Biography
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Michael Alan Drosnin was an investigative reporter, namely at the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, and internationally renowned "three-peat" New York Times Best-Selling author known for his unprecedented non-fiction, investigative works Citizen Hughes: In His Own Words - How Howard Hughes Tried to Buy America (1985), The Bible Code (1997), Bible Code II: The Countdown (2003), and Bible Code III: Saving the World (2010).
Raised in a traditional Jewish household, he questioned his faith, particularly his belief in G-d and the Torah, from childhood. A self-professed atheist as an adult, Drosnin's disbelief would eventually be challenged by his investigative research and writings on the "Bible Code" (in the Jewish context, more commonly referred to as the "Torah Code"), the claimed existence of coded words and messages referencing historical people and events hidden within the Hebrew text of the Torah.
Michael Drosnin began to research the Bible Code after meeting Israeli mathematician Dr. Eliyahu Rips of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1992, who, along with colleagues Doron Witztum and Yoav Rosenberg, later authored an academic article entitled "Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis" published in the peer review journal Statistical Science in 1994. The Abstract to this article lucidly states, "It has been noted that when the Book of Genesis is written in two-dimensional arrays, equidistant letter sequences spelling words with related meanings often appear in close proximity." Drosnin was fascinated. Already an accomplished journalist and author, his ensuing work profoundly inspired by this article led to the publication of his second New York Times Best-Seller, The Bible Code, by Simon & Schuster in 1997.
At the time that The Bible Code was published, Dr. Rips, an Orthodox Jew, had been conducting mathematical and computer-generated research on the Torah Code for over two decades, contributing to a field in which Doron Witztum, a Torah Scholar with an MSc in Physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has been acknowledged by Dr. Rips as a leading authority. Although his initial response to Michael Drosnin's introduction of the Torah Code to the public-at-large was positive, Rips later disagreed with Drosnin's approach and exploration of the issue from what he ultimately deemed to be a flawed non-academic, pop-sci perspective, particularly in respect to Drosnin's assertion that the Code may be used to predict future events, as Drosnin claimed in respect of the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. "The only conclusion that can be drawn from the scientific research regarding the Torah Codes," wrote Rips, "is that they exist and that they are not a mere coincidence." (Public Statement by Dr. Eliyahu Rips, 3 June 1997)
Among Dr. Rips' secular colleagues, critics of Michael Drosnin and The Bible Code abounded. Responding to a public challenge made by Drosnin, himself, Australian computer scientist Dr. Brendan McKay found equidistant letter sequences in the English text of Moby Dick referencing not only the assassination of Rabin, but also those of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Indira Gandhi, René Moawad, and Leon Trotsky, among others. In turn, McKay's scientific methodology and claimed results were called into question not only by Drosnin, but also a number of his supporters. It is also important to note that Dr. McKay found these associations in the text of Moby Dick after the events in question had occurred.
Notwithstanding the controversy, The Bible Code has sparked belief in the possible among people around the world since its original publication in 1997. In May of that same year, Warner Bros. acquired the film rights to the book, which Drosnin later adapted into a screenplay, working in collaboration with Producer/Writer/Director Ruth Rachel Anderson-Avraham. For Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Bill Gerber, then Presidents of Production at Warner Bros., The Bible Code "addresses the age-old questions of our purpose on Earth, the meaning of the Bible, and our uniqueness in the universe - all issues that have stimulated the imagination for thousands of years." Sadly, Warner Bros. never greenlit the film. In 2010, Relativity Media once again purchased the movie rights to The Bible Code, as well as its two sequels, to the same end. ("WB Gains Rights to 'Bible' ", Variety, 30 May 1997)
On 9 June 2020, still an atheist and fervent defender of the Bible Code, Michael Drosnin succumbed to a heart condition, passing away in Manhattan at the age of 74, leaving behind his ex-wife, author Nona Cleland, his sister, Barbara Drosnin, and two nieces, Wende Brown and Julie Gozan.
