Talk:Bible code

Doubted claims?

In the first paragraph, it says that "These claims are strongly doubted by skeptics and by many religious groups." Perhaps "skeptic" has a negative connotation and should be avoided? Given the extremely dubious nature of the claim, one need not have hightened incredulity in order to disbelieve in the Code. 128.135.223.196 16:00, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Before anyone says anything, a quick web search I just did suggests that Brendan McKay (the original author of this article) is indeed the most important sceptical mathematician working on Bible codes. His website on the subject [1] is ranked first in the relevant Google Directory category [2]. The third webpage in the category http://torahcodes.co.il/ has a section on "The Refutation of the Attempts to Invalidate the Torah Codes" [3], where they spend many pages arguing against the work of McKay et. al. -- Tim Starling 09:23, Aug 17, 2003 (UTC)

(See also my talk on The Bible Code page)

88.111.225.212 09:43, 11 January 2007 (UTC)==Questions==

Couple of questions:

• In the paragraph beginning "In 1999, McKay", what were the compilation errors? Were these mathematical errors, errors in the computer program, procedural errors in the experiment (like deciding after the fact what was to be tested)?
• There's a lot of discussion in this article about not being able to replicate the experiments of people who claim the validity of bible codes. I find this surprising, because it seems like the messages are either there or not; i.e. the existence of the message is not in question, just the statistical significance of those messages. (By contrast, it'd make more sense to me someone had claimed that they had perfected cold fusion, but other physicists following the same protocol had failed to demonstrate cold fusion -- they had failed to replicate cold fusion.)

In what way could the experiments not be replicated? For example, were the messages in fact not there? Was there some trickiness with the statistics of "closeness" for which the would-be replicators calculated a different p-value? Did the experiments belong to some class of tests that the replicators could continue with, e.g. maybe there were other great rabbis whose name/dates hadn't been tested the first time?

• Possible minor NPOV issue. Do the proponents of bible codes claim specific ways in which the biblical occurrences are "better" than those in secular works? The wording in the article sounds like they have make vague pronouncements about the bible being better, without really making any argument, which makes them seem kind of pathetic. If they do advance specific claims, the article should at least say what kind of claims, e.g. they claim that the ELS rectangles are smaller or the p-values are lower.

Zashaw 01:45, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

---

Ok, good questions. Let me reply to them here first. I won't edit the article until there is some consensus (but of course someone else might edit it). Let's be good Wikipedians and restrict ourselves to discussing the quality of the article rather than debating the codes themselves.

In the paragraph beginning "In 1999, McKay", what were the compilation errors? Were these mathematical errors, errors in the computer program, procedural errors in the experiment (like deciding after the fact what was to be tested)? -- The word "compiled" is maybe misleading. "collected" would be better. The experiment relied on the appellations (names and nicknames) of the great rabbis, but only used a fraction of the appellations that exist in the literature. The issue is of how the appellations they used were chosen from out of the full set of available appellations. This is important because it is possible to bias the experimental results one way or the other if the selection process is not done objectively.

There's a lot of discussion in this article about not being able to replicate the experiments of people who claim the validity of bible codes. I find this surprising, because it seems like the messages are either there or not; i.e. the existence of the message is not in question, just the statistical significance of those messages. -- None of the experiments involve looking for messages. The experiments involve a definition of the data (for example, names of famous rabbis and their dates of death), plus a mathematical procedure (implemented as a computer program) that takes the data, searches for it coded in the Bible, then finally spits out a single number. The number is supposed to measure the average closeness between the names and the dates. A very small value, for example 0.00001, indicates that the average closeness is much better than one would expect if the codes were just the result of random chance, while a large value, for example 0.3, indicates that nothing beyond chance levels was detected. Witztum and co. obtained very small numbers (suggesting the codes are real), but the replications obtained large numbers (suggesting they are not real). The reason for the difference is that the data is not exactly the same in the original and the replications. The experiment protocol only gives a definition of the data, not the data itself, and different people collecting the data will not get exactly the same result. There are always places were subjective judgements need to be made (for example, whether an unusual spelling should be permitted or not).

Do the proponents of bible codes claim specific ways in which the biblical occurrences are "better" than those in secular works? -- The formal experiments only have one definition of "better", namely the number output by the computer program (see my previous answer). The codes proponents who don't do formal experiments don't usually give a precise definition of "better" but nevertheless claim their examples are better. This includes Michael Drosnin, and also includes almost all the Christian codes proponents. Usually it is a matter of presenting examples and arguing how amazing they are. Or, they show a new style of letter array (for example, one where the ELSs form a geometric pattern) and claim that such things only occur in the Bible. There are many examples of such claims. The problem with this type of thing is that they are too imprecise to investigate scientifically. To make any scientific sense out of it you first have to write a mathematically exact definition of what "better" means, and then you have to test it on data that was not on hand when the definition was written. Incidentally, people like Witztum and Rips agree with me on everything in this paragraph. That is, there is little disagreement over the correct way to run experiments, but there is lots of disagreement over whether particular experiments were in fact run correctly.

