Rating: 
Summary: Improbably Good
Review: Drosnin, winner of the 1997 Ig Nobel prize for literature, may win another for this incredible book, Bible Code II: The Countdown. If only President Bush, a daily bible reader, or our security agencies had studied Drosnin's research, and the bible, the World Trade Center attack could have been prevented. For as Drosnin discovered, after the attack, it was all laid out thousands of years ago in the Old Testament! We can only hope that Drosnin intensifies his research so that these disasters are discovered before they occur. Drosnin deserves the recognition due him and I will forward my nomination to the Ig Nobel committee...[web address]. I am sure you will do the same after you have read this fanastic treatise.
p.s. This review contains several encoded predictions. See how many you can find!
Rating: 
Summary: Bible Code II - foolish approach to bible prophecy
Review: I eagerly dove into the Bible Code II book. I enjoy reading books, by scholars, on Bible prophecy. Drosnin attempts to make cases of prophecy with his book that the Bible code is real. Yet he defies that the text it came from is the Word of God. Instead, his direction turns toward alien origins.Drosnin continues to insist WW III -the End of Days will commence in 2006. Yet, true Bible prophecy clearly states, "the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." 1 Thess 5:4-6. That is, no date is specified nor will God reveal it. Drosnin also make erroneous statements as Moses wrote the Bible. Moses probably wrote the Pentateuch but not the Bible. The Bible consists of Old Testament (Hebrew) and New Testament (Greek). Nonsensible comments include Al Gore was cheated from the presidency in 2002. -Was predicted by the Bible code. Chapters devoted to the search for an alien ark and obelisk are also whimsical. At this rate I believe the name Betty Crocker is also encoded in the Bible along with some of her kitchen tested recipes. If you are interested in Bible prophecy look for books by Grant Jeffrey and Dr. Charles E. Blair. Accepted prophecy scholars.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read
Review: In Michael Drosnin's book "Bible Code II The Countdown" he uncovers secrets revealed in a hidden code found in the old testament. Touching on events such as 9/11 and the assasination of Israeli prime minister Rabin, the code in the torah also reveals a startling prophesy for the near future. If the claims in this book are true, we should all start to pray. The book also refutes the arguments made against the first bible code book. I am normally a skeptic, but I was convinced. Don't dismiss this as crazy, or religious fanatisicm. Read this book! I'm making my whole family do the same.
Rating: 
Summary: Something different
Review: In this review, I don't particularly care to pass judgment on the validity of the book's thesis (that's for you and your friendly neighborhood mathematician and religious scholar to decide), and would rather appreciate this book for what it's worth. Whether you agree with Drosnin's argument or not, Bible Code II is indeed a twist from the norm. In addition to thorough discussion of Drosnin's recent bible code "discoveries," perhaps more interestingly the book provides a glimpse at the author's own internal struggles with his atheist beliefs, and how the existence of the codes can fit into his world view. Indeed, it is this inner conflict that drives Drosnin to continue his quest for answers. My imagination was especially piqued reading about the interactions that Drosnin had with world leaders, top scientists, and the like. Bible Code II reads like an intense mystery novel with a dash of Indiana Jones thrown into the mix... as long as you keep an open mind, the book is fascinating. All and all, the book reads pretty quick and is easy to get into. Unfortunately, towards the middle, a few of the chapters can get kind of slow, especially as we hold the hand of Drosnin as he searches for "proof." It grows tiresome re-reading, over and over again, "I've finally found proof." Drosnin also contrives an interesting comparison of his work to the current scientific paradigm, and argues that the bible codes are frequently rejected because they are at odds with current scientific understanding. These thought provoking remarks based on the philosophy of Thomas Kuhn and his ground breaking work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, are well placed. I am also reminded of the philosopher of science, Paul Feyerabend, who argues that our culture presents "science" as way too much of a monolith. Regardless of whether the theory proposed by Bible Code II is fact or fiction, at least Drosnin was thinking outside of the box. I invite other readers who like something different to take a glimpse at the world from a unique angle... expand your horizons by taking a breath of fresh (perhaps mathematically incorrect) air.
