REVELATION

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. So that where it is possible to conceive an effective illustration, most good writers will include it to save on unnecessary description or to help their readers grasp a difficult concept. Yet the Bible in its normal form appears completely devoid of any form of picture or diagram. There are lengthy descriptions of complex matters, such as the construction of the Tabernacle in the desert, but not a single diagram to support the text. Or so it has always seemed.

Enter the so-called Bible Code that hints at an underlying structure in the text that can best be appreciated visually. The preferred format for presenting its results tends to be a rectangular matrix. This website takes a fresh look at a rather short section of biblical text, and manages to tease out of it a surprising number of visual artefacts that simultaneously speak of deliberate design and also look forward in time to many later biblical events.

The now-famous Bible Code has been, for most people, the first hint of an underlying structure in the book of Genesis. Yet anyone familiar with the discovery and fortunes of the Code will know that a stalemate now exists between the believers and the skeptics. It is more than twenty years since the Code entered the limelight but, following an initial flurry of excitement, little progress has been seen for most of the intervening period. In all probability, there is little prospect of progress in that arena unless something new and compelling is found that can cut through the Gordion Knot of technical detail in which the debate is now locked. A fresh approach is called for, and that is the purpose of this website.

But a word of caution is in order before you read on. Whereas lip-service is often paid to the possibility of divine inspiration in the writing of the Bible, this is almost certainly the first out-and-out proof of what Judaism calls Torah from heaven - the directly spoken word of God that has been set down in writing. As you read on, please be aware that what you see has no historical counterpart. It is by no means certain that it can be judged by any normal yardstick.

Let us start with a look at the first two verses of Genesis in the original Hebrew. Here they are:

Like other Semitic languages, Hebrew is read from right to left. The normal format seen above is what I shall sometimes refer to as the 'plain text' of the Bible, to distinguish it from alternative ways to visualise the same letters. This is, incidentally, one of the few places in my website where you will see the spaces between individual words. In English translation, these same verses read:

1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

What you see in the above illustration is the first 64 letters of the Hebrew Torah, all of which was dictated by God to Moses face to face at Sinai. The Torah consists of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy - otherwise known as the Five Books of Moses, or the Pentateuch. Presented in this new way, with selective emphasis, gives these first few letters a most distinctive appearance, which needs some explanation before we may make any further use of it.

Not all the letters of the first two verses will fit into this G1 Square, only the 64 that were earlier shown underlined. But the ones that do fit into the Square are entered in the same order as the plain text. This is an essential pre-requisite for demonstrating the validity of everything that follows. The first letter of the first verse is placed in the small square at the right-hand corner. Then the remaining letters of verse 1 are added consecutively in a counter-clockwise direction around the outer 'layer', as indicated by the arrow. Notice that the first verse contains exactly 28 letters, so it fits the outer layer of the Square perfectly, with no gap or overlap. It is this fact that has determined the choice of a 8x8 square in the first place. Once the outer layer is full, the first letter of verse 2 is added in the adjacent corner square of the next inner layer. Subsequent letters are added in counter-clockwise order as before. The innermost two layers are completed in turn, in the same manner.

It bears repeating that the order of letters in the Torah is faithfully preserved in this special arrangement, and the letters themselves are entered into the Square according to a simple rule that produces an inwardly diminishing spiral (see letter order). The fact that the first verse fits the outer layer so perfectly, with word breaks at three out of four corner positions, suggests that our choice of an 8 x 8 Square is pre-ordained, and this will be amply reinforced by many remarkable characteristics that emerge only in this arrangement.

Consider the five identical letters that have been highlighted with a salmon pink background, along with two others on a brighter pink background. Taken together, these seven letters take the form of a Christian crucifix. And this arrangement will be seen to be deliberate as soon as we consider a characteristic of the five lower letters. This letter is called 'vav' (or, in ancient times, 'waw'), and like all Hebrew letters it has a symbolic meaning, as well as its simple alphabetic role. For as long as the Hebrew language has existed, vav has been known to represent a spike or tentpeg (see: Ancient Hebrew letter chart). So the existence of these spike symbols in the form of a crucified man, in a text that is over 3000 years old, is highly significant. The presence of five such spikes symbolise the five piercing wounds suffered by Christ at his crucifixion. It matters, too, that the purpose of a tentpeg is to fix the very thing that served the nomadic Hebrew people as their home - a tent. The family tent was virtually synonymous with the family identity, hence the use of expressions like: 'The House of ..' to refer to a family dynasty. This helps to explain the two upper letters which have their own special meanings and functions, over and above simply completing the shape of the crucifix.

