Listen
Add to Collection
Help
| Listen |
Add to Collection |
Help |
reprinted from SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
SCIENCE SECTION, page 15C
November 30,1985
HIDDEN 'MESSAGES' IN TORAH
by Robin Lustig
Scripps Howard News Service
Dateline: Jerusalem
Computer analysis of the Torah, the Jewish holy book, indicates that it is unlikely to have been written by humans, according to Israeli researchers.
. The researchers at Israel's Institute of Technology are not yet prepared
to say that they have proved that the Jewish scriptures were written by a
divine source. But they clearly believe that their preliminary finding point
in that direction.
. "we can only say whether or not the scriptures were written by one
person. But if you want to draw the conclusion that they were written by a
divine source, you are entitled to do so," Dr. Moshe Katz told a news
conference earlier this fall.
. The researchers' analysis is based on the remise that the Jewish
scriptures contain "hidden" messages within the Hebrew text. As an example,
Katz said that in the first two of the five books that make up the Torah, the
word "Torah" can be read by taking one letter out of each of the 49 at the
start of each volume.
. In the third volume, the word "Elokim" (one of the Hebrew words for God)
can be read by taking one letter from each of the 26, he said. Forty-nine is a
significant number because it is the square of seven, which is considered
holy, and 26 is significant because it is the numerical value of the Hebrew
letters that spell God, Katz explained. (All Hebrew letters have numerical
equivaalents.)
. In the last two books of the Torah, he added, the word "Torah" appears
spelled backwards in the same way. "The likelihood of this occurring by chance
is around one in two million," he said. Katz gave a number of other examples
that he said showed that "hidden messages" appeared with far greater frequency
than cluld be explained by coincidence. In the Book of Esther, the Jewish wife
of Hamaan, demanded that the 10 sons of te enemy Malach be hanged, four
letters in the list of the sons' names appear in smaller print than the rest.
When read together, these four letters give the numerical value of the year in
the Jewish calendar equivalent to 1946, the year when 10 Nazi war criminals
were hanged following the Nurenberg trials.
. In another passage, the Hebrew word "hashoah", which means holocast,
appears in a section in which God warns that He will desert the Jewish people,
leaving them to suffer great hardship, if they disobey the "covenant" between
God and the Jews, Katz said.
. "We have programmed the computer to compare these findings with other
writings, including a novel by the Israeli Nobel prizewinner Shai Agnon," he
added, "No equivalent findings have been reached."
We refer all to the analysis of the Bible made by Computers For Christ and how this information may be considered a part of the features of that analysis.
|
|
(All fields except email are required) [ Comment Policy ]
|