. The odds of this happening, they said, were one in 62,000. It wasn’t long after the second test that the so-called Bible codes became a household topic. In 1997, Washington Post reporter Michael Drosnin put out a book that hit the New York Times bestsellers list and is still the most popular and widespread book on the subject. In his book, Drosnin made some rather startling claims about the Bible code. Not only does it contain the names of 32 famous rabbis, he said, but it also contains crucial information that predicts modern-day political events in great detail—like the Kennedy assassination, and much more. Based on the information he found, he wrote an urgent letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1994, and here is what he said: “An Israeli mathematician has discovered a hidden code in the Bible that appears to reveal the details of events that took place thousands of years after the Bible was written. The reason I’m telling you about this, is that the only time your full name—Yitzhak Rabin—is encoded in the Bible, the words ‘assassin that will assassinate’ cross your name. “That should not be ignored, because the assassinations of Anwar Sadat and both John and Robert Kennedy are also encoded in the Bible—in the case of Sadat with the first and last names of his killer, and the date of the murder, and the place, and how it was done. I think you are in real danger, but that the danger can be averted.” In November of 1995, Yitzhak Rabin was indeed assassinated, and Michael Drosnin claims it was then that he became a full believer in the existence of a Bible code. In fact, he goes on to claim that nearly every significant event in modern or near-modern history is encrypted in the Bible code, waiting to be discovered with a computer. Let me read you what he says: “…apparently every major figure, every major event in world history, can be found with the level of encoding we already do know. “All of the leaders in World War II—‘Roosevelt,’ ‘Churchill,’ ‘Stalin,’ ‘Hitler’—are there. ‘America’ and ‘revolution’ and ‘1776’…appear together. ‘Napoleon’ is encoded with ‘France,’ but also with ‘Waterloo’ and ‘Elba.’ The revolution that changed the 20th century, the communist ‘revolution’ in ‘Russia,’ is encoded with the year it triumphed, ‘1917.’ Great artists, writers, inventors and scientists from ancient to modern times are also encoded in the Bible. ‘Homer’ is identified as the ‘Greek poet.’ ‘Shakespeare’ is foretold in a single code sequence that spells out not only his name but his deeds: ‘Shakespeare’—‘presented on stage’—‘Hamlet’—‘Macbeth.’ “‘Beethoven’ and ‘Johann Bach’ are both encoded as ‘German composers,’ and ‘Mozart’ is identified as a ‘composer’ of ‘music.’ ‘Rembrandt’ is encoded with ‘Dutch’ and ‘painter.’ ‘Picasso’ is called ‘the artist.’ Every major advance in modern technology appears to be recorded. The ‘Wright Brothers’ are encoded with ‘airplane.’ ‘Edison’ is encoded with both ‘electricity’ and ‘light bulb.’ ‘Marconi’ is encoded with ‘radio.’ The two scientists who defined the universe for the modern world, ‘Newton’ and ‘Einstein,’ are both encoded in the Bible, each with his major discovery.” Is it really possible that buried beneath the text of the Bible is a detailed record of the world’s history, just waiting to be discovered? Could it be that the fate of modern nations and leaders has already been spelled out, and we are powerless to do anything about it? Furthermore, is the Bible code, as some have claimed, God’s final stamp of authenticity on His book—indisputable proof that it was written by a supernatural intelligence? Many people seem to think so. But let’s pause for a moment before we assume it is true and take a closer look at the so-called Bible code—because as Christians, we owe it to ourselves to put it to the test. Many people assume that because something has to do with the Bible, or associates itself with the Bible, it must be true. But don’t forget that throughout history, people have tried to borrow the Bible’s credibility for their own theories—including the devil. Prev 1 2 3 Next Home | TV Program | Events | Resources | Studies | Make A Gift | Partners | About Us It Is Written Television · Box O, Thousand Oaks, CA 91359 · Tel 805-955-7733 · Fax 805-955-7734 ©Copyright 2004, It Is Written International Television. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | webmaster@iiw.org