Original subtitles

[stirring orchestral music]

male narrator: For billions of people,

the Bible is the most important book ever written,

but what if there is more to its message

than the written word?

What if there is a code hidden deep within the Bible's text?

- These things were secret.

The idea of hidden codes in the Bible

was something you didn't speak about.

narrator: Now, one man intends to expose

those codes to the world.

- If the codes are real,

it would be completely mind-blowing.

- I knew that whatever

we would unravel in the code

had to be a universal message for mankind.

narrator: Some of those messages speak of a world

in turmoil.

Others speak of peace.

But one code goes even further,

possibly pointing to the location

of one of the world's greatest treasures:

the lost Ark of the Covenant.

Can it be found?

And what divine messages could it reveal?

And might it change the course of humanity?

The answers may finally be revealed by the God Code.

♪

Every day, we move through a world shaped by codes.

♪

Electronic code surrounds us.

Genetic code lives within us.

It determines who we are, how we live,

and sometimes even how we die.

But what if there's a code underlying everything?

A mysterious master code

that knows all that's ever been

and all that will ever be.

Tim Smith believes he's discovered that code

hidden in the text of an ancient Bible.

- The God Code is a discovery in the Hebrew Bible

that really reveals that the ancient manuscripts,

they're really a device

for communicating much more information

than you would find on the surface.

- Let there be no mistake. These are not just words.

The Bible is not a book. It is something else.

narrator: An antiquities expert

with over 30 years' experience,

Tim has worked with countless rare artifacts

and priceless manuscripts,

but he's always taken a special interest

in rare biblical texts,

learning classical Hebrew to explore them in depth.

Yet it was a lifelong fascination with codes

that would reveal more of the Bible than Tim ever imagined.

Thanks to a chance discovery

in the Old Testament's book of Genesis,

hidden in the verse where Leah,

wife of the prophet Jacob,

gives birth to six sons and a daughter.

- I had a personal connection with this information,

because I also had six sons and a daughter,

and my father had six sons and a daughter.

And so those few verses were always special to me.

♪

narrator: When Tim looked up the versus

in the original Hebrew,

he began to see a hidden pattern emerge.

- I was named after Saint Timótheos,

and I knew perfectly well

how to spell my name in Hebrew.

So I went to that section of the text,

and I just found the first tet or T,

and I started skipping letters until I found

the first yod, the second letter,

and then I found the third letter in my name,

the mem, which is an M.

narrator: As Tim continued to scan the verses,

what he saw astounded him:

each letter of his name spaced exactly 16 characters apart.

He called this pattern a skip code.

- I couldn't believe it when I hit the fourth and the fifth

and the sixth,

and I was actually trembling by that point.

Every time I hit the next letter in "Timótheos,"

it was literally like hitting lottery numbers

one after another.

narrator: Though Tim was stunned

by his skip code discovery,

he had to ask himself, what did it mean?

Was it mere coincidence?

Or is it possible he had just unlocked a mystery others

have sought to solve for millennia?

- People we know today who are looking for hidden codes

in the Hebrew Bible

are actually pursuing an ancient tradition,

sometimes for good causes, sometimes for terrible causes.

narrator: Believing they could unlock

the secrets of the universe,

Sir Isaac Newton dedicated over half his life

to a search for codes in the Bible,

while the Nazi Third Reich's desire for world domination

fueled their quest to capture the mystical power

of religious texts and artifacts.

- Think of trying to break the biblical code

to activate forces that are dormant in the Bible

and make them work in their favor.

If you can do something with the way

the letters are combined,

you can release an energy.

That's how potent these letters are.

narrator: But Tim's search is about understanding,

looking deeper to comprehend a possible hidden message.

Using the skip code, Tim went back to Genesis

to the same chapter which revealed his name,

where he believed he found another code,

a message that seems to predict

the coming of Jesus centuries before he's born.

In Genesis chapter 30, verses 20 through 27,

a perfectly symmetrical cross is formed

by the horizontal phrase "Elohim, Alef, Tav."

Meaning, "God, first and last."

Then, encoded at the same 16-letter skip code,

just below the cross, is the phrase,

"[speaking Hebrew]."

Tim's translation: "Father hidden in Jesus."

- This text was written centuries before

Jesus Christ was born.

There was information being communicated

in the text regarding future events.

I was awestruck by it.

It was just absolutely amazing.

narrator: Then, looking even deeper into that same passage,

Tim revealed another shocking message,

one that seemed to predict the crucifixion of Jesus.

Extending from the code concealed

in Genesis chapter 30, versus 20 through 27,

and encrypted at the same 16-letter skip,

are the words, "[speaking Hebrew]."

Tim's translation: "The key to understanding:

the manna is put to death by royal decree."

- That's a phrase and an allusion

that Jesus makes to himself.

He says, "I'm the manna that came down from heaven."

The text from which this code is encrypted is from texts

which absolutely were written before the time of Christ,

centuries before the time of Christ.

This is speaking to the future

from the time that it was written.

It dawned on me that the potential for communication

was just mind-boggling.

My mind just reeled with the possibilities.

narrator: But Tim knew to understand this ancient code,

he needed the power of modern technology:

a computer program capable of searching entire texts,

including the one Tim wanted to use as his source,

one of the world's oldest Hebrew Bibles:

the Leningrad Codex.

The Russian government acquired

this ancient manuscript

under mysterious circumstances in the 19th century

and has kept it under strict control ever since.

When Tim managed to acquire a copy,

he turned to his brother, Joe,

a cryptologist who spent his career

in national defense.

- Time and time again, we keep decrypting this information

that is talking about events right into modern times.

- Tell me where this is going.

When I finally heard the full story

of what Tim had discovered,

I still had to look at the probabilities.

- It was my brother Joe who really got me to bear down

and ask certain questions.

He told me that you need to formulate all of this

in a way that can be tested.

narrator: Joe helped Tim develop

a custom computer program

to search for other phrases hidden in the text

using unlimited potential skip codes.

Let's say it's a letter skip of 14.