-- McKay 04:04, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I mostly agree with your conclusions, but one statement seems to go too far:

"To make any scientific sense out of it you first have to write a mathematically exact definition of what "better" means, and then you have to test it on data that was not on hand when the definition was written." -- Does this mean "whenever I can't get new data on something, I can't ever make scientific sense out of it." ? So, anything I could possibly say about Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 doesn't make any scientific sense, either? Spending a lot of time discussing various ways Drosnin et. al. could have cheated occasionally sounds like discussing the various ways Neil Armstrong et. al. could have faked the Apollo moon landing -- Apollo moon landing hoax accusations. If at all possible, I'd like to apply Hanlon's razor Wikipedia:Assume good faith -- assume Drosnin accurately reported his experiments, and show how he was mistaken in his results, rather than discuss how he could have deliberately lied about his experiments. --DavidCary 30 June 2005 17:58 (UTC)

• "Assume good faith" applies to other Wikipedia editors, not everyone in general. I really doubt that these researchers were completely honest and just stupid. It appears that they found a couple interesting coincidences, then decided to find, or if that fails, make, as many more as they could. --brian0918™ 30 June 2005 19:29 (UTC)

things kind of like Bible Codes, but not exactly the same

theomatics

The Bible Code(s) remind me of another bit of pseudoscience from the 1970's, a book titled "Theomatics" by Del Washburn. An acquaintance urged me to read it at the time. I browsed it and it basically seemed like a form of (new age) numerology applied to the Bible. Apparently Washburn has continued his "research" to recent times.

I know that Theomatics has a completely different geneology than the more recent Bible Code as reported by Drosnin, the two are not directly related, but should some mention of theomatics perhaps be added to the article as another example of a mystical Bible-related psuedoscience?

Grizzly 04:37, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, it could be mentioned but others too. There is also "Bible Numerics" that has a longer history than Theomatics. I guess various kabbalistic practices are even older. Also slightly similar are some numerical patterns in the Quran and some other books (eg. Tamil sacred texts). --McKay 05:48, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Codes in Qur'an

This article should mention or at least provide a link to codes some believe exist in the Qur'an. This site has a number of links for both Bible and Qur'an: [4] — Hippietrail 23:24, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

in general

Hello. Why is it that people named this article Bible codes, when in fact it should be named Torah codes. Bible contains both Old and New Tetstament, where old testament is not accurately translated. The only book that has been reported (in Statisitcal Journal) to have the statistically significant codes is the Hebrew Bible (Torah), not new testament and not Quaran. So, why do we always have to "plagiarize" or "close our eyes" on Judaism. There is not reason to be politically correct here, instead this article should convey the fact of the research i.e. so far only TORAH has been show to have this unique quality: torah codes. Also why is this article focuses so much on skeptical arguments against the codes, instead of actually explaining how the codes are derived, and talking about future directions of this research, such as solving multi-dimentional codes.

-- I think that might require a less specific article, such as Scripture Codes. If you want one for Qu'ran codes, make one for Qu'ran codes. -shrugs.- --Thorns Among Our Leaves 19:37, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The problem there is that there is that "scripture code" could be a neologism --Tydaj 21:07, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It seems like the better article title would be something more general, like Equidistant Letter Sequencing, or some variant. The more specific "Scripture Codes" assumes there can't be codes outside of the various scriptures, which has been shown not to be true, as other large texts (Moby-Dick being the oft-mentioned example) have turned up similar ELS. --brian0918™ 22:09, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No no no. The whole world knows this as "Bible Codes" (thank you, Michael Drosnin); only the theorists call it ELS. JFW | T@lk 22:20, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Alright, but the article Bible code should stick only to the Bible. It should have a link to a more general article which would have a collection of info on other codes, such as in other scriptures or in Moby-Dick. --brian0918™ 22:23, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Because I don't like stub articles, I would prefer for you to stick such information in the closest article that already exists. Would any of this information (or information already in the article) be more appropriate in the Steganography article? A couple of semi-unrelated sentences won't hurt. If that section grows *larger* than a few sentences, *then* we can split the article. BigBucketsFirst. --DavidCary 30 June 2005 17:58 (UTC)

schizophrenia

Last edit has schizophrenia under 'See also'... Am I missing something or is someone having a laugh? San de Berg 15:12, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Bible codes are very popular among schizophrenics. Anthony DiPierro 18:29, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I removed the sentence "The belief is especially popular in many mental hospitals where schizophrenia is prevalent." from the opening paragraph. Although I believe the truth in this sentence, it seems to be positioned there in order to ridicule the hypothesis (which, by the way, I don't believe in, it seems to be ridiculuos, but heck, we are writing about it, not judging it).

I think it would be OK to return this sentence, but only in a proper context, explaining, that schizophrenia and paranoia often go together and that this combination often leads to less skepticism towards some strange theories like conspiracy theories, alien mind control beams or the bible code. I'm no expert in that, that's why I don't update it. --denny vrandečić 18:44, Feb 26, 2004 (UTC)

I don't see any better place to put it without restructuring the entire article. As for it "ridiculing" the hypothesis, it's a ridiculous "hypothesis" (it's not really a hypothesis at all, as it's not disprovable). Presenting the facts in an NPOV manner is naturally going to bring out the fact that it's ridiculous. I can't help that. The belief that God is sending you messages encoded in texts is one of the defining characteristics of many schizophrenics. NPOV is neutral point of view, not sympathetic point of view. Anthony DiPierro 18:50, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Anthony, please, don't misunderstand me. I agree with you totally, and I think that Bible codes are pretty heavy nonsense, but NPOV does not, in my opinion, include judging or presenting facts, as true as they are, in a way that leads easily to judgement. I have added one more sentence from your comment here to it and put it down to the criticsm section, maybe it's better there. --denny vrandečić 19:11, Feb 26, 2004 (UTC)

It's not a criticism, so that's not a good place to put it. Also, your use of my (awkward) sentence is not really appropriate. It's just not phrased carefully enough for an encyclopedia. And the use of "therefore" is completely incorrect. There is no cause and effect relationship between those two sentences.

