''The Bible Code'' is a book by

Michael Drosnin Michael Alan Drosnin (January 31, 1946 – June 9, 2020) was an American journalist and author, best known for his writings on the Bible Code, which is a purported set of secret messages encoded within the Hebrew text of the Torah. Drosnin was ...

, first published by

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster LLC (, ) is an American publishing house owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts since 2023. It was founded in New York City in 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group US ...

in 1997. A sequel, ''Bible Code II: The Countdown'', was published by

Penguin Random House Penguin Random House Limited is a British-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, with the merger of Penguin Books and Random House. Penguin Books was or ...

in 2002, and also reached New York Times Best-Seller status. In 2010, ''Bible Code III: Saving the World'' was published by Worldmedia, Inc., completing a trilogy.

''The Bible Code'' and its interpretation of Bible Code theory

Drosnin describes an alleged "

Bible code The Bible code (, ), also known as the Torah code, is a purported set of encoded words within a Hebrew text of the Torah that, according to proponents, has predicted significant historical events. The statistical likelihood of the Bible code a ...

", in which messages are encoded in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Torah The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...

, and can be deciphered by placing the letters of various Torah passages at equal intervals in a text that has been formatted to fit inside a graph. Drosnin suggests that the code was written by

extraterrestrial life Extraterrestrial life, or alien life (colloquially, aliens), is life that originates from another world rather than on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been scientifically conclusively detected. Such life might range from simple forms ...

(which he claims also brought the

DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

of the human

genetic code Genetic code is a set of rules used by living cell (biology), cells to Translation (biology), translate information encoded within genetic material (DNA or RNA sequences of nucleotide triplets or codons) into proteins. Translation is accomplished ...

to Earth). Drosnin elaborates on this theory in '' Bible Code II: The Countdown'', suggesting that the alien who brought the code left the key to the code in a steel

obelisk An obelisk (; , diminutive of (') ' spit, nail, pointed pillar') is a tall, slender, tapered monument with four sides and a pyramidal or pyramidion top. Originally constructed by Ancient Egyptians and called ''tekhenu'', the Greeks used th ...

. Drosnin attempted to find this obelisk, which he believes is buried near the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...

. Drosnin's book claims to be based on the technique described in the 1994 paper "Equidistant Letter Sequences in the

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek language, Greek ; ; ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its incipit, first word, (In the beginning (phrase), 'In the beginning'). Genesis purpor ...

" by

Eliyahu Rips Eliyahu Rips (; ; ; 12 December 1948 – 19 July 2024) was an Israeli mathematician of Latvian origin known for his research in geometric group theory. He became known to the general public following his co-authoring a paper on what is popularl ...

Doron Witztum Doron may refer to: People Given name * Doron Almog (born 1951), Israeli soldier * Doron Ben-Ami (born 1965), Israeli archaeologist * Doron Egozi (born 1980), Israeli Olympic sport shooter * Doron Galezer (born 1952), Israeli journalist * Doron ...

, and

Yoav Rosenberg Yoav () is a male given name popular among Israeli Jews. Its popularity is attributed to both Joab (), commander of King David's army in the Hebrew Bible, and Yitzhak Dubno, a 1940s Palmach soldier whose codename was Yoav. Yoav is also the namesak ...

, who have all denounced the conclusions drawn in ''The Bible Code''.

Criticism

The general construction of alleged "Bible codes" and Drosnin's methodology in particular have been criticised by mathematicians and others.

Acquisition of ''The Bible Code'' by Warner Bros. Pictures and "Code" screenplay

In May 1997,

Warner Bros. Pictures Warner Bros. Pictures is an American film studio and distribution arm of the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group division of Warner Bros., both of which are owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex ...

acquired the film rights to ''The Bible Code''. At the time of acquisition, " e studio's production presidents,

Lorenzo di Bonaventura Lorenzo di Bonaventura (; born January 13, 1957) is an American film producer and the founder and owner of Di Bonaventura Pictures. He is best known for producing the ''G.I. Joe (film series), G.I. Joe'' and Transformers (film series), ''Transfo ...

and Bill Gerber, said that the work 'addresses the age-old questions of our purpose on Earth, the meaning of the Bible, and our uniqueness in the universe – all issues that have stimulated the imagination for thousands of years'." Drosnin, collaborating with filmmaker and writer Ruth Rachel Anderson-Avraham (née Yvonne Michele Anderson), an English Language and Literature and Religious Studies major from the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

who had then taken time off from her interdisciplinary graduate studies, including quantitative work and the pursuit of graduate degrees at

HEC Paris HEC Paris () is a business school and ''grande école'' located in Jouy-en-Josas, a southwestern outer suburb of Paris, France. It offers Bachelor, MiM, MSc in International Finance, MBA, EMBA, executive education, professional developm ...

and

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

, completed a screenplay entitled "Code" for Warner Bros. Pictures in 1998."Code"
IMDb.com / IMDbPro.com, Los Angeles. For the full reference for a screenplay which has not yet been greenlit, produced, or released, one must have access to the IMDbPro.com site."Written after the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993, but prior to September 11, 2001, the screenplay includes a plot line recalling the 1993 Al Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers, at a time when the tragic events of

9/11 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

were 'unimagineable'."The action of the story was set in New York City and

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

. Notwithstanding, this screenplay was never greenlit by Warner Bros. Pictures, and the rights eventually reverted to the author. In 2010, Relativity Media purchased the film rights to The Bible Code series, then a trilogy including ''The Bible Code'', ''Bible Code II: The Countdown'', and ''Bible Code III: Saving the World''. Relativity Media had hoped to produce a Bible Code film for release in 2012, but this project never came to fruition.Kilday, Gregg
"Relativity Buys Film Rights to 'Bible Code' Book Series"
''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' (online), Los Angeles, 4 November 2010.

Bibliography

* ''The Bible Code''. (US, Simon & Schuster, 1997, ); (UK, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997, ) * ''The Bible Code II: The Countdown''. (US, Viking Books, 2002, ); (UK, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002, ) * ''The Bible Code III: The Quest''. (UK, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2010, ) *

Related literature

* Jeffrey Satinover: "Cracking the Bible Code". Wm Morrow, 1997. . Appeared slightly later, follows a more historical and traditional route.

References

External links

The Bible Code
transcript of a story which aired on ''BBC Two'', Thursday 20 November 2003, featuring comments by Drosnin, Rips, and McKay * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bible Code, The (Book) Bible code 1997 non-fiction books 1997 in religion Simon & Schuster books Weidenfeld & Nicolson books Books about the Bible Books about extraterrestrial life