I have a question about The Bible Code. To me, this seems very suspect. And what about claims that they have found the same sorts of codes in other books? I have read some of it but am not convinced. Do you have any thoughts? -- Isabelle (Oslo)

The Bible Code claims hidden patterns are in the Bible. Interestingly, I met a group of Muslims who do the thing same with the Qur'an. Basically, if you vary the parameters enough, you will inevitably find sequences of letters that spell--well, whatever you want them to spell! This is nothing more than a mathemetical trick. To illustrate, the same kind of trickery has been executed on Moby Dick. Check out the web site http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/moby.html. A search for The Bible Code and will show plenty of places dealing with this. That is why I think The Bible Code is pure nonsense.

Articles have been written debunking this so-called code, and I think ten minutes invested in a web-search is all you will need to find your answers. (And all the time I think it's worth devoting anyway.)