The Connection of the Bible Codes to Kabbalistic Thought, Part 2

It is important to us as Christians to understand the Jewish origins of our faith since Jesus and his followers were observant Jews and were, at first, recognized as such by other Jews.

One stream of Judaism is the ultra-orthodox, many of whom believe that God dictated the Torah letter by letter. This is one basis of the thought which has fostered the study of the Bible Codes phenomenon.

One Jewish school of thought, considered heretical by some Jews, developed from a mixture of mysticism and ultra-orthodoxy to become what is known as Kabbalism.  “Kaballah” in Hebrew means “receiving,” and is concerned with secret doctrines, hidden meanings, and commentaries about the relationship between an unchanging God and the ever-changing world.  The early Jewish mystics developed in the first and second centuries at the same time that the Gnostic sects were developing among the Christian community.

Kabbalism remains strong among modern Hasidic Jews.

The emphasis of the Bible Code researchers on the Torah reflects, at least in part, kabbalistic thought about the true nature of the Torah.  The Rambam (Rabbi Mosheh ben Maimon, b. 1135, Spain – d. 1204, Egypt) declared that “… the entire Torah is the names of the Holy One.”

The Zohar Yitro 87a declares, “We have already taught; The Torah in its entirety is the Holy Name, for there is no word in the Torah which is not included in the Holy Name.”  So, according to the Kabbalists, the Torah is God’s Name.

Kabbalism teaches that God created the universe by the manipulation of the letters of the Torah. In other words, He created the universe by the use of His Name.

The most that a Christian can say on this is what the Bible says. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” Genesis 1: 1-3.

As to the name of God, He has answered the question:

“And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.”  Exodus 3:13-14.

The Connection of the Bible Codes to Kabbalistic Thought

I have said before that I am not a believer in the Bible Codes as the more extreme proponents present the idea. I, of course believe that the human composers of the texts wrote as they were inspired by God. 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 even have occurred by mere chance, which is doubtful, or, obviously, the codes may exist because the Lord put them there. I do not know. You do not know.

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. The most straight-forward interpretation of this passage is that the human composer of the text intentionally created this format. The ancient Hebrew literature is known to include acrostics and forms of poetry. 

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.