'Bible codes'

[Deiniol Clarke]

Dear Friends in Christ,

Well I'll first start by telling you that I'm very interested in the Bible Codes - Grammatria, and the code found in particularly the Old Testament - the Chumash.

I would like to know the church's perspective on this. I will give you a bit of background:

THE BIBLE CODES, are hidden codes in the Hebrew transcript of the bible, and in there, there have been amazing predictions found. For example, the death of Princess Diana, the Death of Yitzchak Rabin, the Destruction of the twin towers. The amount of detail and accuracy is amazing - you can find out more about this all over the internet.

I would like to know what the church thinks about this. In 2006 there is apprently according to the bible code, going to be atomic destruction and holocaust - the end of the world, apolcalypse. Everything else predicted in the code has happened, and this has not yet happened. Many world leaders are becoming concerned about this. The findings are simply amazginly accurate.

Is this the time Christ will come? Is this when the second coming of Christ and the judgement of human kind will come about?

Yours in Christ Humbly,
Deiniol

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Deiniol,

The only code in the Scriptures are the commandments of God and Christ; the only thing hidden is due to our not seeing due to sin.

Do not accept such things as 'hidden predictions' dear D- they will only damage you spiritually.

In the love of Christ- Fr R

[Deiniol Clarke]

Bless Father,

I am upset you say this. When I say this, please understand that grammatria is an essential part of **Judaism** and Jesus himself would have studied such texts - Shulcan Arukh is based on it - Jesus oblates teachings from the Shulcan Arukh! Please note also, that the predictions are certainly not hidden.

The only reason that I do not accept such advice, Father, with all due respect, is because: if you studied these yourself, like me and with mathematical research - it is impossible for such a great work to be the WORK OF MAN!! How blind are they that ignore this?

Is your view the view of the Orthodox Church?

Yours in Christ Humbly,
Deiniol

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Deiniol,

Yes this is the view of the Orthodox Church. As to Judaism:My ancestors were Orthodox Jews from Odessa(present day Ukraine) who came to Toronto, Canada after the pogroms of 1905. They were practising until my father.My father's memory of his 'baba' and her religion was her feeding poor people in her kitchen. For most practising Jews something of this sort is an 'essential part of Judaism.'

Dear D- no one is trying to lead you astray here or upset you with made-up or subjective opinions. I am sure other priests would try to guide you likewise. (eg Fr Averky) Please be very careful what you are reading. Why not stick to Church books-there is so much nowadays available in English.

God keep you- Fr R

[Herman Blaydoe]

I would like to back up Fr. Raphael. "Judaism" is a very big place, and encompasses a wider range of beliefs than one might suspect, and not all of them were kept by Christianity. At any rate, there is very little in the Fathers that touches on such things other than to caution us to avoid them. Such "hidden" predictions are very much in opposition to the clear teaching of Holy Scripture itself. Orthodoxy teaches us not to look for hidden predictions but to come to Christ today, and let tomorrow take care of itself.

I would say that Orthodoxy cares less about predictions of the death of Princess Diana and more about the condition of YOUR SOUL when YOU stand face-to-face with Christ.

Therefore I feel I can say with no small confidence that such things are NOT looked upon favorably by the Orthodox Church, and that the Church teaches that such things are NOT part of the Apostolic Tradition that it safeguards. I know of no Orthodox bishops advising their flocks to prepare for atomic destruction in 2006. My diocese just built a brand new church in Ligonier PA and my Metropolitan would be very unhappy to believe it would be destroyed in a couple of years.

Herman
Void where prohibited by law.Take with copious quantities of salt. Your opinion may vary. Not officially endorsed by St. Dionysios the Areopagite.

[Fr Averky]

Young Mr. Clarke,

I do not think you are being fair to a priestmonk who is much older than you, and I would think, has more knowledge than you when it comes to what the Orthodox Chuirch teaches and accepts or not. since you are only sixteen years old! When I made statements concerning differences with Rome, you boldly told me that you and I are not in the same church, and you are correct, for so far, your ideas on Monachos have not been Orthodox at all.

While you might be interested in the "Bible Codes," that interest does not give them any more or less worth. Rather than question Father Raphael's or any other person's Orthodoxy on Monachos, I lovingly suggest that you pend more time reading the Lives of the Saints of the Church,read the livew and teachings of recent and Greek and Russian Fathers and read such good contemporary Chuirch authors like Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos,, a renowned Greek Orthodox theologian.

Anything which claims to know or tell the future is not only not Chriostian, frankly, it is demonic in nature and such book play on fear and superstition. Do your parents and priestknow what you are reading? Do they know you are posting these ideas of yours for the world to see?

Our Lord Jesus Christ, in a famous Book called the Bible, states that even He himself does not know when His Heavenly Father will send Him to judge the living and the dead.

As to Jewish theology or teaching, the Christian Church is the New Jerusalem, and such the convenants of the Old Testament have been fulfilled byh the Incarnation.

I strongly suggest that you go very soon to your priest and tell him what you have been reading. You are but a boy, and you have no idea what spiritual danger you are putting your soul. Read some of the recent Greek and Russia Fathers, Live of Saints every day from the Holy Gospel, and say your prayers. Let others play with fire.


Father Averkyu

[Deiniol Clarke]

Bless Fathers,

Reading this you have greatly misunderstood me - please do not take this the wrong way.

Yes, indeed you have all read more books than me about Orthodoxy and probably know a lot more about it than me. The phrase "you are but a boy" does not insult me whatsoever because I know that a person cannot expect spiritual enlightenment (not in the eastern sense!!) straight away, but rather is a path of experiences and straights. I plead for you to understand, however, that I have read and am reading Orthodox books "left right and centre" and all my focus and study is on this. The only thing I do in these boards is, to provide a counter argument for some of the Orthodox views - "why not this?" for example - because, this is the very purpose of these boards!

I humbly accept the advice you give - to be careful in what I am reading. I understand how Satan can overcome things to make things seem what they are not. I understand completely what you are saying - do not get me wrong.

If I have "boldly" told you anything, holy Father, then I apologize because this was not in my understanding either. Part of being young is also learning how to write in a sophisticated manner, so please forgive me if what I say is not what I think in places - it is simply an immaturity.

On this matter, I ask you not to disregard what I say or ask on this forum. Many adults are quick to dismiss young adults like me by telling them that they are out of their range when addressing such matters. This is not so with me - I do, and have always devoted all of my life to religion - because, it is, if you think about it - the bottom line of the universe.

