This article is about the evangelical Christian political pundit and author of thrillers. For the science fiction author and handgun safety expert, see Joel Rosenberg (science fiction author).
Joel C. Rosenberg (born April 17, 1967) is an American-Israeli Christian evangelical Fundamentalist Calvinist, communications strategist, author, and non-profit executive.[4] He has written sixteen novels about terrorism and Bible prophecy, including the Gold Medallion Book Award-winner The Ezekiel Option.[5] He also has written three nonfiction books, Epicenter, Inside the Revolution, and Enemies and Allies.
Rosenberg graduated in 1988 from Syracuse University,[4] after which he worked for Rush Limbaugh as a research assistant. Later, he worked for U.S. presidential candidate Steve Forbes as a campaign advisor. Rosenberg opened a political consultancy business which he ran until 2000, and claims to have consulted for former Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where he says that he garnered much of his information on the Middle East that he uses in his books.[1][9]
Career
Following Netanyahu's loss in 1999, Rosenberg decided to retire from politics and begin a new career in writing.[10]The Last Jihad was both his first book and the first of a five-part fictional series involving terrorism and how it may relate to Bible prophecy. The book was written nine months before the September 11 attacks (a revised edition takes the event into account) and was published in 2002.[11] When published, The Last Jihad spent 11 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, reaching as high as number seven. It also appeared on the USA Today and Publishers Weekly best-seller lists, and hit number four on The Wall Street Journal list. The book was followed by The Last Days, which spent four weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, hit number five on the Denver Post list, and hit number eight on the Dallas Morning News list. Following the successes of his first two novels, The Ezekiel Option was published in 2005, The Copper Scroll in 2006, and the final book Dead Heat in 2008.[2]
Rosenberg also wrote a non-fictional account of current events and Bible prophecy in the book Epicenter.[12] It was published in September 2006, and an accompanying DVD was produced in the summer of 2007.[13] His second non-fiction book Inside the Revolution addresses the different sects of Islam in the Middle East and asserts that a significant number of moderate Muslims are converting to Christianity in the region. It was released in 2009 and also made it onto the New York Times Best Seller list, reaching as high as #7 as of 27 March 2009.[14] His 2011 book The Twelfth Imam also deals with terrorism and Iran gaining nuclear power,[15] topics also discussed in his book The Tehran Initiative.[16]
In 2020, Rosenberg established the news websites All Israel News and All Arab News.[17]
The Joshua Fund
Rosenberg is the founder and president of The Joshua Fund, a Christian Zionist organisation[18] launched in 2006, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit charity[19] that seeks to "Bless Israel and her neighbors in the name of Jesus, according to Genesis 12:1-3."[20] The Joshua Fund invested more than $50 million in Christian ministries and humanitarian relief projects in various countries, including Israel, Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.[21]
Criticism
Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog group, criticized Rosenberg's July 31, 2006, Paula Zahn Now CNN appearance that "featured a segment on 'whether the crisis in the Middle East is actually a prelude to the end of the world,' marking the third time in eight days that CNN has devoted airtime to those claiming that the ongoing Mideast violence signals the coming of the Apocalypse."[22] It featured Rosenberg comparing apocalyptic Scripture in the Bible to modern events, which he views, in addition to the lenses of politics and economics, through what he calls "a third lens as well: the lens of Scripture."[23]
^Berkowitz, Bill (19 June 2009). "Jerusalem Countdown: Christian Zionists and the New Israeli Government". Religion Dispatches. Retrieved 29 February 2024. n early April of last year, at a conference in Jerusalem of American evangelicals organized by Pastor John Hagee, Benjamin Netanyahu told the audience that Israel had no better friends than America's Christian Zionists. "This is a friendship of the heart, a friendship of common roots, and a friendship of common civilization," Netanyahu said. Now, nearly a year later, with Netanyahu cobbling together a ruling coalition in Israel, three men of the US Christian Right, Pastor John Hagee, Michael D. Evans, and Joel C. Rosenberg—all of whom have had long-term associations with the prime minister-to-be—may feel like they're about to be handed the keys to the Promised Land.
^"Give". The Joshua Fund. Archived from the original on March 25, 2009. Retrieved 30 May 2009.
^Rosenberg, Joel C. (2006). "4 The Third Lens". Epicenter: Why the Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Future. Tyndale House. p. 47. ISBN978-1-4143-1136-4. Retrieved 22 January 2011.
