🚀 go-pugleaf

Kevin D. Quitt <Ke...@Quitt.net> wrote in article
<34177203....@news.pacificnet.net>...
> On 2 Sep 1997 22:40:47 GMT, "Judson D. McClendon" <ju...@mindspring.com>
> wrote:
> >That there are intelligently placed hidden codes in the Hebrew text of
the
> >Bible is a demonstrable fact, as far as I am concerned. 
> 
> How can that be, given that the author specified what it would take to
> debunk the idea, and that criterion has been met?  There is no evidence
> that the original analysis is anything but wishful thinking and a great
> deal of evidence that that's all it is.  As has been shown, almost ANY
> text has "hidden" messages.
> 
> For the ultimate refutation of the Bible Code nonsense, see:
> 
> http://www.primenet.com/~lippard/skeptical.html#archives-bible-code

That's a very interesting statement, considering that I found the article
below on that web page.  You're not going to hear me defending the Drosnin
book, because much of it is mush.  But the Bible code discovered by Dr.
Rips exists, and I stand by my statement, as does Harold Gans below.
-- 
Judson McClendon          This is a faithful saying and worthy of all
Sun Valley Systems        acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the
ju...@mindspring.com      world to save sinners  (1 Timothy 1:15)


PUBLIC STATEMENT BY HAROLD GANS

SENIOR CRYPTOLOGIC MATHEMATICIAN, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, RETIRED.

PRESENTLY INDEPENDENT MATHEMATICAL CONSULTANT. 

I have reviewed the book "The Bible Code" by M. Drosnin.

1. The book states that codes were found in the book of Genesis by Doron
Witztum and Eliyahu Rips. An experiment was performed using scientific
protocols specified by independent reviewers. The results of the experiment
provided extremely strong statistical evidence for the existence of the
encoding of great Jewish sages' names and dates of birth and death in the
Hebrew text of the book of Genesis. This is all true. 

2. The book states that I undertook an independent evaluation of the
Witztum - Rips experiment. I duplicated their experiment and provided
corroboration of their results. This is correct. 

3. The book states that I also performed a new experiment, using the same
methodology of Witztum and Rips, in which I found that the sages' names
were also encoded in Genesis with their respective cities of birth and
death. The statistical results obtained were even stronger than that
obtained for the first experiment. This is all true. 

4. The book also indicates that in spite of concerted efforts by many, no
fatal mathematical flaw has been uncovered in the Witztum - Rips
experiment. This too, is correct. 

5. The book states that the codes in the Torah can be used to predict
future events. This is absolutely unfounded. There is no scientific or
mathematical basis for such a statement, and the reasoning used to come to
such a conclusion in the book is logically flawed. While it is true that
some historical events have been shown to be encoded in the Book of Genesis
in certain configurations, it is absolutely not true that every similar
configuration of "encoded" words necessarily represents a potential
historical event. In fact, quite the opposite is true: most such
configurations will be quite random and are expected to occur in any text
of sufficient length. Mr. Drosnin states that his "prediction" of the
assasination of Prime Minister Rabin is "proof" that the "Bible Code" can
be used to predict the future. A single success, regardless of how
spectacular, or even several such "successful" predictions proves
absolutely nothing unless the predictions are made and evaluated under
carefully controlled conditions. Any respectable scientist knows that
"anecdotal" evidence never proves anything. 

6. A plethora of books have appeared over the last several months,
concerning the codes. Unless the work is reviewed by qualified scientists
or mathematicians, the reader accepts such a book at his own risk. 

7. After exhaustive analysis, I have reached the conclusion that the only
information that can be derived from the codes discovered in Genesis is
that they exist, and the probability that they are mere coincidence is
vanishingly small. 

Harold Gans, June 3, 1997