I should also tell you, that my parents are NOT Orthodox! I have been brought up in a Jewish family and have had the struggle of adopting a Greek community where many few people speak English. Anything **I** have learned, I have learned from Orthodox people - not something I've made up - or speculation.

Also, may I ask you - if the Old Testament has been overcome by the new, why did the Apostles go and celebrate the Sabbath after the death of Christ? << Note I'm not being pretentious here - it is a genuine question. Also "I did not come to destroy the laws and the prophets..."

Thank you for your advice though Father, I will take it humbly. I hope I have created no hard feelings here.

Yours in Christ Humbly,
Deiniol

[Justin]

Forgive me if I speak in ignorance here, but I'm not sure how a Bible code could even be tenable. As I understand it (and I did read a book on it when I was a Wesleyan), these codes require computers to line up all the letters side by side and then find certain patterns (e.g., "every 47 letters..."). However, such a system of codes would be built on a number of assumptions that I think are untenable. First, it must be assumed that the Hebrew text that we have today is the exact same as in the autographs. I think this can be proven to be false as 1) it is known that the Hebrew MSS were edited by Jewish scholars, and 2) this does not allow for what common sense--and the textual evidence--dictates: that scribes do make errors. Second, such a system--if viewed from a Christian perspective--doesn't take into account the fact that the early Church, including the Apostles, used the Septuagint (Greek) more than the Hebrew Scriptures. The Scriptural writers (including Christ our God) used everything from Aramaic targums to Hebrew to Greek to their own paraphrases in their "quotes" of the Old Testament. I would think that, if there were some hidden code in the Old Testament, that the Apostles--or at least Jesus--would have treated the Hebrew version of Scripture with much more reverence and used it perhaps exclusively.

[Fr John Wehling]

Deiniol,

Just a quick word. Gemmatria and this new phenomena of the Bible Codes are not the same thing. There is use of the former in the NT, for example the number 666 for Nero Caesar (most likely) in Revelation, 153 fish caught in St. John 21 (numerous patristic ideas as to the meaning of this), the 3 sets of 14 generations in St. Matthew's geneology (meaning "David", if I recall), etc. The biblical writers were aware of this use of numbers as "codes," and used them that way at times.

This is different, though, than taking the text of Scripture and searching it like a crossword puzzle for hidden words and phrases. Hebrew is notoriously open to this kind of thing because of its lack of vowels.

Finally, Christ is the meaning of all of Scripture, not dates and predictions for events that, ironically, are happening in our day and that are matters of such great public interest (the death of Di? in the Bible?!). Search the Scriptures to meet Christ, to find examples for your life in the holiness of the saints, warnings in the folly of the fools, etc. Anything else--Bible Code included--gives a distorted sense of the meaning of Scripture and misses the its center and inner meaning: Christ.

Hope this helps,
Fr John

[Daniel Jeandet]

Deiniol,

I used to be into some things like this. Atlantis, the pyramids, bible codes. Actually it was the classic book, "the great pyramid decoded" (a book that shows, among other things, that the great pyramid of Giza contains within its measuements various amazing things like the circumference of the earth etc.) that led to my reading the New Testament and to search out the Orthodox Church, so we never know where these things can lead.

The things with the bible codes is that they have actually been rejected by a large part of the community that used to believe in them. Its always good to get the other side of the story with such things because often people with faith in nothing else will push these ideas that seem very convincing, but they will ignore the evidence against them in thier zeal. Have you read anything that is sceptical of the Codes?

Here is a little bit from a website I found.

"In response to Drosnin's challenge, I decided to look for "Hitler" and "Nazi" linked in Tolstoy's War and Peace as well. I found an English translation of the epic novel on the Internet, and downloaded the first twenty-four chapters of Book 1, giving me about 167,000 characters. By the time I got to steps of just 750, I already had found more than half a dozen excellent puzzle linkages of "Hitler" and "Nazi." The best appears in Figure 7: this entire puzzle text spans just five paragraphs of Chapter 2 of Book 1 of Tolstoy's novel."

link to the full website -

http://www.csicop.org/si/9711/bible-code.html

You really should check what the sceptics have to say on the bible codes. If we dont check all the evidence, we cannot claim to be truth seekers. You have nothing to lose.

As you probably know, there are not supposed to be any special predictions outside of the Old Testament according to the author of the Bible Code.

The jews had lots of different things going on beside pure Judaism. One of these is Kabala, which became the basis of alot of modern occult practice. Its not all good stuff.

Dont forget how Jesus got angry with the scribes and pharisees, telling them they followed the tradititons of men rather than the commandments of God. These are the sorts of things he was reffering to. Various systems and practises derived from the scripture or added rules invented by men that had no bearing on the real life of the Jews and the relationship God sought with them. Jesus condemned this and the authorities killed him for it. Glory to Him who became incarnate for our sakes and then died so that we could live, seeking "the one thing needfull", following the narrow way to his Kingdom.

A little more from that website, for others on the board who may be tempted to investigate these amazing claims of the Bible Code -

"Drosnin uses many methods to improve the odds of "impossible-by-chance" linkages. For one, he uses horizontal words taken directly from the original text. For example, when Drosnin found "Clinton" linked to "president," the word "president" was just the Hebrew word for "chief," taken from its actual context in the original Bible. Secondly, Drosnin found some hidden dates referring to the Hebrew calendar; for example, Gulf War activity on January 18, 1991, was found in the words "3rd Shevat." But, he found other dates referring to the Gregorian calendar, such as that of the Oklahoma City bombing, which was linked in the Bible by the hidden date "Day 19," and interpreted as a reference to both April 19, 1995, the date of the bombing, and April 19, 1993 (Waco). And finally, Drosnin takes full advantage of the eccentricities of the Hebrew language, in which words can be condensed and letters occasionally dropped.

My study generated several other examples that are just as spectacular, and just as unlikely (if not more so), than most of Drosnin's matches. Now, Drosnin and his colleagues would probably say that the "Roswell/UFO" connection in KJV Genesis was just a lucky break and couldn't happen again. But I found 5,812 hidden "UFO's" in Genesis, and dozens of these happen to be flying right around and through the hidden word "Roswell." As the puzzle step is changed, linked matches appear and disappear with astonishing frequency. Three such examples appear in Figure 8, for steps of 88, 589, and 753. Hoagland claims multiple discoveries of the same hidden message are indicative of "redundancy" used by the code-maker to assure us the message is real (Hoagland 1992). But all that is really happening here is that codes can be engineered -- made to happen. You just have to know how to harvest the field of possibilities.

