In 1958 Rabbi Weissmandel found hidden word patterns that were related to each other in the first five books of the Holy Bible, otherwise known as the Torah or Pentateuch. By selecting sequences of equally spaced text in the Bible, he found meaningful word pairs in close proximity to each other.  He called these equidistant letter sequences or “ELS” for short. For this reason he felt the authorship of the Torah had to have come from a DIVINE source. Some word pairs were predictive, that is, they could not have been known to the human authors of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament simply because events they predicted occurred long after the first five books of the Holy Bible were composed.

Both Orthodox Jews and Christian fundamentalists believe that the word of God is inspired, infallible and authoritative. However Orthodox Jews contend that every letter of the Torah was dictated directly to Moses by God in a precise and unerring sequence. In 1988 a paper was released by Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenburg from the Hebrew University and Jerusalem College of Technology titled, “Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis”.  This paper was published in the distinguished Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. The research team headed by these authors decided to see if the findings of Rabbi Weissmandel could be explained purely on fortuitous combinations (by chance). They took 300 pairs of Hebrew words, at random, with related meanings from the book of Genesis as given in the Orthodox translation known as the “textus reciptus” or Massoretic text. They treated the text as a string of letters having removed spaces and other grammatical dividers. This produced Hebrew characters that could be looked at horizontally, vertically or diagonally, almost as one would play tic-tac-toe. The researchers would start at the beginning until they came to the first letter of a specific sequence, then look to see if a second letter could be found in as many letters away, first horizontally, then vertically and finally diagonally. Thereafter they would investigate other sequences. In this fashion they searched every letter and sequence.

For example, the researchers found a word pair for Zedekiah (a sixth century B.C. king of Judah) and Mantanya, Zedekiah’s original name (see 2 Kings 24:17) as shown in boldface. Zedekiah may have been spelled out every second letter as………

a t o w c k z i e p d w e 1 k q i z a i h t z d t

whereas Mantanya may have been spelled out as every third letter in the text sequence as………

a z b e m b t a u i n z o t h w a b w n s v y r n a t i  (1)

The published results show that this finding was very significant, that is, the odds of its occurring merely by chance was less than 1 in 50 quadrillion (1:50,000,000,000,000,000). A finding in most scientific journals is considered significant at chance levels of anything less than 1 in 20. (2)

The capacity to embed so many meaningfully related, randomly selected word pairs in a text with a coherent surface meaning is beyond the capability of any human being. Dr. Jeffery Satinover, a psychiatrist and lecturer on the relationship between science and religion said in an interview …………..

“I guess the bottom line is, if the research holds up and no flaw is found in the methodology, then I think the implication is clear that the authorship of Genesis is not human”(3). With respect to other sacred texts, the phenomenon of ELS cannot be duplicated. Again, no other sacred text or writing provides this unique characteristic except the Holy Bible. This is because there is no letter for letter translation as set in the original Hebrew from the Torah. This would include the Samaritan Pentateuch, which varies only slightly from the traditional Jewish textus receptus.(4)

In 1994 the authors Witztum, Rips and Rosenburg went a step further and took the names of the 34 most prominent men from the Encyclopedia of Great Men in Israel between the ninth and nineteenth centuries. They paired the date of the man’s birth or death (numbers can be represented by letters in Hebrew). There was no way that the author of the Torah could have known, at the time the Torah was composed, of the existence of these men, and certainly not the dates of their births or deaths – unless of course He was divine or received the information from a divine being. The researchers were able to demonstrate that the names and dates of their births and deaths were encoded into the text, again as ELS.(5)  The authors Witztum, Rips and Rosenburg submitted their finding to the highly acclaimed and refereed journal, Statistical Science, the pinnacle of statistical publishing. Although initially met with skepticism, they were able to prove scientific objectivity and for this reason the work was allowed to be published in this prestigious journal. To quote the words of Robert Kass, the journal editor, as the article is introduced in Statistical Science:

