argruement on the torah codes

Many people argue over the Bible codes... well first off, they are not "Bible" codes, they are Torah codes, comprising of the first five books canonized in the Old Testament, that being Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. What I find humorous is that those who claim to be Christian or at least follow the god who is found in the Bible, YHVH, who is known to be thee most powerful god yielding power in this world to His followers, will doubt His power and not even entertain the thought of messages being encoded within the Torah, for the Torah was to have been written by the hand of Moses, with each and every last word dictated to him by YHVH. Which is where I bring up my next point; the Torah was not written in english! It was written down in Hebrew, for those not in the know, and here is where people will claim that if there was a code, then man would have destroyed it by now. According to the Jewish community, they would wrong. The Torah is considered such a sacred text, that not one word has been molested from it's original form for today's copies in Hebrew, although the original version may no longer exist. Also, people who refuse to believe in a Torah code, then go on and cite messages discovered within Moby Dick as proof that any massive text could have messages, but these people never pull out of there hat evidence to back up their arguement. Where are the statistics? Numbers? Pie graphs? Messages encoded? Heck, where are the History Channel specials, two best-selling books, and computer programs to find these messages in the Moby Dick codes? For my last point, people fail to realize that certain messages that may include a future date, location and data on what may happen and said location and date, are only predictions! They are not rock solid possibilities! As it has been said about YHVH, it is up to us to determine our where our future will lead. The Book of Revelations describes apocalyptic events, but it is not the End All Blow to the world, just the end to our way of life, and if humanity keeps on down it's path to self-destruction, it will lead them to the Apocalypse. Okay, so I lied when I said I made my last point. Here it is... most people that decide to search for Torah codes are probably not well-versed in the Torah, or Bible for that matter, which is there downfall. One must know exactly what they want to look for. John nor Jane Doe Christian wouldn't know where to begin when taking a swing at this daunting task. More than likely, they would be consumed by greed and look for something pointless like, "WINNING LOTTERY NUMBERS." Do you people understand what I'm trying to say? If there is something you find intriguing in the Old and New Testament, search it out, and also know it's history and possible meanings behind it. Phew, 'nuff said. Now let the fecal matter fly.

Hi Cloud:

You are BOTH correct and at the same time, incorrect about the transmission of the actual texts of the Torah in antiquity.

The magic moment in question in terms of the beginning of anything like an accurate transmission of the torah text is AD 200--- when the "official" Masoretic text version was finally "fixed" letter by letter in recogniseably "modern" form that Jews read today i.e. at a time when the counting of "the middle letter" was introduced or at any rate put into wide spread practice.

And contrary to all the lies you've been told by Rabbis and Priests and Ministers about the "accuracy" of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the mangled texts of the scrolls IN NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM closely matches the official canonized "received" Masoretic text of the Old Testament including the Torah: at least 3 contradictory text families of the Hebrew Bible were being copied out side by side by the Dead Sea Scroll Community between BC 170 and AD 68...!!

Especially BEFORE the year 200 AD, the text of the Torah was actualy quite fluid by modern standards--not just words, but whole sentences and whole paragraphs were added and deleted in any given part of the text----in other words, it was "open season in terms of an exact text---especially in the earliest stages of the transmission from about 530 BC to about 230 BC---and even the Dead Sea Scrolls (which discovery took modern Rebbes by surprise) show VERY CLEARLY that at least 3 different text famikly versions of the TORAH were happily being copied out side by side (between 250 BC and AD 68)--with NO SINGLE FAMILY PREDOMINANT (that dominant version was the MT, and that did not happen until AFTER AD 90 when the Old Testament CANON was finally fixed at Javneh for Rabinical Judaism).

So a CODE buried into a text would get lost among all the changes.

Just for your reference: here are the main textual families of the Torah and the Prophets (not counting all the various Aramaic Targums or the Syriac Pe#ta, which is ALSO DIFFERENT from these other ones)

l. The Samaritan Pentateuch (SamPent) dating from around 440 BC

2. The Hebrew Vorlage (underlay) to the Greek LXX Seputaginta (dating from around 250 BC) = the LXX was the basis for the Catholic OT which does not match the Masoretic Rabinnical version, to this day

3. The various Dead Sea Scroll Families (between BC 250 and AD 68)
4. and the LATE Masoretic Text (MT) which dates from around 780-850 AD and is based on a SINGLE manuscript from Leningrad (although scraps of texts found at Masada dating from AD 136 show that there was a PROTO MASORETIC text which was being formed between the end of the Jewish Revolt against Rome (AD 72) and the end of the 2nd Jewish Revolt (AD 138)---in other words the Rabinnical Council of Javneh/Jamnia around AD 90 which decided once and for all that the Masoretic (or socalled Babylonian ) text would be the one and only official version to be copied, to the suppression of all others.

