As already indicated, what Missler presented was the result of similar shenanigans or methodological sleight-of-hand. Again, this supposedly works with the Masoretic Text, but what about the Samaritan Pentateuch or Dead Sea Scrolls fragments? Alter the consonantal sequence according to the Qumran or Samaritan witnesses—or simply drop the vowel points—and the ELS miracle suddenly disappears. And why did he choose tav as the first letter in his skip counting? There is no internal logic for choosing tav and that particular one except that it worked. Why did he choose every 50th letter?
Chuck Missler did not find this code in the Bible. While I know you have a thousand questions of doubt in the outcome, that isn't really a means of verifying or invalidating a particular finding. That is more a method of discrediting a claim via multiple blows at an initial foundation without understanding the premise on a deeper level. To verfiy or invalidate the questions have to be answered. So here we go.
The Masoretic text was checked for the equally distanced letters just the same as the other texts. The one that provided a result was the Masoretic text. The reason for using the Masoretic text is within that basic fact, that the message is found only within that text, and maybe that infers the accuracy of it to be more trustworthy.
Of course the code disappears in another text, when they found it in this one. That is akin to asserting that it is was cheating when they found the gold using the second treasure map, and not the first. You find the treasure with the map that is accurate, and they checked all the texts. (Or all maps)
The process is simply searching equal distances of letters, of all lengths apart. (1 space, 2 spaces, 3 spaces, etc) From there you run the course of the text and if a word appears in the selected equally distanced hebrew letters, then you found a word in the equally distanced hebrew letters.
If they were changing the distance of the letters within the search, you would have something to manipulate, but the distance is a standard between them all. For this pattern to occur here from letters that are consistently equal distances from each other, especially over a set of books fashioned into one, and it to actually spell a word 4 times over in a pattern... is unfathomably beyond question impossible. We can cover the actual numbers of the statistics in a follow up post maybe.
Every 50th letter is not a baseline they chose for all ELS. They do the same process with distances of 1 to 100 or more letters apart, so long as the distance is equal and consistent. If you were to change the distance within a single search, then you are obviously manipulating the process to create a result.
No explanation. And then in Leviticus he abandoned the 50-letter skip and switched to a seven-letter skip?
Again, that is another assumption. The seven letter code was found using a separate ELS sequence. Like I said, they run tests for all ELS distances and then analyze the results of the compiled resulting sequence for words. It just seemed less than a coincidence that YHVH "just so happened" to be found directly between TORH TORH YHVH HROT HROT even if the word YHVH was found with a separate ELS search. Therefore, Chuck Missler is presenting them together because he personally does not believe it was an accident.
What warranted that change? Missler wasn't discovering a pattern; he was constructing one, a retrofitted artifact.
The assumption thing again. Missler didn't discover anything, but is rather conveying discoveries made by other people that he reviewed and considered accurate himself. The inference he was constructing anything is based on the assumption that creates the misconception. Chuck Missler is a well known and credible Bible teacher, and while some of his theories may be a stretch for particular people, he usually posits a disclaimer prior to stating anything that deviates from a verifiable stance. He also advises the listeners to check on the things he presents to them for themselves, and does not suggest one should follow his conclusions blindly, using Acts 17:11 as the Biblical protocol and one of his slogans.
Here is a bit of an interesting find I encountered, and forewarning, it is a bit of a heavy read to refer back to the source but is enlightening:
What are ELS Bible codes?
The acronym ELS stands for
Equidistant
Letter
Sequencing. When I speak of ELS codes in the Bible, I am referring to coherent messages encrypted within the Hebrew text of the Old Testament at equidistant letter sequences, which are either directly prophetically and contextually relevant to the biblical passages in which they are encoded, or which combine with specific elements of the plain text of the passages in which they occur to form new cohesive prophetic messages which exist independently of the plain text narrative. To use a very simple example which provides us with one particular basic rendering of what this can look like, behold the following verse from the book of Psalms:
The Hebrew statement אשיר לו (“I will sing to him”) is encoded at an equidistant letter skip of every 5 letters in Psalm 69:30.
As the highlighted letters of the original Hebrew text demonstrate–if you start at the very first letter of the verse in the Hebrew and skip every 5 letters, every 5th letter spells out אשיר לו (pronounced “Ah-shir lo”), which is Hebrew for: “
I will sing to him.” Behold:
The encoded text-string אשיר לו is Hebrew for “I will sing to him,” as Google translator testifies.
As can be seen, here we have a coherent meaningful statement encrypted within a single verse at an equidistant letter skip sequence of every 5 letters. We can also see that the encoded message is coherent, and we can also see that it is directly topically relevant to the plain text of the verse in which it occurs–a manifest token of its authenticity. One need not be a statistician to acknowledge that this occurred by deliberate design, as such miracles simply do not occur by chance. Like Thomas Jefferson, we hold this truth to be self-evident.