As for judging, I am not judging, and there's nothing wrong with presenting facts which lead easily to judgement, especially when there's no other reasonable judgement which can be made. For now I'll leave your sentence where it is and how it is, because the only other solution I can come up with right now is a pure revert. Anthony DiPierro 19:20, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Better? I tried to rephrase it further, maybe it's clearer now.

I think presenting facts in a way leading easily to judgment is as bad as judging itself, if not even worse (because the reader thinks of it as his own conlusion, but he was just manipulated to make it himself). The whole idea of bible codes is ridiculous enough by itself.

I mean the sentence discussed could well be put into the articles on aliens and Conspiracy theories, but it isn't there either. Maybe a even more appropriate place would be the schizophrenia article itself. --denny vrandečić 19:38, Feb 26, 2004 (UTC)

I agree, however it was objected when I merely put a link to schizophrenia under "See Also." I think presenting facts in a way leading easily to judgemennt is the purpose of an encyclopedia. I'm not talking about manipulating facts. I'm talking about presenting them in a clear manner. I still don't like the phrasing, and "thus" means the same as "therefore." If we're going to phrase it as a cause and effect, then "Belief that God is sending messages encoded in texts is a common delusion among the mentally ill (especially scizophrenics), many of whom have picked up on the concept of bible codes. Abandoning even the small semblance of scientific rigor contained in a formal study of these codes, a mutated version of such theories is commonly encountered in mental hospitals." Anthony DiPierro 20:04, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The schizophrenia sentence is just too bad for words. I've worked with a number of schizophrenics as a doctor, and - believe me - they'll believe anything as long as it's out of the ordinary. I worked with a guy who wouldn't stop listening to music on his headphones, to the point that he developed bilateral otitis externa, because he got these interesting "messages" in his music. For example, he thought the Red Hot Chili Peppers were singing "Under the Bridge" in celebration of his attemped suicide under a bridge. He could not be convinced of the fact that the song was written years before his TS. To pair Bible Codes and schizophrenia is stigmatising on both sides, and I argue in favour of its removal. Jfdwolff 19:57, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps you've only worked with the worst cases. I know a number of schizophrenics who won't "believe anything as long as it's out of the ordinary." Anthony DiPierro 20:10, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Sorry Anthony, I was indeed generalising. The point remains the same that exotic theories with a metaphysical bent do occasionally find an audience in people with a chronic delusional psychosis.Jfdwolff 21:33, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, that point is what convinced me to remove the sentence. Who knows, maybe there are sane people who believe in this stuff. I don't know well enough to claim there aren't. Anthony DiPierro

I'm not really sure that the link to 'A Beautiful Mind' is relevant to Bible codes, since there was nothing in the movie whatsoever that dealt with finding codes in the Bible.
Also, I don't like the sentence "A significant number of Christian teachers continue to promulgate the Bible code theory." I have never in my life met a Christian teacher who stated belief in this theory, and there seems to be no evidence to provide backing to this statement. Nondescript

Several of the recent documentaries filmed about the "Bible Codes" phenomenon have been backed by Christian groups. There are many Jews who object to the Bible Codes "research" on religious grounds, too. The fact of the matter is, in either religion there are those who would like to believe in the codes and those who recoil from such belief, on religious as well as skeptical-scientific grounds. I don't think anyone can speak for an entire religion. Either mention the fact that both religions have both supporters and opponents of the Bible Code phenomenon, or don't mention it at all. --Woggly 05:02, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't really see the need to mention that most of the supporters are Jews and Christians. I think that fact is pretty self-evident. Most of the believers of the Piltdown man were people who believed in evolution. It's like stating the obvious.

I think I will take out the link to 'A Beautiful Mind'. That link should be left to the schizophrenia article --Nondescript

Rabin's assasination

I have a problem with the following paragraph in the article:

Drosnin's major success was to predict the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, using the Bible code.

Did he really predict the assasination or did he find hints to it later on? That is a major difference and should be expressed properly. Erdal Ronahi 09:07, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, Drosnin actually wrote Rabin a letter warning him that he would be assasinated, so yes, he can be said to have "predicted" it. However, this was at a time when Rabin was getting death threats right and left and arguing with his bodyguards over whether he should wear a bullet-proof vest, so it wasn't all that fantastical a prediction. --Woggly 10:30, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Can we have some proof of what the page claims, namely that he predicted this with the aid of Bible codes? An article explaining how he did it? Something to back up such an extraordinary claim? Gadykozma 15:03, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There is testimony that he did in fact make the prediction. Whether or not the Bible Codes aided him in making this prediction, no one can prove. I can make a cup slide across the table without touching it. Uri Geller would claim this is telekinesis - I say it's elementary physics. Or in other words, Drosnin's prediction, real or not, fails to impress me. I could sit down today and write letters to ten major political figures, warning them that they will be assasinated some time in the future: George Bush, Ariel Sharon, Yassir Arafat... if it never happens, nobody will ever know about these letters. If it does happen to a single one of them, my letter will be called a "prediction". I will also be a able to take credit for "saving" the other leaders, who heeded my warning... So Drosnin's claim is not as extraordinary as it may seem. But in answer to your question, the fact of the warning has been verified by the Israeli press, there was an article in Yediot in which some of Rabin's advisors were interviewed, Chaim Guri (an Israeli author) knew the story in advance and has confirmed it. I feel I should state again, that I'm related to one of the players on the "codebusters'" side of this story. --Woggly 06:48, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Did Drosnin, in fact, make this prediction about any other public figures? And I submit that the idea an Israeli Prime Minister would be assassinated was without precendent; indeed, even after it happened many could not believe it. Jayjg 02:38, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The question is not how many assassinations he predicted, but how many predictions he did in general... if you predict lots of stuff some of it will come true. If you predict a lot of stuff, some of it that is really sensational will come true. Gadykozma 11:54, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