Then that section of the text

is realigned into 14 vertical columns,

and then the code that you discover

will appear in a single vertical column,

and then you can see if there's any other information

that appears there.

It could be something diagonally,

horizontally, vertically,

but it's all compacted around your initial code

that got you into that matrix.

narrator: Utilizing advanced cryptography and mathematics,

the God Code software

is not only able to reveal hidden messages;

it determines whether they are a random occurrence

or something else.

- If this is more than a coincidence,

then we've attributed this to a superior being.

- It's only right now that we have the technical ability

to use statistical computer technology

to separate random coincidence

from something that's intentional.

The same way code breakers do it with defense intelligence.

They can separate the noise.

narrator: The powerful software has done

something unprecedented:

apply a mathematical formula to the Bible,

potentially unlocking an infinite number of codes.

And when Tim searched one of the Old Testament's

most famous passages,

he deciphered what seems to be a chilling prediction

of one of America's darkest days.

[siren wailing]

In Psalms chapter 23, the Bible says,

"Yea, though I walk through the valley

of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil, for thou art with me;

thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me."

Intersecting this passage, aligned vertically,

is the Hebrew phrase,

"[speaking Hebrew] Nazi."

Meaning, "Nazi organization."

Then, horizontally, intersecting that phrase

at a skip code of 2, is hidden,

"[speaking Hebrew],"

a date on the Hebrew calendar in 2001.

That date: September 11th.

The odds of this startling message appearing by chance:

one in over 18 quadrillion.

- Referring to the Nazis was more like a symbol

that we would all recognize to understand the hatred

and the evil of something.

For thousands of years,

this verse of scripture has been here,

and for thousands of years,

the date September 11th

has been encrypted

over that verse of scripture.

It's just mind-boggling.

- Spoken through the ages in Psalm 23.

narrator: Even more astonishing,

on the night of the attacks,

President Bush turns to the exact verse

where the 9/11 code is found.

- "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow

of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me."

narrator: This prediction of a past tragedy

is disturbing enough.

But Tim soon deciphers an ominous code

that seems to predict the future.

Hidden in Deuteronomy is a phrase Tim translates

as "total holocaust: atomic destruction."

Then, "Korea destroyed."

If true, the ramifications are terrifying.

- Why it's there--is it something that we can avoid?

All's I know is it's the most disturbing code that I've seen.

narrator: To Tim, the implications

of his discovery seemed clear.

If the God Code proves 9/11 was predicted

in the Old Testament,

could the apocalyptic message about the destruction of Korea

also be a warning?

How many more codes are there hidden deep in the Bible?

What are they trying to tell us?

And how does this possibly connect to

the Ark of the Covenant?

narrator: For billions of people,

the Bible is a source of inspiration,

but is it also a source of secret coded messages

placed there by a higher power?

- The idea of hidden codes in the Bible

was something you didn't speak about.

It was secrets that a father whispered to a son,

a master whispered to a disciple,

swearing them to secrecy, never to reveal.

narrator: Biblical code breaker Tim Smith believes

he's found hidden codes in one of the world's oldest Bibles,

the Leningrad Codex,

including some that seem to predict

the coming of Jesus Christ,

the horror of 9/11,

possibly even a warning for today.

- We have a code that is probably one of

the most alarming,

disturbing codes that I've uncovered.

narrator: In Deuteronomy chapter 8, verse 20,

the Bible reads,

"As the nations which the Lord destroyeth before your face,

so shall ye perish."

Using the skip code, a message appears in the Hebrew text:

"[speaking Hebrew]."

Then, diagonally to its left, "Korea" and "Haya."

- "Total atomic holocaust, Korea destroyed."

This is a situation that is upon us.

Everybody in the world knows right now

that this is an event that could very easily happen.

narrator: The mathematical odds of this message

randomly occurring are staggering:

less than 1 in 2.2 quintillion.

- This is a code that makes all of us just shudder

if the possibility that it's a prophecy.

narrator: Many messages Tim has found

foretell of tragic events in our past.

This is the only one that seems to

predict our future so far.

- What if there were codes in the text that could give us

some advanced warning

about things that might be upon us in our generation?

narrator: Tim's search for those possible codes

leads him to Chanan Tigay,

a modern day Bible hunter.

Chanan has circled the globe in search of texts

even older than the Leningrad Codex,

texts believed to be closer to the true Word of God

that could possibly hold even more hidden messages.

- Tim, how you doing? - How's it going?

Glad to finally meet you.

- So what am I doing here?

- I just thought you'd be the perfect person.

You've already, you know, tromped the world hunting down

these old biblical manuscripts.

You've made all kinds of connections.

A lot of that may be really handy for us.

- I'm just sort of curious what particular manuscripts

you're after, what we might learn from them.

- The codes that we find are compacted

in the sections of the text

which are known to be the earliest.

- Yeah. - It's always

in those sections of the text

that we find these codes.

- What I'd seen up to that point

of equal distant letter skips

had not particularly impressed me.

But there was something really intriguing

about what he was saying.

I can't just say, "I don't get it. Forget about it."

That drives me to dig further, to explore,

to try and understand it.

narrator: For a closer look at the biblical texts

Tim has been decoding,

Chanan gets access to a local synagogue.

At the heart of the God Code

are the first five books of the Old Testament--

Judaism's Torah--

which even today is still surrounded

by ancient rules and rituals.

The Torah's message is sacred,

but of equal importance is each

meticulously crafted letter.

- The calligraphy is just beautiful.

- It could as easily

have been done by a computer,

but someone sat for many hours and many, many days

and made sure it was pristine--

- Right. - Absolutely perfect.

- You know, billions of people in the world look at this

as the beginning origin story of everything.

It means so much to so many people.

♪

narrator: These modern scrolls are the latest link

in a 3,000-year chain of handwritten copies--

a chain said to begin with God's covenant

handed down to Moses.

- The first five books were not written--

according to tradition-- by humans.

They were dictated to Moses on Mount Sinai

with God, face-to-face.

