A question for the credulous

[Dr. Borodog]

Last night on the History Channel, I watched a hysterically funny "serious documentary" on the so called "Bible Code." The idea is that there are hidden messages "encoded" in the Hebrew Torah, using a method known as Equidistant Letter Skipping (ELS), and that these messages have predicted events that have occured throughout history.

Anybody seen this stuff? Your thoughts?



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You will respect my philosophai.

[Chuck]

The codes are actually in there but so are a vast number of other codes. We don't know which ones are correct until they happen so they can't be used to predict the future. The best that can be done is to show later that they did predict the future.

[Dr. Borodog]

Chuck, you're so dead pan that I can never tell when you're joking. Are you joking?


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You will respect my philosophai.

[Vegetable]

Would you believe him if he said no?

[Quailman]

Interesting. I never heard of it, but this site describes it. Hmmm...

[Chuck]

I saw a program on PBS about it. If you're allowed to use any word spacing you wish you can find short but meaningful looking secret messages in any large amount of text. Then you choose ones that by coincidence remind you of recent events and claim that the book predicted them.

[casinopete]

Quite a few people have gone to some effort to disprove the Bible Code. I think the most common/known/clever/whatever instance was some fellow who found similar prophetic messages in Moby Dick. The conclusion is obvious.

Moby Dick was also divinely inspired. Clearly the first two Testaments just weren't enough, so God provided a third, co-canonical with the first two, and, trust me, whale meat makes for a far tastier Eucharist than unleavened bread.

[Pablo]

The "History" channel???? I don't watch it much, but I always assumed it had some basis in fact.

On the other hand, why would I assume that, since no other source of 'history' seems to value the facts.

[Vinny]

very interesting indeed. How come I never heard of this before?

These patterns are hebrews letters, right? arabics?

(just curious: Boro, do you believe in God?)

[Pablo]

Here's an example, no doubt.

Moses was a greater Hebrew than Jesus.

Oh my god! There's going to be a war!!!!

[Vinny]

I posted that before reading the previous 3 replies.

Why would God use an ELS system for a phonetic language to hide his messages in. That's like being supper devious just for kicks.

Now if you were to say that Tora were actually inspired by a higher form of extraterrial intelligence ...

[This message has been edited by Vinny (edited 02-17-2004 06:50 PM).]

[The Ktulu]

I saw most of this program a couple months ago. The History Channel was on a big religious stretch. Other programs around this time included Jesus of Nazareth, Banned Books of the Bible, Heaven and Hell; and after The Bible Code, a look at the life of Nostradamus was accounted for, probably to go along with the predictions.

Anyway, the Bible Code is debated in the Christian and Jewish communities. Some people point out that this is proof that God exists, because who else can create a language that will be used to tell the story of the religious history of the world as well as have hidden messages planned within the text of the story? (There have also been people who believe in "Theomatics", or Bible Mathematics; these are supposedly numbers, determined by the Hebrew letter/number system, that go along with verses, words, or phrases in the Bible that are used for all instances of an event; 153 fishes were caught by the apostles once, and supposedly, decoding Bible passages around the word fish will give you the number 153.) Other people point out that it is mere coincedence, and the Bible is not to be used for divination; or that it is mere coincedence, and the Bible is a bunch of crap anyway.

I don't know what I think of the Bible Code. I stopped trying to find information about it. I'd prefer just to stick with what I can see and know is there, in the actual Bible itself.

[The Ktulu]

And it's not like they've found extra Scriptures or Teachings of Jesus, so what, really, am I missing?

[Samadhi]

I think they're using it to find out what Jesus would drive.

[Aga]

There is an open forum on this at http://ad2004.com/Biblecodes/Hebrewmatrix/Hebmatrix.html

It shows the matrix theories from folk who have deciphered stuff, and their meanings and scriptures.
Myself, I'm still sceptical.

[Chuck]

A fun thing to do about this would be to get The Bible Code on disk and find codes in it that debunk itself. Then if the author says your codes are just a coincidence then it weakens his claim that such codes mean anything.

[extropalopakettle]

What, nobody checked what Cecil has to say about it?

[Courk]

I would laugh for quite a while if someone found this "code" in one of the Harry potter books. Can you imagine what those gun-ho "Bible Code = good, Harry Potter = bad (even thought I never read Harry Potter, I just know that etc etc etc...)" people would say?

Can you tell I hate it when people argue vehemently against something without even knowing what it's about?

[jesternl]

I've heard of it before, and I think it is just human nature to want to see patterns, essentially the same as seeing images in clouds. Given a sufficiently large text and freedom of choosing the distances between letters, I'm sure you will find codes claiming just about anything.

*goes back to listening to Black Sabbath records playing backwards.

[Dr. Borodog]

The thing that most amazed/disturbed me was the entirely credulous treatment given this bunk by the documentary film makers. Their default position, and even the tense of their sentences, was that the code is esentially indisputable. There were a couple of token statements by credible detractors (like say, Ph.D. statisticians), but these were glossed over.

Anyway, the "code" is indeed a crock. My favorite example of this is found at:

Assassinations Foretold in Moby Dick!


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You will respect my philosophai.

[Dr. Borodog]

And Courk, it's "gung ho."



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You will respect my philosophai.

[Buzzsaw]

I think Courk was describing Rachel Mills.

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teach that man to fish for a lifetime, but first set him on fire so he'll be warm.

[i_h8_evil_stuff]

...

Give me an infinitly long string of completely random letters and I'll "use" it to predict that a plane will crash some day in the future.

[Buzzsaw]

It was just an off color joke. Did I go too far again?

[extropalopakettle]

I didn't even get it until you said it was off color.

