Bible Code II: The Countdown

The Bible Code #2

by Michael Drosnin

The Bible code-the ancient code encrypted in the Bible that may reveal our future-was made known to the world by investigative reporter Michael Drosnin. Now he reveals startling new predictions warning that we may have only three years to stop the countdown to Armageddon. This dramatic account opens on the morning of September 11, 2001, when Drosnin witnessed the attack on the World Trade Center-and then found the terrible event predicted in detail in the 3,000-year-old Bible code. But according to the code, September 11 was only the beginning. The Bible code says we are already in the "End of Days," the Apocalypse foretold by all three major religions of the West. Drosnin has traveled the globe to meet with world leaders to prevent the impending danger-and to search for the "Code Key," a long-buried ancient object that may completely unlock the Bible code, just in time to save our world.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, Christian, Spirituality, Faith, Judaism, Christianity

292 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Andrew Neveils · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is whack. It is written well enough to keep you going through it, but it is a load of crap. Garbage. There is no real credit, I feel, to his statements, though they do spark some interest.

It's interesting but you will ultimately find it stupid...

[Mikey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave it one star because I found the overall content, position, and conclusions of the author to be so strangely typical. I even had some kind of intuition even before I read it regarding where the author would take it. So in that respect I made up my mind about it before I read it. I read it to facilitate conversation with a co-worker friend that loaned it to me and for that, I enjoyed it.

For those that have not explored this but have perhaps heard something about it, this is my review. It is an easy book to read in the sense that it’s not very big, has fairly large print and not an overwhelming amount of words because it contains many pictures of the “matrix’s” or charts of where certain words that were of interest to the writer, are found. How these charts are formed is through putting the Hebrew “bible” or “old testament” as we call it, in the computer as it would have been on a continual scroll with no spaces. (if they could make a single scroll that big) Then the program, used by Dr. Eliyahu Rips, finds patterns such as search words spelled using letters spaced equally apart either forward or backward which is called Equidistant letter sequences. Such as taking every forth letter in the following sentence:

Rips explained that each code is a case of adding every forth letter to form a word.

If one starts with the first letter of the sentence and pull out every forth letter following it would say: READ THE CODE ytttro. This is not a new concept. In the 16 century, Rabbi Moses Cordevaro for example wrote, “the secrets of the Torah are revealed…in the skipping of the letters”. It is just much easier for us with the aid of computers to explore this possibility today.

In this book, the writer tells of his findings in the code and spends a great deal of time with how he tries to warn Israeli leaders, Palestinian leaders, and the president and other officials in the US. This was kind of fascinating actually. Basically, his message was the “End of Days” is upon us and we will destroy ourselves unless we heed the “Bible Code’s” warnings and change our behavior. We must make peace in the Middle East! It also deals with the author Michael Drosnins search for an extraterrestrial artifact of some sort in the Middle East that is suppose to be the solution so that we can save ourselves from destroying ourselves. This is the obvious bent the author has which I was not in the least bit surprised by. He believes and/or wants his readers to believe extraterrestrial more evolved space/time travelers brought microorganisms to earth, which began our evolution here, yet they also left us a hidden code and some way to decode it at precisely the right time in our history. He does not know who they were or why they cared about us enough to try to save us by warning us of the disaster that will or could befall us.

Michael Drosnin’s books certainly have no credibility scientifically nor are they supported by those serious about studying “Torah codes”. For more info here is a place to start :
Bible Codes-Wikipedia

Drosnin certainly has no reliability, especially from a religious perspective, with me and those like me, that tend to prefer to take the Bible itself very seriously. It was difficult for me in the sense that as a Christian I obviously had theological issues with the way in which the writer deviates widely from my personal convictions of who God is, especially sense he states in four places that he does not believe in God and once that there is “no savior”. Just as I expected it was very denigrative of the Bible itself and traditional viewpoints regarding it. He is also very sloppy with the “plain text” as it’s typically called. He very oddly treats what we read “the Bible” as just a collection of myths and legends and untrue and unimportant except occasionally when it suits him to back up a point he believes he found “hidden” in the text which he calls the “bible code”. He states: “I do not believe in God yet I’m certain the Bible Code is real…It was designed by some intelligence that could see the future”.
There are people with Jewish or Christian perspectives, that accept that there is something to this “code” thing, yet use it not to predict the future which is viewed as a form of divination, but to further validate what the plain text really says which is also believed to be completely true and inspired of God. I accept this as a possibility.
Interesting Quotes From the book The Bible Code II:

“I do not believe in God”—found in (Intro; pg 5, 93, 181)
“…but I’m certain the Bible Code is real…It was designed by some intelligence that could see the future”
“Advanced civilization seeded the earth” (microorganisms)
“own planet doomed”—allegedly found in the “code”
“He was forced down—allegedly found in the “code” mentioned on (pg 178)
“Deuteronomy 30"—(pg 206)
"Who cared enough about us to reach across time to try to save us from some foreseen disaster?” (pg 217)
“Satan loosed”-(pg 219)
“Lucifer Myth”—(pg 220)
How it bothered the writer that the code seemed to suggest that “the greatest blow comes after peace”—(pg 222)
“It is as if some force of good wants to reveal everything to us, and some force of evil wants to destroy us…”—(pg 240)

[Héctor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Este es uno de esos libros que se encargan de explorar "teorías conspirativas" o como sea que las quieran llamar. El hecho es que el autor busca la forma de comprobar una teoría que tiene, basada en un supuesto código secreto que esconde la biblia y en el cuál se encuentran encriptados los acontecimientos históricos de la humanidad.

En realidad considero que es una lectura bastante aburrida a pesar de que es un libro corto, en su momento se me hizo pesado, lento de leer y no lo encontré tan interesante o revelador. Es un libro que pasa de largo sin pena ni gloria, al menos eso creo yo.

Si estas cosas de "códigos ocultos" y teorías rebuscadas van contigo, adelante. De lo contrario, es mejor que pases al siguiente libro.

[Armin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Außerirdische Offenbarungen über das Alte Testament wäre der korrektere Titel, Jesus und seine Jünger sind für Drosnin komplett irrelevant, sogar in Sachen Apokalypse, aber mit dem Bibeltitel ließen sich zumindest jene Leute locken, die immer noch glauben, dass es sich bei der Heiligen Schrift um das Werk aus einer Hand, nämlich der Gottes handelt. Die Prämissen sind Quatsch, aber das Buch ist gut lesbar, so lange man keine echten Offenbarungen erwartet.
Warum ich mir das überhaupt angetan habe? Das Buch fiel mir bei Kik (duckweg) für einen Euro vor die Füße und ein Bekannter mit Hang zu Verschwörungstheorien hatte mir bei einem Umzug vom ersten Teil vorgeschwärmt. Allein zu lesen, in wie vielen Punkten Prophet Drosnin gegenüber seinem Milleniumsbestseller zurück rudern musste, war den zweiten Stern wert. Auf die eine oder andere Art eine Art Däniken für das 21. Jahrhundert. Warum jemand noch den dritten Teil verlegen musste, ist mir allerdings ein absolutes Rätsel. Es sei denn, die nächste Korrektur von Prophezeiungen zum Weltende und so war überfällig.

[Hibiscus · Rating 2 out of 5]

First meet the heroes.

Eliyahu Rips
Another smart scientist gone too far thinking he can apply his maths skills to poorly understood fields.
cf. Anatoly Fomenko

Drosnin
A Dan-Brown-like reporter-turned-writer popularizing, commercializing and primitivizing the initial study.

The idea of finding hidden secrets in the fabric of holy scriptures itself is by no means new.
cf. kabbalah and gematria

Regarding the particular method too much freedom was reserved as it came to
- localizing (combinatorics, reading in any direction)
- interpreting (neologisms in ancient texts)
- extrapolating (Apocalypse, paleocontact)

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

more crap

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing is tedious with much repetition of certain points. It is like the curse of oak island, only the treasure is buried in a book. It leaves you just as satisfied, too. Not very.