- When we received the Torah from God,

we were given the commandment to write a Torah scroll.

And so a sofer is the person

who actually crafts the Torah scroll.

narrator: Even today, the accuracy of the Torah

letter sequence is sacred.

If a single word is altered,

any codes hidden in the text would be lost.

- The Torah is written not by heart,

but copied from a proofread and properly edited text.

The scribe has to be very, very careful,

because a single letter changed

can literally alter the meaning entirely.

It's a huge responsibility, and it's high-stakes.

Definitely, it's high-stakes.

narrator: This precision is what Tim believes

makes the God Code possible,

but he knows to fully understand

the potential of the God Code,

he needs to find the purest form of the Bible

that was handed down to Moses--

a Bible like the Aleppo Codex.

- The Aleppo Codex was the oldest complete manuscript

of the Hebrew Old Testament.

It was preserved and protected

by the Aleppo Jews of Aleppo, Syria.

For centuries, scribes would compare their Torah scrolls

against the Aleppo Codex.

narrator: The Aleppo Codex is over a century older

than the Leningrad Codex,

which Tim has been utilizing so far.

But gaining access to the Aleppo Codex

is impossible.

- The Aleppo Codex is generally considered

the most accurate copy of the Hebrew Bible that exists.

But what is perhaps the most important

section of the Hebrew Bible--

the Torah, the five books of Moses--

they are largely gone.

narrator: But all is not lost.

Chanan suggests they consult the 1490 Bible.

This 500-year-old Bible could serve as a vital link

to that now-missing text.

Today, the 1490 Bible is safeguarded

in a basement vault of New York's

Metropolitan Museum of Art.

- Printed in 1490, one of the earliest Hebrew Bibles

ever printed,

this printed work has been corrected

based upon the comparison

to the most reliable source--

that's the Aleppo Codex.

narrator: Is the 1490 Bible what Tim is looking for?

Having this rare access gives him the chance

to conduct a test.

- I'm particularly interested in the section of the text

which refers to Leah

when she has six sons and finally a daughter.

She has Dinah in the end in the book of Genesis.

Normally, it would be, like, chapter 30, 20 through 24.

- You are here before chapter and verse.

- Right. - I'm gonna have to

find it for you. - Okay.

- Okay? So-- - Right.

- Story of the birth of Dinah. - Right. Yeah.

narrator: Tim knows if he can locate the Timótheos code

in the text,

the 1490 Bible could serve

as a substitute for the Aleppo Codex.

- Wait, wait.

Oh, here.

There you go.

narrator: With the original page open before him,

Tim finds exactly what he's looking for.

- When Dr. Kramer flipped open the text,

I could easily pick out the Timótheos code.

I could see it right in front of me.

David, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

narrator: Confident this Bible is a more accurate text,

Tim enters it into the God Code software.

What appears is a message unlike any he's seen before,

a new type of code seemingly directing him

to the original biblical text--

the pure Word of God as handed down to Moses,

a Bible believed to be hidden

in the lost Ark of the Covenant.

♪

narrator: Tim Smith's discovery

of coded messages in the Bible

has transformed this small town antiquities expert

into a biblical code breaker.

Now, Tim believes his God Code software

has detected a message

pointing him toward the Ark of the Covenant.

- Of course it would be amazing

to find the Ark of the Covenant,

but I'm even more excited about finding

what's inside the Ark--

a perfect copy of the Bible--

because then the complete potential

of the codes would be realized.

We would have an absolutely perfect code.

narrator: After gaining access to a substitute

for the Aleppo Codex,

the world's most accurate Bible,

Tim's God Code software scanned the text

for hidden messages.

Though he had no idea what to expect,

the messages that appeared shocked him.

- This one is probably the most exciting and promising

of all the codes that I've deciphered.

This entire code is encrypted

within the building specifications

of the Temple of Solomon--

the dimensions that were revealed by God

to build the temple,

all the building materials, everything.

narrator: In 2 Chronicles, verse 3,

the Bible clearly references the Ark of the Covenant,

stating, "And there the Ark is unto this day."

Centered over this passage is a Hebrew phrase

which Tim translates as,

"The Ark key, the one that uncovers

a protected chamber concealed underground."

Then, directly to its left, at precisely the skip code,

is the Hebrew phrase meaning,

"The passage to the chamber,

the bedrock of the temple ruins."

- To have these two things side by side,

it had to be intentional.

It was basically saying that there was a passageway

through the bedrock,

underneath the temple

to get to the hiding place of the Ark of the Covenant.

narrator: Then, a mirrored diagonal pattern

appears in the shape of a downward-pointing arrow,

repeating the same word:

"[speaking Hebrew]," meaning "spring."

- It's the exact same spelling of the same word,

and it gives the location of it being

directly over a spring.

This is obviously more than a code.

This is a very express, specific location

of the original building of the Temple of Solomon.

narrator: But for centuries,

tradition has stated the Solomon's temple

was on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem,

a site where no spring is found.

- The only pure water source, the only spring,

the only fountain in Jerusalem --it's the Gihon Spring.

- If you are suggesting that the Temple of Solomon

is not in fact located

on what we now know as the Temple Mount,

that would surely be drastic news.

- Yeah, and I'm not suggesting it;

the codes are suggesting that.

- Solomon's temple was the first Jewish temple.

The idea that something that has been

such a bedrock of belief

could suddenly change

would certainly be likely to create a good deal of unrest.

- At this point, we have a code that pinpoints

the exact location of this hidden chamber.

It's quite clear from the code

that it's below the Gihon Springs.

It certainly suggests that there are access tunnels

to enter into that chamber.

What's so fascinating about this code

is that it does not appear in the Leningrad Codex;

it only appears

when you take the information from the 1490 Bible,

and apparently, that code was sitting there the whole time.

narrator: Is it possible a mistake in the Leningrad Codex

obscured this latest message?

If the answer is yes, as Tim believes,

his search for the world's oldest Bible is urgent.

