| All Flesh is Grass My good friend (and brother) Jim Ober died of a massive heart attack Sunday, May 8th, 2005. His wife Terri (who I'm sure could use your prayers) emailed me with the news. I knew Jim to be a thoughtful student of scripture. He had a Master's Degree in Engineering, was an old Earth Creationist, a Trinitarian, and a firm believer in our Lord Jesus Christ, His pre-millennial second coming, the inerrancy of Holy Scripture (as originally inspired in Hebrew and Greek), the Gospel of Grace, the perseverance of the saints, and the salvation of all. I will miss him greatly. His passing is a reminder that death is an enemy, and as the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corithians 15, our Lord "must reign until He has put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (verses 25-26.) Jim was very well respected in the Christian Scientific community. I found these internet references to his work on the Bible codes: It should be noted that research on the ELS phenomenon is still in its infancy. We should remain somewhat skeptical until more data has been researched...We wish to thank Jim Ober for his help in revising the first draft of this paper. Jim Ober has worked with statistical methods for about 20 years. He has a MS degree in Industrial Engineering with an emphasis on computer simulation and statistical process control. http://www.direct.ca/trinity/yeshuacodes.html Ever since the work of Witztum and Rips became known, claims have been made that messages of Christian theological relevance can be also found in the Hebrew text. Most of these claims have little merit due to lack of any scientific discipline. The only scientific experiment we are aware of, by Jim Ober, Guy Cramer, and Lori Eldridge, failed to find any statistical evidence that the name of Jesus is encoded in the passages of the Hebrew Bible regarded as messianic prophesies. http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/torah.html Jim's obituary follows: OBER, JIM Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words." (I Thessalonians 4:13-18.) Jim Ober, 54, a resident of Baton Rouge, died Sunday, May 8, 2005, at Baton Rouge General Medical Center-Mid City. He is survived by his wife, Terri G. Ober. Cryptside service at Roselawn Memorial Park Mausoleum at 2 p.m. Tuesday, May 10. Rabenhorst Funeral Home, 825 Government St., is in charge of arrangements. Published in the Advocate on 05/10/2005 Home |