“…When the authors used a randomization test to see how rarely the patterns they found might arise by chance alone they obtained a very highly significant result, with p =  0.000016.   Our referees were baffled: their prior beliefs made them think the Book of Genesis could not possibly contain meaningful references to modem 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.” (6)

Sadly Mr. Kass gives a revealing picture of how skeptical those in the scientific community become when anything touches spiritual matters, even if they are proven true by the very science they themselves base their professions on!  The attitude that so often prevails on matters of this nature are voiced by Mr. Kass himself as he exclaims “…the Book of Genesis could not possibly contain,..” Even as this most incredible evidence is placed before their very eyes and mind, Mr. Kass offers and refers this work to his audience but as a “challenging puzzle”.  What is so amazing is that the so called, “higher criticism” and modem linguistic analyses have tended to undercut these claims, critiquing them with what is generally regarded as superior scientific methods.  However, few of the methods used meet the rigorous criteria of hard science and mathematical statistics as has been employed by Witztum, Rips and Rosenburg.(7)  The scientific communities skepticism and doubt is even more apparent when Statistical Science asked the authors to repeat the test on another sample of the next 34 most prominent men from the same book.  Although the dates of either birth or death of only two correlated men from this second sample of 34 men were not known, the results were the same!  Again, the likelihood of this occurring by chance on the set of 32 names is less than 1 in 50,000. Then if you include the first set of 34 men tested for a combined total of 66 men, less than 1 in 2,500,000,000 possibilities exist that these findings by ELS occurred by chance. Sadly this second set of evidence was not even included in the paper as though the powers of skepticism and doubt were able to repress their statistical significance.  To date no one has discovered a flaw in the authors’ work.(8)

Jesus Found in the Old Testament

In the last seventy years incredible discoveries have been made that prove the Holy Bible to be true. For example the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls provide us with the oldest copies of the Holy Bible and show how little the latest copies of the Bible have changed, thereby validating the accuracy of this document through millenniums of time. Naturally without being able to authenticate the validity of a source, most people would remain skeptical and rightfully so. However the Copper Scroll, as a part of the Dead Sea Scroll artifacts, has revealed the location of buried treasure. And since these treasures were found, this document has to be considered valid and true. There is no other choice.

With the advent of equidistant letter sequences (ELS) as originally discovered by Rabbi Weismandel, predicting the names of people, places and events in the context of future development can lead to only one inevitable conclusion. That is, the Holy Bible is truly the only infallible, inspired written word of God.  There is none other. And ELS is the scientific and “laboratory” proof that validates this. Although ELS has only been found to occur in the first five books of the Bible, many wonder if the other Hebrew written books of the Old Testament could contain ELS phenomena. Starting in the decade of the 1960’s, a man by the name of Yacov Rambsel has investigated the Hebrew scriptures to determine if the Hebrew name of Jesus, translated as Yeshua (pronounced: Yes – Shoe – Ah), could be found in equidistant letter sequences. In 1996 Yacov published the results of his work in a book titled, YESHUA.  The book details his discoveries of finding the Hebrew name of Jesus throughout the Hebrew text of the Bible by ELS analysis. It is a stupendous work. This discovery truly completes and confirms that both the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible are the finished, authoritative and infallible inspired word of God.  Most important is that this work clearly and pointedly verifies that Jesus of Nazareth is the only begotten Son of God sent to redeem mankind from its sins. Not only this, but we find that the Holy Spirit led men of God to write the New Testament in order to prove the written fulfillment of prophecies given in the Old Testament scriptures about Yeshua ha’Mashiach, Jesus the Messiah, Savior of all mankind.

Combined with the eyewitness accounts of those who wrote about Jesus of Nazareth, the proof is so absolute and overwhelming that mankind can no longer deny the truth that Jesus of Nazareth is in fact the Son of God, God manifested to us in the flesh to take away the sins of the world, having been crucified on the cross as an atonement for our sins. Examples of Old Testament verses and ELS analysis by Yacov Rambsel gives proof for this assertion. Let us consider a few examples, starting with Isaiah 53:10 as noted on the right column.