[Penn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though this book gets a lot of negative reviews, I still found some interesting things in it. Now I can give it away.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't heard much about the author in quite a few years, and that's not too surprising since this skeptical reporter of a Jewish background dipped his feet into a round of prophetic speculation [1] with this book that proved to be woefully inadequate and is probably lying low at this point.  This book demonstrates one of the characteristic dangers of the mystical approach to the Hebrew Bible that is held by many people, and that is the tendency to seek in it aspects of knowledge that would glorify the seeker of obscure truth while neglecting the moral and ethical demands of the Word of God itself.  The author, a journalist of no particular religious faith nor certainly any desire to obey God's laws, simply looks upon the Bible as a code for a probability-based view of the future that combines free will and determinism in a striking way and that also manages to greatly underestimate the odds of using the Hebrew scriptures to come up with codes that say what you want it to say by mixing inventive translations of the Hebrew with skip codes that seek to find hidden words underneath the text.

In terms of its contents, this book is about 250 pages long or so and is divided into a few short chapters that blend a look at the geopolitics of the late 1990's and early 2000's with a creative interpretation of scripture as a code.  Basically, this book can best be enjoyed, in a somewhat ridiculous way, if it is viewed as a nonfiction (?) version of a Dan Brown thriller or something of that kind, where the Bible is viewed as a piece of literature that gives insight into the future as well as the distant past.  The author mixes desperate attempts to warn leaders in Israel, the West Bank, and the United States of a threatened nuclear holocaust beginning with a global economic crisis in 2002 and culminating in 2006 with attempts to find a metallic obelisk containing mysterious knowledge about the origins of mankind and of life being seeded from another place.  While it is thankful that this book can be enjoyed on at least some level, it is hard to take this book entirely seriously when the author pretends to be a skeptic about the Bible Code and drastically overstates the improbability of certain things being found in the Bible.

There are a few factors, at least, that make the Bible a very suitable candidate to look for skip codes.  For one, the Hebrew language, being consonantal in form, and it is far easier to form words in skip codes when pesky vowels don't get in the way and can be added as one wishes to make up words, especially when one looks at the handy two and three-consonant core that make up much of the Hebrew language.  For another, the Bible contains a great deal of content about judgment and origins and other materials that one can cross with, which makes for suitable skip codes that other languages and texts simply cannot compete with.  At any rate, the author doubles down on his initial speculations about the Bible Code concerning such figures as Clinton, Bush, Arafat, and various Israeli leaders.  At its core, this book demonstrates the problems that result from looking at the Bible to gratify one's desires to be viewed as an expert on history and/or prophecy without taking its ethical demands in order.  The sort of knowledge that the author claims is passing, but character endures.  Let us hope that the author has acquired some familiarity with God's law and started to apply it in his life, and learned what the Bible warns against trying to set dates about the Day of the Lord.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...

[JW van der Merwe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reads like a conspiracy modern international spy / intrigue with political dimensions especially as it relates to the USA and Israel. Many things concerning the Bible code proves to be true, however the dates - some the exact dates could only be predictive i.e. not certain unless through hindsight one feeds events and finds it truth. Predictive and futuristic events can be seen as warnings and not absolute? In my mind I come to believe that there is a plan in God's designs. Some things will happen and nothing can stop it. Other things in between these big events that will happen have some "play" in predictive certainties and can best be used as warnings. Still I would love to know if there is a key to the Bible not just the code, but a key that unlocks more of the predictive things through the code. Is it possible in a multidimensional array that all is encode in the Bible? I am certainly thinking that everything existed by the Word...a definite correlation.

[Supra Dee · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 Star Book...the first book was good but in the first book he claim Netayandu will get assissanated but never did, Does GOD p secret and crystic messages in the Bible and Torah? I believe God does and the second book the Bible Code will make you scratch your head but the main prophecy is Netayandu is still alive , however many other predictions might have occurred, Author keeps saying he is not a mystic and not religionous and author has a good group of allies in Israel, USA, PLO, Middle East to get connections to earn the leaders or sit down with them ..However many people still to this day do not understand Peace can never be achieved to to the the utterances of the Spoken Word of the biblical prophecies will make these prophecies for full themselves for last days, end times, pretribulation, Rapture, Second Coming of Christ...

