The Connection of the Bible Codes to Kabbalistic Thought

I have said before that I am not a believer in the Bible Codes.  I think that some simple code sequences  can clearly be shown to exist (see the sample below), but the more advanced codes which Israeli computer researchers are finding depend on very artificial manipulations of the text like skipping uneven numbers of letters between consecutive letters, etc.  It might be a case of finding codes because you are searching for them.  The patterns might have occurred by mere chance.

In Genesis 1:22-26; the name of Abraham is spelled out (from the top line down, enclosed in the added boxes) by the letters in the passage with each letter of the name separated from the preceding letter by forty-nine (seven times seven; seven was a sacred number, Genesis 2:2, 4:24, 21:28)) intercalary letters.  In each of the forty-nine letter sequences, אֱלֹהִים (elohim/God, backlit in gray) appears.

Also, the researchers insist that the codes cannot be used to predict the future.  My question is, if the codes are real, why not?  God is not bounded by time.  Tomorrow is the same to Him as The Creation.  It is all Now.

The Israeli researchers also insist that the codes cannot prove that Jesus is the Messiah.  Are they afraid that the codes, if real, might do this?  Rabbi Jacob Rambsel, a Messianic Jew, insists that he has found a code, "Jesus is my name," in the Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah 53.

The most strict theory of the codes is that they apply only to the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.  This is because one Jewish tradition insists that God dictated the Torah letter by letter. 


Because it is important for us to understand the Jewish background of our faith,  I will talk tomorrow about the direction in which one stream of Judaism, the Kabbalists, has taken these concepts.