The Hebrew word in this scripture for, “He shall prolong”, is “ya‘arik”, and signifies where we can best illustrate this system of analysis. Starting with the second yod, counting every twentieth letter from left to right, spells, “Yeshua shmi”, which means, Yeshua (Jesus) is My name. This combination can be corroborated in all the Hebrew publications (Note: letters must be in the Hebrew alphebet for this effect to take place).  The subject matter of this scripture (Isaiah 53:10) speaks of the suffering Messiah who was put to death as a sin offering for all people. This insight gives us the name of the Messiah (Yeshua or Jesus) over 700 hundred years before the event took place in Jerusalem, Israel! There can be no question as to the validity of His precious Word.” One of the most significant verses found in the Old Testament indicating the coming of the Son of God in human form is found in Isaiah 7:14 below. As you read the scripture, there can be no doubt to Whom it refers. Moreover, the ELS sequence found within this verse leaves no doubt and further confirms this assertion.(9)

In Isaiah 7:14 (right column), the Hebrew word used for “virgin” is almah, which in Hebrew means a virgin or young maiden. From the Hebrew letter “mem”, counting 17 letters three times from right to left spells the Hebrew word for Messiah, “Mashiach”. We can see by this insight that the virgin and the Messiah are tied together by the Word of God.  No one can deny the significance of this find.  It proves beyond of shadow of a doubt that the Messiah, Seed of a woman, is the Promised One that would bruise the head of the serpent (Satan) and thereby be able to take away the sins of the world (mankind).  Then, if you continue counting 17 letters three times to the right of the “mem”, you will have “kav’van”, which means, something prepared, like a sacrificial wafer. Put the whole statement together and you have, “kav’van Mashiach”, which means; Messiah, the sacrificial wafer (bread).(10)  It is well understood that Jesus is the bread of life.

The Mercy Seat and Its Sacrifice

When the high priest went into the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle or Temple, known as the “kodesh ha’ kadashim” in Hebrew, he would sprinkle blood of the sacrificed animal seven times upon the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant as indicated by Leviticus 16:14 on the right.  Before the high priest could enter the Holy Place with this sacrificial blood, he first had to be ceremonially clean. After the animal (bull, lamb, etc. depending on the occasion) was sacrificed, its blood was gathered for application in the Holy Place. During this time the priest had to be sure it would not come into contact with anyone or anything that was not clean, thereby, nullifying the blood and contaminating the person applying the blood. After the high priest applied the blood of the lamb in the Holy of Holies, then and only then, could he have contact with another person and/or thing. Yeshua (Jesus), on the other hand, was already ceremonially clean because He was without sin.  Yeshua, being the High Priest, came to fulfill every aspect of the Torah (Mosaic law) for our benefit and to prove that He was the High Priest of whom Moses wrote: In Leviticus 21:10-12 (on the right); counting every third Hebrew letter from right to left with the first Hebrew letter “heh”, we find the combination finally spells “hain dam Yeshua”, which means, “Behold!  The blood of Yeshua.”(11)  This awesome ELS combination truly speaks of the Son of God who gave His blood as a sacrifice for our sins and therefore became a ransom for our lives. He died so we could live.

In Christianity part of the service known as communion involves the drinking of wine which symbolizes the blood of Jesus. The Gospel accounts of the “Last Supper” or better yet, the Passover, mentions only two of the four cups of wine that normally are consumed during a present day Seder – specifically the first and third cups.  According to early Jewish tradition, these two were the most important.  In the Passover meal that Jesus ate with His disciples, two standard sized cups of wine would have been prepared for the service. It was real wine mixed with heated water, portraying the blood of the Passover lamb as given in the Mishnah (Pesahim 7:13). The first cup was special because it consecrated the entire Passover service that followed. However, the Mishnah states that the third cup is the most significant of all. The third cup had two names: the “cup of blessing”, because it came after the blessing or grace after the meal and the “cup of redemption”, because it represented the blood of the Passover lamb which took on the sins of the people. It was this cup that Jesus was quoted in Matthew 26:27-28…….

