Question: The Bible code continues to be popular and causes confusion in my own mind and for others. ...

July 1, 2006

TBC Staff

Question: The Bible code continues to be popular and causes confusion in my own mind and for others. What do you have to say about this?

Response:We have dealt with this in the past (see TBC Feb '98). If there are verifiable mathematical patterns in the manuscripts that could not come about by chance, they could constitute proof of divine authorship-but we don't need it. Did God put them there to impress modern man, who would be the first to discover them? But why would He do that, when we have so much more that anyone may find and understand? We have more than enough internal proofs by way of prophecy fulfilled and the unity of 40 different authors, most of whom had no contact with one another, etc.

As for hidden messages in the Bible, that is clearly unbiblical. How could anyone, past or present, live "by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord" (Dt 8:3; Mt 4:4, etc.), if some of God's Word is hidden and only accessible through a computer and special software? How could Jeremiah have said, "Thy words were found, and I did eat them" (Jer:15:16); or the man in Psalm 1 meditate on God's Word day and night if some of it was inaccessible to him? Much that Psalm 119 (which is all about God's Word) has to say would not make sense if parts of what God has said to man weren't yet available and wouldn't be until centuries later, with the advent of computers?

Christ's rebuke to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus for not believing "all that the prophets have spoken" (Lk 24:25) is sufficient to prove this theory wrong. He surely would not have scolded them for not giving heed to all that the prophets had spoken if parts of what the prophets had said were hidden in a secret code that could only be read with computers. The idea that there are hidden messages in God's Word contradicts that very Word.

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