Archive for the ‘Biblical Studies’ Category

The Hebrew Bible stands unique among the Abrahamic faiths, and really among all faiths, as having a sustained body of Prophetic material, stamped with the phrase “Koh ‘Amar YHVH” (Thus says YHVH), running many pages, and often sequential.

There is little doubt that 1967 is the benchmark of Biblical Prophecy and the Last Days (see Restoring Abrahamic Faith, pp. 92ff). That, along with the dates 1917 and 1947 seem now confirmed in history and the chronologies of Daniel, plus the Kislev 24 connections.
What one finds in the Prophets are shorter “snippets” or overviews, such as Jeremiah 30-31, Psalm 83, Psalm 104-106, Obadiah, Zephaniah, Haggai 3, and so forth, but of even more fascination are the longer sustained prophecies that seem to actually offer a sequential treatment taking one to the day when YHVH will be King over all the earth and YHVH’s name ONE. Of course the sequence of events is a varied one, from war, death, and destruction to redemption, life and joy.

Among these are of course Zechariah 8-14.  However, these chapters are divided by “Oracles” into 8-11 and 12-14, and it seems likely that these are two “takes” on the same period, from two different standpoints. That would mean that the “battle” of 12 is not the same as that of 14, which seems obvious in terms of outcome. There is good reason to think that current events in Israel, since at least 1967, fit well into Zechariah 8, but not into the events of chapters 12-14. However it should be noted there are also “flashbacks” and “asides,” such as 13:7-9, usually set off by “white spaces” so one must look at the Hebrew text.

Isaiah 24-35 is another longer and sequential prophecy, quite complex, but the “white spaces” give the proper divisions. Also there is Isaiah 40-66 and of course Ezekiel 37-39.  Then there are the oracles to the nations in Jeremiah 46-52 and Ezekiel 24-36.

In terms of Gaza there is something really interesting in Ezekiel 39:11-16. Please note the location for the permanent burial of Gog and Magog! As it turns out this was never an area that Israel was to occupy or will occupy, as it is reserved for this final fate.

Despite many 19th and 20th century apocalyptic expectations, particularly made popular in American and Britian, the wheels of “fulfillment” seem to turn rather slowly, not in a decade or even a Jubilee, but often several centuries. Hence, witness the 300 year history of “Zionism,” or the Return to the Land by the Jewish people. Even more unsettling to standard Christian apocalypticism, that tends to expect things to be solved quickly, and from heaven, with one fell swoop, is that any reading of the chronology of the Masoretic text indicates that the 6000 year mark was passed somewhere between 1997 and 2002. So the “Millennium” is here, but not with a bang or even a bust, but more of the gradual shifts, changes, and struggles, that Maimonides associated with the Messianic age.

Restoring Abrahamic Faith, a “must read” for all Christians, see the latest review by United Israel Vice-President Ralph Buntyn:

http://genesis2000.org/endorsements-links/

Become a Fan of Restoring Abrahamic Faith on Facebook, join discussions, post comments and hear from other readers:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Restoring-Abrahamic-Faith/270825473323?ref=ts

Was the Last Supper a Jewish Passover Seder? Millions of Christians who are happily and profitably discovering their “Hebraic roots” by studying, participating in, and even reenacting “Passover” services have equated it with the final evening meal Jesus had with his disciples. Indeed, many so-called “messianic” groups have developed an extensive interpretation of the traditional Jewish Passover Seder that finds all sorts of Christological meanings reflected in the ceremonies, including the death and resurrection of Jesus for the sins of humankind.

All four of our gospels report that Jesus ate a last meal privately with the Twelve, on the “night he was betrayed,” as Paul puts it. However, the Synoptics (Mark, Matthew, Luke) and John report things differently in so far as whether this meal took place on the night of Passover, or the night before. Although many have attempted harmonization, the differences in the two reports remain stark and and can not be ignored.  Scholars have exhaustively argued out every possibility pro and con.

I argue in The Jesus Dynasty (chapter 12 “Last Days in Jerusalem”) that the final meal was not a Passover Seder and offer a revised chronology in which Jesus dies on a Thursday, rather than a Friday, with the Passover Seder falling at the beginning of the 15th of Nisan, after sundown, Thursday night with that Friday, in the year AD/CE 30 being a “high day” sabbath, followed by the weekly Sabbath.

In a thoroughly comprehensive general article just published in the latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (March/April, 2010) titled “Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder,” Boston University professor Jonathan Klawans explores the issue in a clear and compelling way, concluding that the last meal of Jesus was most likely not a Passover Seder. I am pleased to say you can read it on-line here, but hope you will consider subscribing to BAR magazine as it continues to bring us quality articles of this type.

N I have chosen as a “Last Supper” illustration the etching by the incomparably great Albrecht Dürer in which the “beloved disciple” is sleeping as a small child, next to Jesus.