O.K., how many predictions did he make in general? Jayjg 14:40, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Right :-O Gadykozma 02:07, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Actually someone tried to assassinate Ben-Gurion once by throwing a grenade into the Knesset chamber. I forget the details. Concerning Rabin, the possibility of an attack by Arabs was taken very seriously and most of the effort at protecting Rabin was put there. However, Drosnin did not predict that Rabin would be killed by a Jew, so the fact that this possibility was not taken seriously except by a few does not count in his favor. --Zero 11:36, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"letter frequencies" confusion

I've removed the sentence:

For example, they may have preferred spellings where letter frequencies closely matched that of the Torah overall.

Because it's a bit confusing. The names searched for were limited to a certain number of characters (I think 7). The frequencies found in the Torah are "leaps" (ELS's) of tens of thousands of letters. One couldn't humanly choose names that would in advance be guaranteed to give good results. However, there was enough "wiggle space" in the definitions of their experiment, that with a truly miminal amount of fiddling and trial and error one could conceivably shape a list to meet the requirements. In fact, McKay's team proceeded to create such a list, only very slightly different from the list tested in the Torah, that gave even better results (to a power of ten) when tested in a Hebrew translation of War and Peace. (One of the scientists mentioned in this article is my mother). --Woggly 15:14, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

• Given several different spellings of a name, you are correct that one could, by trial and error, eliminate the variants that don't occur and pick (one of) the spelling(s) that do occur. I think we both agree that would be "cheating".
• Given several different spellings of a name, it *is* humanly possible to choose one that would *probably* give better results. For example, in English, since "s" is far more common than "z" (in most English texts), I expect the word "fuse" to occur far more often as an ELS than the word "fuze". That doesn't guarantee that the word "fuse" is actually encoded in a particular English text, and it doesn't rule out the possibility that "fuze" might be encoded in a particular English text. I could pick the spelling that uses fewer of the "rare" letters, and therefore is more likely to exist.

Picking the spelling that is more likely to exist, is not as bad as picking a spelling that we know exists. But that's the sort of cheating that sentence was intended to imply.

How could we make this less confusing?

--DavidCary 30 June 2005 17:58 (UTC)

English translation as example

I love how the example given in the article uses the English translation instead of the original language. Instead of providing evidence for the code, they're unwittingly refuting their own claims. Well done! (This also assumes that there is a correct English translation, even more hilarious). -- BRIAN0918  06:13, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Your additions violate the Wikipedia rule against posting original research or personal opinions. They are also wrong. Letter arrays like that can be found in any text, it has nothing to do with translations. On the other hand, someone believing that codes were put into a particular Bible text by God does not need to believe anything about English, since it could be done by God guiding the hand of the translator. So neither the believer nor the skeptic needs to buy your ideas. --Zero 08:18, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My original addition did violate the rule and was POV, but I had a lengthy (1 hour) discussion on #wikipedia with User:Silsor and NullC (and others who added their comments for consideration along the way to consensus) and we came to agree on the final version which I submitted. They helped me turn it from an arbitrary opinion into something factual and neutral. One of the main claims of proponents of the Bible code is that the ELS found in the Bible are extremely rare or impossible to come about by accident, and one of the challenges made by the originators of the code research was to find such codes in other texts, such as Moby Dick. Since such codes have since been found in Moby Dick, one has to either admit that it is evidence against the code in the Bible being real, or believe that Moby Dick was also written/influenced by God (which some people actually did do after the Moby Dick researcher published his results). The same goes with other translations of the Bible. The English language has no real similarities to Hebrew, so there's really no way that ELS would be transferred from Hebrew to English. So the fact that such "rare" ELS are found in the English translation means that either Bible code ELS is not rare like proponents want to claim (the simple explanation), or that the English language/translation was also created/influenced by God (or through careful non-supernatural construction). -- BRIAN0918  13:18, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I did work on neutralizing brian's contribution with him. I'd rather comment on specifics right now, though. silsor 00:02, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

Moved talk from article

[Addendum as of 20 April 2005] As someone who has worked with the Torah, searching for coded patterns and codes that extend into three dimensional space in a given body of text, I have been somewhat apalled by the lack of criticism concerning Dr. Brendan McKay, and his "Moby Dick" and "War and Peace" codes,.. The one main point that seems to not be brought to the fore in most arenas of argument is that in the case of Torah Codes, those codes that have proven to be the most real and proveable have been the codes that interact with the textual body in which they are found!

Dr. McKay, like some stubborn and unruly child spits criticism as though it were fact. And yet his "codes" can in no way claim to pertain to the actual body of text in which they are found. There is another matter that is frequently overlooked: The most original and proveable codes (hidden text within the text) that come forth are from the Five Books of Moses. This is the body of work that is most likely to provide any true proof of Torah Codes. These five books have been keep under the most strict of scribal laws. And it is (in this persons opinion) the only real source of 'Torah Codes' that can be taken seriously.