If there ever was a CODE in the Hebrew text of the Torah, for example, you would have to decide which of the several contradictory Hebrew versions you would decide was most original (i.e. you would have to ask "from what exact text family was there a CODE buried inside ?")

In other words, are you talking about a code buried in the text of the northern Hebeew of the Sam Pent, or one buried in the mishnaically influenced Syntax of the Masoretic text, or a code which was buried in the the Hebrew text family which forms the Vorlage to the LXX or any one of a number of Dead Sea Scroll Variant Texts of the Torah----

THERE IS NO ONE HEBREW TORAH TEXT INTO WHICH ONE MIGHT INSERT OR FORM A SINGLE COHERENT CODE...!!

(since after all, these versions differed from each other in about 20% to 25% of the time in terms of actual letters on the page or column--so any CONHERENT CODE could not be sustained, by definition).

Unfortunately for those looking for such imaginary CODES running throughout the whole Masoretic Text etc. of the Torah, they will find it impossible to defend it in the end: since it is clear that the contents of the Torah text (i.e. letters on a page) were added to and subtracted from between BC 621 and BC 167 sometimes very drastically-------(Read WHO WROTE THE BIBLE? by Richard Elliot Friedman for a layman's introduction)

The later editors of the family which became the authorized "Masoretic Text" (MT) were consciously using a dating numbering scheme of repeating blocks of "480 years" which were consciously "forced on the text" in the Torah--note the blocks, e.g. the "faked" 480 years between Abraham and the Tabernacle and the "faked" 480 block of years between the Tabernacle and the Building of Solomon's Temple, and the "faked" 480 year block of years between Solomon's temple and the Exile into Babylon etc.) but no such 480 year block-numbering system seems to exist in ALL the other ancient versions of the Torah (e.g. the Sam Pent uses different numbers of years, and the Septuaginta uses a 3rd numbering system of years etc.)

So people who claim that the "history of Israel can be neatly divided into 480 year periods" (and is therefore "Divine", or so they claim!) ignore the fact that ONLY the late Masoretic Text (MT) supports such a forced numbering schema ----which was deliberatly designed to culminate in the last block of 480 years---i.e. Macabbean Revolt of 167 BC---when the Temple was REDEDICATED in Jerusalem---which is a give away to the time in which the text was probably heavilly re-edited into something like its "canonical form"...

Something to think about when you start talking about codes buried in the Hebrew texts versions-------will the REAL Torah please stand up !!!!

Cloud, I must point out one glaring flaw. the God from the Christian isnt said to be "thee most powerful God" but THE ONLY GOD. how would not believeing in a code be doubting his power. God never said to Moses "hey write this down, this is my word...but theres a code in there that you can figure out later". God's whole point was he didnt want us to know when and where and all that, just know that its coming and be prepared at any time. either way, it's my belief that the rules changed completely after Jesus was crucified for our sins. the Old Testament was kept for the historical data but the law of God is written in the New Testament. the purpose is to show God's change of heart from a more vengeful God to a compassionate one. of course Revelations is full of clues about the specifics. it is also suspected that the author of Revelations isnt who everyone always assumed it to be.

There is the Torah, and the torah, one being thee Torah, consisting of the first five books in the Old Testament, which is the original Torah and then the torah, which is a general term for the Old Testament. I am referring to the first five books. YHVH is not the only god, for in the Torah, it refers to the "Eloheim," meaning gods, and another case for other gods would the Ten Commandments, "Thou shalt no have other gods before ME (YHVH.)" YHVH is the one who takes the throne. Yeshua came and expanded on the Ten Commandments, but in no way did he abolish the Ten Commandments. One commandment no one can seem to get right is "Remember the sabbath to keep it holy." Everyone worships on Sunday, which is flawed, for the Catholic Church decided to switch worship to that day, in effect creating worship of the Sun... "Sun" -day, plus I remember someone had a topic asking "Do Christians really worship the sun?", wherein it stated that the word, church, is derived from the word, "circe," meaning once again, sun. Oh, and Amadeus, perhaps we should contact the Beastie Boys to do a rendition of Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady," but instead talk about the Torah, and do a throwback to their mock, Three Bad Jewish Brothers.

Cloud:

Read my last post: then answer my question:

WHICH EXACT ANCIENT TEXT VERSION of the TORAH ("of Moses" !) do you consider to be "THE TORAH" since none of the manuscript copies match each other?

There is a show about this on Sky One at 11 o' clock tonight.

[edit on 2-10-2004 by Atomix]