[Roberto Galindo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why hasn't this guy been given a Nobel Peace Prize? Granted, he has lived an amazing life, interviewing so many world leaders. Plus, collecting all these Bible sudoku must have taken a lot of time,so for the time he spent, a gave the book a 2. It is also well rationalized, the last chapter on the merits of the hoax is brilliant to hook the gullible and shut down the rest of us who are laughing. This is one of the most forced book since the davinci code, only not as well written. Not necessarily a waste of time, this evangelical end of days hoax is filled with historical disasters and their key players. That was nice to go through and reminisce over. I love the blog that found every synonym of "fake" coded in the first chapter of the book.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author thoroughly (and repeatedly) describes how often he ran the code through the Bible. I wish he ran an editor through his own text to detect repetitions. There are so many of them! It gets boring to read the same text and names repeatedly. A simple search in the electronic version of the book would reveal that the name Lisan and the corresponding pieces of text were used hundreds of times. Repeating the same phrases doesn't add drama. It makes the reader lose interest.

[Andy Febrico Bintoro · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this second book, the author wants to proof that the Bible code was meant for us, meant to be solved by man. Well, the key whether this method is trustworthy or not is in the obelisk, which the author mentioned himself in this book. If not, all of these things seems like a forced fitted. Everything being forced to fit an event.

[Danny Proffitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

One has to be careful. I find it interesting. However quite skeptical.

[Agustín Arcos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lo leí de pequeño a escondidas de mis padres. Me cagué encima y tuve pesadillas por una temporada.

[Jelena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dobra je knjiga za ljude koji jaki vole istoriju i istorijske događaje 😊

[Grady Ormsby · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bible Code II: The Countdown by Michael Drosnin is a total, utter and complete load of crap. The premise of the book is that there is a secret, predictive code hidden in The Bible. Drosnin a journalist (?) writes about the discovery of the code by Israeli mathematician Eliyahu Rips. Rips took the original Bible (exactly which one is that?) and wrote it out with no punctuation or stops as if it was one continuous line. Using a process known as equidistant letter sequencing, he used computers to search for patterns created by skipping characters and analyzing the results. What he seemed to find were messages hidden by a mysterious Encoder. The Encoder is alternately identified as “someone,” God and space aliens. These same sorts of messages can also be found in Moby Dick and almost any other writing of any length. Time has been Drosnin’s biggest enemy since his boldest prediction has gone waiting for at least eight years. In a letter to President George W. Bush Drosnin warned, “And the Bible code clearly states the danger in modern terms—‘atomic holocaust’ and ’World War’ are both encoded in The Bible. And both are encoded with the same year, 2006.” This is simply the most outrageous failed prediction among a host of many others. The book is built around shoddy or nonexistent research. Drosnin ignored most of the tenets I included in a unit on Clear Thinking that I taught to seventh graders. He provides the reader with conclusions with no evidence, unresearched or unprovable “facts,” incomplete testimony and irrelevant speculation. Not only is Bible Code II: The Countdown a poor scientific thesis, it isn’t even good fantasy. Some editions of this book are attributed to "anonymous." Is it because the author was embarrassed to use his name? The only reason I finished reading it was so that I could honestly write this negative review. Okay, it’s not a review; it’s a rant.

[Bec · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't read the first book, I am not religious and I am definately a sceptic, so this may be why I was not blown away by the book. I read this book becuase it was leant to me by a work collegue who I get along with.

There allot of parts that make it sound belivable - too belivable (even though to the authors credit he does discuss and rebut scientific critics of the theory). There are however glaring sections that have NOT become true. First of all that the end of the world would occur four years after the publication of the book. It was published in 2002, the end of the world did not come in 2006...There was another comment around the stock market crash, but nothing about the financial issues that we have come to in 2008(that I think have impacted harder the world economy).