In conclusion, the fact that ELS (Equal Letter Sequencing) is the ONLY way being investigated is something that begs the question: What of the traditions that speak of 50 gates to the Torah or more? If one permutes the letters contained in the Torah (304,805) and applies the keys given by ancient scholars and modern, then seeks the guidance of the one that the Books are about in the first place, perhaps understanding will show itself in this matter. Until then there is only a bunch of argument and misguided judgements and meandering speeches that only serve to discredit a true marvel. 209.191.206.138 Apr 20, 2005

I don't think McKay is an antisemite. Like other participants at the Internet Infildels, he does have a bias against religion in general.

A marvel without room for doubt does not exist in this world. JFW | T@lk 01:16, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

While I have nothing against Internet Infidels, for the record I can't recall ever having particpated there.--McKay 06:04, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"ELS (Equal Letter Sequencing) is the ONLY way being investigated is something that begs the question": No. The refutation of that method also shows that Bible Code believers are innumerate and don't know how to tell random patterns from real ones. McKay knows how to do it (look at a random book as well as the Torah, and handle both equally), and they don't. Their other methods are bound to contain the same rookie mistakes. --Hob Gadling 10:38, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

Phrases like "...like some stubborn and unruly child spits..." and "only a bunch of argument and misguided judgements and meandering speeches" automatically generate scepticism/disbelief among the curious and otherwise uninvolved. "Many people" would assume that if you look hard enough at any text you will be able to find numerical and other patterns (look at how analyses of what Nostradamus' writings mean have changed over time).

Has anyone got a cryptography expert of a neutral persuasion (ie not atheist but someone who is not involved in the cultural background of the case) to do an analysis?

An atheist should, in fact, be ideal,, as they [a true atheist] cannot have any vested interest in a particular result; if the result shows that the Bible Code may be genuine, they will retest it, or convert! What is important is that the tester is impartial and fully comprehends the scientific technique and its interpretation.Asteroceras 12:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

End all dissimilar views with tests. Find the truth

I Call for extensive independant completely unbiased scientifically verifiable statistical analysis of all major claims independantly with controls. It is irrelavent what the outcome is as to the scientific method employed and the qualification of those conducting the experiments.

As far as I can tell, there are enough basic definitions as well as methods of testing to carry out such results with verifiable factual results. To my knowledge a good control would be another hebrew text, and major claims include occurence of statistically impossible occurences of specific identified words of various types: self-referencing, verifiable facts, and future predictions(not necessarilly all types).

If I am mistaken or if there is no-one qualified to do such testing, then propose an alternative please(or state concerns). I would also like exactly the same procedures to be seriously applied to all desputed verifiable or repeatable claims of any impact.

How is this relevent to the article? --Tydaj 23:16, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear anon, when WRR attempted to find the truth their paper was reviewed in a hostile fashion and massacred by skeptics in their blogs. The truth is a matter of opinion here; whatever test you do, there will always be characters who cannot live with the results. JFW | T@lk 23:26, 31 October 2005 (UTC) There can't be a definitive answer as to the truth of a bible code even is there is one until a definite test that allows searches past present and future. When past, present and future information is found and proved to be repeatable and verifiable we will have an answer. At best the current method of skip searches can be classed as little more than random searches. What is needed is a definitive method such as being able to search by time, date, location etc. This may be possible if one could in some way link the bible to astrology/astroomy as the heavens remain consistent over time. User Kaye 11 Jan 2007

In reply to Kaye's suggestion above, there can't be a definitive answer as to the truth of anything, only disproof. Astrology is not a scientific discipline and it has certainly not remained constant or consistent over time! For example, modern "star signs" assigned by date-of-birth did not exist in the mediaeval period or before, though the constellations themselves were mostly named in ancient times. As for astronomy remaining constant, numerous stars are variable over periods from hours to years (that is, they fade from visible to invisible [to the naked eye] and vice-versa) and several stars have literally exploded since the writing of the religious scriptures in question. Additionally, stars move through the galaxy, at a sufficient rate for some of them to have visibly changed over a lifetime (cf Barnard's Star). To link both astrology and astronomy, the defined boundaries and constituent stars of the constellations have also changed through time, with Scorpius being an example of an ancient constellation that has lost stars to a neighbouring constellation. Astrological references from "bible times" certainly do exist, but nothing that could be termed astronomical and of sufficient accuracy for use in a scientific analysis of the Bible Code. To sum up, astrology would be a very poor subject to base a test around for numerous reasons, while astronomy has too short a history as a science to use in this respect.Asteroceras 13:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The truth is that the original research did show tight connection between a list of names and a list of dates and this supports at least the possibility that whoever the parents of those babies consulted before naming their newborn babies did use this "proximty technique" with the Hebrew Torah and not with Tolstoy... Ofer Hadas. Hadaso 08:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The truth is that the original research "cooked" the results. The question whether or not the Torah is a divine text is not a scientific question and cannot be answered using scientific methods. But the question "does the Torah contain famous Rabbi names above what is statistically reasonable?" can be scientifically defined. But, as any basic course in statistics can show you, virtually everything can be proved using bad statistics. You know the saying: "the are lies, there are hideous lies, and there's statistics". Well, go ahead and find out for yourself. The bible text and programs for searching codes are all available in the net. Pick a list of things you expect to find in the text, and search for it. Then compare with what you can find in other texts. See if you get statistically meaningful results. I tried it myself a few years back, and I found that 'The Hobbit' was much better at fortune telling than the bible. mousomer 08:03, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Religioustolerance.org

This article uses the religioustolerance.org website as either a reference or a link. Please see the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Religioustolerance.org and Wikipedia:Verifiability/Religioustolerance.org as to whether Wikipedia should cite the religioustolerance.org website, jguk 14:08, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

My name

I just wantted to know what my name saiys in the bible code or if there is anything at all about me and my future.

