The Bible Code

Most of my readers will have heard of a book called The Bible Code by Michael Drosnin. When published in 1998, it was on display in every major book shop in this country, and doubtless in many other countries too.

This book describes the discovery of hidden information in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. This information is encoded into the Bible simply by having words spelt out with their letters at equal intervals in the normal Bible text.

All the major events of current times have been found encoded, with the names of the people associated with them. A few events were discovered before they happened, particularly the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. He was even warned about it, but he ignored the warning. Other events are predicted for the future.

Two mathematicians published a scientific paper calculating the probability of all this information being there just by chance. The odds are so enormous that they go far beyond what is normally regarded as scientific proof. Someone (to us God) deliberately encoded all this information.

The book gives an amazing proof of the divine inspiration of scripture. What a commentary on Jesus’ words: ‘Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law.’ One letter out of place would wreck the code.

The book draws attention to three interesting scriptures.:

According to this book all this information was hidden in the Bible waiting till computers were invented before it could be read. The necessary search operations are virtually impossible by hand, but are very easy for a computer.

The Bible itself has a different view of the matter. Jesus is the great revealer of secrets! Joseph, the old testament revealer of secrets, is the clearest Bible type and illustration of Jesus. Daniel has a story very similar to that of Joseph and is another type of Jesus. Who was it who could open the book that was sealed with seven seals? Again it was no other than Jesus. ‘Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals’ (Rev 5: 5). (The book makes no mention of Jesus from cover to cover.)

So is it Hebrew speaking computer people who can reveal to us the hidden things of the scriptures, or is it Jesus?

The answer is both! God is an infinite God. ‘How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all.’ God has created both a natural order and a spiritual order. Many things of the natural order are hidden in scripture, and whom would we expect to discover them? Who else but the Jews, the people he chose for his original revelation. Greater and more important than these natural things are the spiritual truths God has hidden in the scriptures. Spiritual truth is hidden from the natural mind and only Jesus can reveal it to the people of his choice.

The book tells us that the amount that could be encoded in the Bible is almost infinite. If you can start your search at any point, and use any search interval, the number of possibilities is huge. Even doing that is just selecting one simple type of mathematical progression. Add to that countless other types of progression and the possibilities become infinite.

All this, however, is still in the natural order, and reading it can soon become a ‘weariness of the flesh’. But it points to something much greater. Infinite levels of spiritual truth are also hidden in the scriptures. They contain an infinite revelation of God! Jesus told his disciples that one of the functions of the Holy Spirit was to lead them into all truth. Revealing truth hidden in scripture is a part of that great work.

So when God wrote his book he sealed it with seven seals and gave the power to open them to his son Jesus. Through the ages to come he will break those seals one by one, and reveal vast vistas of spiritual truth to his people.

Michael Drosnin’s book is a sign that God through Jesus will reveal much deep and wonderful spiritual truth that is hidden in the scriptures to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.


Ivan Panin discovered numeric patterns in both Old and New Testaments which also place God’s seal on the scriptures.

See also David and Solomon for related material.