The two letters on bright pink backgrounds also combine with other letters in ways that continue the metaphor of a tent for Christ crucified as man's rightful refuge. To begin with, when we include the letter that is to their immediate left, they spell the word (ohel) that really does mean tent. To complement this, the letter to the right symbolically represents a tent wall - one of only three letters that are symbolically associated with tents. Note that the fifth wound was caused by a spear which, therefore, represents a tentpole. It is appropriate to recall here the Jewish annual festival of Succoth (booths/tents), which has recently become popular in some Christian communities also. During Succoth, the whole community is meant to live in temporary shelters, eight days from the first sabbath in the month of Tishrei. This is to remind everyone of the times after God had led them out of slavery in Egypt.

Alternatively, if the same two letters in the vertical are joined by the letter vav that is immediately below them, they form the word (Ahav). This is virtually the name of a river in Babylon although, strictly speaking, it is pronounced Ahavah. The Jews exiled in Babylon evidently had a problem with this name, because Ahav sounds like the Hebrew word for love. How could they associate such a hated place with a word that sounds like love? So they chose to spell this word , which differs from the Hebrew love by one letter. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13). We may also see immediately an alternative contextual reason why the presence here of ahav is important. Directly above the name of the river is a sequence of letters (nahar) which is, amazingly, the Hebrew word for river. The association of river and ahava is made explicit in the book of Ezra which is, incidentally, one of only four books out of 66 that uses the number 666. It is written: And I gathered them together to the river that runneth to Ahava; and there abode we in tents three days: .. [Ezra 8:15]. By itself, this coded reference to the return from Babylon may be seen as lacking substance. So, in the fifth page we shall see a much more impressive confirmation.

At this stage, we ought to take stock of what we have just seen. The Genesis Square reveals five letters that take up a most distinctive symmetrical formation as a crucifix (or the crucified man). And it is not just the formation that matters, but the particular choice of vav from an alphabet of 22 letters. It is unlikely that this is mere coincidence; and it is in this type of situation that the professional Bible Code researchers would turn to statistical methods. Broadly speaking, we do not have much in this website that we can submit to statistical analysis, with one notable exception. Since the letter vav is so important to the structures that we see, and there are nine of them in the Square, it is worth a moment's effort to check their spatial distribution. It is easy to spot that all nine vavs are placed on or below the horizontal diagonal. So what are the chances that we are seeing a random occurrence? This can be calculated, and it all boils down to where the first vav happens to fall. Then the other eight all have to fall inside the same half of the Square; it isn't exactly a half, and the actual fraction changes as more squares are occupied. It turns out that the odds against the observed distribution being due to chance are about 165 to 1, or 0.6%. Not, of course, clear proof of deliberate design, yet a result that must be set alongside all other findings.

But let us not rule out the possibility of human intervention. If someone began by placing these five (or nine) letters at strategic locations, then it would be quite straightforward to fit 59 other letters around them and still say something meaningful. The question remains, though, how could this particular allusion be contrived thirteen centuries before the event they depict? Then the structural references to a tent (supported by tentpegs) and to river and ahava would be much more difficult to contrive. If this sounds too much like partisan Christian bias, then the next revelations will leave even less room for misunderstanding.

If you look back at the illustration of the G1 Square, you will see that nine of the letters in the two upper sides are highlighted with a light blue background. These letters are their first occurrences within the first half of Genesis 1:1. That is to say, when a letter occurs for the first time, it is highlighted, whereas repeated occurrences are not. Notice that the last letter of the first half - the fourteenth - is a first occurrence, making the concept of 'half' explicit. The first verse emphasises this idea by utilising only eleven different letters altogether; that is half of the 22 that make up the complete Hebrew alphabet. Notice that all six letters of the first word are first occurrences, and there is something very distinctive about the first word of Genesis. The first two letters have symbolic meanings of 'house' and 'head' respectively, again see Ancient Hebrew letter chart. But the whole first word, , is composed from the word for head (rosh) contained within the word for house, (bayit) as shown here:

There is, though, one apparent difficulty with the spelling of Bethlehem. In the name of the city, the latter half of the word is normally (lechem), spelled with the letter (chet). Lechem means bread, so that Bethlehem means house of bread, or bakery. What the Genesis Square has bequeathed to us is lehem with a heh. So is this a fatal flaw in our logic? Far from it, as this difference even has two beneficial consequences. Firstly, the letter heh is symbolic of a man with arms raised upwards to the sides, making it a perfect link with the crucifix symbol. Then the , although not meaning bread, is a valid word that means for them. So that if we read the first half of the verse twice, alternating the emphasis on the second pass, what we see is this: In the beginning God created a dwelling for them. The spelling of Bethlehem may be unusual, but the allusion is unmistakable, a play on words that will soon be reinforced by another of identical form. The 'tent' and its wall nestled atop the image of the crucifix illustrates that dwelling, made specially for man at great cost.