A story is just breaking tonight around the world regarding the text found by Prof. Garfinkel at Elah over a year ago. It has apparently now been deciphered and dated and can be reliably put in the 10th century BCE, the time of the “Monarchy.” This is a major breakthrough in terms of the debate between the “minimalists” who argue the Biblical narratives are post-Exilic and those who maintain that we have texts at least 500 years earlier.

See the Eureka press release with photos here.

This particular Torah reading, Vayigash: Genesis 44:18-47:27, taken from the first word “to draw near,” where Judah DRAWS NEAR to Joseph, has great meaning to United Israel World Union and its history.

It just so happens that on January 1st, 1943, the weekend that United Israel World Union was officially formed in upstate NY by David Horowitz, that the Torah reading was indeed Vayigash! David had no idea of this at the time, and never noticed it years later when it was pointed out to him around his 90th year.

There could have been no more appropriate date or reading, in that Horowitz at that time represented the ONLY significant person of the House of Judah who was determined to do something to “DRAW NEAR TO JOSEPH.” Is this not rather incredible!! Indeed this Joseph cycle of readings has proven very significant in our own time. Allenby took Jerusalem on December 9, 1917 (just “happened” to be on Kislev 24!), and the reading with Mikketz (Gen 41). The UN Partition vote was on November 29, 1947 and the reading was Vayeshev. In both cases, the nations that I would associate with Joseph come to the aid of Judah and his companions, saving their LIVES in a great time of trouble, and there is a kind of “uniting” of the two houses even then, but in a preliminary way.

It is obvious that the Rabbis who complied the Haphtorah readings from the Prophets saw more than an ordinary meaning in this phrase, in that they chose Ezekiel 37:15-28, the passage about the two “sticks,” one for Judah and the sons of Israel his companions, and the other for Joseph, and all the house of Israel and his companions. Those sticks are UNITED, thus the whole idea of UNITED ISRAEL which David Horowitz has pioneered for over 50 years now. One stick IS the stick of Joseph, but it is in the hand of Ephraim–and we learn why in next weeks Torah reading where the aged Jacob adopts the two sons of Joseph, but puts the younger Ephraim, BEFORE the older Manasseh, and gives Joseph the birthright, taken from Reuben, the firstborn son. You might have expected it to go to Judah, since Judah is clearly next in line since Simeon and Levi were eliminated for their cruelty (see Gen 49:5-7), as well as being one of the strongest and most prominent of the twelve tribes, but Jacob rather chose his beloved Rachel’s son Joseph. Joseph is also given the special plot of land in Shechem, where he was later buried, and the site of such contention now with the Palestinians (Gen 48:22; Josh 24:32). YHVH declares that these TWO sticks will become ONE in His Hand (Ezk 37:20) and the following verses explain how that will happen:

I will take the sons of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; and I will make them ONE NATION in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and ONE King will be king for all of them; and they will no longer be two nations and no longer be divided into two kingdoms.” This chapter of course opens with the vision of the Valley of Dry Bones.

So the children of Israel end up in TWO COMPANIES, as was already hinted at the previous Torah reading Vayishlach (Gen 32:10).

The whole Joseph story seems to echo this history of the Lost Tribes. Joseph is sold into slavery, as was ancient Israel, the Northern Kingdom. He is effectively given up for DEAD (thus the valley of Dry Bones), and forgotten by his brothers, here represented mostly by Judah, who remains in the Land and returns to the Land after the Babylonian disaster. He marries a GENTILE woman, an Egyptian, and eventually reaches a great position of power and prominence, the highest of the kings of the earth–and for all practical purposes completely loses his identity–but all this time YHVH was with him. He is the DREAMER, the one who did not fit in, the one rejected by his brothers. According to Genesis 49:22-26 the descendents of Joseph will achieve great blessings and incredible wealth, and Moses adds his own details to the prophecy in Deut 33:13-17–Joseph is to push to the ends of the earth, and have the favor of “the one who dwells in the Bush,” achieving great favor and prominence. We should expect then, at the time when Judah returns to the land (the prophets declare: I will save the house of Judah first), which we have seen the this past century, that Joseph will exist someone on the earth, looked upon as Gentile, but somehow oriented to the God of Israel and the Bible, but with incredible wealth and power. The key then would be that large portions of such “Gentile” populations would begin to feel an irresistible pull toward Judah and the Land of Israel, and be drawn home. There is a preliminary return, spoken of in Jeremiah 3 and 16, but also that massive return that will pale the Exodus in size…we seem to be living in such days, and have for the past 50 years, but especially I think we have seen the return of large pockets of Joseph to God, Israel, and Torah in the past 25 years. It can only increase not decrease, and it is one of the strangest phenomena on the earth today, as thousand of “Gentiles” seem suddenly interested in discovering their Hebraic “roots.”

