Rating: 
Summary: Nonsense
Review: After reading "The Isaiah Effect" I became interested in finding out more about the Bible Code so I read the Bible Code by Michael Drosnin and after some research came to the conclusion that this book is nonsense. Drosnin's claims can be disproved rather easily. Several mathematician's have done so. This book is worthless!
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing!
Review: I was surprised to see a number of very long and bitter reviews about this book. I loved it. To skeptics I would suggest that they buy the computer software and run their own experiments. This book is just the beginning! The more you research the math on your own, looking up current events, you see how astounding the Code really is!I agree that Drosnin's book is a touch repetitious, but it still hooked me. Really great read. Also, when you see people spitting venom in reviews of this book, you might keep in mind that people who hate God or don't believe in God with a passion are likely to despise this book. If what this books says is true, there is a God. If there is a God, we are all morally accountable to Him. If we are accountable to God, that demands that we change our lives to fit His requirements. Some people absolutely can't stand the idea of such accountability. From some of them it even brings forth rage.
Rating:
Summary: The Bible Code.
Review: Hands down, Drosnin (a former reporter for the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal) wins all awards for 1997's stupidest book about the Middle East. He rearranges the 304,805 Hebrew letters of the Jewish Bible into a continuous letter strand and discovers in his much hyped study-lo and behold-that the holy book contains patterns of letters referring to virtually every modern event. "Napoleon" turns up encoded along with "France," "Waterloo," and "Elba." The main leaders of World War II appear jointly. "Economic collapse" appears along with "5690" (which equals the common year 1929). The moon landing is dated to the correct day. Major cultural figures ("Beethoven" and "Rembrandt") are correctly identified. Every major assassination of the past two centuries was "accurately detailed" in the Bible. It predicted the precise day when the Kuwait war would begin and even includes an event so small as the capture and murder of an Israel policeman in December 1992. As might be expected, Drosnin often stretches facts to fit his scheme. Finding February 25, 1996 associated with the warning "all his people to war," he finds vindication in an Arab act of terrorism against Israel on that date. His patterns are sometimes barely visible. But perhaps most charmingly idiotic about his all-so-serious book is how the computer programmer who wrote the Bible already knew the modern Hebrew neologisms for such words as "autobus," "subway," "airplane," "electricity," "lightbulb," and "computer"-all of which appear in its supposed code! But predicting the past is the easy part: What comes next? Well, Drosnin found the Jewish year 5757 (which ended in October 1997) associated with "holocaust"-a seemingly wrong call. Other prophesies, yet to be determined: that Binyamin Netanyahu will not live out his term as prime minister and a world war will begin in either 2000 or 2006. Middle East Quarterly, December 1997
Rating:
Summary: Debunking the Bible Code
Review: For clear, to-the-point debunking of the Bible Code, visit the following links: http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/moby.html This site takes up Drosnin's challenge: "When my critics find a message about the assassination of a prime minister encrypted in Moby Dick, I'll believe them" (Newsweek, Jun 9, 1997). The writer shows how you find the "prophecies" of several world leaders in Moby Dick if you go looking hard enough for them. From my own reading of his book, I can tell you that his methods for divining prophecies leave room to find literally anything foretold in any book. See also: http://www3.zdnet.com/yil/content/mag/9708/biblecode.html http://www.csicop.org/si/9711/bible-code.html Why my particular interest in debunking this book? Because there's enough superstitious tripe being peddled in this world and attended to with solemnity without piling more onto the heap. I originally gave this book two stars - I should've given it one: It's simplistic, pseudo-intellectual, and perhaps intentionally misleading claptrap. If Drosnin didn't intend to mislead, he certainly stretched the "truth" to fit his theory. If what I've said sounds a little harsh to you, I hope you'll ignore me and read the above material anyway - if only to get another viewpoint. Whereas as the mainstream press (and I mean Time and Newsweek, not the National Enquirer) is usually a little more skeptical of this type of stuff, they seem to be giving Drosnin a free ride with this rubbish, since they stand to make a few bucks off the sensational nature of his vapid tome.
Rating:
Summary: A Truly Amazing Book!
Review: This book fits the textbook definition of the expression, "The book was so good I couldn't put it down." What Drosnin has uncovered are some truly remarkable predictions in the original Bible that could only be decoded after the advent of computer technology. I was awestruck and mesmerized at the unbelievable accuracy of the names, dates, and locations for incidents that these 3,000 year-old writings have predicted with amazing accuracy. And, the accuracy and legitimacy of these codes have been verified by many of the greatest mathematical minds in the world doing their own independent studies of the codes. What the codes predict about the coming events in our world over the next several years is somethng that any reader who is interested in this subject will definitely want to know about.