Now that we have established a prima facie case for Genesis 1:1 pointing forwards in time to the birth and death of Jesus Christ, we are suitably prepared for the next revelation. If you look back at the first verse within the Square, or the plain text view that preceded it, you will see that the first three letters are repeated as the second word, pronounced bara and meaning He created. But in the context of the Square, the second word is placed symmetrically around the top corner - the corner surmounting the vertical diagonal in which the crucifix is placed. Visually this is distinctive enough, and symmetry is a key characteristic of the Square. But now look at the first three corner squares (right, top and left) and you will see there the same three letters, all in the correct order [ view them ]. This is in the manner of an Equidistant Letter Sequence (ELS), the same as the better known Bible Code; yet it is hard to imagine this example attracting anyone's interest, were it not for the symmetry that appears only in the Square. Then, there is a similar feature to be seen if we trace letters in the other direction (right, bottom, then left). This order reveals the word (bo), which means He entered. When God created the world, He also entered his creation, as manifest in the divine birth at Bethlehem. But note that corners 1, 4 and 3 are at letter positions 1, 22 and 15, so are not equidistant in the sense of an ELS code and would not be recognised as such. They are recognisable only in the context of the Square.

It is likely that the earlier finding of a hidden Bethlehem spanning the first half of the first verse may not appeal to some minds, due to the substitution of a letter heh for the more usual chet. Therefore the Artist has provided additional evidence for prior knowledge of the divine birth, as the emergence of a head (reysh). Again, this new source does not depend entirely on the context of the Square and, indeed, the linear text makes some points particularly well. Although it will be found in a later page that other aspects of the next revelation may speak more clearly within the Square than in isolation. The way to expose this new evidence of the divine birth is simply to write the initial 64 letters of the Torah first in the normal direction, then again directly below (or above) in reverse order.

Now, since we are dealing with an even number of letters, there is no middle letter that will coincide in the forward and reverse text. However, in the third page of this website, we shall see many compelling reasons why the normal Torah text is preceded by a hidden single-letter prefix. When we make space for the missing prefix in the reverse text, the two texts align so that two sequences of fifteen letters combine in a most remarkable way. This arrangement of text is as shown here:

• Position 64 in the lower row is reserved for a missing prefix. The nature of the prefix will be made known in the third page, with many more amazing consequences.
• The coincident letter is the reysh (symbolic head), at position 32.
• This particular reysh is the middle letter of the three-letter word eretz (earth).

Second, taking columns 29 and 30 together, and 34 and 35 together, we obtain two perfect copies of the four-letter Name of the Lord - (YHWH). Alternatively, each row is able to generate YHWH independently, but what makes this valid is its distinctive symmetry about the letter reysh.

Finally, the groups shaded green each contain ha eretz (the earth) and four letters (tav heh tav heh), the presence of which is tantalising but whose purpose is rather mysterious. There is one possible interpretation on which we might speculate immediately. This does have supporting evidence, although we must wait until the third page to see it. We shall provisionally entertain the possibility that each tav heh pair is to be seen as the first and last letters of the word Torah. As we shall eventually see, the evidence for this interpretation is quite strong.

Before we move on, it is worth summing up what we have just seen, and how it comes to be there. Everything we have just been looking at is entirely dependent on the length and content of the text we have been working with. It was the 28-letter length of the first verse that first suggested an 8x8 square. This notion was reinforced by word-breaks that occur after 14 and 21 letters, and of course 28 letters. The 8x8 square therefore dictated that we work with exactly 64 letters; and this in turn pre-defined its own mid-point where we found the letter reysh. Of course, this reysh is not normally at the exact mid-point, since there is an even number of letters. But the presence of a hidden single-letter prefix (which is the main subject of the third page) forced the issue. The forward and reverse text immediately aligned to one another, with the letter reysh at the common focal point. That by itself would be meaningless; but the two occurrences of reysh are then found to be contained within the word for 'offspring'; then the whole is enclosed between two occurrences of the most revered of all the names of God.