The real question is, what does Moby Dick say about your name. --XAlpha 15:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Moby Dick says blub blub blub. As for the anon: there are software packages that let you check Bible Codes. I have no access to them at this point, but google is your friend. JFW | T@lk 15:24, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Anonymous

Shouldn't the article state that the proponents said they repeated the succeeded experiment with a few test texts (some of them being just the Torah, with the lines or words randomly exchanged) and the results they got were way worse than the results obtained with the original text?

Yes. But in that case, it should also say what they didn't do: namely start out with the test text, trying to find connections in that, and then repeat the succeeded experiments from that with the Torah. If they had done that, probability says the results they would have gotten would have been way worse than the results obtained with the test text. That they didn't do that second test is proof that they are incompetent as researchers. --Hob Gadling 20:08, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Problems with this article

I have some major problems with this article, especialy it being a FA. In sevral places the prose doesn't flow well. In ohter places the text doesn't make sense, like here:

"Additionally, since the English translation (of which there are hundreds of versions to choose) is not the original text of the Bible, this would require one to believe in the design of the English language or translation—either through the influence of an omniscient entity, or through careful construction"

Now, what is that supposed to mean. The bible code is in Hebrew, it's not meant to be translated. The Enlgish langaugae wasn't designed to be compatible with ancient Hebrew. It doesn't work traslated. This sentence among others makes no sense.

Also, this article has one picture, just one; And the pic shows the bible code on a traslation. The part of the definition of the code it is in Hebrew. The picture itself is inaccurate.

As for this article being featured; an "overview" section should be the intro. This article has an intro, then an overview. This article has way too many redlinks, unorganized refs, and just looks bad visualy. Also, there are no inline citations

If these problems are not fixed I will nominate this on WP:FARC Tobyk777 03:29, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

There are several other disqualifying flaws. We simply don't possess the "original Hebrew text" of the writings which were (several centuries later) fashioned into the Hebrew Bible. There's an enormous question as to whether there _ever_ was a unitary, "canonical" text of the Torah before it was written down--but if there was, we don't have it today. Among the oldest, most relied-upon manuscript sources which we do have for the text of the Torah in Hebrew, no two of them agree as to the number of characters which any of the five books ought to contain. And remember, this type of "code" is ruined if even one character is added or taken away.

Hebrew orthography changed considerably over the centuries. Every single verse, in even the oldest manuscripts that we have today, contains a higher letter count than it would have had in the forms of Hebrew spelling which were current when these writings are believed to have emerged. This has mainly to do with the gradual incorporation of letters to indicate long vowels, as is described elsewhere on Wikipedia. Drosnin by his own admission is no Torah scholar, and if I'm not mistaken doesn't even speak or read Hebrew. He doesn't seem to realize how deep the textual problems are. The "Masoretic text" to which he refers, as if it were a fixed and stable thing, isn't unambiguous or uncontroversial--plus it uses the later type of spellings (i.e. all the verses are longer in it than they would have been "originally").

His "find" concerning Yitzhak Rabin is on the cover of the book. It's a real attention-getter, and seems to lend him some credibility, as if the predictive power of a scientific hypothesis had been tested and verified. The Hebrew which he renders as "assassin [who] will assassinate" are in what we know today as Deuteronomy 4:42. I would say that a certain chutzpah factor seems to be involved here, however, since anyone can read this verse and observe that it it's really about cities where people could take refuge _if they killed someone by accident_ (e.g. "[41] Then Moses set aside three cities on the east side of the Jordan, [42] to which a manslayer could escape, one who unwittingly slew a fellow man without having been hostile to him in the past; he could flee to one of these cities and live; ..."). So the big "money shot" of the book misses its mark.

As Wikipedians we must adopt a neutral point of view--we shouldn't specify where this book lies on the spectrum between fraud and self-deception, since we can't really know. But it's surely not on any spectrum that includes "could be valid." DSatz 22:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

"Apocalypse" prediction for 2006

I read that The Bible Code predicts 2006 as being the date of the apocalypse, possibly in the form of a nuclear war in the Middle East. Is this actually the case? Can anyone give a cite for this? -- Karada 08:30, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I read that too. But I don't have the book anymore. Sorry Tobyk777 23:36, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

He states such in a BBC interview.

"MICHAEL DROSNIN: The warnings that are most clearly stated in the code are (a) the world will face global economic collapse starting in the Hebrew year 5762. 2002 in the modern calendar. We know that one came true. (b) this will lead to a period of unprecedented danger as nations with nuclear weapons become unstable and terrorists can buy or steal the power to destroy whole cities. After 9/11 no one doubts it. And then of course there's the most terrible of the three predictions, god help us if this one comes true. The danger will peak in the Hebrew year 5766, 2006 in the modern calendar. The year that is most clearly encoded with both world war and atomic holocaust." Patken4 15:58, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, the prediction is proven false. It's already into the year 2007 and nothing apocalyptic has happened.