There appear to be some incredible parallels between the Joseph story, the Lost Tribes saga, and the story Jesus tells in Luke 15, most often referred to as the Prodigal Son. One son stays “home,” the other becomes “lost” and forgotten among the Gentiles, but eventually returns home…

Both Houses of Israel, that is Judah and Ephraim (usually called Israel in the prophets, in contrast to Judah) are chastised and rebuked, but the language of Jeremiah 3:6-14 is most important and interesting. Judah is called treacherous while Israel is called faithless (lit. turned, slidden away), but v. 11 says that “Faithless Israel has proven herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.” That, no doubt, becomes the source of the jealous that Isaiah 11 speaks about, and it is echoed in the Prodigal son story. Judah is very reluctant to give up her privileged place of “faithfulness” to a backslidden Israel–but it is Judah’s attitude that has to change. In the end, though falling into great apostasy, Joseph is proven MORE RIGHTEOUS, and returns home. Also, based on the words of Jacob in Gen 49 it does appear that the Scepter departs from Judah and eventually goes to Joseph also–from him comes the Stone, the Rock of Israel–or Shiloh…This will surely be a surprise to all the world, both Jews and Christians, who are so focused on a Davidic Messiah figure.

The story in the Torah today is itself so very moving. What a scene, and yet there is such power in the grace and love that he ends up showing his brothers. It is easy to forget that the sons of Israel are a very diverse mix, born of four different women, and with very different temperaments and characteristics, as are outlined by father Jacob in next Sabbath’s reading.

Tis the Season” love it or not but for an alternative take on Jesus’ birth, December 25th, and a different kind of “Silent Night” see my essay, just up on the Web at Bible&Interpretation, a site well worth a bit of browsing:

http://www.bibleinterp.com/opeds/xmas357921.shtml

I love this wonderful Armenian portrayal of the meeting of Miriam with her kinswoman Elisheva in the region of Ein Kerem in the “hill country of Judea,” west of Jerusalem. Note that the unborn babies are shown in situ as if by ancient ultrasound. According to Luke’s gospel the women were separated in their pregnancies by six months and Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months, implying that she was attending at the birth of John/Yehochanan.

Does God ever dream? Not literally, as we humans do, but in terms of a future vision? Ross Nichols, teacher at the historic Temple Sinai in St. Francisville, LA, presented an exceptionally powerful, inspiring, and insightful teaching on this whole subject of dreams yesterday, tied to the weekly Torah reading Miketz (Genesis 41:1-44:17). You can listen to it here:

http://rootsoffaith.org/2009/12/19/miketz-the-dream-genesis-411-4417.htm

The “Tomb of the Shroud” which was discovered and investigated in 2000 by Shimon Gibson, Boaz Zissu, and me, with a team of our UNC Charlotte students in the summer of 2000, continues to yield up many scientific secrets about life and death in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus. I related the basic story of the exciting discovery of this freshly robbed tomb in the Introduction to my book The Jesus Dynasty in 2006 and Shimon Gibson has recently provided a more thorough analysis in his new book, The Final Days of Jesus: The Archaeological Evidence (HarperOne, 2009). We published a preliminary report in the journal Hadashot Arkheologiyot (vol. 111: 2000, pp. 70-72, figs. 138-139) but a major monograph is ShroudDrawingplanned for 2011 and various aspects of the research are beginning to appear in scientific journals. Although the burial shroud itself continues to receive great public interest (see the latest in today’s The Daily Mail), other aspects of research on this tomb are quite notable. DNA profiles were done on all the bones in the tomb, so far as we know for the first time in an ancient tomb in Jerusalem from the Herodian period. We also have the only substantial example of male hair from the period (lice free, cut reasonably short, and well groomed), and most important, the earliest case of leprosy ever found–in the Holy Land or elsewhere. The significance of the latter discovery is a major contribution to our understanding of ancient disease and has recently been published in the current issue of the Public Library of Science Journal. Yesterday’s Jerusalem Post had a nice feature update on the tomb and its secrets, highlighting the leprosy finding:

Remains in tomb near Old City show first known case of leprosy
Dec. 15, 2009

Judy Siegel-Itzkovich , THE JERUSALEM POST
DNA taken from the shrouded remains of a man discovered in a tomb next to the Old City of Jerusalem shows him to be the first human proven to have suffered from leprosy, according to Hebrew University researchers and North American and British collaborators. They published their findings in the December 16 issue of the PLoS One – the US Public Library of Science journal.

Prof. Mark Spigelman and Prof. Charles Greenblatt of the Sanford F. Kuvin Center for the Study of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at HU in Jerusalem, along with Prof. Carney Matheson and Kim Vernon of Lakehead University in Canada, Prof. Azriel Gorski of New Haven University and Dr. Helen Donoghue of University College London performed the molecular investigation. The archeological excavation was led by Prof. Shimon Gibson, Dr. Boaz Zissu and Prof. James Tabor on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

The burial cave, known as the Tomb of the Shroud, is located in the lower Hinnom Valley near the Jaffa Gate and part of a first century CE cemetery known as Akeldama, or “Field of Blood” (mentioned in the Book of Matthew 27:3-8, and Acts 1:19 in the Christian Bible). It is located adjacent to the spot where Judas is said to have committed suicide.

