Numbers, Codes and Mysteries-
OK, I fell for it and looked into the "Bible Code". There is a very GOOD book by Jeffrey Satinover about it "Cracking the Bible Code". He doesn't even bother to mention Michael Drosnin (the one who made all the money off the "Code"). It gave a very good history of cryptography, kabbalah and so on and showed how the Bible Code was an outgrowth of these things. So here's my problem, its based on the Masoretic text which is very DIFFERENT than the ancient Hebrew. Major portions of the bible are actually written in Chaldean or Aramaic. I know it was based on the Torah but you just got to wonder (the Torah was the first five books of the Bible).

So I downloaded the "code software". It let me run some ELS (Equidistant Letter Spacing) for about 8 times. I naturally looked up my name "MartyBee" (all run together). I showed up 4 times most of the references were to FALSE prophets like Balaam. Heh, heh, gotta make you WONDER!

They have found OTHER references that say Jehovah is evil in the Torah using this ELS system. So I don't feel TOO worried...

Is there a problem with all this jazz? My first reaction is that it IS traditionally OCCULT. That is it is all about hidden wisdom, secrets if you will. GNOSTICISM then is what this all about whether you want it to be or not. Its all about secret wisdom that is only accessible to a few initiates.

As for me it reminds me of the whole "backwards masking mania" that was in vogue in evangelical circles years ago. The idea was that if you played "Stairway to Heaven" (Led Zeppelin for you younguns) backwards you got someone saying "I love you Satan..." (I NEVER heard it and I played it back on a reel to reel). In the meantime they ignored what it was saying FRONTWARDS. It was literally a hymn to the White Goddess of European Witchcraft/Paganism! In the same sense, people are looking for mysteries in the bible and trying to find secret codes when just read straight up, its message is powerful enough.