[Gun Ho]

I thought it was funny.

[Death Mage]

Yea, I saw that documentary on the Bible Code long ago. Knew it was bunk the moment I saw it. Using the method they used, you could get "predictions" in any text, as the Moby Dick link pointed out. THe documentary was laughable, even more so than the one on Supermassive Black Holes.

[kevinatilusa]

See This Site for a detailed mathematical analysis of the Bible codes.

[ctrlaltdel]

i saw this years ago. but uhm... the same things have been applied to 'mein kampf' and 'war and peace' and codes came up as well...

the way i see it... take a complex enough piece of writing, start applying some method of picking out letters - you're bound to come up with SOMETHING...

then again... the cabbalists have been studying this sort of thing in the jewish writings for ages...

[Antrax]

We learned about it in cryptology. Basically, in a long enough text, you can find just about any not-too-rare-and-not-too-long sentence. Has to do with the entropy of the language, or something.
Antrax

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"Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em" - Lu-Tze, Thief of Time

[kevinatilusa]

mmmm...entropy...

[Aga]

If you want proof about the nutters who exploit this theory, just have a read of the following:
Bible Code Matrix on Rock Music

Originally posted by chap who runs above web site:

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I believe these Bible code matrices confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt the answer to the question of whether rock music is good or bad. The matrices tell us that Rock music, whether secular or Christian, is indeed evil and a very destructive force. This may be hard for some to accept or understand, but the truth still stands and I call on all who claim the name of Jesus to abhor and turn from it.

---

[Antrax]

Um, they translated some words wrong (or very, very loosely). According to that site:
"bribe" = "corruption"
"terrible" = "hellish"
"naughty" = "wicked"
"Rock Music" is misspelled ("Rock" is right, the second word is supposed to be "notes" and not "music", and it's spelled with two errors).
Also, they go back and forth for some reason, reading some of the words from left to right. And lastly, there is no logical order in the words, and they are all made of common Hebrew letters.

I am convinced.
Antrax

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"Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em" - Lu-Tze, Thief of Time

[Antrax]

Oh wow, there's more. Only read the first one. So, new errors-in-translation:
"despise" (the verb) = "abomination" (the noun)
"prevent" = "avoid"
this is really bizzare: "donkey" = "hellish" (or "severe" = "hellish", can't really tell, spelled the same way)
another strange one: "small hole in the ground" = "depression" (ie, they're using the word incorrectly)
That's it that I can see. Feel free to link me to more of these, it's kinda funny.
Antrax


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"Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em" - Lu-Tze, Thief of Time

[Quailman]

So instead of being a spiritual text, the bible is a cosmic word search puzzle. Where's my pencil?

[ZutAlors!]

Does God talk to Borodog? Let's find out. Take his original post and look at every 13th letter; thirteen being the number of disciples + Jesus:

code:

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L a s t n i g h t o n t h


e H i s t o r y C h a n n


e l I w a t c h e d a h y


s t e r i c a l l y f u n


n y s e r i o u s d o c u


m e n t a r y o n t h e s


o c a l l e d B i b l e C


o d e s T h e i d e a i s


t h a t t h e r e a r e h


i d d e n m e s s a g e s


e n c o d e d i n t h e H


e b r e w T o r a h u s i


n g a m e t h o d k n o w


n a s E q u i d i s t a n


t L e t t e r S k i p p i


n g E L S a n d t h a t t


h e s e m e s s a g e s h


a v e p r e d i c t e d e


v e n t s t h a t h a v e


o c c u r e d t h r o u g


h o u t h i s t o r y A n


y b o d y s e e n t h i s


s t u f f Y o u r t h o u


g h t s

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There are three parts here: References to this thread and attitudes therein, references to what I assume is Boro's personal life (although perhaps it's really predictions about the lives of other posters?), and a prediction of the future.

First off, Boro obviously betrays his own disbelief: he reports on this documentary in a "snide" way, and thinks that the conclusions are "moot". However, the evidence and proof is right "Here" under his own nose! It just takes a little "hunt"ing to find it! And once everything is revealed (farther down), he (as well as everyone else posting here) be convinced and use more "tact" in the future.

Second, there's also a reference to "rods", but I'm not sure what it means (maybe we can "Skip" this?). Something personal, perhaps? This could be about Boro, ar perhaps about anyone else who's posted here. And then "soap", crossing with "know" (or maybe "no") in the original text. This is obviously an indication that more bathing (or perhaps less) is called for. Also, we know that whoever "them" is referring to, they are "teen"s (these are coupled by the horizontal "predict"ion). Again, I'm not sure who "they" are, but perhaps Boro can shed some light? Or other posters?

But, finally, the most intriguing thing here is the prediction: the "real" message "lean"s like a "ramp". This is the final word, which is a prediction about presidential advisor Karl "Rove": he's "through"; he's "history" (note the horizontal crosses). Remember this prediction, unbelievers, when it comes true.

[This message has been edited by ZutAlors! (edited 02-19-2004 02:46 PM).]

[Kd]

[jadesmar]

LOL

Well done ZutAlors!

You could try again after removing all the vowels, and adding whatever vowels you want to the resulting messages, whenever you want. I think this may be closer to looking for hidden messages in an ancient Hebrew text.

[Antrax]

Not really, no. There are four vowels in Hebrew (which is why I said they misspelled "notes" -- they use two copies of a vowel instead of one), in addition to the funny points-under-letters thing whose name I don't know in English.
Antrax

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"Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em" - Lu-Tze, Thief of Time

[Dr. Borodog]

Zut,

That was great. You have WAY too much time on your hands.

;-)


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You will respect my philosophai.