GLEANINGS FROM THE SCRIPTURESBible Codes RevisitedBy Keith L. EstesGrant R. Jeffrey, in his book The Mysterious Bible Codes, brings out some very interesting questions concerning the authenticity of the scriptures through his study of its relevance in the Bible. He writes: “The Bibles Codes have been the subject of newspaper and magazine articles, best selling books, and radio and television shows. Is it possible that God has actually hidden a series of encoded words in the text of the Bible that reveals His supernatural knowledge of historical and current events? Is this phenomenon genuine? Are the claims about the Bible Codes true? If they are, the Bible Codes phenomenon provides powerful additional evidence that the Bible is truly the inspired Word of God. “For almost sixteen centuries, from the time of Emperor Constantine’s conversion in A.D. 300 until the beginning of our century, the Bible was generally accepted by Western culture as the inspired and authoritative Word of God. However, during the last hundred years we have witnessed an unrelenting assault on the authority of the Bible by the intellectual elite, the academic community, liberal theologians, and the media. Most people have been exposed to countless attacks on the authority and accuracy of the scriptures from one or more of these sources. “It would not be surprising, therefore, to discover that God has provided extraordinary new evidence in the form of the Bible Codes to prove to this present, skeptical generation that the Bible is truly the inspired Word of God. The nature of the Bible Codes is so complex that their discovery could not have been possible without the development of high-speed computers that has taken place during the last fifteen years. “In a sense, God secretly hid these incredible codes within the text of the Bible thousands of years ago with a time lock that could not be opened until the arrival of our generation. In His prophetic foreknowledge, God knew that our generation would be characterized by skepticism. In the face of such an unrelenting attack on the authority of the Scriptures, God made a provision in the form of additional scientific evidence that could challenge this modern assault on the Bible. In Jeffrey’s book, The Signature of God, he reported the discovery by the Israeli code researchers of the encoded names of twenty-five trees in Genesis 2, the chapter about God’s creation of Adam and Eve and the plants and animals in the Garden of Eden. Each one of the twenty-five trees mentioned by name in the rest of the Old Testament appears encoded in this short chapter (635) words in English). There is no other passage in the Old Testament that contains the encoded names of these twenty-five trees at intervals of less than 20 letters. In addition, the researchers found the name “Eden” encoded sixteen times in this same passage. The trees listed are, Vine, Grape, Chestnut, Dense forest, Date, Acacia, Bramble, Cedar, Nut, Fig, Willow, Pomegranate, Aloe Tamarisk, Oak, Poplar, Cassia, Almond, Mastic, Thorn bush, Hazel, Olive Citron, Fir, and Wheat. The odds of this happening by chance are 100,000 to one. “Obviously, the encoding of the Hebrew names of these trees is not prophetic. However, it would be very complicated, to say the least, for anyone to attempt to write a meaningful short story about any topic while, at the same time, encoding twenty-five names of trees at ELS [Equally Distant Letter Sequence] intervals within the text. “Also found in this same chapter are the names of seventeen animals found in the Old Testament. The name torah is found five times, and the name Yeshua [Jesus] is found ten times. In other sections of the Old Testament, Jesus and His twelve Apostles are named thousands of years before their births. Reference: The Mysterious Bible Codes by Grant R. Jeffrey Word Publishing Nashville TN |