It is highly unusual to have agnostic parents; a father raised as an Orthodox Jew, a mother with a Methodist background and both become born-again believers. It was Joel Rosenberg’s great blessing when he was a very young child that his parents both accepted Christ as their Savior. When Joel was 17 he, too, became a born-again believer. Still culturally Jewish, but a Christian saved by grace through faith.
Rosenberg, a graduate of Syracuse University (1988) soon after worked as a researcher for Rush Limbaugh and later as campaign advisor for U.S. Presidential candidate Steve Forbes. His interest in politics prompted Joel to open a political consulting business until 2000. He acted as an advisor to former Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky and then-former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. After Netayahu’s loss, Rosenberg retired from politics to begin a new career as a writer using much of the material he gathered about the Middle East during his advisory years, incorporating the information into his many books.
The Last Jihad, the first of a five-part fictional series involving terrorism and its relation to Bible Prophecy was Joel’s first published book (2002) and remained on the New York Times best-seller list for 11 weeks reaching number seven. Subsequently he wrote, The Last Days, which made it to The New York Times best-seller list, The Ezekiel Option, The Copper Scroll in 2006 and Dead Heat in 2008.
Joel Rosenberg also wrote a non-fictional account of current events and Bible Prophecy in his book, Epicenter published in September 2006 with a follow-up DVD produced later in 2007. Also, Inside the Revolution, a book focusing on Muslims in the Middle East and their various sects while stressing the point that a significant number of moderate Muslims are converting to Christianity. His next book, the Twelth Imam delves into terrorism and the problems with Iran’s determined steps to become a nuclear powerhouse. His most recent non-fiction book, Implosion, published by Tyndale House in 2012, deals with the the overall deteriorating state of affairs in the U.S. and how the best and only hope it has is the Christian church. Overall, his books have attracted the attention of thousands of people making his work especially relevant for witnessing biblical truth.
U.S News & World Report dubbed him a “Modern Nostrdamus” because in some of Joel’s novels he stunningly wrote similar plots prior to the actual fulfillment of some geo-political events. For example, nine months before the September 11 attacks, He wrote a novel about a kamizake plane attack on an American city. Rather than have the press turn his work into some New Age phenomenon he rightly gave the credit for his similar/accurate predicitons to studying biblical prophecy and its relation to current world dynamics.
Rosenberg is also the founder and President of The Joshua Fund, a not-for-profit charity that raises funds to assist those battered by the effects of war and terrorism, primarily in Israel. He has been interviewed on radio and TV programs about his views on the last days and Israeli politics, including ABC (Nightline), CBN (The 700 Club), CNN Headline News, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Glenn Beck Program, History Channel and The Sean Hannity Show. He has also been featured in some national magazines.
Joel is married, has four sons and lives in the Washington D.C.area. He has spoken at universities, churches, political events, bookseller conventions, fund-raisers, to members of the U.S. congress, the White House, CIA and The Pentegon. It is our experience here at Rapture Ready that the man is unapproachable. One of our best writers for the site politely approached Joel at conference a down time when there was no immediate activity and asked Joel if he would answer a question. Rosenberg’s answer was immediate and abrupt, “NO!” Not even a remote chance at engaging in a very brief dialogue with the man. Considering he is a professing born again believer and has been blessed with so many accolades and much attention, this was very dissapointing. Perhaps the man was having a bad day and hopefully his response was not due to a swelled head because all his fame and fortune have “gone to his head” (1 Corinthians 10:12).