I believe that it pridictes that WWIII will start as a neucleur war in 2006, looking back, it seems as if this is wrong, however it may be that future historiens may deside that the official date for WWIII is, in fact 2006. --Robin63 19:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

There are three interesting points to draw from this section (""Apocalypse" prediction for 2006"). Firstly, as it is now 2007, it did not happen. Second to this, as Robin 63 says, maybe in the future, our date system will be revised, just as the date of zero AD has migrated over time (I think it is currently at 12 BC in the current system). Hovever... if it is really a prediction it will be of little use if we cannot determine the date in out current system!

Third, in response to Patken4: (a) the world will face global economic collapse starting in the Hebrew year 5762. 2002 in the modern calendar. We know that one came true. (b) this will lead to a period of unprecedented danger as nations with nuclear weapons become unstable and terrorists can buy or steal the power to destroy whole cities. After 9/11 no one doubts it. In reality, there was an economic slump in 2001 and by 2002 we were in the recovery period. So,there was no "global economic collapse" in Hebrew year 5762. As yet, no nations with nuclear weapons have become unstable; if anything, nuclear powers are moving toward ever greater stability. For example, North Korea is actually discussing disarmament with the US. The phrase "After 9/11 no one doubts it" is somewhat meaningless, and does not belong on what is supposed to be a factual website. EDIT 1a: My username was not appended. EDIT 1b: North Korea have since agreed to disarm, so there is one less nuclear weapon state to worry about.Asteroceras 15:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• I was merely quoting Michael Drosnin, so those statements attributed to me aren't mine. Also, there's no point in adjusting 2006 to whatever calendar comes in the future. Drosnin clearly states the "modern calendar" and equates 2002 to 5762 in the Hebrew calendar. There really can be no adjustment on that. Even if a future modern calendar is 2006, the Hebrew calendar won't be 5766. It should also be noted that the 2006 Drosnin uses ended in September 2006, when the Hebrew calendar changed from 5766 to 5767. Patken4 22:21, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Please help me keep the external links organized!

Hi all, I reorganized the links and added some context for each link. I think this is important since it helps readers who are not familiar with ergodic theory or whatever to judge the relative reliability of the sources. No doubt subsequent editors will (unintentionally) mess this up; I hope some kind editor will try to maintain order and to continue to provide some salient facts giving a bit of context for each website which might be cited.

I also added a few internal links. Right now the relevance of ergodic theory, combinatorics, symbolic dynamics, Ramsey theory might not be relevant; hence the todo list.---CH 09:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Crank magnet articles

I am looking for information from experienced WP editors on the problem of keeping good editors on Wiki. See the page here User:Dbuckner/Expert rebellion

This is no more than a list of people who have left Wikipedia, or thinking of leaving, or generally cheesed off, for the reason (1) what I will unpolitely call 'cranks', i.e. people engaged in a persistenta and determined campaign to portray their highly idiosyncratic (and dubious) personal opinion as well-established mainstream scientific or historical fact, or 'crank subculture' i.e. fairly sizeable subcultures which adhere strongly to various anti-scientific conspiracy theories (e.g. Free energy suppression) or anti-scientific political movements (e.g. Intelligent design) masquerading as "scholarship". (2) the problem of edit creep, i.e. the tendency of piecemeal editing to make articles worse over time, rather than better.

If you are in this category, leave a link to your user page there. If you can, put something on your user page that indicates reason for discontent. I particularly like war stories, so let me have any of those (links please, not on the page).

There is a more general discussion of this issue on Lina Mishima's page. User:LinaMishima/Experts Problem Note I am not in agreement with her title as it is not in my view a problem about experts, but more of adherence to scholarly standards, ability to put polished and balanced articles together. But her idea is good.

I don’t know much about this subject except that it's a possible crank magnet. If you know of any other, let me know, or even better, cut and paste this message on those pages. I'm going round the obvious places like intelligent design, Goedel, Cantor and so forth, but there must be many such. Dbuckner 15:00, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

November 8th article hijacking

I have already reverted the twice, citing the extensive, biased, and, "copy and paste" editing of an anonymous users User:87.103.49.4 and User:87.103.46.0 who seems to making similiar edits to bible code related articles. I hereby request that this article be locked from editing from anonymous and newly registered users.--Kenn Caesius 23:22, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

The additions are in fact a copyright violation of material from here. McKay 03:25, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

pov

I would love to note on the article that it is subject to biases.

While I am not here to doubt Brendan McKay's professionality, there is no doubt that he is the biggest and most outspoken critic of the Codes.

This article is in a sense written by him. You can see that he initiated it, and continues to maintain it regularly.

Does it make any sense to consider "neutral" someone with such a vested interested in the debate? That does not make any sense to me.

What Wikipedia policy requires that an author or editor must have a neutral point of view? The Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy requires that an article must be written from a neutral point of view, but not that an article's authors or editors must have a neutral point of view.

AviN1 04:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Realistically, I would hardly expect from someone being the sharpest critic of the "torah codes" to be able to present a neutral representation of the controversy. Do you think he can? ~~ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.130.133.221 (talk) 03:11, 2 January 2007 (UTC).

It is irrelevant whether either of us believes McKay can present a neutral representation of the controversy. The relevant question is whether there are contributions made by McKay that violate the NPOV policy. If there are, then these contributions should be corrected. Can you point me to a contribution made by McKay that violates the NPOV policy?

AviN1 20:49, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Could someone please add some examples?

