Editing Bible code (section)

==History==
===Early history===
The 13th-century Spanish [[rabbi]] [[Bachya ben Asher]] described an ELS in the Bible. His four-letter example related to the traditional zero-point of the [[Hebrew calendar]]. Over the following centuries there are hints that the ELS technique was known, e.g. in [[Pardes Rimonim]] of the 16th century mystic [[Moshe Cordovero]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://aish.com/torah-codes-explained/ |title=Torah Codes Explained|date=August 2, 2011 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=90 |title=The Rambam and the Bible Codes}}</ref>

In the 20th century, many examples were found by [[Michael Ber Weissmandl]] and published by his students after his death in 1957. In the 1980s,  some discoveries of Israeli school teacher Avraham Oren came to the attention of the mathematician [[Eliyahu Rips]] at the [[Hebrew University]] of Jerusalem. Rips then took up the study together with his religious studies partners [[Doron Witztum]] and Alexander Rotenberg, among several others.

===Rips and Witztum===

Rips and Witztum and Yoav Rosenberg designed computer software for the ELS technique and subsequently found many examples. About 1985, they decided to carry out a formal test, and the "Great rabbis experiment" was born. This experiment tested the hypothesis that ELS's of the names of famous rabbinic personalities and their respective birth and death dates form a more compact arrangement than could be explained by chance. Their definition of "compact" was complex but, roughly, two ELSs were compactly arranged if they can be displayed together in a small window. When Rips ''et al.'' carried out the experiment, the data was measured and found to be statistically significant, supporting their hypothesis.

The "great rabbis experiment" went through several iterations, and was eventually published in 1994, in the [[peer review|peer-reviewed journal]] ''Statistical Science''. The editorial board was highly skeptical due to the fact that computers can be used to "mine" data for patterns that intuitively seem surprising but upon careful analysis are found to be statistically insignificant. While they did find a number of possible sources of error, they were unable to find anyone willing to put in the substantial time and energy required to properly reanalyze the data. However, they did find it intriguing, and therefore decided to offer it as a "challenging puzzle" for anyone interested in doing so. An unintended result of this was that outsiders mistook this as a confirmation of the paper's claims.<ref name="projecteuclid.org">{{cite book |author=Kass, R. E. |year=1999 |url=http://projecteuclid.org/DPubS/Repository/1.0/Disseminate?view=body&id=pdf_1&handle=euclid.ss/1009212242 |title=Introduction to "Solving the Bible Code Puzzle" by Brendan McKay, Dror Bar-Natan, Maya Bar-Hillel and Gil Kalai Statistical Science, 14 |page=149 |publisher=projecteuclid.org}}</ref>

===Other experiments===

Another experiment, in which the names of the famous rabbis were matched against the places of their births and deaths (rather than the dates), was conducted in 1997 by Harold Gans, former Senior [[Cryptology#NSA involvement|Cryptologic]] Mathematician for the United States [[National Security Agency]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.torahcode.net/people/gans.shtml|title=Kabbalah, Torah, and Torah Codes – People|website=www.torahcode.net}}</ref>

Again, the results were interpreted as being meaningful and thus suggestive of a more than chance result.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.torah-code.org/controversy/gans_statement.pdf|title=Public Statement by Harold Gans}}</ref> These Bible codes became known to the public primarily due to the American journalist [[Michael Drosnin]], whose book ''[[The Bible Code]]'' (1997) was a best-seller in many countries. Rips issued a public statement that he did not support Drosnin's work or conclusions;<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.despatch.cth.com.au/Articles_V/Torah_Extracts.htm |title=Public Statement by Dr. Rips on Michael Drosnin's theories |publisher=despatch.cth.com.au}}</ref><ref name="Stenger2009">{{cite book |last1=Stenger |first1=Victor J. |title=Has Science Found God?: The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe |year= 2009 |publisher=Prometheus Books |isbn=978-1-61592-158-4 |page=230 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hhE6ZXCFHZ0C&pg=PA230 |language=en}}</ref> even Gans has stated that, although the book says the codes in the Torah can be used to predict future events, "This is absolutely unfounded. There is no scientific or mathematical basis for such a statement, and the reasoning used to come to such a conclusion in the book is logically flawed."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.skepdic.com/bibcode.html|title=Bible Code – The Skeptic's Dictionary|website=www.skepdic.com}}</ref><ref name="Stenger2009"/> In 2002, Drosnin published a second book on the same subject, called ''Bible Code II: the Countdown''.

The [[Jewish outreach]] group [[Aish HaTorah]] employs Bible codes in their Discovery Seminars to persuade secular Jews of the divinity of the Torah, and to encourage them to trust in traditional Orthodox Jewish teachings.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://aish.com/ask-the-rabbi/the-bible-tanach-scripture/oral-law-torah-study/bible-codes/|title=Bible Codes|website=aish.com}}</ref> Use of Bible code techniques also spread into certain Christian circles, especially in the [[United States]]. The main early proponents were [[Yakov Rambsel]], who is a [[Messianic Judaism|Messianic Jew]], and [[Grant Jeffrey]]. Another Bible code technique was developed in 1997 by Dean Coombs (also Christian). Various [[pictograms]] are claimed to be formed by words and sentences using ELS.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bible-codes.org |title=Bible Code Pictograms Bible Codes that form images that predict the future |publisher=bible-codes.org |access-date=October 6, 2010}}</ref>

Since 2000, physicist Nathan Jacobi, an agnostic Jew, and engineer Moshe Aharon Shak, an orthodox Jew, claim to have discovered hundreds of examples of lengthy, extended ELSs.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.biblecodedigest.com |title=Find what you are looking for |publisher=biblecodedigest.com |access-date=October 6, 2010| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20101026015526/http://biblecodedigest.com/| archive-date= October 26, 2010 | url-status= live}}</ref> The number of extended ELSs at various lengths is compared with those expected from a non-encoded text, as determined by a formula from [[Markov chain]] theory.<ref>Sherman, R. Edwin, with Jacobi and Swaney. 2005. ''Bible Code Bombshell'' Green Forest, Ar.: New Leaf Press. 281–286</ref>