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TOV Research: TORAH and Bible Codes.
Historical Documents, Research Papers, Publications, & More...
General and Historical Background on TORAH CodesTraditional Hebrew belief attributes the TORAH to Moses. The TORAH or the Law of Moses is comprised of the first five books of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. Held in high regard by the faithful of Israel, the TORAH has a special place in Jewish life. Since the time of Ezra a portion of the TORAH is read aloud weekly in public. This practice continues to this day with the reading of the weekly TORAH portion, or Sidra on the Sabbath. The TORAH is the foundation of Jewish faith, law and culture. Considered the Holiest Scripture in Judaism the TORAH contains legal, ethical and religious instruction believed to be divinely inspired. Some Orthodox Jews claim that the TORAH was dictated to Moses letter by letter by God at Mount Sinai, (Har Sinai). Supporting the claims of divine inspiration is Biblical Prophecy where future events are foretold in advance. The realization of these events is the evidence of divine inspiration. Critics argue that the Biblical books were written after the foretold events denying prophesy and divinity. Prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Aleppo codex was the oldest complete Hebrew Bible available to scholars, (written circa 1000 C.E.). Proponents of divine inspiration of the scriptures were forced to rely on other sources to support their position. The Essenses were noted for their ability to foretell the future as recorded in First Century C.E. secular histories of Josephus.
Josephus on the Essenes foretelling what will happen.
Of interest, Josephus notes that the Essenes consulted the Hebrew Scriptures to foretell things to come.
Is this the first reference to the TORAH Code? Perhaps. Several sources provided below:
Bahya ben Asher also known as Rabbeinu Bachya; Spain circa 1340The earliest known written reference to an equidistant letter sequence, "ELS" code is in a comment made by Bahya ben Asher in the 14th-century. A highly respected rabbi in Spain, Bahye's principal work was his commentary on the Torah (the five books of Moses). In his discussion of the first verse in Genesis, he writes a footnote describing an ELS code:
Elijah ben Solomon, a/k/a the Vilna Gaon (1720 - 1797, 18th Century)Research in progress. Rabbi Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl (1903 - 1957) a/k/a Michael Ber WeissmandlRabbi Weissmandl uncovered codes in the Torah and was reported to have copied large portions of the Torah into grids of ten characters by ten characters. Students at the Nitra Community in Mt. Kisco, New York preserved the Rabbi's research in Toras Chemed. Rabbi Shmuel Yaniv and Avraham Oren carried on Weissmandl's research. Toras Chemed,(Mt. Kisco, 1958) published posthumously by Rabbi Weismandl students is a collection of religious commentaries, homilies, and hermeneutic material of a kabbalistic nature. Included in this book are observations of coded messages in the Torah. These observations became science with the advent of the computer. TORAH CODE: Mathematics and ScienceFirst Scientific Paper
Additional Materials in Support of the 1994 Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg Paper, "WRR"
2nd International Interdisciplinary Conference on Fundamental and Applied Aspects of Speech and Language; Belgrade 2004
18th International Conference on Pattern Recognition; Hong Kong 2006The seven papers presented below support the findings of the original scientific paper published in Statistical Science in 1994 by Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg. This research paper is often often cited as "WRR" by code researchers. The original experiment was subjected to criticism and additional experiments followed.
Basic Concepts for Testing the Torah Code Hypothesis |
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