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Are There Any Mathematicians That Believe in the Codes?
#1
Following is a list of Mathematicians and their views of the codes research of the 3 Mathematicians: Witztum, Rips, and Rosenburg and their famous 1994 article in "The Journal of Statistical Science", in which they claimed to have found coded information on 66 famous Rabbis of medieval times in the Hebrew book of Genesis.

Quote:Are There Any Mathematicians That Believe in the Codes?

The following portion of this document is information taken mostly from Jeffrey Satinover's "Cracking the Bible Code." Email for specific page numbers. When reading all of the below arguments, keep in mind that we ourselves do not endorse the work of WRR. As a summary of comments made above, most of the codes examined in the 1994 paper appear to us to be insignificant, and thus whatever method that stated they were significant is probably in error. However, we, not being mathematicians cannot comment on the quality of the statistical work done by WRR. Below you will find just who does support WRR's work. Keep in mind also, that if WRR's 1994 paper was thrown out by everybody, it would do no harm to the codes, because that paper is nothing compared to the evidence we have now.
"The present work, represents serious research carried out by serious investigators. Since the interpretation of the phenomenon in question is enigmatic and controversial, one may want to demand a level of statistical significance beyond what would he demanded for more routine conclusions... The results obtained are sufficiently striking to deserve a wider audience and to encourage further study."
-H. Furstenberg, the Hebrew University
-I. Piatetski-Shapiro, Yale University
-D. Kazhdan, Harvard University
-J. Bernstien, Harvard University
Remember, to get into Statistical Science, the paper must be reviewed by several secular mathematicians. The WRR report was very well done, and drew the attention and respect of the world's finest mathematicians from around the world.

The following is a listing of some prominent mathematicians from around the world who have publicly commented on WRR's report. (Not all of them have endorsed the truth of the findings, but all have commented on the high-quality of the research, and by implication, the bona fides of the researchers as well):
First, WRR:

Doron Witzum: the preeminent codes researcher, a mysterious, reclusive, ultra-Orthodox Jewish Torah scholar described as almost "saintly." Yet he had been a graduate student in physics specializing in studies of general relativity--an extraordinarily abstruse and difficult subject. 13 years ago, having been introduced to the hidden mathematical background of the Torah, he had left physics to devoted himself full-time to religious studies--and to the codes.

Eliyahu Rips: considered by some to be the discoverer of the whole phenomenon. A Lithuanian ??migr?? and world-class mathematician who had arrived in Israel a fierce atheist (as are the majority of mathematicians). He held international stature as a group theorist (an esoteric domain at the cutting edge of both pure mathematics and theoretical physics), but after coming upon various mathematical structures in the Torah, the codes among them, he grew religious, and eventually Orthodox. He remains a full-time mathematician whose piety and involvement in the codes research are a source of consternation to his more conventional colleagues the world over.

Yoav Rosenburg: a brilliant young computer scientist. Has a tremendous background in advanced mathematical techniques that can be used to detect, with great accuracy, "fuzzy" signals in a sea of static. He was at work in Israel on his doctoral dissertation in that area, with specifically military applications.

Supporters of WRR's work, many known around the world:

Harold Gans: A senior codebreaker at the US Department of Defense, a man who for more than 25 years worked at the National Security Agency, making and breaking codes for American intelligence. Using his own computer program, replicated the Israeli results and then took them a step further. And Gans had set out to prove that the Bible code was a hoax, that it was ridiculous, that it was crazy. And instead he proved that it was real. Today, Gans still believes in and supports the work of WRR, although he is retired from the U.S. Government.
Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro: one of the most famous mathematicians in the world, at Yale University. He is widely considered one of the world's finest mathematicians. He was quoted as saying, "If Rips was involved, you may be certain that there is no problem with the mathematics."

David Kazhdan: chairman of the Department of Mathematics at Harvard, was quoted as saying in a 1996 newspaper interview, "The phenomenon is real; what it means is up to the individual." Mr. Kazhdan is now more tentative, and remains undecided, but says he is still open-minded.

Robert J. Aumann: the most famous mathematician in Israel. Now at Hebrew University, and a member of both the Israeli and the United States academy of sciences, told the Israeli Academy of Sciences that the 'Bible code' is an established fact. No one has a closer knowledge of the experimental work that Dr. Rips has done than Dr. Aumann. He supervised the gathering of the material and the carrying out of the experiment as an independent observer over the course of many years. Note, Brendan McKay claims that Professor Aumann now says that he is undecided on the codes. We were unable to find proof for or against McKay's claim.

Persi Diaconis: a prominent and highly respected statistician in the Department of Mathematics at Harvard who after reviewing the work, was unable to find the flaw that he expected to be there. He had himself devised an extraordinary elegant method to reanalyze the Israelis' data in place of more conventional methods. WRR used his very method to substantiate their findings. Persi is a fierce skeptic just because he believes the idea of codes in the Bible is ridiculous, but he has not challenged the work of WRR to our knowledge.

Gerald Schroeder: another physicist with an impressive career behind him. Long at MIT, Schroeder had subsequently worked for the United States Department of Defense, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the United Nations. He had been part of the team that developed the means for detecting clandestine underground nuclear explosions and personally owned the patent for the device used to detect and measure the intensity of airborne radioactivity. After publishing more than seventy scientific articles, he, too, left it all to come to Jerusalem where he lectures to people from all over the world about the interface of science and religion.

Professor Daniel Michaelson: another mathematician in the circle of codes researchers (in fact, he had helped develop the field). Michaelson maintained appointments both in the Department of Mathematics at UCLA and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He, too, began as a severe skeptic, but eventually became convinced that the codes are real. Like Rips, he left behind his secular life to assume the ways of the ancient tradition.