Rating:
Summary: The Codes Are Not Statistically SIgnificant
Review: ...BR>Now to Drosnin's sequel.
The thesis of Drosnin's book is that there is a "code" hidden in the Pentetauch. This code is discovered by the method of equidistant letter sequencing--that is, counting every 5th letter, or 7th letter, or Xth letter, of the text, to reveal codes. These codes purportedly reveal the future. In Drosnin's previous book, these codes predicted the assisiantion of the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, for example.
The thesis of this new book is that the codes reveal that the countdown to the apocalypse has started; the countdown began with the terrorists attacks on September 11, and the end will be here in a few years. Or maybe not.
According to the books' jacket, the apocalpyse canbe avoided. SO then, this becomes a vacous prediction--Either the apocalypse will happen, or it won't. There is no way this hypothesis can be falsified.
A major problem with the Bible COde is that the codes found therein are not statistically significant. In that respect, Drosnin misconstrues the criticism of Dr. McKay.
Another text was taken, the novel "Moby Dick" which has a comparable length of the Peneteteuch. The EDS method was used--which is not hard to program a computer to do--and many "codes" about the assisination of political leaders were found--even obsure ones. There is an excellent web site on the "Moby Dick" codes. I do not recall it now, but I would bet that if you search on Google, you will be able to find it.
One reviewer thought it contradictory that Drosnin believes in the Bible COde and yet he does not believe in God. There is another option, which Drosnin alluded too in his first book, and says it flat out here--Drosnin believes in a version of the ancient astronaut theory. The codes were created by an advanced race of extraterrerstrials.
I had written a review of Sitchin's Divine Encounters. SItchin is one of the most prominent ancient astronaut theorists today. I would like to take the opportunity here, to say that I repudiate that review. I do not want to go into detail here, but my reasons are physical/astronomical (a planet beyond Pluto whould have been discovered by astronomers by now) and linguistic (I agree with the criticism of how Sitchin translates some SUmerian words). ...
Rating:
Summary: Pathetically na¿ve and childish
Review: I must preface my comments by stating that I have not read Drosnin's first book. I bought his second book after hearing a cocktail conversation about it that quickly became polarized. 1. My fist observation is that his second book does not explain at all the significance of finding specific words or sentences in close proximity within sections of the Torah. Why is this relevant? Why would anyone believe that such appearances compose a code? It would appear therefore that this book cannot be read independently from Drosnin's first. 2. Drosnin repeateldy claims that he is not religious and nothing but a reporter -- someone who is looking for the hard facts, despite the fact that he acknowledges not being versed in the mathematics of code breaking. Well, for someone who claims to be taking an objective tack, it is disconcerting that he has not taken a more objective and scientific approach and sought alternative explanations for the fantastic findings presented in his book. Has he explored whether the 'code-cracking' method underlying the book can lead to spurrious findings, in the sense that it find similar or contradictory findings in other famous books? 3. For someone who was a Washington Post and a Wall Street Journal reporter, by seeking to personally meet with Prime Minister Sharon and President Bush to warn them of the dire prospects 'prophesized' by his code, he betrays an incredible naivetŽ of how governments and important leaders work. One only wishes that the world situation was so calm and peaceful that these leaders would have the time to spend with people like Drosnin. 4. Last, the book does not offer any solution for the doomsday he is trying to warn us against. Even kids are aware that the situation in the Middle East is so dangerous that it may lead to the complete annihilation of that region. To avoid that horrible scenario peace, the Israelies and Palestinians and the entire world know that they need to reach peace. What his book does not deal with is that the major source of risk today in that area of the world is coming from religious Muslim and Jewish fundamentalists who do not fear death and who would likely welcome the Apocalypse prophesized by the Koran and Torah.