Figure 9 is another striking linkage I found in KJV Genesis, 42:18 through 45:21. Here, the name "Regis" appears at a step distance of 808, but also at a step of 810, which makes a nice "X" pattern if the puzzle step is 809. (Perhaps someone should notify Regis Philbin and agents Mulder and Scully)."

[Deiniol Clarke]

Bless Fathers,
Dear All,

Point taken. Thanks for your responses. I see that the codes have no use in the Orthodox Church - or for that matter - a personals spiritual growth regardless whether they are true or not.
I have decided to refrain from studying such pointless texts.

Yours in Christ,
Deiniol

[Richard Leigh]

Father John and Justin,

May I assist please, first regarding gemartia, and second regarding so-called codes.

Gematria hinges on the nicety that each letter of the alphabet is also a numeral in a system for writing numbers, and this both in Hebrew and in Greek. While actually, of the two, Greek is the only true alphabet because it is from the Greeks that vowels were invented, still the letters and their order derives from that of the Hebrew.

Writing itself was invented as a way to preserve oral lore and history which, before the invention of writing required a prodigious memory. Oral history is therefore arranged in ways which aide the memory, with a lot of repetition, and verbal associations and so on. Writing, as I said originally intending to do nothing more than the oral conveyance of ideas, but to simply record them had the added advantage that the letters spelling out the words were also number lists. The more points one has to make an association for the memory, the easier it is to memorize and recall.

Along with all of this there was also occurring historically the birth of Hellenistic philosophy and science developing out of various observations and conjectures (delusions, some might note, it was from the fallen, darkened nous, after all!) regarding the universe and its first principles. I bring up Pythagoreas and the Stoics who taught such things as "number is everything" and the notion that words, especially nouns, I suppose, were the intellegibles (ideals, in the Platonic sense) underlying the realities of existnce. So, there is a lot of Hellenism "in, with, and under" some of these Judaic ideas concerning the "thingness" of words, and the importance of numeric significance, especially as aids to memory, but also as "signposts" for us toward more of what God has for us to learn. ONe should never camp out at the signpost, of course, but travel on toward where the sign points, if it truly is to God.

Interlude on God's language for the Bible:
The first Christians were not learned people. The first century Jews did not speak Hebrew as a natural language of intercourse. They had Hebrew Torah's and books of the prophets, but reading them in the synagogues required translators into the popular Aramaic. Everyone spoke Greek, thanks to the oikumene of Alexander the Great. The Septuagint was available to and used by the people. But the Septuagint was a translation from an original Hebrew. Even the fourth century scholarly sorts were not conversant in the Hebrew, and the extensive studies of scripture they leave for us are in ignorance of that language. People like Origen and Jerome saught to remedy that lack, to the best of their respective abilities.

ITMT, I would not be half surprised if the Masoretes used gematria to keep exact about transmitting the texts that they copied, and perhaps to aid them with their re-tanslation of the LXX back into Hebrew. But God is behind everything.

Now, about those so-called "codes".
First, Newton. You might be interested to note that it was Isaac Newton who first had the idea that, given the reality of gematria, and given the vastness of the intellegence of the almighty God (and remember that Newton was protestant understanding the original OT to have been in Hebrew (but, remember, Greek letters are numbers as well!),
but as I was saying, given these facts regarding God and his infallible word (protestant, remember!), God could no doubt, if He wanted to, write more than one thing in any given written document, that there was probably a key to finding anything God may have "hidden" in his ordinary writtne text that we could discover if we tried hard enough, had enough time, etc. Alas for the Pre-Computer Age! But NOW...., I'm sure you get the drift.

Second, Panin:

Dr. Panin was not the only, but probably the most thorough and prolific "Bible numeric" scholar to pose evidence of a mathematical nature that the Bible can be statistically proven, in its entirety to have been the prodocution of a vastly superior intellegence. Panin was a Russian nihilist of the late 19thto early 20th centuries.
He was converted to beliefe in the God of the Bible and everything it says as a relult of finding so many numeriacl co-incidences as to be beyond belief if it hadn't been seen. This has nothing to do with the correspondence between numbers and letters, but with the number of times particular words appear, or the number of books who's authors are recorded as over against those who's authors are not. He must have counted everything. He wrote hundereds of thousands of pages on these topics. You might be interested to know that he compared the Masoretic Text of the OT with the LXX (but regarding the words, not the letters) and did not find mathematical proof that God had written the LXX, only the MT. He also compared the various Greek versions of the NT and decided that Westcott and Hort, (as in the student Bible, which places the "catholic" epistles between Acts of the Apostles, and the Pauline epistles) to have this mathematical proof of God's authorship! (I, sadly, am skeptical regaring Westcott and Hort, regarding the Gospel according to Matthew in that in Chapter 23 WH includes only 7 woes, while the text underlying the AV (KJV) includes 8, which, I think, justly counterbalances the 8 beatitudes, but who am I, a mere tyro!? Also, I think Codex Bezae is superior to what WH and his later followers allow regarding peculiar expressions in the books of Luke-Acts.

But, there are other remarkable things regarding statistics of the numerical sequences of the Greek letters in the NT covered in the field of "Theomatics".

Well, it seems there can be a REAL danger in laying out the Holy Wod of God Heberw OR Greek, like a divining tool, and this most certainly would be using God's name, with his word, in vain.

Sincerely yours,

Richard

[Daniel Mark Pech]

You may be informed of the fact that when the truth is told in person, the teller exhibits a detectable pattern of body language. Also, there is the so-called lie-detector test, which detects the characteristic patterns of heart-rate and such associated with either lying or telling the truth. Further, Chuck Missler mentions 'Zipf's(sp) law', which describes a statistical characteristic regarding something like the occurance of acronyms in a text of a given size.

It may be that this 'Zipf's law' is simply one of very many patterns that, together, simply fall into place when the expression is free from linguistic contrivances resulting from an attempt to deceive. It may be that the whole set of such things (many of which we may yet have to discover in a formal sense) constitute the entire information-base by which one may, if one is sufficiently discerning, determine whether a person is telling the truth in a given set of expressions. I offer the hypothesis that the truth, even when written, imposes a very syncronic (i.e., coherent) pattern on the very forms of the expression. Thus, the patterns resulting from a lie tend to lack a certain kind of over-all coherence, which implies that all one would need look for is this coherence, so that, upon finding that an expression whose patterns seem to fall short, one need look no further into that expression for one's search for the purely true expression.

Whether, say, Ivan Panin's findings are instances of this natural syncronicity or not, I can only venture to guess.

[M. Partyka]

A friend of mine is an Orthodox priest who, for a while anyway, did some research into Bible codes and made some pretty fascinating finds. His website is http://www.hashemtorah.com.

