Public Statement By Harold Gans
(Senior cryptologic mathematician, US Department of Defence, retired)
I have reviewed the book "The Bible Code" by M. Drosnin.
1. The book states that codes were found in the book of Genesis by Doron Witztum and Eliyahu Rips. An experiment was performed using scientific protocols specified by independent reviewers. The results of the experiment provided extremely strong statistical evidence for the existence of the encoding of great Jewish sages' names and dates of birth and death in the Hebrew text of the book of Genesis. This is all true.
2. The book states that I undertook an independent evaluation of the Witztum - Rips experiment. I duplicated their experiment and provided corroboration of their results. This is correct.
3. The book states that I also performed a new experiment, using the same methodology of Witztum and Rips, in which I found that the sages' names were also encoded in Genesis with their respective cities of birth and death. The statistical results obtained were even stronger than that obtained for the first experiment. This is all true.
4. The book also indicates that in spite of concerted efforts by many, no fatal mathematical flaw has been uncovered in the Witztum - Rips experiment. This too, is correct.
5. The book states that the codes in the Torah can be used to predict future events. This is absolutely unfounded. There is no scientific or mathematical basis for such a statement, and the reasoning used to come to such a conclusion in the book is logically flawed. While it is true that some historical events have been shown to be encoded in the Book of Genesis in certain configurations, it is absolutely not true that every similar configuration of "encoded" words necessarily represents a potential historical event. In fact, quite the opposite is true: most such configurations will be quite random and are expected to occur in any text of sufficient length. Mr. Drosnin states that his "prediction" of the assasination of Prime Minister Rabin is "proof" that the "Bible Code" can be used to predict the future. A single success, regardless of how spectacular, or even several such "successful" predictions proves absolutely nothing unless the predictions are made and evaluated under carefully controlled conditions. Any respectable scientist knows that "anecdotal" evidence never proves anything.
6. A plethora of books have appeared over the last several months, concerning the codes. Unless the work is reviewed by qualified scientists or mathematicians, the reader accepts such a book at his own risk.
7. After exhaustive analysis, I have reached the conclusion that the only information that can be derived from the codes discovered in Genesis is that they exist, and the probability that they are mere coincidence is vanishingly small.
Harold Gans is currently an independent mathematical consultant.
Harold Gans, June 3, 1997