Bible Code Digest.com - 0407BCD--Is Jesus the Messiah?

Bible Code Digest: March/April 2024 Continued

Is Jesus the Messiah?

A Rich Host of Clues from the Codes

Could Bible codes possibly add anything definitive to the two-millennia-long controversy over Christian claims that Jesus of Nazareth was/is the Messiah of the Jews?

As noted in the Closeness Comparisons Part 2 article in this Digest, we checked out two sets of ELSs for their closeness to literal mentions of David in the Old Testament. They were ELSs for Yeshua HaMelech (Jesus the King) and HaMelech Yeshua (The King Jesus).

For Jesus the King ELSs, their distances from David were totally unremarkable, being no different than what chance could cause. However, for The King Jesus ELSs, the David distances were just as small as those for three variations of the royal title of King David himself. In other words, they were anything but random. This very fact suggested that extensions to these codes might provide clues to the question of the Messiahship of Jesus, for the Messiah is referred to as the Son of David in Zechariah:

"And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn." (Zechariah 12:10, NKJV)

In addition, there are numerous referrals to the Jesus as the Son of David in the New Testament. See: Matthew 1:1, 1:20, 12:23, 15:22, 20:30, 20:31, 21:9, 21:15, 22:42, 22:45, Mark 10:47, 12:35, 12:37, Luke 1:32, 3:31, 18:38, 20:41, 20:44, Acts 13:22, Romans 1:3

Our first request of Dr. Jacobi was to search the 25 occurrences of The King Yeshua ELSs in the Old Testament with the shortest skips for possible ELS extensions. We thought that a few of these extensions might include some content relevant to the disputed Messiahship of Jesus. Before we made this request, we of course had no idea that every one of the 19 occurrences for which Nathan found extensions would have potential references to New Testament accounts of Jesus that would cast at least some light on the controversial question of who Jesus was. We were quite stunned by this. Given the high rate of discovery of reasonable extensions to the first 25 The King Yeshua ELSs, we continued searching beyond the first 25. We ended up checking out the first 45 ELSs of The King Yeshua with the shortest skips. In all, Jacobi found extensions for 29 of these.

Suppose that we knew nothing about "The King Yeshua" except what could be gathered from these extended codes. What these codes would tell us are the following things (with the number of the code in parentheses):

Some of King Yeshua's enemies would acknowledge that he reigned over them. (1)

He will have followers. (2)

He was an exalted teacher providing "days of contact." (4)

He will live forever. (6)

He will have personal warmth. (7)

He will carry on the traditions of Moses in some way. (8)

He will be "awake" within some of his followers. (9)

He will live—at some time after his death. (10)

He will be a gift. (11)

He will be Aramaic in some way. (12)

Accounts of him will refer to palms and to treasure. (12)

He will be a "gift that God will move" who will come. (13)

God will improve matters for him. (14)

He is a living spark/amber. (15)

He will be redeemed by cold, by fire, and once by an empty nail. (16)

People will sing about him just as they would sing for a powerful prince that causes them to tremble. (17)

He will return to followers who are part of his loaf of bread. (21)

He will some day appear again. (22)

We are likened to clay vessels, and He will disclose who we are. (23)

He was a lamb who was defeated. (25)

He is the King, the Son. (26)

A woman will carry a burden for him. (27)

He will awaken us. (28)

He is compassionate and full of knowledge. (30)

He will do or be something wonderful or miraculous. (32)

People will be asked to prepare food for him. (33)

His people will rejoice, but then will recoil. (35)

He is the guarantee. (35)

He is awake within us. (36)

He is gentle. (37)

He is born of a woman (with no earthly father) and feeds many people, while others sleep. (39)

In the table below, which is quite lengthy, we present the Hebrew extensions that Jacobi found, together with his English translation of these extensions and his notes on translations of many individual Hebrew words in those ELSs. Below each extended code, we have also presented a passage from the New Testament whose content is similar to that of the codes Jacobi found. The degree to which the code findings parallel key New Testament passages is utterly astonishing.

Regarding these selected New Testament passages, the following observations are key:

These passages were selected by Ed Sherman, a Christian, and not by Dr. Jacobi, who is a hopefully open-minded Jew, currently living in Israel.

Because there are so many uncertainties attached to the content of any individual Bible code, BCD does not believe that anyone should draw any clear conclusions from the content of any individual code, no matter how long it is. [For a list of these uncertainties, read the answers to questions five, six and seven of Twenty Questions]

Our overall objective in engaging in this exercise is to focus on the presence or absence of evidence of the validity of the phenomenon of Bible Codes, and not on providing hard evidence to serve as the basis for a position either for or against any Christian or Jewish beliefs about who Jesus was/is.

Our primary conclusion is that the ease with which it was possible to find New Testament passages with content similar to that of each of the extended The King Yeshua codes is some of the strongest evidence presented to date for the reality of the phenomenon of Bible codes. To someone such as Ed Sherman, who has studied the Bible regularly for 35 years, the passages presented below (with only a few exceptions) came to mind almost immediately after reading Jacobi's English translation of each extended code. No exhaustive or laborious search was needed to prepare this compilation.

We believe the focus should be on considering the implications of this group of findings, taken as a whole, rather than quibbling about fine points regarding the specific translation of any given extended code, or of any selected New Testament passage.

In some cases, the content of the selected New Testament passage is an evident over-dramatization of the content of the given code. We did not disqualify any passage on the basis of relative degrees of drama. For example, code 14 states, Indeed, King Yeshua, God will improve matters. We cited a passage from the book of Philippians to the effect that Jesus went from the horror and gross humiliation of being crucified to being worshipped en masse by every person and spiritual being in the universe. One could not imagine a greater improvement for anyone than this.

What is so startling about the following chart is that, for most codes, the New Testament passages with similar content provide a plausible interpretation of each code, even when the code by itself seemed unremarkable or mysterious in substance. It is as if a solid familiarity with the New Testament enables one to understand the likely meaning of many of these codes.

Note: The use of bold lettering in the translations and Scriptures below is our added emphasis.

Wrapped text is when the letters wrap back through the text. For example, an ELS might stop at the end of the Old Testament. If we look at the continuation of the skip starting at the beginning of the text, we call that wrapped text. In the tables, blue letters denote wrapped text.

It is remarkable that 15 of the 17 The King Yeshua ELSs with the shortest skips had extensions. That's 88%. And 22 of the 28 The King Yeshua ELSs with the shortest skips had extensions. That's 79%.

Scripture quotations marked "NKJV^™" are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright ©1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked "NIV" are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Continue to Hebrew Alphabet: Lesson Five

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