This is a Christian writer forum. Writers tend to be fairly well-informed people, and Christians have lived successfully in a culture of scientific learning for over four hundred years.
I believe that well-informed people of any faith, living in an enlightened scientific culture don't need to credit this sort of bunkum. Certainly, I believe that Christianity itself can't benefit from this sort of conspiracy-theory inanity.
Bible Code,
Da Vinci Code - just say no.
So why is it bunkum?
Firstly, although the original Witzum, Yips and Rozenberg (WYR) paper appeared in
Statistical Science in 1994 that fact doesn't legitimise any wild claims. Science contains the highest concentration of iconoclastic skeptics in the world - but every scientist loves a puzzle. Offering a 'hidden code' inside any text (whether Biblical or not) is guaranteed to get scientists interested - and that interest gets you published - but only because you're reporting a fun, statistical curio. It
doesn't mean that any subsequent wild claims are creditable or accepted by the scientific community.
The WYR paper saw an unprecedented
three rounds of peer reviewing. As a scientist who has reviewed papers (though not that one) I can well imagine what the reviewers were saying:
'These guys are making a mischievous claim. Put their paper into the loony basket'
'No, they're just reporting a curio - and the curio is factual and interesting. And they haven't actually made a wild claim about the significance here.'
'Well.. okay, but you'll regret publishing this! Every loony will come crawling out of the woodwork'
'Sure, but it'll be fun, and it will help us learn more about stats'
Secondly, the wild claims (as opposed to the statistical curios) are essentially claims of bibliomancy.
Bibliomancy has been around for 3,000 years at least. Ancient Greeks used to look for secret messages from the gods in Homer; Romans did it with Virgil and the Hindus do it with their Vedas. Right away that should give you a clue: people are
predisposed to find special secret meaning in their literature. This is an example of what psychologists call
confirmation bias -- that when we're looking hard for something, we're willing to redefine what it actually is so that we can recognise it. In support of confirmation bias as an explanation, people have found ELS curios in other, secular books too. (The other way you can tell confirmation bias is that what you find tends to be fairly trivial and banal considering the effort it takes to find it - which appears to be the case in the 'Bible code' too.)
Thirdly, what's the supposed mechanism for salting a code into literature? When it's a single book by a single author such as the
Da Vinci Code, the author can easily contrive the code. But what about when it's a multi-edited, multi-authored, multi-translated anthology like the Bible? This is where the conspiracy theorists and their tinfoil hats start to crawl out of the woodwork. Whatever mechanism they claim for Biblical coding must surely apply elsewhere. If a god is whispering into multiple ears all the time, then that should apply ubiquitously. But why do that? Why hide a message you want to communicate? And why messages that are so
trivial? This is where your typical conspiracy theorist introduces the inevitable grandiose, self-important paranoia: the message is only for the Elect; it's only when we're Ready; there's an Enemy who mustn't Know the Message...
blah blah blah
Penultimately, I believe that the main attraction for some Christians to believe that their holy book has secret codes is to legitimise it as a holy book, and perhaps make it 'more special' than anyone
else's holy books. But this is a misguided impulse.
New holy books are being created every generation with each new religion, cult and sect. And if secret codes are a crucial pillar of legitimacy then anyone can fabricate them. Just ask
Dan Brown. More than that, Christianity has never needed physical proof of specialness to make it a worthwhile religion. And if it ever grounds itself in that evidence (e.g. needs miracles to be credible) then such evidence also forms a basis of
disproof. Christians, I feel, do a disservice to future generations of Christians to get too excited about miracles and secret codes. In effect, they discredit the religion of their children with their own ignorance and zealotry. Historically, we know that 'miracles' don't survive scientific scrutiny for very long. Madonna's tears prove to be made of canola oil, and dips in fountains prove to be no more effective than a placebo, and death-shrouds prove to be fakes. Ergo, if you want a credible, sustainable religion,
don't base it on wild claims of physical miracles.
And finally, Christianity itself shuns benighted practices such as bibliomancy. Leviticus (19:26) is pretty firm about this in his account of Mosaic law:
Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood: neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times.
Conspiracy theories make pretty lures for the gullible and ignorant, and fun diversions for writers and the imaginative alike. But as writers we shouldn't be gulled by the same product that we sell. My advice in short: don't get caught up in this nonsense. No respectable religion needs it, and it makes faith look foolish.
Yours respectfully from an atheistic, skeptical but pluralistic perspective,
Ruv.
