[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. narrator: Biblical code breaker Tim Smith's search for hidden messages in the Bible has taken a mysterious but exciting turn. Tim claims to have found a new code that seems to point to the location of the lost Ark of the Covenant. He and Bible hunter Chanan Tigay have now turned their focus to this 100-year-old Masonic temple. Tim hopes to find a clue that will lead him to his ultimate goal: the perfect Bible, held in the Ark, that could unleash the true power of the God Code. ♪ - 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 held 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? ♪ narrator: The power of the God Code is said to rely heavily on the accuracy of the Bible it searches. Unable to solve the stolen Aleppo Codex mystery or to use fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Tim Smith and Chanan Tigay may have caught a big break in their search for the perfect Bible. After numerous attempts, the Jerusalem Freemasons have agreed to meet inside their underground sanctuary. [dark tone] ♪ - These underground quarries are very close to the chamber of the Ark of the Covenant. And these are subterranean chambers and tunnels deep beneath the city of Jerusalem, and haven't been completely mapped out. For someone like me, this is just incredible. - I didn't know what to expect when we descended into that cave to meet these guys in this dark place. It was a little bit spooky. ♪ narrator: The freemasons' ancient connection to King Solomon, combined with their knowledge of Jerusalem's underground labyrinth of tunnels, has given Tim hope that they can help him locate the Ark of the Covenant. [men speaking Hebrew] - He's giving these other two guys a history lesson, and he's saying they actually mined the stone for Solomon's temple from this actual cave. - 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. - Amongst 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? narrator: Tim Smith's quest to discover the site of Solomon's temple and the lost Ark of the Covenant has taken a major turn. After several false leads, a meeting with biblical scholar Don Esposito changed everything. - They've been digging in the City of David. It's exactly the size of the temple, and the place is exactly above the Gihon Spring, just like this says. narrator: Tim's risky decision to reveal the Ark location code paid off right away, gaining him access to a new archaeological discovery and a meeting with the former government archaeologist in charge of the excavation. - It's under lock and key. The only one who has the key to get in there is Eli Shukron. narrator: But even before Tim arrives, the stakes are raised... - Oh, wow. Look at that. narrator: When he uncovers a new clue in the code. - House of the Lord. narrator: The words "House of the Lord" matching up with the new archaeological dig positioned directly above the Gihon Spring. Here, in the exact spot reflected in the code. Independent archaeologist Eli Shukron has unearthed a chamber that dates back nearly 3,000 years. - I'm hoping to get in there and find something that absolutely ties everything together. narrator: Could this be the culmination of Tim's journey? Is he about to set foot in the true site of Solomon's temple and discover the hidden chamber that holds the Ark of the Covenant? ♪ - 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.