When a friend inquired about a doctrine abroad called "Signature of God", I put the question to members of the "Email Circular." One member wrote the following in reply:

"It seems the teaching you're wondering about is based on a book called, "Signature of God" by Grant Jeffrey. 

This book is a follow-up of a book written by a rabbi titled, "Yeshua, The Hebrew Factor".  Part of the claims are based upon the research by this rabbi concerning the authenticity of the claim of messiahship by Jesus (Yeshua).  He was studying Scripture to find enough evidence to compel his fellow rabbis that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.  There seems to be a methodology of verifying whether a transcription of Hebrew scripture is correct (i.e. hand transcription from scroll to scroll through the centuries) by adding up the numerical values of each passage of Scripture.  If the values did not remain the same, an error in transcription occurred.  In the years of his study, he found that certain numerical sequences had a pattern.  This pattern led to the proclamation of the deity of Christ through equi-distant numerical values and the resulting text composed.  His ultimate claim is that indeed the Hebrew text is inspired by God, so much so that God has proclaimed his truths even in not so obvious ways such as encoded messages within the original Scripture.

His discovery has caused many people to abuse the concept.  Some people are attempting to decode the text much as a fortune teller would tell the future.  As far as I have determined, the only thing the encoded scripture has done is to verify as an additional "witness" to all of the more obvious messages given in Scripture.  I think that it is an unveiling of the true Messiah to the rabbis.  The secular world has also been keenly interested.  An atheist (I think) has written another book on his computer research of the Bible.  He is very fascinated with it, but will not attribute it to an inspiration of God.  He is more interested in the fortune telling properties of such an encoded document.  Therefore much of the good of this marvelous discovery has been tainted by some unsavory types in the secular world.  Many theologians have summarily thrown it out without looking at it for themselves. The jury is still out on this one.  However I believe that God is fully capable of encoding the very proclamation that "Jesus is Lord" within our precious Scriptures without polluting the Word."

As to the book, The Signature of God, here's a copy of the back cover advertisement:

Astonishing Biblical Discoveries

"The Signature of God is the most fascinating and important book that Grant has written. This book will startle and thrill you with its well documented scientific evidence that will prove that the Bible is the inspired Word of God beyond a shadow of a doubt. Grant argues that God has indeed written His Signature on the pages of the Scriptures through a staggering number of divine proofs that its words are inspired and authoritative."

"Explore these astonishing discoveries that prove God wrote the Scriptures: Mysterious Hebrew codes in the Bible that reveal Hitler, Rabin, and Sadat. The name "Yeshua - Jesus" appears in code throughout the Old Testament. The incredible precision of prophecy fulfilled in this Ancient Inscriptions found in Sinai record the events of the Exodus. The names of Joseph and Moses found on ancient inscriptions. Evidence for the miraculous destruction of the walls of Jericho. Incredibly accurate scientific statements found in the Bible. Advanced Medical Information in the Scriptures. Overwhelming historical proof for Christ's death and resurrection"

"If you want to know that the Bible is truly inspired by God or if you would like to witness to a friend, The Signature of God is convincing evidence that the Scriptures can be trusted!"

(Produced by Frontier Research Publications)

On the other side are many who believe that the methodology used is flawed. Several assassinations can be said to have been predicted using the same methodology as in the books "Signature of God" and "Bible Code."

Assassinations Foretold in Moby Dick!

by Brendan McKay

The following challenge was made by Michael Drosnin (author of "The Bible Code"):

"When my critics find a message about the assassination of a prime minister encrypted in Moby Dick, I'll believe them." (Newsweek, Jun 9, 1997)

According to this author, the following list represents the people predicted to be assassinated in Moby Dick.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi

President Rene Moawad

Soviet exile Leon Troksky

The Reverend Martin Luther King

Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss

The assassin Sirhan Sirhan

John F. Kennedy

President John F. Kennedy was shot in the head by an assassin who quietly waited in a concealed place. It was in Texas, November 1963, during a presidential motorcade.

Abraham Lincoln

President Abraham Lincoln was shot dead on April 14, 1865.

Yitzhak Rabin

Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot dead on November 4, 1995. His assassin was Igal Amir, who fired three shots of which one hit Rabin fatally in the chest. Amir was a student at Bar-Ilan University, and associated with an underground group Eyal which modelled itself on a historical terrorist group called Lehi. Amir was angered by Rabin's role in the "Peace Process" and especially by the Oslo accords.

You can verify the above messages, and find your own, using the public-domain text of Moby Dick. It can be downloaded as a gzipped text file (478KB, expanding to 1187KB).

Princess Diana's Death - the death of Lady Diana was also predicted by Moby Dick.

A Note to the Credulous:

It has come to my attention that some people have taken this page as claiming that Moby Dick really predicted the assassinations of famous people. Please be assured that none of these patterns happened by other than pure random chance.

No laws of probability are violated here, or even stretched a little. That is also true of Drosnin's book, which is the whole point of this page. Once you learn Drosnin's rules (none) and the method (a bit of messy programming) you can find things like this anywhere. The reason it looks amazing is that the number of possible things to look for, and the number of places to look, is much greater than you imagine.

Here's a link to the page which contains examples of texts from "Moby Dick".

Moby Dick Code

Copyright Brendan McKay