Subject: Questions I'm trying to answer |
Bible Note: Repost of ID# 144848 by Hank [Hank: I have taken the liberty of inserting paragraph breaks in your Note, but I have neither changed nor omitted a single word. Hope you don't mind. --Kalos] Who better to tell us than the Author of Scripture about the nature of the Book He wrote? And He is as silent as the tomb on writing in codes! Penning God-breathed words, the Apostle John says that his gospel was "written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name" [John 20:31]. John wrote under inspiration of the Holy Spirit in plain language -- the common, everyday Greek of his time -- and so did Paul the Apostle, who wrote that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" [2 Timothy 3:16,17]. "That the man of God may be complete" by reading and study of Scripture, without codes, bodes ill for the garbage being dumped from the pens of writers such as Michael Drosnin, who wrote "The Bible Code" some seven years ago; and for Dan Brown who recently came out with "The Da Vinci Code." Drosnin's book is listed as non-fiction while Brown's is listed as fiction, but in essence they are both of them fiction, as are all of the genre of "code" books that have sprung up like weeds since Drosnin published his "The Bible Code" in 1998. Publishers and reviewers alike have used words like "stunning" and "explosive evidence" and "bombshell" to describe these "code" books, and the gullible public obviously have believed their hype, because the books have made the best-seller lists. But so have the Harry Potter tales, and where trustworthiness is concerned, the "code" books are no better guides to understanding the Bible than the Harry Potter tales are. If the purpose of these "code" books is to make money for the authors and publishers, they are by this measure highly successful and have achieved their goal. If, on the other hand, their purpose is to introduce the reader to a reliable new key with which to unlock heretofore hidden meanings of Scripture, they have failed dismally. I know not what all other Christians may think about the rash of "code" books, but this Christian joins a number of other believers who have called them utter nonsense, pure trash, warmed-over garbage. I read Drosnin's "The Bible Code" some few years ago. It didn't make sense to me then and makes no sense to me still that the eternal God of heaven and earth would wait around for some nerd hacking at his computer to reveal to the world the divine message that has been locked up in code for all eternity past. Grimm's Fairy Tales were never so grim as this! --Hank |