10 Mind-Blowing Claims and Messages Hidden in the Bible Code

The suggestion that there could be hidden messages and even predictions coded into the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, is a notion that is largely dismissed by most as fantastical nonsense. However, the fact is, there are more reasons to examine some of these alleged messages a little more closely, perhaps not least due to the number of them that came true.

The basic method of deciphering the Bible Code begins with using an Equidistant Letter Sequence, or ELS, a predetermined sequencing pattern that highlights certain letters from the text. The authenticity of the Bible Code remains a topic of debate even today, and, as we shall see, it is easy to see why. If this text, which has remained largely unaltered for thousands of years, contains messages of the future, then who put them there and why?

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Arguably, the first person to have used the alleged Bible Code to decipher seemingly valid information was a thirteenth-century rabbi, biblical commentator, and philosopher named Bachya Ben Asher. Using ELS methods—in this instance, he would highlight four letters before skipping the next 42 and then highlighting four more, and so on—Rabbi Bachya made some remarkable revelations about the moon.

Along with information about how the moon was formed and settled into its rotation, the most fascinating detail was his offering that the Bible Code had revealed to him that the exact length of the cycle of the moon was 29.53 days. While this information meant little to many people at the time, when this was confirmed by modern science in 1996, it made many look at the possibility that the Bible Code could be more accurate than many people wished to believe.

While many people found this confirmation mind-blowing, it was an event that happened several years earlier that perhaps first brought the Bible Code to the attention of the wider world population. And that is the subject of the next point on our list.^[1]

9 Assassination Of Yitzhak Rabin Predicted More Than a Year Earlier

On the evening of November 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot at point-blank range by Yigal Amir following a peace rally in Tel Aviv, where Rabin was in attendance. It is thought that Rabin was murdered due to his significant work on a peace deal in the region, and the killing shocked the entire world. However, when it came to light that Rabin had been explicitly warned of the assassination in a letter he received over a year earlier in September 1994, many more people began to take an interest in the incident.

The investigative journalist Micheal Drosnin sent the letter to Rabin, who claimed he had arrived at the conclusion by studying the Bible Code. Not only had Drosnin predicted that Rabin would be shot to death, he would state the exact date the assassination would take place—and even the name of the assassin.

Of course, as we know, Rabin ignored the advice and was gunned down exactly when the letter said he would be. His death almost certainly changed the course of history.^[2]

8 Peer-Reviewed Research of Eliyahu Rips, Doron Witztum, and Yoav Rosenberg

Drosnin had been attracted to the Bible Code mainly by the work of three people in the mid-1980s—mathematician Eliyahu Rips, physicist Doron Witztum, and journalist Yoav Rosenberg. The three men, using Equidistant Letter Sequencing methods, would reveal not only information but also apparent predictions, some of which we will explore in more detail shortly.

Essentially, while it was the highlighted prediction of Yitzhak Rabin’s death that made the wider world take note of the Bible Code, it was the work of Rips, Witzum, and Rosenberg that would make at least part of the academic world begin to contemplate the apparent authenticity of it. To their advantage, they could work with advanced computer programs, which could analyze multiple sequences in seconds and do so, by and large, without error.

Rips would eventually begin to perform further experiments with the Bible Code, eventually leading to some remarkable predictions. However, it was the trio’s initial studies that first brought their work to the academic world’s attention, and it is there we will turn our attention to next.^[]

7 The Great Rabbi Experiment and the “30 Rabbis” Tests

The Great Rabbi Experiment, as it was officially known, had the computer program search for the names of 30 famous Rabbis—all of which were born long after the Old Testament was written—to see if they were somehow written into the alleged code of the Bible. To their amazement, the computer found every single one of them. Even more amazing, when the trio used a matrix grid technique at these locations in the text, the rabbis’ dates of birth and death were also discovered.

They repeated this experiment on several occasions, each time using 30 different famous rabbis from history. And each time, the computer program found them, and the matrix grid search revealed the dates of their respective births and deaths. As a control of sorts, when these experiments were carried out on the novel War and Peace, the program could not find any of the rabbis, at best returning just random letters with no connection.

Their findings were presented—and peer-reviewed—in Statistical Science. And while many were cautious of the findings, the men insisted that the discoveries couldn’t be dismissed as pure coincidence. In fact, Rips was particularly intrigued by the findings and began to turn his attention to the modern era and whether information about future events might also be revealed using the Bible Code. And his findings, as we shall see next, were certainly intriguing, to say the least.^[4]

6 Prediction of Saddam’s “Russian Missile” Strike in January 1991

One of the first names Rips looked to find using the Bible Code was the (then) President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. According to his records and later statements, he did this in the first week of January 1991. To his utter shock, the computer program, at least according to his interpretations of their results, not only found Hussain’s name but claimed he was about to launch an attack against Israel within several weeks.

Even more remarkable in terms of apparent precise details, he would do this using a Russian missile. Perhaps unbelievably, on January 18, 1991, Saddam Hussein did indeed order a missile strike against Israel, and the weapon of choice was a Russian missile.