- If there was ever an absolutely perfect

letter sequence dispensed by the hand of God,

it would be in that ancient Torah scroll

that has been sitting the Ark of the Covenant,

and if we could take that Torah scroll

and enter the letter sequence of that scroll

into our computer programs,

I just get goosebumps.

narrator: Finding that scroll means

finding the Ark of the Covenant,

a treasure that has eluded discovery

for thousands of years.

But Tim believes a mysterious organization

with centuries of secrets connected to the Ark

could provide a clue.

- The Freemasons believe that there is a hidden chamber

that was built deep below the temple,

a place where the Ark of the Covenant

could be put and safeguarded,

and all of their ceremonies trace back to the secrets

of the location of this underground chamber.

narrator: Is the Freemasons' obsession

with Solomon's temple a sign?

Could the group have information

about the location of the Ark

and the scroll legend says is inside?

In search of answers, Tim and Chanan visit

an abandoned 100-year-old building

that once housed a Masonic lodge.

- Yeah. That's got to be it. - That looks like it. Yeah.

- All right. - Classic masonry, right?

narrator: The design, inspired by Solomon's temple.

- Take a look at those palmettes

on the very top.

Those are Masonic symbols.

- They are. - Yeah.

It's also from the Temple of Solomon.

This Masonic lodge is the fusion of antiquity

and modernism.

You've got Art Deco, but you've got the pillars of antiquity,

like the masons do, the old with the new,

the past and the present.

narrator: Inside, Tim hopes the traditional artwork

found in many Masonic temples

will lead to something more concrete--

maybe even a clue to the location

of the Ark of the Covenant.

- In here, Tim. Check it out. - Oh, cool. Is that it?

That's got to be King Solomon right there.

In fact, that's the Ark of the Covenant.

♪

- What I'm hoping for is to be able to match up information

that we know historically...

- You seen these two guys before?

- With information that they may have recorded

in the decorative art that is inside of that lodge.

- We've got quarried stone hanging there

on that pulley system. - Right.

- That's right here. - Yeah, what is this over here?

- Scaffolding over here with the winged creature there.

- Right. It's just kind of the temple motif,

the temple motif, the temple motif.

- The whole thing is the building of the temple.

- That's the high priest.

This is Solomon. That's got to be King Solomon.

He's on the throne.

- King Solomon was declared by the Bible

to be the philosopher king.

Solomon built a building that was

magnificent for the time.

There was a secret chamber deep under the foundation

where Solomon himself hid the Ark.

narrator: Everywhere they look,

Tim and Chanan are amazed by the freemasons'

extraordinary connection to the Old Testament.

- Abraham, Moses, again, Solomon, Isaiah.

Definitely connects it with the Hebrew patriarchs.

narrator: But what they need

is a clue that could point them

to the Ark's hidden chamber beneath the temple.

- That's the Ark of the Covenant.

- Right there? - It's above the valance.

- Solomon had a vault built beneath the temple.

- Right. And that's probably one

of the most sacred traditions to the masons.

It's beneath the ruins, down below the bedrock

of the original site of Solomon's temple.

narrator: But where exactly is that bedrock?

The God Code appears to point to an unexpected location:

Jerusalem's Gihon Spring.

- The only way to get more of the puzzle pieces

is to actually go to Jerusalem.

- Can I be honest with you for a second?

- Sure. Go ahead.

- Finding the lost Ark of the Covenant--

- [chuckles] - It sounds

a little farfetched. - Yes.

It's a quest for crazy people.

narrator: The whereabouts of the Ark of the Covenant

is one of the world's oldest mysteries.

- There are some that believe that the Ark of the Covenant

was destroyed when the Babylonians

destroyed the first temple.

The other tradition, however,

is that the Ark of the Covenant is buried

and that it's awaiting discovery.

We don't understand

what the Ark of the Covenant's powers were.

It's said that the Ark of the Covenant

accompanied the Israelites

when they were marching through the desert,

and that flames would shoot out

from the underside of the Ark of the Covenant,

killing scorpions and snakes.

- Think of it as a weapon --weapon of mass destruction.

If someone tried to touch it

without the purification rites--

even to hold it from falling down--

that person would be smitten immediately.

narrator: The search for the Ark has been

going on for centuries

by those who would use it for good and evil.

In 1935, Nazi SS chief Heinrich Himmler

established the Ahnenerbe.

Their mission: to scour the globe for religious artifacts,

including the Ark of the Covenant.

Is it possible that they knew about the God Code

and believed what was inside could be weaponized?

If the Nazis had somehow been able to find the Ark,

no one knows what evil would have befallen the world.

Now, a newly deciphered code has convinced

Tim finding the Ark of the Covenant

might finally be possible.

- Take a look at this.

The Ark of the Covenant code

gives the location of it

being directly over a spring.

At this point, I am completely convinced

that the precise location of Solomon's temple

was in a location

just above the Gihon Springs.

narrator: Gihon Spring is located

in the City of David below the Holy Mount,

just outside the city walls.

Now, Tim and Chanan are on their way to Israel,

because if what the God Code says is correct,

and the temple once stood here,

it could shatter 2,000 years of tradition.

narrator: The God Code has led biblical code breaker

Tim Smith and Bible hunter Chanan Tigay

on a journey to the holiest place on Earth, Jerusalem.

♪

Tim claims a newly discovered code

seems to be pointing them

to the true location of Solomon's temple

and possibly a perfect Bible in the Ark of the Covenant

for the God Code to analyze.

Tim is convinced the Ark code's reference

to a spring means Solomon's temple

once stood above the Gihon Spring

in the City of David, not on the Temple Mount.

If right, this would upend centuries of tradition

and a very fragile peace in the Middle East.

- The question of the location of Solomon's temple--

digging into that question

is going to rub some people--many people--

the wrong way.

But archaeologists have made mistakes before,

historians have made mistakes before,

and so what do we have to lose by going and looking?

Looking out over the old city of Jerusalem,

the gold dome is the Dome of the Rock.