[M. Partyka]

A friend of mine is an Orthodox priest who, for a while anyway, did some research into Bible codes and made some pretty fascinating finds. His website is http://www.hashemtorah.com.I guess I should have mentioned, scroll down to the bottom of the page to find six links, each to a different Hebrew code find.

[Father David Moser]

A friend of mine is an Orthodox priest who, for a while anyway, did some research into Bible codes and made some pretty fascinating finds. His website is http://www.hashemtorah.com.

Perhaps it is good to reiterate the opinions of two of the most respected clergy on this discussion - one still with us in this life, the other praying for us in the next.



The only code in the Scriptures are the commandments of God and Christ; the only thing hidden is due to our not seeing due to sin.

Do not accept such things as 'hidden predictions' dear D- they will only damage you spiritually.

In the love of Christ- Fr R



While you might be interested in the "Bible Codes," that interest does not give them any more or less worth.
...
Anything which claims to know or tell the future is not only not Chriostian, frankly, it is demonic in nature and such book play on fear and superstition.
...
Our Lord Jesus Christ, in a famous Book called the Bible, states that even He himself does not know when His Heavenly Father will send Him to judge the living and the dead.

Father Averkyu

Fr David Moser

[Nina]

Yes and like St. Kosmas Aetolos said:


...if you want to see your future or your fate, get up at dawn and go to Church and look at the graves of the dead. Think and ask yourself, weren't they men too like me, and they died? I too am destined to die tomorrow...

[Michael Stickles]

Actually, you can pick up pretty much any book, article, or other piece of text of reasonable size, and (with some persistence) make the same kinds of finds. This is not unique to the Bible.

Michael Drosnin, the author of "The Bible Code", once responded to his critics by saying:

"When my critics find a message about the assassination of a prime minister encrypted in Moby ****, I'll believe them."

Well, that's happened (http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/moby.html), and multiple times. In fact, skeptical researchers have uncovered more "predictions" in Moby **** than Drosnin found in the Bible, and have shown convincingly that there is no explanation needed beyond the statistics of random chance.

The Scriptures have plenty of plainly-written depth that I haven't plumbed yet; no need to chase special gnosis that turns out to be phantoms anyway.

In Christ,
Mike

[Olga]

This quote is from the first post in this thread (highlights in bold are mine):


I would like to know what the church thinks about this. In 2006 there is apprently according to the bible code, going to be atomic destruction and holocaust - the end of the world, apolcalypse. Everything else predicted in the code has happened, and this has not yet happened. Many world leaders are becoming concerned about this. The findings are simply amazingly accurate.

Self-explanatory, really. Bible codes have as much credibility for me as do the apocalyptic pronouncements of the Moonies and other cults and sects. Nice try, but no cigar.

[M. Partyka]

A friend of mine is an Orthodox priest who, for a while anyway, did some research into Bible codes and made some pretty fascinating finds. His website is http://www.hashemtorah.com.
I guess I should have mentioned, scroll down to the bottom of the page to find six links, each to a different Hebrew code find.I guess I also should have mentioned that my friend's Bible code research has nothing to do with making predictions about the future. Rather, he's specifically interested in Hebrew OT Bible codes that point to Jesus as the Son of God and Messiah.

[Michael Stickles]

I guess I also should have mentioned that my friend's Bible code research has nothing to do with making predictions about the future. Rather, he's specifically interested in Hebrew OT Bible codes that point to Jesus as the Son of God and Messiah.

His page did mention that, but I still think the same statistical caveats apply. Just to see if I could come up with a similar result, I took an arbitrary post excerpt from Monachos:


I do know that back in those days, monasticism was not looked on in a favorable manner in certain circles.

I then selected a 12-column grid to put this text into (his page used 10 or 12 columns). Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to make Monachos render a selection in Courier font, so I'll have to display the text grid as a JPG image. Note the words in the grid that seem to show a "hidden opinion" towards the attitude that the excerpt describes:

82

Hmmm... "base", "low", "not nice", all easily found in such a small section of text, and quite plausible as relevant to the context. And that's without the advantage you have in Hebrew of not having to contend with vowels, giving you more options for any given combination of letters. I doubt this is an isolated example; you could surely find similar things in pretty much any text you wanted to look at.

One more note: on the site, the author makes this statement regarding one of his finds:


In fact, the probability, ( the odds ), of the 3 letters making up the word 'HaShem' simply appearing 'randomly connected together' - 'in just any old order', in this small text block, a total of 4 times is a stunning 1 in 22,596,514,389,614,071,196,161 - against. But, that these three letters should appear in the correct order to spell the word 'HaShem' is 1 in infinity! But there is more, the word HaShem is also relevant to the subject matter, the very context of the passage itself - this pushes the probability of such a happening beyond the reach of any mathmatical calculation.

Ummm... no. I used to teach statistics, and this statement set alarm bells off in my mind. If you randomly selected from the 22 Hebrew letters 92 times to fill his grid, there is about a 2 in 9 chance that you will get at least four of each of the letters needed to spell 'HaShem'. However, like English, Hebrew letters do not occur in equal frequencies, so let's just look at what we have. In the grid shown, there are 9 'H's, 6 'SH's, and 6 'M's.

In the grid, the different 'HaShem's found share letters, so we'll allow for that. There are 9*6*6 = 324 combinations of the three letters available. Now, there are 753,480 possible ways to place 3 letters in the grid, and 838 of them will spell 'HaShem' vertically, horizontally, or diagonally (allowing 'skip' spelling, which he uses in a couple of other places). So, the odds of getting at least four 'HaShem's from random placement of these letters is about 1 in 1925; the odds of at least 3, about 1 in 169. Disallow skip spelling, and the odds only worsen to 1 in 12,377 and 1 in 668, respectively. And that is only considering the specific 10-column grid he used. If you allow other grids (he uses 12-column elsewhere), the odds get better rapidly.

Given the number of 92-letter selections in the Old Testament, statistically you would expect to find some combinations like this. No need to call on divine action to account for what can be adequately explained by mere statistics.

In Christ,
Mike

[M. Partyka]

Given the number of 92-letter selections in the Old Testament, statistically you would expect to find some combinations like this. No need to call on divine action to account for what can be adequately explained by mere statistics.I agree. The interesting thing about the codes my friend has found does not lie solely in the probability of finding particular arrangements of letters. Rather, it additionally lies in the contextual nature of the finds. That is, these finds not only occur in configurations that point to Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God, but they also occur in key passages of scripture pointing to Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God. If you haven't already, check this link for a prime example:

http://www.hashemtorah.com/prov30-4.htm

[Michael Stickles]

I had missed that he used a 22-column grid for that one. A couple of thoughts:

(1) The fact that "Yeshua" is "perfectly positioned" is not as impressive as it sounds. The Hebrew letters for "Yeshua" can only connect to that phrase in two places. If "Yeshua" had connected in the other place, expanding the phrase to "What is His name, and what is His Son's name" would also allow it to be "perfectly positioned". Plus, if it had attached after that piece, it would have been centrally positioned in "... His Son's name, if thou knowest?". Lots of flexibility there.