The above source also covers the line of inquiry you posed regarding why the Masoretic text and validity claims, though I do not hold these self-evident personally. His explanation seems to be based on God's ultimate sovereignty, and in that principle I may agree to some reasonable extent.
To the point that this is not something new, prominently posting this may not support the notion that we should indulge in such practices, I'll post this information from the Blue Letter Bible (Co-founded by Chuck Missler) and leave on the table the consideration whether any of these things are valid to be searching through, or valid in claims made:
1. The Idea of Finding a Code in Scripture Is Not Something New
To begin with, the idea that some code is contained in the Hebrew Scripture is not something that is new to our day and age. This type of practice dates back at least one thousand years. Furthermore, it did not begin with Christian interpreters of Scripture, but rather with certain mystical Jews who desired to find secret messages in Old Testament Scripture. They were known as the cabbalists.
The cabala, composed in the Middle Ages, is a collection of the writings of certain mystical Rabbis. The cabalists believed that every letter, word, number and accent of the Hebrew Scripture was part of a code. They assumed the Hebrew text could be counted and rearranged to spell out words that were not found in the text as it is normally read. Indeed, these rabbis often claimed that special words could be found in the Hebrew text by the counting of letters that could be found at equal intervals. This code, which they believed was put there by God, contained some profound, but hidden, meaning. The meaning of these mysterious codes could not be discovered by the general public, rather it could only be discovered by those with special knowledge; those who knew the secret. This practice had clear connections to the occult.
Therefore, the idea of a code in the Bible is not some new idea or new discovery that has been made in modern times. While the use of computers would certainly make the quest for finding such a code infinitely easier, the fact is that this type of practice is ancient and it is occultic.
This refutes those who say that the modern day discovery of the Bible code fulfills the words of Daniel the prophet; that knowledge would increase at the time of the end so that these codes could be discovered with the advent of super-computers. Attempting to find some code in the Scripture has been practiced for a long time.
So, let us always remember that the idea of looking for hidden message in Scripture did not originate from Bible-believers who were trying to know more about Jesus, it originated from medieval mystical Jews who had rejected the plain teachings of Scripture; that the Messiah must have already come. Rejecting this truth of God’s Word, they were looking for something to substitute for it. They thought they discovered it in the so-called codes embedded in Scripture. In other words, they substituted the plain truth of God for these hidden messages.
Don Stewart :: Is There a Secret Code in Scripture That Proves Its Divine Authority? (The Bible Code)
www.blueletterbible.org
There is a wealth more of reasonable considerations on the site through the above link.
With all this laid out formally and stated, I want to add to the discussion that I feel confident I fully understand your skepticism about any codes existing in the Bible. While I may not understand your particular feelings in full regarding this, I can say I do understand that believing in such a thing does carry a set of dangerous potential variances whereby people can easily "fall off the boat" so to speak and be carried away from understanding the Bible through its plain teaching and through prayer and personal time with God Himself.
The belief I have that there are codes in the Bible is also, for me, carefully considered being that I know there are many hysterical people and those who will use, abuse, and go to extremes to make exaggerated claims that largely carry no weight at all and can deceive simple minds.
I take my personal belief they exist through a life filled with long periods of revelations about things I don't think anyone can believe without them being proven by God to them directly. I consider God's abilities and willingness to encode things and create astronomically complex parallels and patterns and even signs to be infinitely higher than I feel we can fully comprehend.
So, I do admit my bias, and I admit there are very foolish claims made by many people in regard to some of these concepts, but to say they invalidate the substantial information that holds multiple relevant connections would not be part of my worldview.
Here is an example of what I think is to be avoided at all costs when considering things like codes being found in the Bible, and I'm fully convinced these sort of leaps into extra-Biblical conclusions can be dangerous to one's soul and especially their relationship with God through Christ, by turning it into a "secret methods" type relationship of gnosticism where they believe their "secret knowledge" sets them above other people or saves them:
Though Yeshua never claimed to be GOD himself, his followers, till this day, refer to him as GOD, even though it may violate the second of GOD’s commandments. code2GOD discovered that when Yeshua found 153 fish in the net it was a code for “אלהים ואני” which means “GOD and I.” At the time of Yeshua, it was only one secluded religion, Judaism. GOD wanted to have a larger, possibly different religion than the existing Judaism, and therefore GOD himself created the religion using Yeshua’ body.
Who is Jesus based on the original Bible? What can we learn from Jesus? Is Jesus GOD? What miracles did Jesus perform? Is Christianity the largest religion?
code2god.org
Ultimately, I don't rely on "Bible codes" for my faith in the Bible. I do hold fast to prophecy, such as Psalm 22 and the prophetic event of Abraham carrying his son Isaac up to Mt Moriah to sacrifice him when God asked him to do so.
So none of this Bible codes information puts a damper on my faith in any regard whatsoever. But I
do believe that valid codes exist in the text and do not believe that false claims invalidate them all.
I'll try to collect some examples in the mean time.
