| Certain extant ideas, if taken as true, would make this hypothesis attractive.
First, the idea that the torah is some kind of code. This thesis is known as the "Bible Code."
Apparently, putting the masoretic text of the torah into some kind of matrix (I don't know the
details) yields correspondences that are statistically significant. This phenomenon, taken as
true, has been interpreted many ways. I take it to mean (again, if true) that the torah text
indeed comes straight from God in a literal sense -- every jot and tittle.
This has been the
tradition of the masoretes, who treat the text as holy quite apart from any meaning conveyed
by the words. Copying manuscripts includes copying "obvious" typos. In this way, the text
we have today has been preserved intact from the most ancient times even though the oldest
manuscript we have is approximately year 1000 AD (the Leningrad manuscript). People who
believe in a personal and personality-inflected God find the Bible Code thesis at least
marginally plausible. All others find it ridiculous.
Second, the Fredkin hypothesis states that the universe results from a running computer
program, and suggests that the program is of fairly simple character.
Now, a computer code will likely be completely messed up by changing a single character of a single instruction. It has to be copied perfectly.
So I ask myself, "Why did the masoretes take such care to copy the torah so perfectly at a time when it didn't make any human sense to do so?" This is the nice thing about religious duty -- I do it because God told me to do it, not because it makes any sense to me. Well one explanation that is plausible to us DP folks is that the torah is a computer program.
Third, beginning in or about the time of the exile, the Hebrews
developed a numerology something like that of the Romans --
using letters to represent numbers. This is called gematria. In gematria, every Hebrew letter
has a secondary meaning which is a number value. As though the word
"cat" stood for the number 3+1+20=24. Therefore, every Hebrew word can be read
as a number. Therefore, the entire text of the torah can be interpreted as a series of numbers.
The timing coincides with some chronologies for committing the Bible to
writing in the first place, beginning with Josiah followed shortly by the
scholars of the exile. (Runs contrary to the tradition that Moses
personally wrote the Torah.)
So, if God created the universe by computer code, and if the torah can be
interpreted as a series of numbers inspired by God, maybe the numbers of the torah constitute a computer code, and maybe this
code is the source code of the universe. It's not going to be a very large program, as programs
go. The text file of these numbers is 286k. Or maybe it is some kind of instruction manual. Or a graphic file. Or a sound file. I can't think of a better reason for God to
take such care to preserve a series of numbers.
And, of course, we are at the turn of the second millennium, and a good revelation about the
nature of the universe and its derivation seems like a nice way to round things off. Computers
were invented only about 50 years ago, so there could not have been such a hypothesis prior to
that time, nor any way to test it. Only within the last 50 years has it been possible to have such
a hypothesis and to test it. Coincidental timing. Programmable computers -- the first practical universal Turing machines -- came out about the same time as the
modern state of Israel was founded, n'est-ce pas?
All of the above is, of course, rankest speculation. However, it seems actually susceptible of
some degree of testing. There are a lot of circumstances that could cause the program to fail
even if the idea is sound, e.g., textual error, arbitrary choice of computer on which to run it
with perhaps consequences for the result. But if it works it would be fish-like in its witness to
the divine power. (Recall the debate over universal-translator-fish in Douglas Adams'
"Hitchhiker's Guide" series.)
Note: I have just been informed that the total number of numbers in this text is exactly 1024, i.e., 2^10, or exactly
1 kilobyte! I take this as encouragement. (Thanks to sebastian mecklenburg for this tip, 11/26/00.) | 