Over there is the Al-Aqsa Mosque,

and then, continue moving down the hill--

- That's got to be the Gihon. - Gihon Springs, that's right.

That whole area there is the City of David.

For our purposes, that's ground zero.

It's a city of extreme sensitivity.

You know, you asking questions about,

"Is this in fact where the temple was located?",

we have to tread carefully while we're here.

- Yeah. Yeah, we're treading on holy ground.

narrator: If Tim and Chanan can find a pristine

Hebrew Bible like the one believed to be hd

in the Ark of the Covenant,

Tim is convinced the God Code

could reveal even more secrets.

♪

While Chanan sets off to investigate the mystery

surrounding the Aleppo Codex,

Tim heads to the National Library of Israel,

which holds a collection of papers

left by one of history's most famous scientists:

Isaac Newton.

Newton spent more of his life studying the Bible

than he did physics.

Like Tim, he believed the Bible

holds layers of coded information.

Now, Tim hopes examining

Newton's writings could shed light

on the true location of Solomon's temple.

- Isaac Newton wrote so many notes, papers,

drawings, diagrams.

I'm hoping to find something no one else

has ever noticed before.

- So these are notes on Solomon's temple.

For Newton, all of these measurements and descriptions

and structures had many levels of meaning.

- Do you think that Isaac Newton

ever found what he was looking for?

Did he uncover what he was trying to find?

- I don't know if he found what he was looking for,

but he was constantly writing and rewriting,

he was crossing out, he was adding notes.

He was obviously on some kind of journey.

- Right. I have discovered

in the building specifications in the text

in the book of 2 Chronicles encrypted information

dealing with the location of a chamber beneath the temple,

and Isaac Newton seemed to be trying to uncover something,

and I think I've cracked it open a little bit.

- It sounds like something Newton would have been

really excited to find... - Right.

- And if, in fact, there is such a repository,

then Newton would have been thrilled to find it.

- Isaac Newton was looking

for cryptic coded information,

but I don't know if he was specifically

looking for a hidden chamber.

Still, it was just absolutely fascinating that we were

both kind of focused on the same thing.

narrator: Could history's greatest scientist

possibly have known about the God Code?

If he did, why was he never able

to find what he was looking for?

Perhaps Newton was looking in the wrong book.

♪

While Tim explores Isaac Newton's journals,

Chanan meets up with journalist Matti Friedman

who investigated the history of the Aleppo Codex,

a Hebrew Bible even older than the Leningrad Codex.

The mystery surrounding it begins in 1947

on the day Israel was formed.

- There are riots across the Arab world.

One of the riots is in Aleppo.

Mobs attack the Jewish community,

burn homes, burn businesses,

and burn almost all the synagogues in Aleppo,

including the Great Synagogue of Aleppo,

which is where the Aleppo Codex is hidden.

narrator: Somehow, the codex survives the fiery riots.

And ten years later, it's quietly snuck out of Syria.

- It's smuggled out of Syria in a washing machine,

but about 40% of it is missing.

The Aleppo Codex, when it's written,

has 500 parchment pages.

- 500 pages. - 500 pages.

- Wow. Okay. - The Aleppo Codex

that resurfaces in Jerusalem has 294 parchment pages.

The most important part of any Hebrew Bible,

the Torah, the five books of Moses, are missing.

♪

narrator: For nearly 60 years, the official story

is that the missing pages were destroyed by the fire,

but is it just that--a story?

The answer may lie with one of the few people

left in the world

to have seen the codex intact.

86-year-old Rafi Sutton gazed upon the Aleppo Codex

as a 13-year-old boy in Syria.

- [speaking Hebrew]

- [speaking Hebrew]

narrator: While the fire story persisted,

Rafi never believed it.

When he was recruited into the Israeli Intelligence Service,

he led an investigation into the mysterious disappearance,

tracking down the man rumored to have saved it.

- [speaking Hebrew]

narrator: For 60 years, the story of the fire continued,

but why?

Is it possible someone or some group

does not want the missing sections

of the Aleppo Codex found?

It appears the pages weren't lost.

They were stolen.

Were they taken for profit

or possibly for another reason?

♪

Seeking an answer,

Tim and Chanan head to the Israel National Museum,

where the surviving pages of the Aleppo Codex are guarded.

- Hi, Michael? I'm Chanan.

- Chanan, how are you enjoying my baby?

- This is your baby, huh?

- It's in its cradle, and it looks gorgeous.

narrator: Michael Maggen is the only person

allowed to handle the 1,100-year-old Aleppo Codex,

and his firsthand knowledge of the codex

may provide the answer

to what really happened to the missing pages.

- We've been doing a lot of research

about the Aleppo Codex,

and it's obviously a fascinating book

with a fascinating story.

- Well, I was looking for the burning of the parchment,

and I couldn't find it.

I mean, when you put fire into parchment,

the parchment shrinks and becomes hard like a cracker,

so I could find, you know, here and there, traces of soot,

but nothing of that, you know,

effect of when you put fire in parchment.

This, of course, was outrageous news,

because all of those years,

people were sure the manuscript was affected by fire.

narrator: If the pages weren't lost in a fire,

who has them and why?

Is someone trying to keep the God Code secret,

and will Tim's search take him somewhere he never expected?

narrator: Tim Smith and Chanan Tigay's investigation

into the missing pages of the Aleppo Codex,

once the world's most accurate Bible,

has only raised more questions.

Was it stolen purely for profit,

or was something more sinister at play?

Was an individual or group

seeking to exploit its potential power involved?

The mystery could take years to unravel,

but for Tim and Chanan, time is of the essence.

They turn their attention to an even older source.

Here, behind a thick plate of bulletproof glass,

sit fragments of the 2,000-year-old

Dead Sea Scrolls.

Could the God Code possibly reveal messages

in the world's oldest biblical texts?

- Every book of the Hebrew Bible is represented

in the Dead Sea Scrolls except for one book:

the book of Esther.

Perhaps the caves around the cliffs of the Dead Sea

were repositories for holy Jewish texts,

because Jews weren't supposed to throw away anything

that had the holy name of God.