“And when He taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.”

Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 10:16, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?”  Now we can understand where communion originates from and its significance.

0’ Bethlehem

One of the most revealing scriptures that allude to the first coming of Yeshua is found in the Old Testament book of Micah 5: 2 as noted in the right hand column. Jacov Rambsel, in his research, uncovers incredible truth in this particular scripture. Starting from the fourth yod in verse two, counting every 49th letter from left to right, it spells “Yeshua”. In this verse there are at least three prophecies fulfilled by Jesus. (1) The name of the village, Bethlehem (Ephratah refers to ancient name of Bethlehem), in which He was to be born. (2) The tribe of Judah from which He would come. (3) The nation Israel from which He would come and eventually to rule from. There are 77 Hebrew letters compose this verse.  Seven is the number of Spiritual Perfection. Recall that beginning with the fourth yod, counting every 49th letter from left to right spells “Yeshua”.  For one Man to completely fulfill all three of these prophecies by chance are 1,680,000 to one.  As Yacov comments, “This should convince the most ardent skeptics of the authenticity of the Word of God.”(12)  As though this were not enough, then consider the following Old Testament scripture attributed to Zechariah 9:9 (on right), again, written hundreds of years before Yeshua’s first advent.

Starting with the first yod in rejoice, “gi’li”, and counting every 22nd letter from right to left spells “Yeshua”, the name of the King riding upon the colt. Generally a conquering king would pick the best of stallions, because of his station. But why would this King choose a lowly donkey?  Because it represented Yeshua’s position upon His first advent; a suffering, humble servant who was rejected by His own. However, when the Messiah returns to set up His final kingdom and restore Israel and the world, Jesus will come upon a majestic white stallion as prophesied in the last book of the Bible, Revelation 19:11,14.(13)

Finally, over 500 years prior to Jesus’s first advent, the prophet Zechariah wrote about the betrayal of Jesus by one of His disciples for thirty pieces of silver. Judas conspired with the chief priests and Pharisees to have Him abducted at the Garden of Gethsemane, across from the Eastern Gate of the Temple.

The Hebrew word for My price in Zechariah 11:12 is “se’kari”. Starting with the yod, counting every 24th letter from right to left, spells, “Yeshua”. We find that ELS has prophesied the name of the person who would be sold for thirty pieces of silver, over 500 years before the event took place!  The probability of such an occurrence taking place by happenstance is astronomical. (14) In fact, the percent probability of such an occurrence happening by chance is 2,000,000,000,000,000 (two quadrillion) to one using conservative figures! (15) Combined with all the other prophetic scriptures characterizing the details of Messiah’s first advent, the type of death He would suffer and other particulars relative to Him, the chance of this happening by probability alone is virtually impossible. Moreover, add to these very credible and weighty facts the discovery of the name of Jesus by ELS, and an absolute case is made for the truth and validity of the Word of God, which is Jesus and the book that writes about Him, the Holy Bible. This prophecy of betrayal was confirmed by Matthew in Matthew 26: 14-16, one of Jesus’ disciples who wrote about the event:

Skepticism

I am absolutely convinced that the Lord has waited for such a time as this to provide the whole world with as much evidence of His Truth as is needed. Since many Christians and others believe that the return of Messiah is at hand, there are but moments remaining for those who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior to do so quickly. This is one reason the Lord is providing such a plethora of evidence to prove His truth. Soon and very soon there will not be another tomorrow to receive Him as Lord and Savior by way of His grace.  I am also convinced that the Lord is providing such plentiful and wondrous evidence so that no human flesh in the world will have an excuse to say they did not know or hear of the truth. Yet the Lord has a reason to deny them based on the following scripture…

For this reason, they will have no excuse as they stand before the Holy God in heaven which was originally given in His Word thousands of years ago, which is the Holy Bible.

