Michael Heiser — Bible Codes “The Bible Code Myth”

Michael Heiser — Bible Codes “The Bible Code Myth” | Peeranormal 13

Back in mid-nineties a peer-reviewed article was published that sought to legitimize the idea that the Hebrew text of Genesis encrypted meaningful information about modern persons and events. Their method for detecting the presumed encrypted knowledge was known as equidistant letter sequencing (ELS).This article (Witztum, Rips, and Rosenberg) became a reference point for journalist Michael Drosnin, who wrote the bestselling book, The Bible Code, shortly thereafter. Subsequent to the success of Drosnin’s book, Bible-code research expanded to the full Torah and beyond, to the rest of the Hebrew Bible. In this episode we ask whether there is such a thing as ELS Bible codes. Have other statisticians and biblical scholars agreed with Witztum, Rips, and Rosenberg, or are there serious problems with the method and its assumptions?

Michael Heiser, "The Bible Code Myth" (PDF Available Here): http://www.michaelsheiser.com/LetterDifferencesIsa53.pdf

Articles:

Witztum, Doron, Eliyahu Rips, and Yoav Rosenberg, “Equidistant letter sequences in the Book of Genesis,” Statistical Science 9.3 (1994): 429-438

McKay, Brendan, Dror Bar-Natan, Maya Bar-Hillel, and Gil Kalai, “Solving the Bible Code puzzle,” Statistical Science (1999): 150-173.

Richard A. Taylor, “The Bible Code: ‘Teaching them [wrong] things’,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 43, no. 4 (2000): 619-636

Paul J. Tanner. “Decoding the Bible Code,” Bibliotheca Sacra 157 (2000): 141-159.

Link to Naked Bible Podcast 104 — How we got the Old Testament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8kqYUad0oQ

Comments

Michael Heiser — What’s The Significance Of Elisha & The Bears (2 Kings 2:23–25)?

This is a complex issue that actually does have to do with cosmic geography and even more so, the denial of Elisha’s status as the prophet of Yahweh and as a solicitation to Elisha to play the role of an apostate priest, to join the apostate worship, to join the other gods, to be part of that system instead of Yahweh's system, to not be Yahweh’s prophet. This is a theologically significant passage. That answer might sound strange to you but it is tied up in this cosmic geographical thinking and cosmic geographical language. Article Referenced: 1. Going Down to Bethel: Elijah and Elisha in the Theological Geography of the Deuteronomistic History (Joel Burnett)

Michael Heiser — Predestination & Foreknowledge

Predestination and foreknowledge aren’t the same. Foreknowledge does not necessitate predestination. In 1 Samuel 23:1–13 it’s clear, God foreknew a possible outcome that never actually happens—foreknowledge does not command that it’s predestined to happen. In other words, the means by which God works are His own—God can predestine things if He wants, but we cannot conclude that everything that happens was predestinated. We cannot exist as God’s own image if everything is predestined (Genesis 1:27). Free will (what we choose) matters, although we may not know how it matters exactly—God is omniscient and God will use it—only God knows such things. If everything is predestined, we would have no free will and we would simply be robots. This is why God does not eliminate evil just yet. In doing so, God would have to eliminate all of humanity as well as everything else in the spiritual world having free will. God is omniscient and knows what the cost is going to be. He would rather ...

Naked Bible Podcast 222 — Trees and Kings with Dr. Rusty Osborne

Houseform Apologetics

Search This Blog