(2) Allowing grid sizes from 10 to 22 drastically increases the odds of finding something. Using "skip spelling", that is, only using every second or third letter (as he does in Isaiah 53 (http://www.hashemtorah.com/is53.htm) to find "sin offering" and "Messiah") increases it even more. If we allow all those possibilities, then, using OT Hebrew letter frequencies:

- The odds of finding a chance "HaShem" attached directly to a "YHVH" are better than 1 in 4
- The odds of finding a chance "Yeshua" attached directly to a "YHVH" are about 1 in 20
- The odds of finding a chance "Yeshua" attached directly to a "HaShem" are about 1 in 30
- The odds of finding a chance "Yeshua" in Prov 30:4 in one of the "perfect positions" (no diagonals) are about 1 in 14
- The odds of finding a chance "Yeshua" attached anywhere in the last section of Prov 30:4 are better than 1 in 5

(calculations assume all letters outside of the targeted word or phrase are randomly assigned according to letter frequencies)

You can see that, even if you insist that your "finds" be in an appropriate context, the odds are very good that you'll find some things.

Mike

[M. Partyka]

Hmm. Well, I started compiling some code finds a while ago. Now that I've found someone with statistics savvy, I'll have to finish that project and see what you think of the whole collection overall. Doubt I'll be getting to it soon, but knowing there's a capable analyst out there does give me the extra incentive I wanted. Thanks!

[Paul Cowan]

Rather, he's specifically interested in Hebrew OT Bible codes that point to Jesus as the Son of God and Messiah.

Forgive me for being trite. I assuredly do not want to poopoo on a clergyman's hobby, but... Didn't Abraham in the parable say the rich man's brothers had the law and the prophets? If they don't believe them, they will not believe one returning from the dead. (or anything for that matter.) We don't need to go looking for Christ hidden when he is spoken of quite upfront by Moses and so many other prophets.

Paul

[M. Partyka]

Didn't Abraham in the parable say the rich man's brothers had the law and the prophets? If they don't believe them, they will not believe one returning from the dead. (or anything for that matter.) We don't need to go looking for Christ hidden when he is spoken of quite upfront by Moses and so many other prophets.True, but what would you call my friend's bible codes except a further drawing forth of Christ's presence from the law and the prophets? Consider it an added tool in witnessing to the Jews.

[Olga]

Forgive me for being trite. I assuredly do not want to poopoo on a clergyman's hobby, but... Didn't Abraham in the parable say the rich man's brothers had the law and the prophets? If they don't believe them, they will not believe one returning from the dead. (or anything for that matter.) We don't need to go looking for Christ hidden when he is spoken of quite upfront by Moses and so many other prophets.

Paul

Give the man a cigar! (figuratively speaking, of course!)

[M.C. Steenberg]

The use of 'bible codes' as witnessing or evangelising tools is counter-productive. While they may impress for a moment, what they ultimately convey is a deep-rooted desperation about the message of the scriptures. Such codes are essentially fabrications; 'discoveries' of words and phrases that simple mathematical probability make quite clear can always be found - and which can easily be 'found' in any text, not just the bible, by the same probabilities (as Mike has shown, both thoroughly and amusingly). The real power of the scriptures to witness is in the story they convey -- and which they convey openly, with no subterfuge. Christ is present in the open words of the text; he does not need to be found by manipulating letter grids until one can spell out names and contextual phrases that indicate him.

Finding 'codes' in the letters, numbers and pages of the scriptures is an esoteric practice that fathers of the Church as far back as the second century condemned. St Irenaeus wrote very clearly against this practice, stating that if one wished and tried, one could make characters in the scriptures say anything (a point Mike has again reiterated). He also notes that the only true meaning of scripture is found in its open words.

Bible 'codes' are an interesting example of mathematical probabilities: of the fact that letter grids have a remarkably high rate of producing actual words from almost any phrase or sentence. This is all the more the case with some ancient languages (like Hebrew) that do not have vowels, which means (as, again, Mike has already noted) that letter combinations have an even higher possibility of possible words; but it is equally true in English.

As theological testimony, they are nonsense.

INXC, Dcn Matthew

[RichardWorthington]

Hi

This thread reminds me of ages ago when I used to be over awed by such a mathematical claim for the Bible. However, I did realise (about the same time as finding Orthodoxy) that is was really meaningless.

Probably every holy book can claim to have a code or mystical meanings.

For the Quran Rashad Khalifa produced a mathematical claim that 'proved' that the Quran was of God - except that he had to remove some verses to make the pattern fit. For this he was assassinated by Islamic extremists!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashad_Khalifa and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Submitters_International#Rejection_of_two_Q ur.27anic_verses

Additionally, regarding hidden names I did read once about Bill Gates being foretold in the book of Revelation. I can not find it on-line now, but am sure I read it. It went as follows:

As the Hebrew bible has no vowels, so the authors removed the vowels from the English King James version of Revelation. Taking every 100th letter (as did the ancient rabbis) they made a whole line of letters. Amongst all the random letters they found "WLLMGTSWRLDRLR": WiLLiaM GaTeS WoRLD RuLeR!!!

However, even better, trying to find this today on-line I found this instead:

http://www.greaterthings.com/Humor/gates_anti.htm

ROFL!! - The poor guy!!

Richard

[Andreas Moran]

However, even better, trying to find this today on-line I found this instead:

http://www.greaterthings.com/Humor/gates_anti.htm

ROFL!! - The poor guy!!

Richard

I can do better than that. W is the 23rd letter in the alphabet. 2 and 3. See? 2x3=6 . . . 3 times!!!! That's in the English alphabet, though. Er . . .

[K. Sean Proudler]

Concerning Bible codes, if you add Gematria into the equation, things begin to come to life.

For instance, if you use Code 6 English gematria, A = 6, B =12, C = 18,.... Z = 156, and you convert words like GOD and CHRIST into numbers, you end up with GOD = 156 and CHRIST = 462.