Robert E. Kass: editor of Statistical Science at the time of the '94 WRR paper. Chairman of the Department of Statistics, Carnegie-Mellon University. Said, "Our referees were baffled: their prior beliefs made them think the Book of Genesis could not possibly contain references to modern-day individuals, yet when the authors carried out additional analyses and checks the effect persisted. The paper is thus offered to Statistical Science readers as a challenging puzzle." Note that Robert does not support or endorse the work of WRR, and he now supports the new paper by MBBK.

Dr. Andrew Goldfinger: a senior physicist at Johns Hopkins University, and number two man at the Space Computer and Technology Group there. Goldfinger was also past chairman of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. He has reviewed and now endorses the work by WRR.

To characterize code advocates as incompetent in Science and Math is simply false.

Blessings,

Dave Bauscher
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#2
BIBLE CODES DEBUNKED!

Statistical Science publishes Bible Codes Refutation

The only paper published in a refereed scientific journal that claims to find evidence for the reality of the Bible Codes is the paper Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis, by Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips, and Yoav Rosenberg (WRR), Statistical Science, Vol. 9 (1994) 429-438.

After review by four senior statisticians chosen by the journal, Statistical Science has published a thorough rebuttal: Vol. 14 (1999) 150-173.

The new paper is Solving the Bible Code Puzzle, by Brendan McKay, Dror Bar-Natan, Maya Bar-Hillel, and Gil Kalai. Here is the abstract:

A paper of Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg in this journal in 1994 made the extraordinary claim that the Hebrew text of the Book of Genesis encodes events which did not occur until millennia after the text was written. In reply, we argue that Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg's case is fatally defective, indeed that their result merely reflects on the choices made in designing their experiment and collecting the data for it. We present extensive evidence in support of that conclusion. We also report on many new experiments of our own, all of which failed to detect the alleged phenomenon.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/codes/StatSci/">http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/codes/StatSci/</a><!-- m -->
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#3
Hello Otto,

The same team that peer reviewed the original article and approved it mathematically, approved the second "debunking" article, as you call it. If they debunked it based on the Math, then they debunked themselves for approving the Math in the original article which they now claim to have debunked!

Anyhow, I have read the rebuttal and Rips' rebuttal of the rebuttal, along with former NSA cryptologist Harold Gan's study of the cities of Israel codes, and the claimed debunking of that, etc.. I don't find any real mathematical or even scientific grounds in the arguments for invalidating the Bible codes position and claims, only a questioning of the methodology. The opponents claim to have produced similar results (codes) in control texts by tweaking the spelling methods of names searched for, and so claim (imply) that this is what the first team (WRR) did to get the results they did. That is not science; it is mere grandstanding and libel. They cannot prove the charges, which, of course, WRR deny.

To call this "debunking" is simply "Bunk".

Your brother ,

Dave
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#4
June 9, 2008

Dear Dave,

I am reading the May 1999 Statistical Science article by McKay, Bar-Natan, Bar-Hillel, and Kalai, but I have not finished yet.

As far as a "same team" is concerned, the way a Journal works is that two or three willing (sometimes reluctant) reviewers are chosen somewhat at random for "peer" review before publication. This is a rather haphazard process, since many of the best scientists are unwilling to commit to doing very many reviews because of time limitations. One of the most difficult jobs for a journal editor is finding suitable willing reviewers. Unfortunately, some weak papers get published in this process.

My impression is that the published article caused such a recurrent stir after its publication that the editor was led to request a new and more thorough "peer" review. Hence, the editor eventually requested a new "review by four senior statisticians chosen by the journal...." Statistical Science has published that rebuttal: Vol. 14 (1999) 150-173 based on that follow-up and probably more meaningful review.

Brother Dave, as much as I admire your brilliance and productivity, I fear that your important and impressive translation and commentary work will be summarily rejected by the most important religious leaders and scholars of our time who view Bible-code studies as nonsense.

As you know, I think your Bible code "findings" are based on incorrect statistical assumptions and incorrect interpretations of the results. For example, finding "long codes" that you did not imagine or stipulate in advance has absolutely no statistical significance. I am quite certain they are just interesting random observations created by a computer letter sorting program.

I think your excellent translation and commentary in your ???The Original Aramaic New Testament in Plain English??? would be strengthened if you remove page 9 and these comments in the Epilogue: ???I have also written Divine Contact-Discovery of The Original New Testament which documents how I discovered by scientific experiment that The Peshitta New Testament was written by God Himself and that The Greek New Testament is a first century translation of The Aramaic Peshitta New Testament books. There are free articles, excerpts and book links available at aramaicnt.com???

Even if you do continue to believe that your Bible code studies are correct, you would do best not to make claims that many, many people will dismiss as foolish and can be a unnecessary distraction.

In fact, the wonderful text of your translation itself along with your excellent commentary is so impressive, it clearly proves Aramaic primacy. I am truly inspired by reading it. I really hope that I have a chance to meet you some day to thank you in person.

Thanks for your NT translation.

Sincerely,

Otto
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#5
Thank you, my Brother Otto, for your kind words. I do hope you are wrong about the effect my claim for codes may have on views of my translation.

I tend to believe that most people will judge the translation on its own merits, and will be forgiving of any disagreement about codes, as you have been.
Most people are basically kind hearted and reasonable, I believe.

I have made little reference to the codes in either translation's introduction. Only the interlinear has the long codes listed in an appendix, for those interested. Most people will take little notice of the appendix.

Thanks again. Your words of commendation actually encourage me that the work will find acceptance among the public, in time.

People are hungry for timeless truth, which The Peshitta New Testament certainly is. I pray it will bring a great reformation and spiritual awakening from Heaven to the earth.

Breek aat hu min Alaha Avoon (You are blessed of God our Father),

Dave
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