The tomb of the shrouded man is also located next to the tomb of Annas, the high priest (6 CE to 15 CE), who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest who betrayed Jesus to the Romans. It is thus believed that this shrouded man was either a priest or a member of the aristocracy. Gibson suggests that the view from the tomb would have looked directly toward the Second Temple.

The tomb is very unusual because it is clear that this man, whose remains are dated by radiocarbon methods to 1 CE to 50 CE, did not receive a subsequent burial. Secondary burials were common practice at the time, when the bones were removed after a year and placed in an ossuary (a bone box made of stone). In this case, however, the entrance to this part of the tomb was completely sealed with plaster. Spigelman believes this is because the man had suffered from leprosy and died of tuberculosis, as DNA of both diseases was found in his bones.

Historically, disfiguring diseases such as leprosy led to the sufferer being ostracized from their community. However, a number of indications – the location and size of the tomb, the type of textiles used as shroud wrappings, and the clean state of the hair – suggest that the shrouded individual was a fairly affluent member of Jerusalem society, and that tuberculosis and leprosy may have crossed social boundaries at that time.

This is also the first time fragments of a burial shroud have been found from the time of Jesus in Jerusalem. The shroud is very different to that of the Turin Shroud, until now assumed to be the one that was used to wrap the body of Jesus after his crucifixion. Unlike the complex weave of the Turin Shroud, this is made up of a simple two-way weave, as textile historian Dr. Orit Shamir was able to demonstrate.

Based on the assumption that this is representative of a typical burial shroud widely used at the time of Jesus, the researchers conclude that the Turin Shroud did not originate from Jesus-era Jerusalem.

The excavation also found a clump of the shrouded man’s hair, which had been ritually cut before he was buried. These are both unique discoveries because organic remains are only rarely preserved in the Jerusalem area owing to the soil’s high humidity levels.

Spigelman and Greenblatt state that the origins and development of leprosy are largely obscure. Leprosy in the Jewish Bible may well refer to skin diseases such as psoriasis. The leprosy known to us today was thought to have originated in India and brought over via bacteria to the Near East and Mediterranean countries during the Hellenistic period. The results from the First Century Tomb of the Shroud fill a vital gap in our knowledge of this disease, they said.

Furthermore, the new research has shown that molecular pathology clearly adds a new dimension to the archeological exploration of disease in ancient times and a better understanding of the evolution, geographic distribution and epidemiology of disease and social health in antiquity.

The co-infection of both leprosy and tuberculosis here and in 30 percent of DNA remains in Israel and Europe from the ancient and modern period provided evidence for the postulate that the medieval plague of leprosy was eliminated by an increased level of tuberculosis in Europe as the area urbanized.

Over a dozen years ago, in May 1997, a sensational new book titled The Bible Code by Michael Drosnin, was published by Simon & Schuster. It was announced with a full-page ad in the New York Times and quickly appeared on the covers and editorial pages of major magazines and newspapers worldwide. Drosnin, a free-lance investigative reporter, who once worked for the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, offered a readable, engrossing, and intriguing account of a hidden code found in the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament), discovered several years ago, with the use of advanced computer programs, by a number of Israeli mathematicians, including Moshe Katz, Eliyahu Rips, and Doron Witztum. This code is based on what are called ELS or Equidistant Letter Sequences found in the traditional Masoretic Hebrew text of the Torah or Five Books of Moses. The idea is a simple one. According to its supporters there is encoded within the plain text of the Hebrew Torah hidden messages and information. Imagine the entire 304,805 Hebrew letters of the traditional Torah fed into a computer in perfect sequence, much like the sequenced chemical strand of a DNA double helix. The computer then looks for meaningful words and phrases occurring at various intervals or equal distant letter skips—say every 50 letters, or 75, or 100 letters—or really any number one chooses to use, forward or backward in the text.

For example, if you start with Genesis 1:1, go to the first occurrence of the letter Tav (which is at the end of the first word bereshit, “In [the] beginning”), count 49 letters, and you come to the letter Vav (50th letter); count another 49 letters and you arrive at Resh; and 49 letters again and you come to the letter Heh—put these together: Tav, Vav, Resh, Heh and you spell a Hebrew word: TORaH (see illustration). It is most interesting that the same thing happens with the first lines of Exodus, the second book of Torah. If you begin with the first Tav (the end of the second wordshemot), count 49 letters, you come to a Vav, another 49 letters to a Resh, and a fourth 49 letters you end up with a Heh—again TORaH in Hebrew. The third book of the Torah, Leviticus, has a similar pattern, but this time the sacred Name of God (YHVH/Yod, Hey, Vav, Hey) is spelled out every seven letters, beginning with the first Yod. Numbers and Deuteronomy continue the pattern, but with the word TORaH spelled backwards, every 49 letters. The sacred Name YHVH also is found at the end each of these five books, also at intervals of 49 letters. The question is, are we dealing with a phenomenon that can be explained purely by chance and random sequence, or is there some “pattern” that has somehow been inserted by the Author or authors of these texts? Given the number of letters in Genesis (about 78 thousand), one would expect the letters Tav, Vav, Hey, and Resh, to appear in sequence, at various letter intervals, at least two or three times based on chance distribution alone. What is interesting here is the way in which these key terms: Torah and YHVH, appear precisely where they do—at the opening and closing of the Five Books of the Torah, and in a balanced sequence of forward and backward spelling—with YHVH opening Leviticus, at a sequence of seven letters. Such number patterns, of seven and forty-nine, have mystical and historical significance in Hebrew tradition.