Then you proceed to allow a software package such as CodeFinder to search the KJV New Testament to search for such things as " The Father " and " The Lord ". ( Make sure you Enable CodeFinder's " Let Search Wrap " function such that it connects the last text character of the KJV New Testament to the first text character, thus to create a closed loop, which by the way represents truth. )

It turns out that you will find " The Father " 156 times, and find " The Lord " 462 times.
Then you just put the pieces together. The Father = GOD, and The Lord = CHRIST.

After that, you can start to use words to determine the selection of the ELS skip numbers that you choose.

For example, if you set the ELS as ( From -462 to 462 ) and the search for " Mark " and " of God ".

You will find that the mark of Christ is Christ. This is because the word " Mark " shows up 462 times.
You will also find that the mark of God is God. This is because " of God " shows up 694 times, thus 462 + 694 = 1,156 meaning one God.

Once you understand the Code, you can find all the secrets that God had hidden within the Bible. Search the KVJ New Testament for " ELS " and you will find it 156 times. That's right, it was God that placed the ELS codes within the Bible.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Once you understand the Code, you can find all the secrets that God had hidden within the Bible. Search the KVJ New Testament for " ELS " and you will find it 156 times. That's right, it was God that placed the ELS codes within the Bible.

God has hidden no secrets in the bible. This is a fundamental truth of scriptural testimony in the Church, and has been explicitly stated and defended since at least as far back as the early second century.

INXC, Dcn Matthew

[Andreas Moran]

Concerning Bible codes, if you add Gematria into the equation . . .

Bet it doesn't work with the original Greek.

[K. Sean Proudler]

Bet it doesn't work with the original Greek.
It does work indeed !

[Michael Stickles]

Once you understand the Code, you can find all the secrets that God had hidden within the Bible.

I hate to sound negative, but I would re-state this as "once you understand how to manipulate the code, you can find any 'secret' you want to find in the Bible (or any other book, for that matter)".

I found an online page which lists the exact "finds" you stated, plus many others. However, the mathematical manipulations they use are incredibly blatant. To get "God = The Father" uses an ELS skip of 1 to 1, and the same for "Christ = The Lord". However, ELS skip from -462 to 462 is used for "Mark" and "Of God" to match "Christ", but then 1 to 462 to match "Jesus". Bluntly, if the skips are manipulated this way, you can find anything you please.

Yes, I noticed that the skip values which are not "1" are related to gematria values of the words involved. But all you need is a sufficient number of words to get plenty of possible ranges (I noticed that some searches use "Jesus", some "Christ", others "Jesus Christ", etc.), allowing almost any result you want. The ability to use either Greek or English gematria values, plus the ability to add digits at the front or back of a value (such as how they allow 4442 matches of "Mark" to be a "hit" with 444, the gematria value for Jesus) dramatically improves the odds of getting hits.

Let me borrow some numbers directly from that site to illustrate my point. They take GOD=156, and so do a KJV NT search with ELS skip from 1 to 156. Hits for "MARK" are 99, "OF GOD" are 626, and "OF CHRIST" are 91. Add those up, and you get 816. Now, take my name, "MIKE STICKLES". By remarkable coincidence, the code 6 English gematria value of my name is 816.

Goodness - does this mean I am the mark of God and of Christ? Ask my wife or anyone else who knows me well, and after they stop laughing and catch their breath, they will give you a definite (and highly accurate) "no".

Take one of their other examples. The Greek gematria value of "CHRIST" is given as 1480. They do searches using ELS skips from 1 to 1480 on "THE FATHER" (156 hits), "THE SON" (664 hits) and "THE HOLY SPIRIT" (2 hits). This adds up to 822. There is a very famous character whose title has a gematria value of 822 - namely, "TOOTH FAIRY". I certainly hope no one thinks there is any theological significance in this.

Normally, I don't like to be this blunt. But frankly, this is nonsense, both hermeneutically and statistically.

Mike

[K. Sean Proudler]

I hate to sound negative, but I would re-state this as "once you understand how to manipulate the code, you can find any 'secret' you want to find in the Bible (or any other book, for that matter)".

I found an online page which lists the exact "finds" you stated, plus many others. However, the mathematical manipulations they use are incredibly blatant. To get "God = The Father" uses an ELS skip of 1 to 1, and the same for "Christ = The Lord". However, ELS skip from -462 to 462 is used for "Mark" and "Of God" to match "Christ", but then 1 to 462 to match "Jesus". Bluntly, if the skips are manipulated this way, you can find anything you please.

Yes, I noticed that the skip values which are not "1" are related to gematria values of the words involved. But all you need is a sufficient number of words to get plenty of possible ranges (I noticed that some searches use "Jesus", some "Christ", others "Jesus Christ", etc.), allowing almost any result you want. The ability to use either Greek or English gematria values, plus the ability to add digits at the front or back of a value (such as how they allow 4442 matches of "Mark" to be a "hit" with 444, the gematria value for Jesus) dramatically improves the odds of getting hits.

Let me borrow some numbers directly from that site to illustrate my point. They take GOD=156, and so do a KJV NT search with ELS skip from 1 to 156. Hits for "MARK" are 99, "OF GOD" are 626, and "OF CHRIST" are 91. Add those up, and you get 816. Now, take my name, "MIKE STICKLES". By remarkable coincidence, the code 6 English gematria value of my name is 816.

Goodness - does this mean I am the mark of God and of Christ? Ask my wife or anyone else who knows me well, and after they stop laughing and catch their breath, they will give you a definite (and highly accurate) "no".

Take one of their other examples. The Greek gematria value of "CHRIST" is given as 1480. They do searches using ELS skips from 1 to 1480 on "THE FATHER" (156 hits), "THE SON" (664 hits) and "THE HOLY SPIRIT" (2 hits). This adds up to 822. There is a very famous character whose title has a gematria value of 822 - namely, "TOOTH FAIRY". I certainly hope no one thinks there is any theological significance in this.

Normally, I don't like to be this blunt. But frankly, this is nonsense, both hermeneutically and statistically.

Mike
Nice try !

If you are a believer, then that can make it difficult to see the complete picture. Beliefs are not directly connected to truths. There is a GAP, a gap that makes a belief a belief in the first place. As the result of this, people in general can not see the truth. They are blind.

John 9:39 - And Jesus said, For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see, and those who see will become blind.

Meanwhile, many people of today say that they SEE the truth, yet in fact they do not. Istead, they simply see what they believe.

John 9:41 - Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remained.



"MIKE STICKLES". By remarkable coincidence, the code 6 English gematria value of my name is 816.



Hmmmm. Perhaps God is speaking to you at this very moment.