♪

narrator: Between 1947 and 1956,

nearly 1,000 ancient scrolls were discovered,

hidden in caves near the Dead Sea.

Now, decades later,

researchers have finally broken a code

contained in 60 tiny fragments--

a code revealing the secret solar calendar

followed by a mysterious rebel sect called the Essenes.

- The Essenes were the most mysterious of the sects.

Josephus, the 1st-century Jewish historian,

says that they knew the names of the angels.

He says that they perhaps somehow had a key

to the deeper mysteries of the Hebrew Bible

that have been lost to us.

♪

narrator: What other mysteries were the writers

of the Dead Sea Scrolls concealing?

And could those mysteries

possibly be revealed

by the God Code?

To find out, Tim and Chanan meet

with Dead Sea Scrolls curator Adolfo Roitman

Roitman at the Israel Museum.

- What is so significant about the scrolls?

- The scrolls are ancient Jewish manuscripts.

These are the oldest biblical manuscript on Earth.

For the first time ever, we have original materials

coming through the tunnel of time

from ancient times to modern times.

Because we have original books,

we can trace the development of the biblical texts

comparing the old version and the modern version 1,000 years

after the original one.

- Are any of the books of the Torah complete?

- You have different fragments,

so this is just a fragment of the whole Dead Sea Scrolls.

narrator: The mysterious power

of the Dead Sea Scrolls is undeniable.

But those mysteries cannot be revealed by the God Code.

- The problem is, because they're fragmented,

you're always gonna have missing letters,

so there's no way to absolutely,

positively identify codes in fragmented texts.

That was just another reinforcement

that we absolutely

had to find a perfect text,

and the only place that could possibly be

is in the Ark or some other repository.

Narrator: Now Tim believes

the key to finding that repository

may lie with the Freemasons.

Their secretive history and rituals were forged

on the story of Solomon's temple,

and though they are known to distrust outsiders,

the Jerusalem masons agreed to meet

not far from where the God Code locates the Ark.

[man singing prayers]

♪

Could the Freemasons provide the break Tim and Chanan

have been searching for?

Or will they be left with nowhere else to turn?

♪

[men speaking Hebrew]

♪

- Hello. What you are doing here?

- I've been doing a lot of research

on the masons in America...

- Mm-hmm.

- And they seem to have this common tradition

about a chamber that was built beneath the Temple of Solomon

as a safe place, a safe repository

for the Ark of the Covenant,

and I've got a picture of it here

in the early 1800s,

and it shows that chamber,

and I wanted to know what you thought about that.

- This is a very nice picture,

but I cannot explain anything about it,

because it's not clear enough.

- As soon as we started asking them questions,

they were evasive.

It was clear right off the bat that they were stonewalling us.

- But is it a tradition you're familiar with?

- Have you ever heard of this tradition...

- No. - gst the Masons?

- I want to tell you something.

You see, one of the secret

in our order-- not to tell everything.

- We have decrypted information that was encoded

in the second book of Chronicles

that there's a hidden chamber beneath the temple,

but it also indicates that the temple

was not on top of the hill

where the Dome of the Rock is now,

but closer to the Gihon Spring.

There must be a repository where the Law of Moses,

the tablets, were put.

The Masons may know something about that.

- But what you think that I know about below the temple,

I'm telling you, it's just a story.

- Where do you think the Ark of the Covenant is now?

- Nobody knows.

I'm really sorry.

I hope to see you again here.

narrator: It seems the Freemasons' secrets

will remain a mystery.

Then, just as Tim and Chanan are leaving,

the microphone picks up a conversation among the masons.

- [men speaking Hebrew]

- One of the guys said, "Hey, was that the thing

"you were talking about?

The chamber they found underneath something?"

And the older guy, who was kind of the boss,

just said, "Shut up!"

I thought, okay, we've broken through.

We've discovered something new.

narrator: The freemasons' unintentional confirmation

of a hidden room

tells Tim and Chanan they're getting closer.

- The notion that this legendary hidden chamber

where the Ark was hidden

could be somewhere in Jerusalem

is very possible.

There's new things that could be discovered any day.

♪

narrator: With the evidence mounting,

Tim meets with Don Esposito,

a biblical scholar who has been studying

the archaeology of Jerusalem

for over a decade.

Don's research indicates a simple explanation

for why the City of David

is where Solomon's temple once stood: water.

- Well, in the City of David is the only water source

in all of Jerusalem,

the Gihon Spring.

Archaeologists found the Pool of Siloam--

the original Pool of Siloam-- with the stairs

that go back up to the City of David,

and they say that it was the world's biggest mikveh.

Mikveh is purification washing that they would have to do

before going to the temple,

so they would have to do that somewhere close to the temple,

because if you purified yourself

and you were 1/3 of a mile away,

maybe you'd become unpurified when you got to the temple.

- That's really interesting. - Yes.

So many of the things they're finding are absolutely proving

that the temple had to be in the City of David.

- It was just really exciting to have confirmation

that he also believes that the original Temple of Solomon

was down in the City of David.

Everything's matching up.

It matched up with his investigations,

my codes, everything.

narrator: But even if Tim is right,

searching for Solomon's temple in the City of David

could prove difficult.

- For the last 10 or 15 years or so,

something very strange has been going on

in and around the old City of David.

A private group called the City of David Foundation

has been buying up all of the land right over that spot.

Each year, they buy up a little more.

narrator: But why would this private group

be buying up so much property?

- I think they perfectly well know that this

is the original spot of the Temple of Solomon,

and they know that the Gihon Springs is the site.

narrator: Is the Ark of the Covenant

hidden somewhere beneath the City of David?

And will Tim get close enough to find it?

narrator: The God Code has revealed

a series of shocking messages,

but none more shocking than the one

that has brought biblical code breaker

Tim Smith to Israel...

in search of Solomon's temple

and the lost Ark of the Covenant.