The phenomenon is also found in much more complicated ways. Prof. Rips, for example, found that in the single section of Genesis 1:29-3:3, one can find encoded, at various letter sequences, not only the names of the seven edible species of seed-bearing fruits in the land of Israel (barley, wheat, vine, date, olive, fig, and pomegranate), but also the names of the twenty-five trees of the Garden of Eden, delineated by tradition (chestnut, acacia, willow, etc.)—again, all hidden at various equal distant letter skips (5, 18, 9, 14, and so forth). There is no other segment of Genesis of similar length where these words occur at such short intervals (less than 20 letters).

Dosnin’s book goes much beyond such relatively simply patterns. His book is filled with charts of various grids or sections of the Hebrew text, in which one finds patterns of words at various sequences—moving forward, backward, horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. For example, he finds the names Yitzhak Rabin and Amir (Rabin’s convicted killer), the phrase “name of assassin who will assassinate,” Tel Aviv, and the date on the Hebrew calendar 5756 (1995-96)—all laid out in one portion of the Hebrew Torah at various letter sequences (see pp. 16-17) of his book. He tells us of his dramatic efforts to warn Rabin of the possibilities of his death, as he discovered these particular “codes” before the assassination in 1995. He also finds the assassinations of J. F. and Robert Kennedy, clustered with terms such as Dallas, Oswald, Ruby, S. Sirhan, marksman, respectively. In the case of Egyptian President Sadat, he finds the phrase “Chaled will shoot Sadat” and even the Hebrew date “8 Tishri” in a relatively small section of the text. Another section shows many words clustered together related to the 1991 Gulf War, including the words: Saddam Hussein, missile, 3rd of Shevat (Jan 18th), and so forth. Hardly anything is left out of the book, from Watergate, to Hiroshima, to the Jupiter comet collision. Drosnin’s book is filled with such examples, including things yet to come—which is part of the controversy, since most of the Israeli scientists who have developed the basic research on the computer code maintain it can not be used reliably to predict the future. As Prof. Rips put it, when asked about Drosnin’s book: “All attempts to extract messages from Torah codes or to make predictions based on them are futile and of no value.”

The idea that the Torah, as the purest revelation of the God of Israel, was divinely inspired at Sinai and delivered to Moses in a letter-perfect form that we have without error today, is fundamental to traditional Judaism. Indeed, in Jewish mystical tradition, the Torah contains all knowledge. As the Vilna Gaon put it in the 18th century: “all that was, is, and will be unto the end of time is included in the Torah.” The Torah is understood to be the “blueprint” of the universe, a reflection of the perfect mind of God. Many of these Codes, especially the more simple ones, based on the ELS phenomenon, had been discovered by various rabbis down through the ages. It was the brilliant Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl, survivor of the Holocaust, who first made a systematic examination of the entire Torah, looking for such patterns. As a youth he had written out the entire 300 thousand letter text of the traditional Torah on white cards, in 10-by- 10 arrays of letters. Following the war he lived outside of NY City, sat for hours, Bible in hand, making complicated mathematical calculations on the letters of the Bible, taking copius notes in the margins. Eventually he established a Yeshiva and gathered a group of faithful students around him. Unfortunately little of his work was committed to writing, and most is now lost. For example, the Vilna Gaon had found the name Rambam (Maimonides) encoded in Exodus 11:9 in an acrostic acronym from the first letters of the words: Rabot Moftai B’eretz Mitzraim (“marvels will be multiplied in the land of Egypt”). Rabbi Weissmandle discovered that if you began with the letter M (Mem), of this acrostic, the words Mishnah and Torah were spelled out at a 50 letter sequence—but with the two words separated by 613 letters. Those familiar with Jewish tradition will recall that Maimonides’ greatest work was titledMishnah Torah and it is the most authoritative commentary on the 613 Mitzvot (Commandments) in Judaism.