Rating:
Summary: Once more a bestselling nonsense
Review: The new book by Drosnin is what could be expected if you knew his previous despicable output. I was especially amused by the appendix to Drosnin's new opus wherein he painted a picture which is blatantly untrue, being a fantastic concoction about noble and highly qualified code defenders fighting against a few malicious attackers of low intelligence who, in Drosnin's learned opinion, either do not understand the codes (while he does) or intentionally try to discredit a high quality research allegedly proving the reality of the code. In fact the opposite is true. Contrary to Drosnin's assertion, the overwhelming majority of experts in mathematical statistics decisively rejected the claims by the code proponents. As to Drosnin's own contribution to the code lore, even professor Rips himself, to whom Drosnin refers with admiration and who (actually together with Witztum, whose name Drosnin does not seem to deem worth mentioning) is the originator of the code affair, has expressed his disapproval of Drosnin's atempts to predict the future by means of the alleged code sequences. In an interview to Newsweek a few years ago Drosnin claimed that he would admit his error if somebody found the "prediction" of a prime minister assasination "encoded" in a non-biblical text. A number of such "codes" was demonstrated. McKay found a whole bunch of them in Moby Dick. I found a set of "codes" spelling "Amir Will Kill Prime MInister Hero Rabin" in a Hebrew book by an Israeli writer Dahn Ben Amotz, published in 1979, this "code" being much better than Drosnin's acclaimed "prediction" of Rabin's assassination in the Bible. Drosnin never aknowledged this finding although it has been widely known and invoked multiple responses. That much about Drosnin's integrity. Especially obnoxious is Drosnin's one-sided story about the behavior of the Statistical Science journal. Drosnin omits in his story the threat of litigation against that journal made by Rips' attorneys, something unheard of in the history of scientific disputes. Overall, his new book is a piece of arrogant nonsense which of course will find thousands of gullible readers on whose ignorance and eagerness to believe in miracles journalist of Drosnin's type can always rely so he can laugh all the way to the bank.
Rating:
Summary: Silly nonsense
Review: I am the author of the "Moby Dick" codes mentioned by an earlier reviewer. To see that codes appear anywhere, we can use Drosnin's own book. Go to the extract that appears on this site and locate the words "Lower Manhatten" a few paragraphs down. Starting at the R of "Lower", count forward 32 letters at a time to find the hidden message "R.U. FOOLED?" encoded in the text exactly the same way that Drosnin's hidden messages are encoded in the Bible. Moreover, the chance that this message appears so close to the start of the book is less than 1 in 200,000, so, according to Drosnin's logic, it must be there by design and not by accident.
Rating:
Summary: Just when you thought it was safe to stay home and read...
Review: A significant advance from the first book, which I found a bit 'dis-jointed' and somewhat crude. The author has now found his 'legs', having polished his research system. But I digress.
The premise of the book is that the old (Hebrew) scriptures has a hidden 'skip-code' within it's original text, that accurately predicts events both today and yet to be in the future. A 'skip-code' is when one takes any written information, removes all the spaces and checks the remaining string of letters for new words, by skipping an equal number of letters in between. (Example: skip 5 characters and write down the 6th. Keep doing this until the end of the text and then look at the new string of characters one produced, to find new whole words). Finding a famous modern name within a 3,000 year old script is cute and could be an interesting party game but the real contraversy involves finding new words that interrelate with each other, close together in the new word strings. Example: "Bin Laden" placed near the words "Twin Towers". Here is where the scientists are devided. Some set the chances of some of these combinations occuring accidentally at millions to one, while others dismiss the entire notion as coincidental. Since probability science is highly subjective, the opinions on this system vary greatly. Since Hebrew is a phonetic language, some scientists think the entire skip-code concept is trumped up because in Hebrew, words can have different meanings, depending on how they sound.
What is curious to me is that this system reveals information that has mostly already happend, though it was clearly coded in the Bible text for thousands of years. Basically, one does not know what to search for until it occurs, by then it is technically in the past. No one would search for "Twin Towers" until Sept. 11 but it shure is there. The author explains this by saying that we may have several different futures and the book contains all the valid possibilities.
Very Very interesting. Even if you don't believe, it is worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: A reality Serious Scientists always knew
Review: The codes have been studied long ago and every serious scientist that investigated agreed to say it was no coincidence. Strangely some pseudo scientists who didn't study it and even didn't read books about it discredited it, why? I don't know.
Perhaps truth hurts, but today, we cannot burn people for what they think.
|
