The Exilic Code: Ciphers, Word Links, and Dating in Exilic and Post-Exilic Biblical Literature

Drawing from more than one thousand easily replicated examples, the author analyzes how biblical writers encoded messages into their texts. The Exilic Code dates portions of the Bible, establishes Ezra as an exilic person, brings to light a School-of-Daniel scripture factory, names Second Isaiah and the Suffering Servant, identifies the individual who triggered Josiah's reforms, and traces coding from the Deuteronomistic Historian in the seventh century BCE to Daniel's apocalypse in the second. The book also introduces a simplified form of intertextuality that one can profitably apply to biblical texts. For students of the New Testament, The Exilic Code not only identifies the substitute-king motif that underlies the synoptic gospels, but also sheds light upon why Jesus called himself Son of Man.