I first heard of the Torah Bible Code on various visits to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City in the early 1990s. It was talked about openly among the rabbis and Torah students who lived there. In fact, in July, 1990 I discussed the phenomenon with the Chief Rabbi of Israel, and he appeared to be quite excited and favorable toward the results that were just beginning to appear from the Israeli scientists. I can still recall the example shown to me from Deuteronomy 31:14-18, where Moses is told how Israel will go astray and that God will hide his face from them. If you begin with the letter Heh, last letter in the name of Moses in verse 14, count 50 letters, you come to Shin, another 50 letters, you come to Vav, and so forth until one finds spelled out: Hey Shin Vav, Alef, Heh—which is in Hebrew is HaShoah—the Holocaust! (see illustration). I was told at the time that this word, HaShoah, never occurs anywhere else in the Torah in such a pattern. I still have my Hebrew Bible marked with those letters I circled on that day. Shortly thereafter I was able to obtain a privately published “manual” on the Torah Codes published by the Orthodox group Arachim. In 1993 I received a letter from Prof. Paul Eidelberg from Bar-Ilan University, on behalf of his colleague Dr. Moshe Katz asking me for help in getting some of this work published in English. Prof. Katz was one of the pioneers in the computer examination of the Torah Code possibilities. Prof. Eidelberg was kind enough to mail me a copy of Prof. Katz’ s book on the Torah Codes in Hebrew, B’Otiyoteiha Nitna Torah (published 1991; subsequently in English as: Computorah: On Hidden Codes in the Torah [1996]). Over the next few years I continued to hear about the Bible Code and the astonishing claims these Israeli mathematicians were making. Prof. Eidelberg himself published a fine summary in the Orthodox scientific journal B’Or HaTorah (“Codes in the Torah: A Discussion” No. 9, 1995), and from time to time one would see articles about the codes in the Jewish press.

The first major academic breakthrough involving such research on the Bible Codes was the 1994 publication of an article in the prestigious scholarly journal Statistical Science (Vol 9, No. 3, pp. 429-38) titled “Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis,” by Israeli mathematicians Doron Witztum, Elijahu Rips, and Yoav Rosenberg. In this very technical article these researchers reported on an experiment in which they claimed to have found, encoded in the book of Genesis, the names, as well as the birth and death dates, of 34 “Great Men of Israel” taken at random from a Jewish Encyclopedia. Their list included such figures as Rabbi Avraham Ibn-Ezra, Rashi, the Rambam, and so forth. In October, 1995, the popular magazine Bible Review, published a summary of these findings by researcher Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, titled “Divine Authorship? Computer Reveals Startling Word Patterns.” The response was overwhelming and gradually the subject of the Bible Codes was working its way into a wider discussion among Biblical scholars (who almost universally scoffed at the idea) and informed lay persons. Satinover addressed many of the objections and responses in a subsequent issue of Bible Review (February, 1996), but the idea was dismissed by Biblical scholars as preposterous and it never really caught on in the public mind. A rather technical mathematical discussion has continued on the Web since the publication of the Statistical Science article in 1994. I have attempted all along to follow the discussion as it has developed.

When Michael Drosnin’s book burst on the scene in 1994 the result was like a torrential storm among specialists and non-specialists alike. One even saw the book for sale in K-Mart, WalMart, and the local grocery store! There are dozens of Web sites on the Internet devoted to a discussion, pro and con, of the validity of the Bible Codes. Bible Review, perhaps as an act of repentance, published a scathingly critical article on Dosnin’s book in August, 1997 titled “The Bible Code: Cracked and Crumbling,” in which the prestigious Hebrew Bible scholar Ron Hendel and mathematician Shlomo Sternberg pointed out what they consider to be the utter foolishness, problematic nature, and outright fraud embodied in the whole idea. Australian mathematician Brendan McKay, along with Hebrew University professor Dror Bar-Nathan published a detailed refutation of what they consider to be the mathematical flaws of the whole idea and responses by Ripps and Witztum followed with counter-responses from McKay & Bar-Nathan. These discussions become extremely abstract and technical and would surely be difficult to follow without a high level of training in the science of mathematical statistics.

Today there are multiple easy-to-use programs for personal computers that allow anyone to get into the act of calculating Torah codes. With a little knowledge of Hebrew one can search for his or her own name and any other significant data. I know of several who have done this. One friend wrote me to report that he had found his name, year of birth, place of birth, and the words “prophet Elijah” are all encoded together! He is trying to determine if this might be significant for his own role in the future plan of God. Others are using the codes to reveal all sorts of details about the impending apocalyptic end of the age on or around the turn of the Millennium. The Christians have also moved quickly into the arena. Popular evangelical writer Grant Jeffrey published a best-seller titled The Signature of God, in which he claims that codes verifying Jesus as the Messiah, his atoning death on the cross, and his role as Savior and Lord, are all encoded in Hebrew Bible using this same ELS code! For example, he points out that if you begin in Genesis 1:1, take the first Yod in the first word, count forward every 521st letter, you will spell out Yeshua Yakhol, which he translates “Jesus is able.” (I have not bothered to count this one out, but assume it will work). He also finds the name of Yeshua, as one might expect, in the prophecy of Isaiah 53 regarding the Suffering Servant. Jeffrey has no mathematical training of which I am aware, but he assures his readers that the chances this name would appear randomly in this chapter are one in 50 quadrillion!! What Jeffrey fails to point out or recognize is that any name of three or four common letters can be found millions of times in various letter sequences, in any language, in a book the size of the Hebrew Torah. The word Yeshua, with its very common Hebrew letters, occurs 600,000 times at various sequences in the Torah—but so does Koresh, Mohammed, Krishna, Buddha, and so forth, including most of the simple first names of anyone reading this article. It is obvious that the whole Bible Code phenomenon has degenerated to the level of tea leaves and Tarot cards! The whole subject of mathematical patterns is nothing new. One can find at any airport bookstore the latest book putting forth “astounding” claims of improbability with reference to the measurements of pyramids of Egypt, the letters in the Arabic Koran, or even the Greek New Testament (numeric patterns of all types).