I am interested in this "Bible Code" ideas, and would like to see some more examples of things that the Bible code has "predicted." Could someone please add a section to this article giving examples of things that the Bible Code has predicted? I think that would be very helpful. Thank you --Robin63 19:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The place to look is Google.com. The idea of Wikipedia.com is to give information about subjects, not comprehensive examples.Asteroceras 14:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, we are not limited by space requirements, so more examples would always be better, as long as they're useful to the article. Λυδαcιτγ 04:12, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Subtle change

The article previously said:

"These codes were made famous by the book The Bible Code, that mistakingly claims that these codes can predict the future. Drosnin, using Bible Codes, predicted nuclear holocausts and the destruction of major cities by earthquakes in 2006. These predictions did not come true, casting serious doubt on the whole paradigm."

The author of the books in question makes the following observation:

Bible Code II --

"The Bible code is not a prediction that we will all die in 2006. It is a

warning that we might all die in 2006, if we do not change our future. What

we do here and now, here on Earth, will determine our fate."

The Bible Code --

"'Code will save' appears right above 'atomic holocaust,' just below 'the

End of Days.'

"It is not a promise of divine salvation. It is not a threat of inevitable

doom. It is just information. The message of the Bible code is that we can

save ourselves. In the end, what we do determines the outcome."

I am not an expert in this area, not even close. But it does seem a bit much to say that he predicted things when he specifically disclaims it. At the same time, even what appears in the book is sufficient that the repeated empirical failures do case doubt on the entire paradigm. (To say the least.) So I changed the sentences to attempt to reflect that.

I am editing as an ordinary editor in this case, trying to help get us to accuracy and NPOV.--Jimbo Wales 04:50, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Torah written by aliens?

That was a really biased way of putting it. An anon ip number added that. As this article is the subject of an ongoing WP:BLP situation, and still needs a fair amount of work, I am going to semiprotect it for now.--Jimbo Wales 03:57, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

This claim was (I think) made in The Bible Code II. It's discussed here, but I think that Ingermanson's review may not illustrate Drosnin's full position on the subject. I don't have the book, but using Amazon Reader, I found this sentence on page 176: "And there was much more in the code that appeared to confirm that the code key really did arrive from another planet." But Drosnin seems to be uncertain, saying on page 213, "I didn't want a metaphysical concept. I wanted hard evidence. Did the Bible code come from a man, a god, or an alien?" Maddeningly, I can't see what he concludes in the following pages. If anyone has a copy of the book, please share Drosnin's conclusion. Λυδαcιτγ 01:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I have the book. (It was a gift from a well-meaning friend who didn't know any better.) The page numbers are off from what you found on Amazon (maybe hard back vs paperback?) In chapter 10, pg 173-4, he talks about the improbability of contact with aliens, then says, "what if the long-awaited contact with another intelligence actually took place long ago? What if the Bible code is, in fact, the contact? From the outset of my quest, I had known that there was something otherworldly about the Bible code. No human being could have looked 3000 years ahead and encoded the details of today's world into the Bible." (Fortunately, the space aliens have time travel. I think I saw this episode of Star Trek. Anyway, moving on ...) He goes on to speculate that both the Bible code and human life were planted by aliens. He cites Francis Crick as confirming "DNA was brought in a vehicle", which is found in the code. Your quote from 213 is on page 181 in my book. After he says, "I want hard evidence", he says that he found "in steel" and "obelisks" near Genesis 5:1 [5], which he badly misquotes as "in the image of God He made him, male and female He made them". Later, he finds "Lord, owner, will be recognized in steel, obelisks". (Star Trek called them warp nacelles.) He ends the chapter with, "I am forced to conclude that in addition to an 'obelisk' that is the 'code key,' I am also searching for the 'alien' who created it, or at least brought it here, and the 'vehicle' that he came in." There is no further conclusion. He says in a later chapter that he never found the physical obelisk that he was looking for. On page 216, he says, "The existence of the Bible code is the first scientific evidence we've ever had that we are not alone since no man can see across time." Page 155 has probably the strongest statement - "it also seemed a very clear statement that the Bible code and the genetic code must therefore have a common source - that the same alien brought both to Earth." I hope that helps. I think the statement that Jimbo removed was an accurate statement of what the book says. --Born2x 05:48, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

The aliens possibility appears on pages 94-98 of the first book. He finds the word "computer" in the codes, then suggests the Bible was written by a computer, specifically "a device far beyond anything we have yet developed". Then he quotes Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke about the nature of alien civilizations and how they would appear to us. Then "the long-awaited contact from another intelligence actually took place long ago". It is possible to argue whether he is putting this forward as a definitive conclusion, but at a minimum he is stating it as a strong possibility. As Born2x says, the second book describes how he went searching for an ancient alien artifact buried somewhere near the Dead Sea. The aliens who put it there could foresee the future but couldn't make steel that doesn't rust (but now I'm getting off the topic). McKay 06:19, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, BornAgain (yes?) and McKay. Since this argument seems to be peculiar to Drosnin's books, and not important to the code in general, I put a short description of Drosnin's claims in The Bible Code (book). Λυδαcιτγ 21:46, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

The film 'Pi'

Can someone who can edit this page please put a link to this film in:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/

Mthastings25 23:12, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I linked to the article at π (film). Λυδαcιτγ 00:55, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Worst bible code article ever

This article on the torah code is far to short and has details about the extraordinary codes that scientists have found within he torah. Scientists have found codes that statistically show that they can't just be mere chance. This article doesn't say anything about these statistics. Also this article is biased about the jewish veiw of the torah code at all.