JAIME COOTS, SNAKE SALVATION STAR, KILLED BY SNAKE

Jamie Coots, who starred on "Snake Salvation" — a National Geographic reality show about Pentecostal preachers who handle snakes as part of their services — died Saturday after being bitten by one of the snakes, Kentucky's WBIR reports. Coots was handling a rattlesnake at his Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name Church in Middlesboro when he was bitten on the hand Saturday night, another preacher, Cody Winn, told WBIR. Figure 1 and 3 show matrices based on two different Hebrew transliterations of his name, but the results are pretty similar. On Figure 1 his name runs smack into and shares a letter shin/sin with SNAKE. It only takes  10 letters in once column to show JAMIE COOTS and SNAKE. On Figure 2 in a 540-letter matrix with his name as axis term, we find an open text reference to SNAKE plus another open text reference saying HE SHALL SURELY DIE. After discussing the statistical significance of these two matrices I will discuss the New Testament source of Coot's church and ideas, plus the Talmudic prohibition (shown on Figure 4) against actions with snakes like that which took his life.

I was going to just write that you can watch Coots and his congregation handle snakes on a segment of a National Geographic special about them HERE. But when I tried the link it reduced coverage greatly and removed the link to National Graphic. I guess the incident was too embarrassing to National Geographic and associated religious interests to leave it up. Other links to Coots that worked earlier in the day were also removed. At the end of the article you may still find the National Geographic segment HERE.

CONTRAST BETWEEN JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY ON THE SNAKE HANDLING ISSUE.  Again, the Babylonian Talmud described exactly what Coots would do and why such action is prohibited under Jewish Law. Life is precious in Judaism. It is NOT to be risked lightly. While Judaism does, of course, accept that miracles can happen, it teaches that it is irresponsible to risk life and DEMAND that miracles occur for someone committing foolish acts. A doctrine like that espoused in Mark 16:18 was likely the kind of talk that resulted in family and friends questioning the sanity of the speaker as is noted in Mark 3:21.  It can be argued that the speaker's friends and family did not have faith in him, but it certainly cannot be reasonably argued that Jamie Coots did not have such faith, especially when he continued to preach it after he lost a finger to a rattlesnake. It appears that his faith was as good as anyone could hope for, but his faith was misplaced.

        I often get e-mails from Christians readers who think I am blind because, as an Orthodox Jew, I do not accept what they believe in. However the Torah, where all these Codes on this site come from, is very clear about how to know who is a false prophet. This "Constitution-like" document for Judaism declared the basic test to be applied:

"When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him. (Deuteronomy 18:22, New American Standard Bible)