In my view one of the most worthwhile discussions of the whole Torah Code phenomenon, on a more popular level, is being carried out by the leaders of Aish HaTorah, a rabbinical school in Jerusalem founded by Noah Weinberg—particularly the work of Rabbi Daniel Mechanic, senior “Codes” lecturer for the organization. Although these Orthodox Jewish scholars are convinced the Torah Code phenomenon points to the Divine Authorship of the Hebrew Torah, they have responsibly engaged one another and outside colleagues in a discussion that takes into consideration the various objections and excesses of the subject. Jeffrey Satinover, the author of the initial article in Bible Review, published a responsible and balanced book called Cracking the Bible Code (William Morrow, 1997), that appears to be a balanced source for surveying the question in a comprehensive way.

In the end, the notion of the Bible Codes rests on two fundamental pillars: 1) the claim that these word patterns are statistically significant and could not be accounted for by chance; 2) the idea that there is a letter-perfect, inviolate, version of the Torah in Hebrew, without textual variants or alterations. First, we must be clear on what is meant by “codes.” Word patterns per se, distributed at various distances, will naturally occur in any text in any alphabetic language, whether the English or Hebrew Bible, the works of Tolstoy or Shakespeare, the morning newspaper, or even this article I am writing. Such “words” are accounted for purely by chance, and are not properly referred to as “codes.” Thus to find my name Tabor, or Jesus, or that of anyone reading this article, in any text, is no surprise—especially if the letters of a text are arranged on a grid, and one searches for sequences of one letter skips up to several thousand, in all directions—forwards, backwards, horizontally, and vertically. The possibilities are endless! A “code,” on the other hand, implies that an author or the Author has deliberately arranged the text with certain patterns, complex enough and unusual enough that they would not be accounted for by a random chance occurrence.

For example, Prof. McKay took the English text of Moby Dick and has shown how all sorts of “astounding” things can be found at various letter sequences—such as the assassinations of various public figures, with dates and details. In a more playful mood, Dr. McKay took an English translation of the New Testament book of Revelation and found terms such as Bill Gates, MS-DOS, virtual reality, software, and even the name Michael Drosin—all on a single page grid! Other researchers have taken a portion of the Hebrew translation of War and Peace, roughly the size of the Torah in Hebrew, fed it into a computer, and sought to determine what hidden codes might be there as well. In one short section of the book they found at least 50 words, and even phrases, related to Chanukah—including Hashmonean, temple, lights, Maccabees, sanctuary, month of Kislev, miracles, chanukah, etc. Not having any advanced mathematical training, and no experience at all in the complex world of statistical analysis, I really can offer little here from my own expertise. I will continue to read the debate between the mathematicians and follow it to the degree I can.

As for the inviolate text of the Hebrew Bible, the whole Bible Codes theory faces what I take to be a rather insurmountable problem—especially in dealing with portions of the Hebrew text larger than a section or page. Drosnin states that the Israeli research is based on the traditional Torah, as printed in the Jerusalem Bible Koren edition, which he tells us is the same in all official copies of the text worldwide. The problem is that there is no single ancient copy of the Torah that agrees letter perfectly with modern copies found in synagogues today. The traditional text reprinted in modern editions goes back only to the 16th century and represents a composite text based on various manuscripts of the Masoretic text, put together by the Rabbis. Even our two oldest copies of the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex (10th century C.E.), do not agree in every word and letter. Any critical edition of the Hebrew Bible will show these many variations at the bottom of the page (see the latest edition of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, which is based on the Leningrad Codex but footnotes all the major variants from other manuscripts). There are also the many hundreds of changes that the Masoretes made in the text and have noted in the margins and their notes. Over 100 times they change the name of God from YHVH to Adonai, thousands of times they recognize that the text as written needs correction (which they do in the margins). Now with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and portions of the Torah they contain, we know the Masoretic text is just one textual tradition, and not necessarily the oldest. As often as not the Dead Sea texts agree with the Greek Septuagint (which was translated from a Hebrew version around 200 B.C.E.!), and the Hebrew text that Josephus used, against the traditional Masoretic text. This means that any wide search of the Hebrew Bible, involving thousands of letters in dozens of pages, becomes invalid if one assumes that the precise letter sequence in modern copies of the Torah has not changed over the centuries. Our manuscript evidence simply proves otherwise. On the other hand, some of the word patterns, such as the two illustrated in this article, involving letter skips of only 49 or 50 letters, in a relatively limited section of Torah, would remain valid subjects of discussion. What becomes impressive to the non-specialist is when such patterns appear to be superimposed directly within a passage in which the plain meaning of the text corresponds to the “code”—such as the “trees of Eden” mentioned earlier, or the word “holocaust” in Deuteronomy 31:16-19, a passage dealing directly with the subject of the “hiding of the face.” The mathematical debate will go on and perhaps reach definitive resolution by the scientists. My own conclusion is that the verdict is still out on the final question: has some author/s or Author/s inserted patterned messages into the text of the Hebrew Bible,or can all the patterns, so far discovered, be accounted for by statistical factors of chance.