However I found some other parts interesting. There is a chapter that discusses the discovery of the DNA structure by Crick and Watson. Crick apparently believes that DNA could have not gotten to earth through a metiorite but had to come from a superior being through a spaceship (apparently the code shows that DNA came in a "vehicle". The name Barak comes up and they relate it to the ex-prime minister of Israel, yet maybe they got it wrong and it will be true during a space in time Barak Obama is in power...to me it shows that it depends what you interpret the words that show up.

[Iva · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book for both Christians and doubters, atheists, or "lukewarm" Christians. The Hebrew Bible contains a very complex code that reveals events that took place thousands of years after the Bible was written. The world is rapidly becoming a very dark place filled with global instability, terror attacks, eroding freedoms, unusual weather patterns, the falling away of belief in God and more. Everyone around the globe is being threatened on so many fronts. These are fearful and troubling times, but I believe that God in all of His love, mercy, and grace encoded these messages for us, a reminder that he is still here, a reminder of who we are, and that he will never leave us nor forsake us. The Bible Codes seem to intertwine ancient text and very high-tech at the same time. It has been customized for our generation by our creator. This book gives the reader the revelation of God's purpose for us, His amazing love that can in no way be put into words. Among the predictions in Bible Code I, II, & III include many codes regarding our "DNA", "Our Inheritance", reminders of being made in His image. Remind you, these codes came from the original hebrew bible, thousands of years ago, when no man had the knowledge of DNA. I can't say enough about this book!

[Ilan Sonsino · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the beginning of the sequel to Michael Drosnin’s first book, The Bible Code, Drosnin had just witnessed the terrorism of September 11, 2001 from his apartment window. He immediately checked the hidden code in the Bible for any predictions of those horrific acts, and he was amazed at the information he found. Not only did he find that those coordinated terrorist attacks are encoded in a 3000-year-old text, but he also determined that the event was the beginning of a very dangerous time in human history. Through the hidden code, Drosnin discovered that, in the near future, a terrible war in the Middle East would change the world forever. In The Bible Code II: Countdown, Drosnin tells the story of his discoveries and his meetings with top officials from the American, Israeli, and Palestinian governments to try to prevent the crisis predicted in the Bible.

I enjoyed The Bible Code II for two main reasons. First, the book is very exciting in its descriptions of major world events in my lifetime such as 9/11, the Palestinian Intifadas, and Israeli special operations. I also enjoyed reading The Bible Code II because it includes an in-depth analysis of Israeli and Jewish history and Hebrew language, which are my main interests.

[jcg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Flarf is a kind of absurd poetry composed of random internet searches. Bible Code II is a kind of absurd prophesy composed of random bible searches.

I'm glad that the prediction of the End of Days in 2006 didn't come true, although I am waiting breathlessly for the next installment in which the spaceship the aliens used to bring DNA to earth will be dug up near the Dead Sea.

The scary thing is that author Drosnin was able to reach some people pretty high up in various governments with his crackpot apocalypse theories.

I was glad to find out the God is a Democrat, having encoded in the bible that Republican George W. Bush won the election "in error". You go, God!

[Azimah Othman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting theory about the Torah as having codes encrypted which fortell the future. Rips, a mathematician, using aa own designed computer software is said to have uncovered many prophesies including one on the 9-11. The intention is to be able to warn those in power in order to avoid the worst from happening.

I am not so convinced though. Ending is somewhat a let down.I understabd the author's first book was a bestseller.

[Tom Darrow · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book should be titled "The Bible Code II: the Search for More Money". If you read the first one, the second is basically more of the same, although in a post-9/11 world. The guy capitalizes on the deaths to try to sell a wacky concept that could be applied to any book.

[Laurey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second installment in the bible code books. It has more grids and more revelations.

[Kitten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

All a bit conspiracy theory but intriguing read

[Fm226 · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is interesting at first read but it get repetitive at the second half of the book. The author seems to see himself as a hero to save the world. It was a okay read.

[Kim Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and thought provoking evidence of a Master-Plan in the Hebrew version of the Torah.... enough to convince me to read Bible Codes III.

[Kurtbg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kinda like I Ching, but less artful. The mind can create a narrative out of anything.