[Paul Cowan]

Mike,
If ever I need a defense attorney or a criminal analyst I hope you are availble.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear all,

It is rare that I come out explicitly and unabashedly against what an individual is saying, but there are rare cases when it is necessary to be so frank. The case of Mr K. Sean Proudler and his posts on 'bible codes' is certainly one of these, and it is important to be aware that his comments are made from the perspective of one who has dedicated considerable energy, elsewhere on-line, to proving that 'believers' are delusional, advocating instead his own system of belief (which he insists is not belief, but 'truth' and 'reason', but which is belief all the same), in which he regularly assigns himself prophetic titles and associates himself, through encoding practices, with a Christ figure, etc. Those with any degree of mathematical background, who have read his web pages, note immediately the lack of understanding of probabilities and statistics that grounds his 'code' systems, and the similar lack of understanding of physics, textuality and other fields that grounds the various 'systems' and concepts he describes elsewhere on those pages.

(Just as an aside on the topic of this thread, supposed 'bible codes': it is necessary just to note that the 'Equidistant Letter Sequencing' system Mr Proudler uses to 'discover' his 'codes' in the bible, which he claims to have developed and claims 'has not been practiced anywhere else across the globe', is in fact at least 2,600 years old, common knowledge, and elementary; and his offer to grant $100,000 to anyone who can prove that his list of encodings are merely coincidental ought to make him nervous, since performing the same system on the Oxford English Dictionary, or any other similarly-length text, will produce results statistically similar to his own, making it statistically probable that his results are, in fact, conicidental.)

It is important to understand that these are arguments grounded in delusional reasoning, and should be taken with that caveat in mind. (Those who really desire to do so can seek out his pages and sort through them on their own, lest he raise the charge [as he does routinely in his writings], that 'believers' are averse to seeing or accepting the truth. All are welcome to go see and explore it; but it is beneath the dignity of informed discussion to dwell on it here.)

Mr Prouder, please be advised that this is an Orthodox Christian discussion forum. Posts attempting to tout your own belief system are as outside its scope as are posts dwelling on any other religion.

To all others, I apologise for the rather firm tone of this note; but some things require direct reply.

INXC, Dcn Matthew

[Owen Jones]

quite apart from the above, didn't St. Maximos attribute a certain number system to biblical exegesis? Didn't he talk about some kinds of mathematical or geometric patterns? Seems I read this in some of his stuff in the Philokalia, but it's been a while.

[M. Partyka]

God has hidden no secrets in the bible. This is a fundamental truth of scriptural testimony in the Church, and has been explicitly stated and defended since at least as far back as the early second century.I think the veracity of this statement depends on what you mean by "secrets". If you mean secrets concerning the basic knowledge that is required for one to believe and be saved, I think that's correct. If you mean that there is absolutely nothing in the Bible that is veiled, I don't think the Fathers would have necessarily agreed. Augustine, for one, believed that one should study down to every word and nuance of speech, so that one understands not merely the surface-level of the text but also the deeper meanings that God would show those who diligently sought them out -- obviously these deeper meanings would not need to be known for salvation, but the insight gained from them would help a person on his/her journey through life.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Mr Partyka, you wrote:


I think the veracity of this statement depends on what you mean by "secrets". If you mean secrets concerning the basic knowledge that is required for one to believe and be saved, I think that's correct. If you mean that there is absolutely nothing in the Bible that is veiled, I don't think the Fathers would have necessarily agreed. Augustine, for one, believed that one should study down to every word and nuance of speech, so that one understands not merely the surface-level of the text but also the deeper meanings that God would show those who diligently sought them out -- obviously these deeper meanings would not need to be known for salvation, but the insight gained from them would help a person on his/her journey through life.

This is a good point, and raises the issue of a difference between layers of perception of the spiritual depth of materials in a text, and the concept of concealing or encoding messages in it. The fathers actually comment on the former precisely as depending on the non-existence of the latter: the text openly proclaims its contents; the depth of perception is an ascetical task of approach, not a pattern of hiding in the text. So when writers like St Irenaeus comment on this phenomenon, they note precisely that the true meaning of scriptures is often unknown to its readers, not because it is hidden, but because they will not approach it rightly in the Spirit. When those around him claim (as they did) that there were encoded messages in the text itself, he responds adamantly that the contents of the scriptures are not hidden in such a manner: God reveals his truths openly. Lack of sight is an ascetical issue, not one of concealed discovery.

INXC, Dcn Matthew

[Father David Moser]

If you mean secrets concerning the basic knowledge that is required for one to believe and be saved, I think that's correct. If you mean that there is absolutely nothing in the Bible that is veiled,... obviously these deeper meanings would not need to be known for salvation, but the insight gained from them would help a person on his/her journey through life.

Well, Augustine is not a father of the church - he is considered a saint because of his repentance, not because of his theology. Beside that, however is the much more basic question of "What else is there besides salvation?" What is more important or more vital or more all consuming than one's salvation? Salvation is the complete transformation and transfiguration of the person actualizing the image and likeness of God with which we were created. What more is there than that? Our "journey through life" is our salvation.

Fr David Moser

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

I think the veracity of this statement depends on what you mean by "secrets". If you mean secrets concerning the basic knowledge that is required for one to believe and be saved, I think that's correct. If you mean that there is absolutely nothing in the Bible that is veiled, I don't think the Fathers would have necessarily agreed. Augustine, for one, believed that one should study down to every word and nuance of speech, so that one understands not merely the surface-level of the text but also the deeper meanings that God would show those who diligently sought them out -- obviously these deeper meanings would not need to be known for salvation, but the insight gained from them would help a person on his/her journey through life.

The wonderful thing though is that there is a great difference between a secret and a mystery.

The Church is full of mystery which through our lives we gradually & to a degree unveil.

It is against the nature of the Church however to hold any secrets or to be secretive about Her knowledge.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[M. Partyka]

Well, Augustine is not a father of the church....I was unaware of this. I figured that everyone contained in the "Early Church Fathers" collection I've been reading at www.ccel.org (http://www.ccel.org) held the honor of being a Father of the Church. Is there a more accurate list elsewhere?

[K. Sean Proudler]

I agree. The interesting thing about the codes my friend has found does not lie solely in the probability of finding particular arrangements of letters. Rather, it additionally lies in the contextual nature of the finds. That is, these finds not only occur in configurations that point to Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God, but they also occur in key passages of scripture pointing to Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God. If you haven't already, check this link for a prime example:

http://www.hashemtorah.com/prov30-4.htm

Your friends web site was very helpful. As usual, I used the numerical value of the Greek word for GOD( Theos ), which is 90, and I also used the English numerical value of the word GOD, which is 156, to determine my minimum and maximum range ELS setting, thus the ELS was ( From 90 to 156 ).

