The following is a brief exchange of comments between Stan Tenen
and Isaac Zlochower on the subject of the Torah Codes, and "Torah
and Science" in general. Personal material has been deleted from these
messages, and some explanatory notes have been added in italics for clarity.
Each message is copyright 1997 to its author.
[Public posting by Isaac Zlochower to an Internet mailing
list]
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 00:10:58 -0700
From: Isaac A. Zlochower
Subject: Re: Torah Code
In my last posting on Torah and science, I mentioned the problem with
premature claims that current scientific data and methodology "prove"
the existence of G-D and the validity of the Torah text. I cited the work
on equidistant letter sequences (ELS's) in Genesis as an example of a claim
for a "proof" that only G-D could have been the author of Genesis
and the Torah. This bold claim was not actually made in the Statistical
Science article [the article by Drs. Witztum, Rips, and Rosenberg, published
in Statistical Science 9, 429-438, 1994, on the "Codes in Torah] (such a claim would have guaranteed its rejection by the editor), but it
has been made by others.
I would suggest that the distinction between evidence and proof, as
understood in science and in a court of law, is being disregarded by people
who, apparently, do not understand the workings of science, or who choose
to play advocate. The publication of an article in a respected scientific
journal does not guarantee that it is correct, much less that it is accepted
as valid by the scientific community. In fact, any serious departure from
the accepted way of understanding the world will guarantee much opposition
from those who would like to uphold the conventional viewpoint. Scientists,
in this way, are not much different than non-scientists. What distinguishes
science from other disciplines is the emphasis on objective data, logical
and mathematically consistent development, and the requirement for additional
tests of a proposed model or hypothesis. In the case of the ELS code in
Genesis, the use of additional lists of names and dates (or some other
associated feature such as book name or city) is an essential requirement
for the establishment of its scientific validity. The list of the 32 "semi-famous"
Torah personalities, even including the earlier list of 34 "more famous"
personalities, that were taken from a particular book is inadequate to
establish the validity of their hypothesis. More evidence will be needed
before their view will even get a fair hearing in the scientific world.
I, therefore, suggest that all interested parties who have access to
relevant historical sources provide Prof. Rips and Drs. Witztum and Rosenberg,
or whoever has a copy of the computer program that they used, with such
lists of names, books, cities, and dates (all in Hebrew). As a start, let
me mention the Ramban-11 Nisan, Rabbi Asher (the "Rosh")-15 Cheshvon,
Rabbi Yitzchok (the "Semak")-28 Iyar, Rabbi Mordechai (the "Mordechai")-22
Av, Rabbi Shneur Zalman (the "ba'al HaTanya")-24 Teves. [Note:
these are all names of famous historical rabbis and teachers (or the names
by which they are commonly known), and the dates which are recorded for
their deaths, their "Yahrzeits," in the Hebrew calendar.] The above are, indeed, famous "Rishonim" [teachers], and
the last personality is one of the earliest and most famous Chassidic figures.
In fact, all of the Chassidic figures have Yahrzeits that are both known
and celebrated.
It must be kept in mind, however, that the complicated mathematical
scheme used by the above authors imposes serious restrictions on a proposed
personality (and date). All acceptable words or word combinations must
contain 5-8 letters, no more - no less. In fact, their methodology and
the requirement of an official reviewer of their manuscript, produced the
peculiar result that their statistics are based on a list of personalities
with 5-8 letters from a book which allots 1.5 to 3 lines to each such listed
person. Given the alternate ways that they use in designating the various
personalities, and the 1-3 ways they use in writing the Jewish date, a
list of 298 pairings of names and dates result from the 32 personalities
that are considered. These pairings are then randomly permuted 999,999
times, and the "closeness" of the name-date association found
in Genesis is compared. The million trials are then taken to represent
the entire 32! (why not 298!?) population of possible arrangements of names
and dates for the 32 personalities. Indeed, the number of possible arrangement
of people and dates should be even greater, since all possible calendrical
dates should be paired with each designation of the personalities. Their
sampling of the permuted name-date pairs doesn't include any date outside
the list. Furthermore, the 6 control texts that they investigated consist
of 4 permuted Genesis texts, Isaiah, and a translation of Tolstoy's "War
and Peace". They show that the pairings found in these texts are entirely
due to chance, whereas only a few permuted pairings from the 1,000,000
trials show a greater "closeness" in Genesis than the real name-date
pairings. This is hardly a "proof" that no text other than Genesis
(or the Torah) shows this "closeness" property. No one imagines
that this utterly minuscule sampling of all the "mind-boggling"
possible permutations of a 78,000 letter text such as Genesis (or all other
texts) is a representative sampling. It is merely a demonstration of an
interesting property of the Torah that should be investigated further.
The current disclaimers made by Prof. Rips, Dr. Witztum, and Dr. Gans
concerning the claims made in a just published and widely publicized book,
"The Bible Code" [by Michael Drosnin], is a case of trying
to close Pandora's box. It is inevitable that the equidistant letter code
scheme promoted by the above authors will be misused by those who don't
know any better, or who have selfish interests in mind.
In the current climate, it is imperative that the ELS [equidistant
letter sequence] code be either more convincingly established, or else
retracted. I would also suggest that a simpler way of establishing closeness
would be to eliminate reference to variously formed 2 dimensional (2-D)arrays,
and to use the natural 1-D array wherein "B" in B'reishis is
1 and "M" in Mitzraim is 78064. The measure of closeness of 2
ELS "words" (strings) is then the interval (range) from the leftmost
to the rightmost letter in the pair.
This measure of closeness could be normalized through division by the
number of letters in the "word" pair. A further simplification
would be the elimination of the relative "closeness" measure
of non-equidistant letters that is the source of the restriction on the
acceptable number of letters in a usable "word". I would hope
that someone with the requisite mathematical and computer skills would
take up my suggestions, or show me the "error of my ways". In
fact, I would appreciate receiving a copy of the Witztum, Rips, Rosenberg
program (executable and source code - if possible), and an accurate electronic
copy of the Torah text, to do my own investigation.
By the way, my use of quotes does not necessarily imply a philosophical
position relative to the enclosed words. Sometimes, its just a way of avoiding
making a definite statement at that juncture. So, be assured, dear moderator,
that I do believe in Torah min hashamayim ["Torah from Heaven",
i.e., the author believes in the Divine origin of the Torah, as it was
given to Moses] despite the use of quotes in one phrase of my last
long posting. There is nothing in any of my postings [on] this list, or
any discussion list that is not consistent with the idea that the Torah
is G-D given.
Although the above disclaimer of heretical tendencies should not be
necessary, it is, nonetheless, highly appropriate as we stand ready to
celebrate the giving of the Torah.
Have a meaningful Shavuos[*],
Yitzchok Zlochower
[*Shavuos is the Jewish holiday which commemorates the giving of
the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai.] |
