The Bible Code is a real phenomenon also referred to as the Torah Code, and the Torah consists of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew bible is also known as the Old Testament. Many scholars and Torah worshipers say Drosnin's work is bogus and that the Torah code cannot be used to predict the future.
Michael Drosnin argues differently and contends to prove his argument by showing results of past predictions that have been calculated by a computer program which uses a concept called ELS which stands for Equidistant Letter Sequences.
Drosnin's credibility took a big hit when he challenged the scientific community to find another literary work that could be used in the ELS concept and that would be predictive. Unfortunately they succeeded in doing so in the famous book entitled Moby Dick. Dissatisfied, Drosnin continued to support his claim and continued to decipher Bible Code through his method. His predictions were drawing the attention of powerful world figures along the way.
Opposers to Drosnin's process made a good argument to his prophetic method in a paper called "The Madness Method" they made a similar claim in regards to Bible Prophecy 2.
It is now 2008 and we should be less concerned with Drosnin's work and more focused on the Mayan 2012 end of a long count cycle. I say that because the Drosnin system failed a major test when 2006 came and went without a nuclear holocaust which he'd predicted through his ELS concept.
Drosnin has faced major skepticism in the voice of Barry Simon, an IBM Professor of Mathematics. On Barry Simons site one can find plenty of evidence to the bogus nature of Drosnin's claims. This excerpt can be read in full there.
Mathematicians' Statement on the Bible Codes
We are making this statement concerning what have been called
"Bible codes" or "Torah codes". We recognize that many sincere people take this
phenomenon seriously, which compels us to speak out on the basis of what our
mathematical training tells us about the evidence claimed for this alleged
phenomenon.
There is a common belief in the general community to the effect
that many mathematicians, statisticians, and other scientists consider the
claims to be credible. This belief is incorrect. On the contrary, the almost
unanimous opinion of those in the scientific world who have studied the question
is that the theory is without foundation. The signatories to this letter have
themselves examined the evidence and found it entirely unconvincing.
We refer
in particular to the paper Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis,
published in Statistical Science in 1994. This experiment suffers from major
problems concerning both its execution and the interpretation of its
conclusions. Even without these concerns, we would not take such extraordinary
claims seriously without a vastly more systematic and thorough investigation. No
such investigation has been carried out, nor has the work so far established a
prima facie case. In addition, word clusters such as mentioned in Witztum's and
Drosnin's books and the so called messianic codes are an uncontrolled phenomenon
and similar clusters will be found in any text of similar length. All claims of
incredible probabilities for such clusters are bogus, since they are computed
contrary to standard rules of probability and statistics.There are 50 scholarly names attached to this letter.
What good can be said about Drosnin then. Well, he did say that he is not a prophet. The man played his beliefs to the maximum and his game involved several big political names. It just goes to show that in times such as these when everything seems to focus on a common theme such as 2012 that many people can and will be deceived. We know a few facts about 2012 like the alignment of the earth, sun, and galactic core, and the passing of the Venus Transit, and the December 21, 2012 yearly winter solstice, but the rest is interpretation of mystic and mythological lore. To take anything from those prophecies to serious is a trap whether or not it comes to pass.
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References
The Madness Papers
Barry Simon on Torah Codes.
Ingermanson critics the Bible Code and it's sequel
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