After the Jerusalem Freemasons accidentally revealed

the discovery of a nearby hidden chamber,

Tim has received additional information

that the Temple of Solomon

may never have stood where most believe,

but instead was built in the City of David,

south of Jerusalem's old city walls.

- In the City of David is the only water source

in all of Jerusalem, the Gihon Spring.

Many of the things they're finding are absolutely proving

that the temple had to be in the City of David.

narrator: Using Chanan's connections,

Tim gains access to a government-controlled site

where archaeologist Joe Uziel is excavating an area

below the Gihon Spring

near where the code says the Ark of the Covenant is buried.

- Don't know if he'll open up about some of these things.

I'm just gonna listen to what he has to say

and hope for the best.

- Let's walk right in. - Wow.

- And you can stand in a house built 2,700 years ago.

- In the City of David, right? - In the City of David.

The City of David and ancient Jerusalem is the same thing.

- Same thing.

- Jerusalem was established here

because of the Gihon Spring,

the spring at the bottom of the hill.

That was the source of water which was the source of life,

and that is basically the focus of 150 years

of archaeological work on this site.

- There seems to be a controversy about exactly

where the original Temple of Solomon would have been.

Maybe the actual site of Solomon's temple was down here,

further down the hill, in the City of David.

- The period of David and Solomon

is one of the biggest debates in archaeology.

- Right. - We don't have

any archaeological evidence

for the existence of Solomon's temple.

- Interesting. - And so do you say,

because there are very few finds,

that Jerusalem was not a big city in that period,

or do you say that the archaeological record

is missing that layer,

but that layer did exist once upon a time?

- Is that because you're not sure

where certain biblical sites were, exactly?

- Sometimes we're putting puzzle pieces together.

Sometimes we're realizing that the biblical record

as a text is a difficult one,

and it doesn't go hand in hand

with what we have archaeologically,

and sometimes we realize that we can't fill all the holes.

narrator: Even though one of Israel's

top archaeologists won't confirm it,

Tim is convinced the code is right,

and Solomon's temple once stood in the City of David,

meaning the Ark is nearby, waiting to be found.

For centuries, Jews and Muslims

have fought over the Temple Mount,

the site which, according to thousands of years

of Jewish tradition,

was established by Solomon's temple.

Today, that location is the site of Islam's

Dome of the Rock.

As a result, Jews worship at the Western Wall

below the holy site.

With so much at stake,

and getting no help from authorities,

Tim decides to take a chance.

He reaches back out to Don Esposito,

this time, to share the secret of the God Code.

- I was reluctant to actually show Don the coded matrix

that indicates the location of the hidden chamber.

I may be taking a risk in showing it to him.

I don't know if I can trust him,

but given his experience,

he'll possibly be a great help to me

in getting right to the exact spot.

I think it's worth taking the chance.

Now let me just lay this out for you.

This code is encrypted in the Bible

right over the building specifications

of the Temple of Solomon.

It reads, "The way into the chamber is to come below

the bedrock of the temple ruins."

And then this is a double repeat

of the same word right here.

It's "the fountain springs," and it's repeated twice.

- Wow. - And it intersects right

on this line of the open text,

which reads, "And there the Ark is until this day."

- Wow. - That's where

everything intersects.

It almost looks likes a map itself.

- Yes. I'm speechless. It really does look like a map.

narrator: From Tim and Don's perspective,

on the Mount of Olives,

a protected chamber for the Ark,

through the bedrock of the temple ruins,

directly above the Gihon Spring,

the Ark code fits perfectly on the southeastern slope

of the City of David.

- If we're finding these codes in the oldest biblical texts,

the oldest, most pristine biblical text

would be in the Ark.

- Wow. - And so

if there's coded information

even in a text that may have a few mistakes in it,

you know, what would be encoded in a perfect manuscript?

- Yes. This is mind-boggling. If you think about it,

this is the most important

archaeological find in the history of man,

because to find the Ark of the Covenant

would change everything.

- This is, like, completely overwhelming to me,

because sometimes when you're involved with these things,

I mean, you start to think,

"This is so overwhelming that it couldn't be real,"

but when it, you know, resonates with other people,

they understand it, they have experiences that confirm it,

I know it could be very meaningful,

not just to me, but to so many people.

It's really just overwhelming for me.

If this were accepted, that the actual Temple of Solomon

were down in the valley below in the City of David,

the Temple Mount would no longer be in dispute.

It was almost something that was too good

to even think about.

- This is breathtaking.

What's interesting is there's a find that happened here,

and it's got absolutely no publicity so far.

They've been digging in the City of David.

It's exactly the size of the temple,

and below that is where they found

what I believe is the tabernacle of David,

just like this says.

"The way into the chamber is to come

in below the bedrock of the temple ruins."

And the place is exactly above the Gihon Spring.

narrator: Energized by this new information,

Tim meets back up with Chanan

to check it against the Ark code.

- Oh, wow. Look at that.

narrator: In addition to a double reference

to the word "spring,"

Tim is now able to decipher another clue,

one seeming to indicate a holy location

directly above.

- Let's just say it is a map, right?

Here, look at this. "House of the Lord."

Here's the temple.

We know this hidden chamber

is down below the ruins of the temple.

And here we have "fountain source spring."

This is showing the Ark right here--

right in the City of David.

narrator: The key to the Ark's protected chamber,

bedrock of the temple ruins,

above Gihon Spring,

and now a new discovery:

"House of the Lord,"

which corresponds nearly exactly to the location

of the new archaeological site.

Could this be the location of Solomon's temple?

Could it prove to the world the God Code is right?

- It's very interesting, you know.

This wall can see all the layer

going all the way down,

and you can see there's more clear layer here

and then another layer with a lot of ceramic.

There's a layer with the stone,

and that ceramic take us to the beginning of 6th century B.C.

- Some of this pottery is 2,700 years old.

- Yes.

This is part of the Citadel of Zion,

part of the Citadel of David.

You must understand that the people

came to live here in this hill because the water.

Now we're going to a new excavation

inside the most important finding

that I found in this area in the City of David.