Rating:
Summary: Because I can't give it zero...
Review: This is the type of pseudo-science ilk fit for the supermarket checkout lanes. While the mathematics used to extrapolate the data is sound, the method is not. I have seen exactly the same thing done with the text of Moby Dick by Brendan McKay. (I won't directly plug his site, you can find it.) Basically, with a long enough string of characters, an intent to find something and some loose definitions of what constitutes a match, one can "find" nearly anything. The only thing this book elaborates on is how people will write nearly anything to make a buck.
Rating: 
Summary: I'd prefer to be surprised
Review: This book evoked vivid imagery for me. Unfortunately, the image was of the salesman at an electronics superstore using all the persuasiveness he could muster to convince me that a 3 year extended warranty was essential for my new DVD player. Simply stated, the matrixes required to identify encrypted code in the text of the Hebrew versions of the bible were just a little to convenient for me. The theoretical basis seemed to be continue to search random passages until you hit a set of symbols that could be interpreted as a predicted event. I saw too much exhortation and far too little definitive, and applicable empirical evidence. And, to seal the deal, although the book is a breeze to read, it is extremely repetitious and fundamentally boring.
Rating:
Summary: Oh please.. don't be so gullible people..
Review: Its really easy to find hidden messages in damn near -any- text, especially if you know what you're looking for. If i wanted to find a prediction about World War 2 in a transcript of Dumb and Dumber, i probably could. As for the predictions about Nuclear war? Isn't that one of the biggest concerns of most people about the future? Finding a nice little "prediction" about it isn't difficult.
Rating: 
Summary: Good starting on the Bible Code, but shallow and repetitive
Review: This book opened up a new field at my mind about the Bible and its author (God). I found it fascinating and that encouraged me to find out more. To my surprise, there is even more about this theme than it is written in this book. Rather than simplistic matrixes (as shown in this book), there are works that comprise matrixes that consist on many more words. The author rounds and rounds the topic many times as if his main goal were to convince the reader; sometimes it's plainly boring. If you want broad information on the Bible Code, buy another book. But if you want to know just what is the Bible Code and how it was discovered, then this book will do well.
Rating:
Summary: A Book for Ignorance
Review: I first picked up Michael Drosnin's book when I was spending the summer with my father three years ago. I had some extra time for reading and stopped in at the library. I have always been fascinated with language and thought that it would be interesting to find some things out about the Hebrew of the Bible and what different claims were being made about it. Until that time, I had not studied any biblical Hebrew (or Hebrew of any other time, for that matter). The intricate problems of the Hebrew language did not have any root in my mind. At the same time as I checked out this book, I borrowed the "Living Language" course on modern Hebrew, hoping to familiarize myself with the alef-bet and some basic words before I began my reading. I read the book and was well-persuaded by it. I thought that it had some interesting speculations in it. Some of the things that really bothered me, though, in my first reading were dealings with Armageddon and the different aspects of the end of the world, which I already did not believe in. It was interesting that he used the book of Revelation in correlation with the Torah text. I would not expect someone with a real knowledge of the Torah to do that. Since that time, I have studied biblical Hebrew rather deeply. In first-year grammar, you learn that there are three vowel letters (matres lectionis) that are really consonantal representations of vowel sounds (vav, heh, and yod). These letters were often optional, making the spelling of words variable. The different spelling of words are called plene (full) and defective. "Plene" means a word has vowel letters, and "defective" means they are lacking. The problem that this raises with the Bible Code is that in several places vowel letters are lacking between manuscripts. Add to this the fact that the text became more plene through time, and you have to wonder what the basis for the "code" is. Should not the code be based on the original "God-given" text of the Torah? Instead, we have the redacted version that came through an entire alef-bet shift from paleographic Hebrew to square script Aramaic letters (which is what Drosnin shows in his book). Beyond this, during the time of Ezra there is supposed to have been a spelling redaction, where matres lectionis were added to make the text more accurate to read. Where is the base for the code? Basically, I have come to realize that the Bible Code is a fantasy. Michael Drosnin's rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew is no springboard to intelligent thinking. Rather, what he has produced is a book for ignorance, built from ignorance. Surely, professor Ripps does not agree with Drosnin (as he has disassociated himself from him) and would confront his conclusions. While the Kabbalists did believe in Gematria and they are interesting for Midrashic purposes, the Bible Code is way off-base. It cannot be looked at by any intelligent thinker as any more than flat superstitious lies.
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