BUCKETLOADS OF FAITH are required to wade through this insultingly preposterous bunkum. However, similarly ludicrous content didn't prevent 1997's The Bible Code from reaching the New York Times best-seller list (though why it was categorised as non-fiction is difficult to fathom). Nor did it prevent the spawning of a whole industry of related books, Web sites and software.
Drosnin's premise is that the Bible is an encrypted computer program, written by aliens, in which all earthly events past and future are predicted, if you know how and where to look. This, he asserts, is the sealed scroll mentioned in the apocalyptic Revelations, which will be opened at the 'End of Days', the final countdown to the end of the world. Apparently, this has already begun and will culminate in 2006.
Using software to analyse the original Herbrew version of the first five books of the Bible, Drosnin claims to have broken the code. He often quotes the Bible to substantiate his allegations, but disingenuously fails to mention that, according to Revelations, no one is considered worthy of opening the sealed scroll except 'the Lamb of God'.
The author claims aliens who wrote the code crash-landed a few thousand years ago on the shores of the Dead Sea, where their spaceship is still buried. Drosnin is on a mission to find it, and we must wish him every success because it apparently contains a key that will allow us to escape the disastrous chain of events currently unfolding.
The mathematical basis for the software Drosnin uses was developed by an Israeli mathematician, Eliyahu Rips. It has been repeatedly discredited by many of his peers, who point out it can be used to find messages about anything just about anywhere.
In an interview with Newsweek in 1997, Drosnin, who claims to have predicted the murder of Yitzhak Rabin using his program, retorted he would listen to his critics only when they found an assassination predicted in Moby Dick. Shortly thereafter, students at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem used Drosnin's method and Melville's book to 'predict' not only Rabin's death but also those of several other famous figures, including Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jnr, John F Kennedy and Princess Diana.