That which is spelled out in the first half of the first verse - as Bethlehem and head - is repeated at the precise mid-point of the 64 letters that fit the Genesis Square. But whereas the symmetrical 64 letters show also the Name of the source of this light of the world, as we shall see next the square formation goes on to show the light that descends to eretz (earth) from head to head.

Here, it is instructive to examine a number of other distinctive linguistic features that are encoded in the Genesis Square. There are two particular clusters of words that appear to refer to later parts of the Bible, as though the Author was making a preliminary sketch. In the next illustration, look first at the areas highlighted in blue.

The white letters on a dark blue ground are the word khoshek meaning darkness, exactly as it occurs in the plain text. Then, at each end of darkness, with pale blue shading are two identical copies of another word (aur) which means 'light'. These words are not found in the plain text, but are formed from letters that are not normally adjacent nor, indeed, spaced at equidistant intervals. Finding two copies of light that assemble themselves to align so closely with darkness cannot be accidental. It is also highly significant that one of these lights is seen descending and the other one ascending, especially when we take account of the location of each of them. The one seen descending has as its origin the middle letter of the word 'head' that is contained within 'dwelling' in the very first word. It is therefore conceptually bound to the divine birth at Bethlehem. This light terminates at the letter reysh (also head) that is the mid-point of eretz (the earth). The fact that the last letter of the descending light is the middle letter of the word for earth, or land is, without doubt, a metaphor for a great light entering the world. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. (Isaiah 9:2)

Then, quite clearly, the aur that is ascending is firmly bound to the vertical stem of the crucifix, where each of its three letters is attached to a letter vav. Overall, there are here at least three references to later parts of the Bible. First, we find that light makes its first normal appearence in the very next verse, where it is written: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. ( Genesis 1:3). When God said Let there be light, the light descended and entered the world. But where we read .. and there was light .. we are seeing the light ascending, asserting its own true nature.

For the other two forward references, we need to reinterpret what we are seeing here in the Square. Notice that the two occurrences of aur, may be seen as short diagonals, each defining a 3 x 3 block of small squares. Then, the three letters of darkness ensure that the central span of the three words is five letters in length. There is a distinct suggestion here that we are seeing a diagram of the Ark of the Covenant which, in units of a half-cubit, had the dimensions 3 x 3 x 5. By itself, this could be viewed as mere wishful thinking. Therefore, the Author again provides us with additional proof for this interpretation. There is a significant four-letter word that passes through (within) the Ark, seen descending vertically in the Square. This word is (luchot), meaning tablets (see next illustration), and it is undoubtedly a reference to the stone tablets on which God inscribed Ten Commandments. The allusion here is to Moses placing the original stone tablets inside the Ark of the Covenant. Alternatively we may relate this view of the Ark to the Book of Revelation, where it is written: Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant... . [Revelation 11:19]. The fact that we see the Ark here, newly discovered after three thousand years, is important. We could be witnessing the symbolic opening of the temple in heaven.

Moving on to the cluster of letters highlighted green (last but one illustration), these are firstly (but not exclusively) a reference to the second chapter of Genesis, where the Garden of Eden is described. The three letters with dark green shading come from the first word of Genesis 1:2. As we have seen this word, pronounced eretz, means 'the earth'. This is not an emergent ELS sequence, but is part of the plain text. But look now at the letters shaded bright green, that cross the earth at right angles. This word is (p'rie) meaning 'fruit', and the two words share their middle letter reysh, which is none other than the pivotal letter that we have seen associated with the word 'offspring' and two copies of the Name of God. Then, binding the whole arrangement together, the four corners of this 3 x 3 group spell the word (l'natash) meaning 'for a root'. Thus, this tiny cluster of squares manages to squeeze in a huge amount of consistent meaning. It is likely that, we are also seeing more evidence of a deliberate direct link between the very beginning of the Bible and the Book of Revelation at the latter end. Just five verses from the end, we see: "I Jesus have sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star." [Revelation 22:16].

Now notice that the earlier green-shaded cluster includes five of its nine letters letters having a small bar beneath them. The significance of these particular letters is that they spell (Israel). If we give the plain text word eretz its alternative meaning of 'land', then this small 3x3 square is seen to also contain the country of Israel. In the third page, this will be matched by an equivalent but starkly contrasting construct.

