Rating: 
Summary: Seal Broken
Review: Is the First Seal broken? Did it take nearly six thousand years for this to occur? What are the patterns of the revealed text/numbers? There are many thoughts and questions that should come to the reader's mind after reading The Bible Code by Michael Drosnin. The tradition of hidden codes is well established historically. The invisible has now become more visible due to technology. I personally believe there is much more mentioned in the Torah that Drosnin cares to admit.
Rating: 
Summary: Inaccurate, distorting the facts but there is a solution
Review: Michael Drosnin's book touched a personal chord for me because I was involved in the code debate since last December or so, obtained the original Statistical Science article that this book is based on about a year after it was published in 1994, and first learned about the codes around 1989. I read this book and it is unfortunate that this journalist doesn't understand the precise mathematical structure of the codes, has made a few spelling errors in Hebrew, fails to give due credit to Doron Witztum who is the most important codes researcher in the world, and even more dangerously, believes in his unique completely unsubstantiated claim that codes can be used to tell the future that we do not know. Because of his unfamiliarity with the proper procedures, several of the examples that he found are not really significant at all and may be found in any other book such as Moby Dick and War and Peace. The real Torah codes discovered by Doron Witztum can hold up under the harshest statistical tests including the method originally suggested by Persi Diaconis that is brought down in the original Statistical Science paper, the Best Star Team methodology developed by Prof. Robert Haralick in response to several criticisms of the original method, as well as other stringent tests. There is a solution, however, for those who have read the book and want to know the real science behind it as well as those who have dismissed the entire phenomenon because of Drosnin's weak portayal of the matter. The solution is to read Dr. Jeffrey Satinover's new book Cracking the Bible Code and to wait for Doron Witztum's book on the Bible Code which may come out in a few months. Hopefully this will result in more interest and serious research in the "codes."
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating; definately something to be furthur explored.
Review: While I can not say wether there is a God, there certainly is (or was, or will be) a being with the capability to either forsee events or travel back in time to relate them to us (if that being is even constrained by the limits of time as we know them; remember Einstein's quote). What we have here probably constitutes the most compelling evidence of non-human intelligence ever found. I can only hope that Dr. Rips will make his program available to the general public for free so that everyone may learn from this new invaluable resource, so that we may ultimately be able to prevent the catastrophes predicted in the bible. We have an unprecidented opportunity to change this world for the better. Now that we have this resource, we must ask ourselves, "will we change it?"
Rating: 
Summary: the bible code
Review: the book was very interesting but the book is one side it talks only of very few country's there are so many things that it doesn't talk about the book is american it would be interesting to know more about other country's like france, portugal, canada,and the roman catholic church i also have a suggestion if anyne has watch the movie "CONTACT" there was documents that also where encoded and that they arranged the papers in some order. so try that with the five books
Rating: 
Summary: Technical/Linguistic and Logical Holes in Drosnin's thesis.
Review: Millenial Mishegoss: A rebuttal to Holy Hype. The Bible Code deals with, among other things, "Equidistant Letter Sequences," as evidence of a higher intelligence behind the "coincidences" / historical connections in the TaNaCH (Hebrew Scriptures). In spite of an immediately alluring subject matter, I have noted many errors in The Bible Code. I will share (only some) with you in the interest of integrity, and not jtrying to jump on a millennial madness bandwagon. Some problems I have just noticed with just the Drosnin's book: A) The Hebrew phraseing he catches is inconsistent. Example: When "communism" is found in the code it is transliterated in the English version of "Communism" ("Komoonizm")--why not with the suffix "i," which would be true to Hebrew? (I can see if it is a name like "Kennedy.") I am suspect. Also he has inconsistencies. One minute he finds "code" as the hebrew word, the next as transliterated into the English word. ("Kode") (Would a Gaelic speaker find words in Celtic?) B) Because of the nature of Hebrew (i.e., shoresh + prefix + suffix and 22 letters), if we have such a free-floating set of rules, like Drosnin, we WILL FIND CODES. (It is important to notice that in the appendix to Drosnin's book, the actual article in the Journal of Statistics has much more stringent protocols to followÐthese I am inclined to respect more, but more on this later...) THERE HAVE been rebuttals to Drosnin and to Eliahu Rips (in spite of what Drosnin says; namely Australian scholarship, cautious responses by Harold Gans of the U.S. DoD, etc. C) In spite of what Drosnin says about the control text (War and Peace)Ðthere have been found codes in totally "secular" texts not deemed authoritative (like the UN charter.) These codes have been found "against all odds" (like a million-to-one.) The point here, is that the odds alone do not determine either the ontological/epistimological validity of the "code," nor give the code meaning. It is fallacious logic to use odds this way, alone. D) Why is it that Drosnin didn't notice things ahead of time all the time (wuth his exception of Rabin), but retro-jected (after hearing the news) back into the text, and conveniently "finds" further revelations? (Especially if it's simple; what's the chances of finding an Ayin, then a Mem, then a Yud, and then a Resh in any number of skip sequences out of 304,000 letters on a grid ((to find "Amir," the killer of Rabin?)) ) E) As a side note, Eliyahu Rips, the main mathematician quoted in the book, with the