The book of Hosea/Hoshea’ is the book of all books when it comes to the deeper prophetic vision of the fate and future of the so-called Northern Kingdom, or “house of Israel,” in contrast to the “house of Judah,” to use the Biblical terminology. It is seldom read with much discrimination by either Jews or Christians in terms of these two “houses,” but anyone who spends a bit of time with it, even the first chapter, will quickly realize it is addressed almost exclusively to the northern house of Israel, also called by the name of the tribe “Ephraim” who became the head/birthright tribe of ALL Israel, notice carefully:

Reuben was the firstborn but his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, “For Judah became strong among his brothers and a Nagid (chief, anointed one) was appointed from him, but the birthright belonged to Joseph” (1 Chron 5:1-2).

As such the there was, is, and will be a bit of “jealousy” and “hostility” between the two houses, as Isaiah 11:13 makes clear, particularly as the two houses are drawn back to the Land.

Hosea really tells it all, and as Zechariah is very much the Prophet focused on the return of Judah to the Land, Hosea is focused on Israel/Ephraim. Accordingly, their destinies are quite different as are their specific roles and experiences in final return to the Land. The Prophets of Isaiah and Jeremiah “broad brush” the overview but it is specifically in Hosea that the sharp detailed future of Israel/Ephraim is projected.

There is much to absorb in that regard, as Israel (not Judah) becomes “Not my People,” and “No Mercy,” her two new names, and thus loses its identity as Israel. The image Hosea is given is that of a formal divorce of a husband to sends away an adulterous wife, and based on Torah such a banning is to be permanent not temporary (Deut 24). This means that the northern kingdom, for all practical purposes “become Gentiles” to put it in plain English, or as Hosea puts it, “they shall be wanderers among the nations” and will number as the “sands of the sea.” They follow an “east wind” to the West. During their “many days” of separation they are essentially cut off from the access to and knowledge of YHVH, which Judah continues to experience through king and priest as well as the revelation of Torah and Prophets.

The way in which Israel/Ephraim finally is brought back is most interesting. The main passage in Hosea that sketches this out, also using a “marriage” image, is the following, and the details and language are most instructive and complex:

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. (15) And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. (16) And in that day, declares YHVH, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Lord” (Baal) (17) For I will remove the names of the Lord (Baalim) from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. (18) And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. (19) And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. (20) I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know YHVH. (21) “And in that day I will answer, declares YHVH, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, (22) and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel, (23) and I will sow her for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People,‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’” (Hosea 2:15-23; but 2:14ff in Christian Bibles).

Both what proceeds and follows this key central passage on the “return” and re-marriage of Ephraim/Israel to YHVH is vital to follow but here I focus just on three key elements of this section. Notice:

How: The means of the regathering:YHVH will “allure” Ephraim. This is an most interesting and important one, the Hebrew word “patah” (different but related to patach “to open”). It is usually a negative term, for one who is so “open” as to be simple and thus easily fooled or enticed, but it can mean, in a certain context such as this, to draw one in, thus “allure” is a good translation. Some translations, picking up on the context of YHVH as lover, use the verb “to woo” her. What is implied is that an attachment to another/s, in this case “Lords” is dissolved and a renewal of vows toward YHVH takes place. Israel is actually “in love” and drawn to YHVH.

Where: The setting is “in the wilderness,” and specifically identified with the “door” of entry at Achor, down toward the Dead Sea in the Judean desert and southward to the Negev. It is the same “route” ancient Israel used in coming up out of Egypt in entering the Land across from Jericho. How literal one is to take this is an open question but the description is “alluring” to say the least.

When: It is a time of the bow, sword and war in the Land where there is no safety.

To understand how the “alluring” takes place, that is, its setting, one has to read carefully Hosea 2:1-13, where a rich, and prosperous Ephraim, tied to and happy with her lovers/Baalim, is stripped naked and loses everything, and thus ends up in the “desert” situation Hosea addresses, whether literally or figuratively.

Much to ponder here but if you have not read through Hosea lately it might prove quite instructive in evaluating the situation today of Judah in the Land.