Dr. Hugh Ross concludes that this generation has been given an overwhelming abundance of evidence because the arrogance of man requires it. He believes God measures out evidence in direct proportion to the level of resistance to His truth. This makes sense. Where resistance to His truth is low, less hard evidence is necessary to overcome it. Where high, so is the quantity and quality.

Biblical Prophecy Fulfills Proof

Some of the most compelling evidence that proves the Bible as the inerrant word of God is in the fulfillment of prophecy.  The reason this is so is that the Bible has been able to predict the future with 100% precision.  If these predictions were not made under divine inspiration, then all who prophesied would only have “luck” (i.e. probability) for their success.  Just to show how difficult it is to see prophecy fulfilled on multiple levels, let’s attempt to predict the score between two football teams, the New York Giants and Chicago Bears for an understanding of how this works.  There is 1 chance in 2 that the Giants will beat the Bears or visa versa.  Let us assume that the score will be between 1 and 50, and that both teams can achieve either of these scores.  To determine all the possible outcomes, we multiply 2 x 50 x 50 = 5,000 (2 teams, each possibly being able to achieve up to 50 points each).  So there is only one chance in 5,000 that you will be able to predict the correct score and winner.  Would you wager your salary on such a prediction? The Old Testament gives hundreds of predictions about the coming Messiah who would come and save the world (take away sin and death).  We will only use 11 of them to show the improbability of them occurring by chance. (See Appendix II on page 117 for “Table of Old Testament Prophesies of the 1st Advent of Jesus Christ and Their Fulfillment in the New Testament”)

Consider the following………………………………………………………………………        Odds

1) Be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) ……………………………………………..        1:200  

2) Preceded by a messenger (Isaiah 40:3)……………………………………..         1:20 

3) Enter Jerusalem on a colt (Zech 9:9)………………………………………….         1:50  

4) Betrayed by a friend (Psalm 41:9) ……………………………………………..         1:10 

5) His hands and feet pierced (Psalm 22:16)………………………………….         1:100

6) Wounded and whipped (Isaiah 53:5)…………………………………………..        1:25  

7) Sold for 30 pieces of silver (Zech 11:12)……………………………………..        1:100 

8) Spit upon and beaten (Isaiah 50:6)……………………………………………..        1:10

9) 30 pieces of silver thrown into the Temple and

    given for a potter’s field (Zech. 11:13)………………………………………….        1:200

10) Silent before His accusers (Isaiah 53:7)…………………………………….        1:100 

11) Be crucified with thieves (Isaiah 53:12)……………………………………..        1:100

The probability estimates given are based on conservative odds. For example, most of the prophecies were given hundreds of years before their actual occurrence (we could assign one year for each chance before it occurred, for example).  Also the town of Bethlehem was one town in thousands in the nation of Israel. And then multiple individuals prophesied these events, not one. Even with these conservative odds, the combined probability of all these prophesies being fulfilled by chance equals 1 x 10 raised to the 19th power (1019) or 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 through mathematical probability analysis. In other words, there is only one chance in 10 thousand quadrillion or one million trillions that all 11 prophecies could have been predicted by chance! Of course any rational mind would know this is impossible!!!  

Moreover, these are not just 11 prophecies that predict certain events that literally happened to Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  Incredibly, there are 353 prophetic scriptures in the Old Testament that pertains to the birth, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The probability level now places the likelihood of these events taking place simply by chance at an astronomical level that cannot be grasped. Only God of the Holy Bible is capable of grasping this and is able to declare the future from the beginning as His multi-dimensional state of being allows for this to take place (make sure to read the chapter Creation of Space and Time which describes God’s extra-dimensionality). 

Therefore the only rational explanation for such accuracy is that God does exist and gave us His only begotten Son, Jesus, so that you and I could become sons and daughters of the Most High GOD. These prophecies do predict that Jesus died for you so you could have life everlasting. All you have to do is accept His pardon for the forgiveness of your sin. It really is that simple. Won’t you do so today? (NEXT CHAPTER)