In the past three years several books have claimed that codes about 20th century
people and events were intentionally embedded in the Hebrew Bible when it was written
over 2,000 years ago. The best known books are The Bible Code (Michael Drosnin),
Cracking the Bible Code (Jeffrey Satinover, M.D.) and The Signature of God, The
Handwriting of God and The Mysterious Bible Codes (all by Grant Jeffrey). These
authors are, respectively, an atheist, a Jew and a Christian. Each author attempts to use
the codes to support their perspective. This naturally causes the intelligent reader to
wonder if the evidence of the codes is so flexible that it could be cited as evidence for
whatever belief one chose to espouse.

These books have caused a wave of controversy and resulted in sharply divided
views on the validity of their claims. This article provides definitive answers to several
key questions about this issue from a practicing statistician with 26 years of experience.
Clear exception is taken to many of the opinions and findings of each of these recent
authors.

Q: What is a \u201ccode\u201d?
A: Suppose we start with the sentence, \u201cAll of our avenues are wide.\u201d We eliminate the
spaces and look for words that could be formed from letters that are equally spaced
within the letter string. If we start with the second letter (L) and then skip 3 letters to
pick up the next letter of the code (O), and so forth, we will find the word, LOVE within
the string: aL l o fO u r aV e n uE s. LOVE is an equidistant letter sequence (ELS).
Such codes can have a skip of any length and can either be forward or backward.

Q: What kinds of criticisms have these books received?
A: Many intellectuals and scientists have attacked these claims as bogus, stating that you
can find anything you want as a code and that other books must also contain similar
codes. On the other hand, both conservative Christians and Jews have expressed
concerns that their beliefs (which are based on the literal text) may be challenged by
findings that some might draw from the codes.

Q: Can you find anything as a code?
A: Yes and no. What makes the difference is how long the code is. If the code consists
of 6 or fewer letters, it is almost certain that it will appear somewhere in the Torah by
chance. If the code has 8 or more letters it is very unlikely that anyone will be able to
find it as a code. And the longer it is, the more unlikely it will be that you will be able to
find it.

Q: Are codes with odds of a chance of 1 in 1000 beyond chance?
A: Generally not. The odds need to be much smaller than that. First of all, to date the
most popular authors have been very unscientific in their research. They have only
reported their successes and not their failures. If you look for a 1,000 different things,
each of which has a 1 in 1,000 chance of occurring, you will probably find one or more
such things. Second, there are no real vowels in Hebrew, so this makes it possible for a

Q: How small should the odds be before we should conclude that some group of codes is
beyond chance?
A: At least 1 in 100,000 or 1 in 1 million. If the odds are less than 1 in 1,000 or 10,000,
then the code may be viewed as \u201cintriguing.\u201d

Q: How valid are the claims made in Drosnin\u2019s and Jeffrey\u2019s books?
A: Both books present examples that run the gamut from those that are very likely to
occur by chance to ones that are extremely improbable. Unfortunately, neither author
makes these critical distinctions.

Q: Is it true that no codes have yet been found that are beyond chance?
A: No. Many clusters of codes have been discovered that have odds that are smaller than
1 in 1 billion. In my opinion, such discoveries are statistically very significant and
deserve further consideration as \u201cintentional\u201d codes.

A: First, there are one or more lengthy codes (8 or more letters). Second, there needs to
be a cluster\u2014several codes of related words that are close together. Closeness is
generally critical because it greatly shrinks down the span of text within which a code can
appear. This significantly reduces the probability of a chance occurrence. Third, the
shorter the skips between the successive letters of a code, the more unlikely each code is
to occur.

Q: Can such codes be used to predict the future? Why or why not?
A: No. Because the source data of Hebrew letters does not include vowels or syntax
markings, it is basically impossible to take specific findings and come up with a
definitive interpretation of what they mean. For example, suppose you find the codes for
Kennedy and assassinated. Without a means of accurate interpretation, this could mean
that Kennedy was assassinated or that a man named Kennedy assassinated someone or
that Kennedy was not assassinated. Second, while Drosnin cites many examples of codes
for specific years as possible times of future events, each of these codes only consist of 4
or 5 letters and these codes appear numerous times in almost any section of text. Thus
year codes are basically meaningless.

Q: How have you gone about calculating the odds that a group of codes could appear by
chance?
A: While there are several steps in our calculations, almost every step is based on high
school algebra and/or a bit of basic probability theory. There are a couple of instances
where we had to resort to using college level mathematics. In these steps we precisely
take into account the expected number of times that each code should appear (by chance)
within the entire text and how close the codes are to one another. Taken as a whole, all

Q: Do the codes have anything to do with Biblical numerology or the Kaballah?
A: Some people with those perspectives are intrigued by the codes. However, the codes
are made of letters, not numbers. Admittedly, numerologists have ways of finding
numbers in everything. However, numbers really only come into play in calculating the
odds of a chance appearance.

Q: Have any significant codes been found in the New Testament?
A: Jeffrey presents a few codes he has found in the Greek but none of these are
significant. This does not imply that significant codes won\u2019t be found at some future
date. At this point the search for New Testament codes is at an embryonic stage. Vastly
more research has been done on the Old Testament\u2014largely because a segment of
Judaism has long been fascinated with various numerological properties of that text.

Q: If an author presents clearly coincidental codes as improbable ones, should we
dismiss everything the author presents?
A: Of course not. Codes either exist or they don\u2019t, in a cold, hard, factual way. Whether
or not the person who discovers them has the math skills to distinguish between likely
and unlikely codes has nothing to do with whether any codes they present are improbable
or not.

Q: Does the existence of some utterly improbable code clusters prove anything?
A: They scientifically substantiate that the author(s) of the Bible (or some source
inspiring those authors) knew current events at the times the portions of the Hebrew Bible
that contain the codes were written. That is a very revolutionary finding that should
challenge every open minded scientist and intellectual who does not believe in the
miraculous.

Q: Should we only consider the occurrences of a code that are the ones with the smallest
skips?
A: Some writers on the subject have advocated such a restriction, but it is not necessary.
To be sure, if a code is the one in the entire text with the smallest skip, that makes it more
improbable than just any appearance of the code. Since it is possible to calculate the
odds in those cases where the code isn\u2019t the one with the smallest skip, consideration of
such occurrences is acceptable.

Q: Bottom line, are the codes real?
A: Taken as a whole, the odds that nearly all of the codes discovered to date are
coincidental is so astronomically small that the human mind cannot begin to comprehend
it. In this sense, the evidence is conclusive that at least some of the codes must have been