I then searched the TORAH for the three letter Hebrew word " Ha Shem ", and sure enough, then name of God was revealed via its numerical value. It such a pity that I can not share it here with you all due to Mr. M.C. Steenberg's clear message. But the rest of the world will love it !

[Nina]

This is a good point, and raises the issue of a difference between layers of perception of the spiritual depth of materials in a text, and the concept of concealing or encoding messages in it. The fathers actually comment on the former precisely as depending on the non-existence of the latter: the text openly proclaims its contents; the depth of perception is an ascetical task of approach, not a pattern of hiding in the text. So when writers like St Irenaeus comment on this phenomenon, they note precisely that the true meaning of scriptures is often unknown to its readers, not because it is hidden, but because they will not approach it rightly in the Spirit. When those around him claim (as they did) that there were encoded messages in the text itself, he responds adamantly that the contents of the scriptures are not hidden in such a manner: God reveals his truths openly. Lack of sight is an ascetical issue, not one of concealed discovery.

INXC, Dcn Matthew

This is so true.

[Father David Moser]

I was unaware of this. I figured that everyone contained in the "Early Church Fathers" collection I've been reading at www.ccel.org (http://www.ccel.org) held the honor of being a Father of the Church. Is there a more accurate list elsewhere?

I don't know if there is a comprehensive "list" of the fathers of the Church anywhere. As for the "Early Church Fathers" at ccel. org, you should be advised that this is primarly an evangelical protestant project and so the "fathers" chosen reflect a protestant bias and that bias also affects in some manner the translation as well (the translations of St John Cassien's conferences for example are edited so as not to offend the puritanical sensibilities of protestant scholars). Thus certain fathers are included - especially those that support the protestant agenda - and certain fathers are excluded - especially those that do not - and even those that are included, the writings are "selected"

Don't get me wrong - its a good library of material (I own the entire actual "ink and paper" set) but you just have to know the limits of what you have.

Fr David Moser

Fr David Moser

[Paul Cowan]

Your friends web site was very helpful. As usual, I used the numerical value of the Greek word for GOD( Theos ), which is 90, and I also used the English numerical value of the word GOD, which is 156, to determine my minimum and maximum range ELS setting, thus the ELS was ( From 90 to 156 ).

I then searched the TORAH for the three letter Hebrew word " Ha Shem ", and sure enough, then name of God was revealed via its numerical value. It such a pity that I can not share it here with you all due to Mr. M.C. Steenberg's clear message. But the rest of the world will love it !

You are welcome to share it with him via PM. I am glad I am in the world and not of the world or this type of fancy would trip up my already fragile walk towards salvation.

Matthew 18:6 “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. 7 Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!
8 “If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire.

Forgive me if I offend you. But from the wisdom and trust I have in other posters on this forum, I will not read any more of either of your posts. I feel you are both tempting and baiting us (me) into looking into something we have already been warned against.
Paul

[K. Sean Proudler]

You are welcome to share it with him via PM. I am glad I am in the world and not of the world or this type of fancy would trip up my already fragile walk towards salvation.

Forgive me if I offend you. But from the wisdom and trust I have in other posters on this forum, I will not read any more of either of your posts. I feel you are both tempting and baiting us (me) into looking into something we have already been warned against.
Paul
Actually, you on-end me. Satan works via the practice of divide and conquer. It can be a tough job, but if one views as much as possible, then there is very little room left for another to win by dividing and conquering. However, if one cuts ones self off from the complete, then trouble awaits.

Truth is complete.

Satan is a crafty little S.O.B., and he takes advantage of all human weaknesses. If a specific religion was complete, it would leave no room for another. Since this is not the case, you have to bite the bullet and do ones best to take the next step to go beyond the limitations, and do so such that one can be closer to completeness and thus not be deceived.

But then again, much of the truth is far too extreme for man to withstand, and so only a selected few take on the burden. And so if any of the selected few speak of their tasks, the tasks that sit outside of the understandings of the non-selected, the selected are laughed at, spit upon, humiliated, crucified, ..... and the list goes on and on and .......

[Olga]

If a specific religion was complete, it would leave no room for another.

Orthodoxy is that perfect and complete religion. It is available to all, everywhere and at all times. It is fallen, imperfect human nature which allows room for the others. In this light, it seems to me to be even more perplexing for any credibility to be given to so-called "bible codes".

[Herman Blaydoe]

If a specific religion was complete, it would leave no room for another. Since this is not the case, you have to bite the bullet and do ones best to take the next step to go beyond the limitations, and do so such that one can be closer to completeness and thus not be deceived.

Interesting comment. At first glance it almost reads like it makes sense. However, there are so many ways to deconstruct this little bit of nonsense that I simply do not know where to begin, so I will simply finish with what Olga has wisely posted. The completeness of the Holy Orthodox Church certainly leaves no room for silly number games.

God be with you.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

If a specific religion was complete, it would leave no room for another.

I don't why but this reminds me of the things shouted at Christ when He was on the Cross.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Father David Moser]

If a specific religion was complete, it would leave no room for another. Since this is not the case, you have to bite the bullet and do ones best to take the next step to go beyond the limitations,

How true this is - the Orthodox faith, being the ark of salvation is complete and there is room for no other. All other religions will either find their fulfillment in Orthodoxy or they will depart from the path of Truth and descend into ever greater error. We can see this most clearly with modern Judaism - which rejected the full and complete revelation of God in the the God/man Jesus Christ and has since lost its grasp on the truth; or similarly in Roman Catholicism - which separated itself from the Church and has over the years drifted further and further away from the revelation of the Truth once given to man by God in the incarnation. In both of these examples, there are still vestiges and artifacts of the truth that was once there but now has departed - but only in the Orthodox Church will the Truth still be found.

I know that some of you will dismiss me as a simple minded triumphalistic bigot - but be that as it may; the Church is the ark of salvation and all who are saved will be found within her loving arms (note very clearly that I did not say that only those who are baptized and chrismated Orthodox will be saved). It is true - that there is indeed only room for one true Church - and the visible presence of that Church in the world is the Orthodox Church. All other religions, belief systems, philosophies, theologies and such like are simply variations on the other alternative - that which contains error and is (at best) incomplete.

Thankfully it is up to our great God in His infinite mercy, compassion and love for mankind to sort it all out in the end - but for now the Orthodox Church is the only complete and full expression of the Truth in this world.

Fr David Moser

[Nicolaj]

Well said Father! God bless you for this clear words.

Christos voskrese! Nicolaj