You ready to do it? - Let's go.

- Let's go.

narrator: With each step down, Tim and Eli travel

further back in time.

♪

- We are now here very close to the water, to the spring.

This is the walkway that take the people to the water

before 3,800 years ago, and this is the Gihon Spring,

the spring of Jerusalem in the ancient time.

Yeah, this is where we are now.

You want to know what is going there? You want to see?

- I want to know real bad what's going on in there.

- Yes? Okay. Let's go.

narrator: Though he knows nothing about its mysterious

link to the God Code,

Eli Shukron leads Tim into the ancient structure

described as the House of the Lord.

- This is the rock. It's the limestone

of the hills of Jerusalem.

Very interesting. If you look here,

we can see the sign of the chisel on the wall.

- So instead of building with stone,

they just cut right out of the stone.

- Yeah, right in the rock. It's not a stone.

It's a foundation rock, and this is the rock of Jerusalem.

- So there's no civilization underneath this.

- No. - This is the earliest

civilization on this spot. - The earliest--

early finding in this spot,

this is what we see now.

narrator: The code clearly states,

"The passage to the chamber

is through the bedrock of the temple ruins."

Could this be it?

Is Tim standing on the bedrock

where Solomon's temple once stood?

- This is a place where I'm thinking there was the altar

for sacrificed animal.

- So sacrifices...

- Here. - It was--okay,

so an altar up high.

- Here. Yes. - Mm-hmm.

- And from the altar, we have the channel

to take the blood all the way outside.

♪

I call it "Temple Zero."

The beginning of worshiping God in Jerusalem

here in this place.

Before Moses, before Mount Sinai,

in the time of Abraham and Jacob and Isaac.

- We know that David had a tabernacle

the Ark of the Covenant was put close to,

and the priests were doing sacrifices in the tabernacle.

They knew they could only do it

in this ancient Israelite house of God.

This is the spot.

I knew what I was looking at was the tabernacle of David

that predated the Temple of Solomon.

David is Solomon's father.

We're talking about King David.

The standing stone was there.

The marker of the house of the Lord.

The Temple of Solomon

could have only been built on this same spot,

and the temple was meant to house the Ark of the Covenant.

David, Solomon, around then,

they had to have known about this spot.

They must have known about it.

You think the Ark of the Covenant

could have been brought here or someplace close by?

- Yes! You're right. They knew about this area.

King David brought the Ark of the Covenant

to the City of David.

Maybe it was here around this area.

narrator: Eli believes this location

predates Solomon,

but he doesn't have the benefit of the God Code,

which indicates Solomon's temple

was also here at the spring.

Is it possible the hidden chamber, the Ark,

and the world's most pristine Bible

are directly below Tim's feet?

- Are there any tunnels or anything?

Is there anything that's ever been tunneled underneath this?

- We are on the foundation rock where we are now,

so we don't know what's going in the rock

down below, underground.

- So there could be something down below.

- Possible.

- I can't believe, after all the research,

after interpreting all the codes,

I am actually standing in the spot

where everything was leading.

narrator: The code is telling Tim he's almost there,

revealing a passage to the Ark's hidden chamber,

through the bedrock, at the Gihon Spring.

Is that passage somewhere down there,

still waiting to be discovered?

Tim and Chanan know there is only one way to find out.

♪

narrator: By following the God Code,

Tim Smith believes he has located

the first Jewish temple in Jerusalem.

But what about the rest of the Ark code?

Is there a hidden chamber below the house of the Lord

and access through the bedrock near the Gihon Spring?

- I've got to get down inside the tunnels.

I need to get as close to the spring

as I can get to see what's next to it,

what's above it, what's below it.

narrator: Tim and Chanan look for any signs of a passageway

to the hidden chamber for the Ark,

and the perfect Bible it could contain.

- Looks like a holder for torches or something.

- That's incredible.

It could have been tunnel workers 2,700 years ago.

- Yeah. You got to wonder how they cut through like this.

This is not a small little tunnel.

Vertically, it's really high. - Yeah.

- The water's about crystal clear in here.

We were as close as we could possibly be,

and I was really anxious just to go into that spring itself

and into the pool where it emptied out into.

There's a curve up ahead.

- I've been to many places in Jerusalem,

and it was my first time walking down in there,

going back to the very, very beginning.

♪

Narrow here.

One area where I have evolved somewhat in my thinking--

and frankly it's surprised me--

is on the question of the location of Solomon's temple.

Maybe, in fact, Jewish temple was located somewhere

other than where we think.

The spark in my head now that says

it should be interesting to look elsewhere.

[prayers sung in distance]

♪

narrator: Tim and Chanan arrive at the headwaters

of the spring, but find the trail ends.

For today, they can go no further.

But Tim is not giving up the quest.

- The notion that this legendary hidden chamber

where the Ark was hidden and taken to protect it

could still be out there is very possible.

Especially with the new technology,

we can now look into places,

look under things that we've never been able to do before.

- If someone found the Ark of the Covenant,

that in and of itself would be

a fantastic discovery.

But if there is some kind of original biblical text,

that would be utterly mind-blowing.

To answer these age-old questions that many,

many people have been trying to answer,

to be able to really put our finger on how that

all began--that would be incredible.

♪

narrator: Tim is convinced the discovery of the Ark

is only a matter of time,

because he believes he has seen proof

of the mysterious power unleashed by the God Code.

From prophecies of tragedy to foretelling the miraculous,

the predictions found in the God Code

seem to offer a knowledge of events

that cannot be explained,

and with the chilling message of a looming atomic holocaust,

a clear and present danger

could be just beyond the horizon.

- If we're being given this information now,

I believe these things are warnings--warnings

about things that we must not do

or we could cause incredible destruction.

♪

narrator: Has the God Code arrived at the time

when mankind needs it most?

The man who brought it to light has no doubt.

- The information has flowed in now so abundantly

that there's no denying anymore

that we are being reached out to and spoken to right now.

I really think that this is just the beginning.