Next, notice that one of the occurrences of light, still with its light blue background, is surmounted by three further letters having a lilac background. These letters - non-consecutive in the plain text - spell chephetz, meaning 'take delight in'. The close relationship between light and delight is easily seen in English. A fair illustration of the use of this word is: .. Great is the Lord, who delights in the prosperity of his servant. (Psalms 35:27).

Finally, take a look at the two letters with the sea-green background, which are the last two letters of HaShamayim, meaning 'the heavens'. Taken in isolation, these two letters spell yam, the Hebrew for 'sea', and there is good reason for believing we are expected to read them in this way, in isolation. What matters here is that the next letter in the plain text is the lower vav of the crucifix which is, therefore, seen rising from the sea. As it is written: And I saw a beast rising out of the sea .. (Revelation 13:1). This is the same beast of which it is also written: This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six. (Revelation 13:18). These are the first and last verses of that enigmatic chapter. In more ways than one, the crucifixion would not have happened had it not been for the wayward nature of man. So it is most significant that the letter vav, from which the crucifix is formed, is assigned the value 6 in Hebrew numerology. Consequently that the vertical part of the crucifix is formed of a 666 sequence, a very human number indeed. The linguistic features of the Genesis Square are richly underpinned by numeric characteristics of the Hebrew language. So that will be the main subject of the next page.

Provenance
Many of the features that we have been examining have their counterparts in the better known Bible Code, even where there has been no Equidistant Letter Sequence involved. If we turn for a moment to the original code, it is relevant that its more serious researchers rely heavily on the words that are found close together also being closely related conceptually. One of the strongest arguments for the code being genuine is that, in a single controlled experiment, a set of 34 names of historically important Jewish thinkers (the Gedolim, Great Sages) have been found as ELS sequences closely aligned with one or more dates known to be associated with each of them. Which might have been a date of birth, or of death - whatever was available from historical records. Those Great Sages may be historical from our standpoint, but at the time the Torah was first set down in writing, their lives were still far into the future. Therefore, if those results had been accepted by the researchers' scientific peers as being the result of deliberate design, that would almost certainly point to the Torah having come directly from God's lips. The results were published in 1994 in the review journal Statistical Science but, to this day, the only expert response has been a rebuttal of the findings. Even the rebuttal came only after a suspiciously long delay that suggested uncertainty; an answer was expected and an answer (the one that carried least risk) had to be given.

Non-experts, too, like to feel that they have something to contribute to the debate. A regular argument opposing the existence of a code is that it must be all too easy to find anything you like when you are free to choose from all possible skip distances and starting points, especially in a text of 304,805 letters. And that is one reason why the findings described in this website are so exciting. Because we are not working with the entire 304,805 letters of the Torah. We are restricted to a mere 64 letters that have not even been chosen with selective bias. It was the Author who decided on the words and the order of words with which to begin His literary masterpiece. It is His choice that has resulted in the emergence of an astonishing number of related words. That is, words that are related both conceptually and through easily recognisable association with passages elsewhere in the Bible. And where words are closely related to one another, they are not only close together in the Square, they are often also arranged into a meaningful shape. Bible Code researchers describe the close spatial alignment of related words in terms of compactness, and they have developed a new statistical procedure to express it numerically. Yet their results hardly begin to approach the extreme compactness we observe in the G1 Genesis Square.

Beyond the arguments over the Bible Code, there is also an ongoing debate as to the age of the Torah. Orthodox Judaism insists that the Torah was dictated by God to Moses, letter by letter at Sinai. That is some 3300 years ago. Many modern scholars think it may have been composed from several sources during the period between King Solomon (circa 925 BC) and Ezra the prophet and scribe (c.440 BC). That would still make the Torah not less than 2450 years old. Either way, we should not overlook the most obvious external relationship with what we have just seen. In one way or another, the majority of features crafted into the Square relate to the birth, life, death or resurrection of Jesus Christ. And by anyone's assessment, these events were most certainly in the future when the first two verses of Genesis were written.

One more thing remains to be said before moving on. The specific view of the Genesis Square with which we have just been working is not the whole story. Even in this form, it still has a great deal more to say. And this particular view of the first 64 letters is not the only one possible. There are several other, mutially consistent ways to approach the Torah that produce many more important results, such as proof that the Torah is not an edited composite, but one consistent whole.

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