impeccable record, himself rips (no pun) the book by Drosnin. (Sensationalistic, yanked out of context, and poor scholarship.) (The analogy would be, for instance, like some well meaning fundamentalists debating on Creationism with a polemical mindset, instead of painstakingly studying physical anthropology, biology, geology, plate tektonics, etc., etc.) (I say this as someone who trusts the creation accounts and, again, the transcendence of the God's revelation in the TaNaCH. What interests me is Weismandle's work. I recognize his bias toward ELS (as an offshoot of gematria). I don't at all doubt that he could have found TORAH in a skip sequence of 50 letters. And, yes there is probably more. I want to know what is there. (But, again, if there is the word TORAH every 50 letters, this doesn't automatically "prove" the existence of God for two reasons: 1) The transmission of text in (Semitic Oral Tradition), was meticulous, and possibly embedded the text with "codes" (by the soferim) 2) in order to "prove" God, let me give you an analogy from the New Testament: It's one thing to observe that the book might have a divine origin; it's quite another to make the logical, consistent solid connection form apologetics to dogma . i.e., The N.T. is divine (because of evidence, predictions, whatever,) therefore, the more esoteric teachings are all true as well. (Actually, this logic applies, of course to TaNaCH, as well.) Lastly, Drosnin's choosing to ignore Ocam's Razor (in science, a "proof" must be the most immediate, logical, and simple answer in an array of choices)Ðhis illogical conclusion at the end of his careful code extraction that the seeming connections (from the codes) couldn't possibly be the most obvious source (i.e., God), but extra-terrestrial, struck me as a most amusing mental feat of gymnastics. Talk about bias.
Rating:
Summary: Mystery, Majesty & Recapitulation
Review: On 8/7/97 I was the first reviewer to reveal my address. The many others before without exception were nightshades hiding among the pansies. My review was direct, substantive, conclusive and well founded. No reviewer has refuted my arguments, I made no conclusions for others, yet I cited examples and facts peculiar to my own self. I would like to see all the half-baked knee-jerk respondents off to the left of stage, out the back to the left and down the stairs into the alley. Let us as intelligent people, scholars and interested parties argue the Bible Code problem calmly, with clear thoughtful minds, without the anger and anguish of immature minds whose desire to imbed axes into scholar's heads promotes their every response. Some reviewers have argued factually or emotionally, each superior argument has its value and I am compelled as a scholar to hear well each presentation of varient view. Yet, I know for myself what is true and right. For by this my course is charted. At the same time I see others lost in a sea of peculiar directions, misdirection, subtrifuges, lies, deciepts and plots, each of whom has no good net result but to inhabit a barren grave at the final sounding. This is a frightful thing to contemplate. I wish I had the powers to impress and persuade made whole in my voice or pen; that I could relate to others the truth of what I heartily know. Drosnin is no prophet but his work and some of his more thoughtful arguments test true, by proof and by history. My research verifies and much merits what he and his fellows have done. Students of criticism know this quotation by heart: "A perfect judge will read each work of wit with the same spirit that its author writ:..." No lesser critic's critic than Alexander Pope can suffice, and with this note I end my second commentary.
Rating:
Summary: Assassins, disasters and nukes . . . oh my!!!
Review: Preposterous about sums this one up. No, these aren't fore-ordained predictions claims our non-theologically astute and mathematically unschooled author, they are merely "possible" outcomes of which some divine entity is warning us. And the interesting part is you sort of have to know what you're looking for before you can find it. How many possibilities? All of them? Does it include every branch off of every possibility? Are all the potential eventualities of all of history secretly stashed among the words? I was desperately looking for the OJ verdict in there. It doesn't take much technical knowledge to see that a false assumption, backed by remote possibilities and the rules of probability can lead to some "amazing" discoveries. One could dig through a bowl of alphabet soup and "discover" as many "statistically significant" revelations. I almost thought that the author was only ill prepared academically to undertake the research presented here; that he truly believed he was on to something. Perhaps, but that doesn't change the fact that his book is sorely lacking in substance. Don't waste your time.
Rating:
Summary: Jewish Communiation Network Review
Review: Putting our faith in God because a computer tells us that He or She may very well exist is essentially putting our faith in technology. And the slope is a slippery one. The Computer -- that box we have come to trust perhaps too much -- runs the risk of becoming an idol, a tangible object the bible forbids us to pray toward. And the bible is not a fortune teller. Essential to the teachings of the bible is the notion of obeying its commandments in the present, in order to insure a better tomorrow. Maybe if we heed its lessons, we wouldn't have to worry so much about the coming end Drosnin's computations warn us about. More of about the book at: http://www.jcn18.com/scripts/jcn18/paper/Article1.asp?ArticleID=539
Rating:
Summary: How can you refute something that's obviously there?
Review: I never thought that God would choose to work through "secret codes", but this code was not intended to be secret forever. It was just waiting for us to catch up with it. I'm amazed at the accuracy of predictions (or possibilities)and they are seemingly endless and infinite.
Rating:
Summary: bible code
Review: One of the most interesting books I could not put it down. everything is reviewed and studied before putting in book.It holds my intested becouse it was not written by a christian. I am a chirstian but if this man found all this infromation its just wonderful to learn so much.
|