Not long after this apparent imminent prediction of modern world events, the previously mentioned Michael Drosnin would introduce himself to Eliyahu Rips. Throughout the remainder of the 1990s, they made further fascinating discoveries in the Old Testament.^[5]

5 The Moon Landing Found in the Book of Genesis

One of the most thought-provoking of these predictions was discovered in the book of Genesis, specifically a line when Abraham is told to “look now toward Heaven and count the stars.” Using the same coding and sequencing methods as before, the pair revealed the words “spaceship” and “Apollo 11,” as well as the date, July 20, 1969.

Of course, that date is the date that Apollo 11 touched down on the surface of the moon before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto its surface—the first time a human being had set foot on what was essentially an alien world. To some, including Rips and Drosnin themselves, this was further proof of the Bible Code’s authenticity.

In fact, Drosnin, initially merely fascinated with the Bible Code, became as convinced as Rips that there was genuine information and predictions within the ancient text. And they continued to code through the Old Testament to find it.^[6]

4 Details of The Shoemaker-Levy Comet’s Collision with Jupiter

On July 16, 1994, a huge comet named the Shoemaker-Levy comet hurtled into the planet Jupiter, an impact that was visible (with camera and telescope technology, of course) here on Earth. The collision with the gas giant was so powerful that it left visible “scarring” in the planet’s clouds—scarring that could be seen for several months following the impact.
According to the work of Rips and Drosnin, this impact was also predicted in the Bible Code. According to their experiments, the name of the comet itself was discovered, as well as the date of the impact. Furthermore, the phrase “will pound Jupiter” was found within the code, an obvious reference, the pair insisted, to the comet’s collision with the planet.

The revelation of the impact allegedly found in the Bible Code was made public two months before the collision occurred, and while not making huge headlines around the world, captivated a small group who were beginning to take such predictions a little more seriously. However, one of the next predictions from the Bible Code was not only much more serious, but it proved to be of events much more horrific and deadly.^[7]

3 The Prediction of the Oklahoma Bombing and Other Atrocities

The worst domestic (homegrown) terrorist attack in United States history occurred on the morning of April 19, 1995. Timothy McVeigh activated a huge bomb that all but destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing 168 people and injuring hundreds more. McVeigh was eventually arrested, convicted, and executed for the deadly act—an act that, according to Rips and Drosnin, was contained within the mysteries of the Bible Code.

They offered that the words Oklahoma and Murrah were both present in the code, as well as the line, “his name was Timothy.” While compelling, many remained cautious of the claims.

There were also several other predictions of terrorist attacks and untimely deaths revealed over the coming years, including the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers, the fall of Saddam Hussein, and the capture and death of Osama Bin Laden. ^[8]

2 The Libya Nuclear Attack (That Wasn’t)

Arguably, one of the most intriguing of Rips’s and Drosnin’s discoveries of hidden information in the Old Testament involved the prediction that Libya’s Muammar Qadafi was about to launch a nuclear strike. There were suggestions that, privately, authorities were paying far greater attention to this prediction than they would admit. They appeared to be negotiating behind closed doors.

Using the Bible Code, Rips and Drosnin discovered the word “Libya,” the phrase “Atomic Holocaust,” and the date January 27, 1996—a date that was just 24 hours away. They immediately passed their information to various authorities. While, officially, this information was dismissed, some researchers have suggested, given Qadafi’s actions on that date, that some kind of dialogue had taken place privately.

On the date predicted by the Bible Code, Qadafi appeared live on television to give a speech to several Arab nations. In it, he made the declaration that Arab nations had the right to hold nuclear weapons as a means of defending themselves from potential aggressors. While the influential figure stopped at this statement, some questioned whether this speculative dialogue had resulted in the leader significantly toning down his speech, affecting the subsequent speculative fallout from it.^[9]

1 The Missing Stone Pillar and Suggestions of Alien Technology

For all the predictions that came true, though, many were far off the mark or just simply didn’t happen. As the years went on, these non-events appeared to loom larger in terms of the credibility of the Bible Code.

By this time, Rips had begun to distance himself from the apparent code in the Bible, as well as his belief that its predictions were accurate. Drosnin, on the other hand, continued his research into the Bible Code until his death in 2020. Before he passed away, however, he made several more captivating claims about the apparently hidden messages within the Old Testament.

One of the most intriguing pieces of information he received was about an apparent stone pillar in Jordan near the Red Sea. According to the source, this stone pillar contained inscriptions relating to the Bible Code and how to unlock all of the information within it. Drosnin sought permission to search for and excavate this stone pillar. Permission was granted, and Drosnin began to assemble a team of specialists to participate in the mission. However, a short time later, the authorities revoked this permission, and the stone pillar, if it does exist, remains undiscovered.

Ultimately, Drosnin concluded that an “intelligence” must have inserted the code into the Bible—an intelligence he hinted heavily was likely extraterrestrial or even humans from another time. He claimed that they had likely used an advanced computer system to do so, adding, without the discovery of the alleged stone pillar, it will take an advanced computer system to fully unlock.^[10]