quote:A team at Hebrew University in Jerusalem reported remarkable findings of codes buried in the book of Genesis in 1988. Other researchers followed, claiming to find predictions in the ancient text of "the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 to a Los Angeles earthquake in 2010." 1 Some authors capitalized on these findings and published a series of best-selling religious books. Michael Drosnin's book "The Bible Code" reached the #3 spot on the New York Times best-seller list. 2 By 1999-OCT, 12 books had been written on the topic; all but two promoted the idea of hidden codes.
The actual truth about the Bible codes was finally revealed by statistical analysis: they do not just exist in the Pentateuch; they are everywhere. ELS codes are found with approximately equal frequency in the Book of Genesis, the Qur'an, Tolstoy's "War and Peace," or in any sufficiently long text written in any language -- probably even in this web site which totals over 30 megabytes of text. Even though Drosin's book was exposed as meaningless, he published a subsequent book "Bible Code II: The Countdown" in 2002-DEC. 3 By late 2003-FEB, it had risen to achieve a sales rank of 1,091 at Amazon.com. Considering that Amazon.com lists millions of books in their web site, this is an impressive rating.
quote:Hey I'm new and I just wanted to know what you people think of ELS codes that accuratly predicted the end of the Iraq war.
How accurate are they, really? Perhaps you should send them to the Pentagon. In today's news ...
A senior military official told reporters: "The first clear message that we have to take out of here is that this war is not over. I think that is pretty clear to all of us".
Not only have statisticians shown the Bible Codes to be meaningless, but one guy has shown that Melville's Moby Dick also contains such codes, and "predicts" most of the famous assassinations of the 20th century: http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/moby.html
And you have a dated publication of this decoded prediction before, say, about 2000. Otherwise it is simply yet one of a number of guesses about how long the war would last many of which were a matter of weeks.
Otherwise even this predicition doesn't look very impressive. And as has been pointed out, ANY string of characters can be used this way. The bible isn't in any way special.
www.biblecodedigest.com is where I saw the code. So far I believe in them because I havent seen one incorrect yet. ok go get a book and show me the accurate, amasing codes that its filled with. I agree with you that there are codes in all kinds of books but really the bible actually come true to the exact date.
OK I looked. A typical "fishing expedition" - lots of vague stuff which could be pulled out of any text. Just read them - they're quite obviously found by looking for a few key words and then pulling out everything else in the vicinity that looks possibly relevant.
But as to the claim that May would be quiet - try this story, published on the 29th
quote:www.biblecodedigest.com is where I saw the code. So far I believe in them because I havent seen one incorrect yet. ok go get a book and show me the accurate, amasing codes that its filled with. I agree with you that there are codes in all kinds of books but really the bible actually come true to the exact date.
Just open the link above and see for yourself.
Any time you put enough text in one place, it's statistically likely that some interesting combinations are possible. Moby Dick is right there for you to see. So tell me, when was the end of the war predicted? I ask because it's a lot easier to make the text fit after the fact, with a lot of explanation, and impress the easily led. The Bible is a great source of these predictions for one reason: it contains a vast quantity of text which can be manipulated and rearranged until it tells you anything, anything you want it to.
Second, how can you possibly claim the war has ended anywhere but in the mind of George W. Bush? Between all the countries involved, we've lost, on average, at least one soldier a day since that date (correct me if I'm wrong, but I know it's close). If it goes on long enough, we'll have more deaths after the war than during the war.
I'd say the war "ended" when large scale hostilities were stopped. It's a bit fuzzy of course. But there is a difference between the March and April and since then.
However, the prediction still has to be tested on a number of grounds. One is, as you suggest, when it was made. Another is how many were made. If 3 out of 5 made are hits that's interesting and worth more testing. If 3 out of 300 then it's more likely just coincidence.
I agree with you that there are codes in all kinds of books but really the bible actually come true to the exact date.
Which edition of which translation of which variant claims such exactitude?
quote:And it came to pass, as our days in our exile lengthened, our knees weakened, and our hands loosened, and our eyes dimmed, and the wells of our wisdom were sealed, and the masters of Scripture and Mishnah ... were no more, and the disputes and opinions multiplied, for not only did the Torah become like two torot, it was more like an infinite number of torot, because of the many variants that are found in the texts (sefarim), that are in our regions, both new and old -- Torah, Prophets, Hagiographa -- There is no saying and no words that do not contain confusion (bilbulim) filled with errors in defective and plene spellings, cantillation signs and punctuation marks, Qere u-Ketib [letters incorrectly marked with] dagesh and without dagesh, [and] penultimate and ultimate accents. And this is nothing less than a severe plague, because the teachers sin accidentally and intentionally; the light has become darkness for them ... "the work of the Lord is fraudulent" [Jer.48:10].
Introduction to Minhat Shai - Yedidiah Solomon Norzi (1560-1616) as quoted in Fixing God's Torah - The Accuracy of the Hebrew Bible Text in Jewish Law by B. Barry Levy
At least there are surely a couple of first editions of Moby Dick floating around in some rare book collections..... Here's another example of the amazing prescience of the Moby Codes: http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/wtc.html
[This message has been edited by Coragyps, 06-29-2003]
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