ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOEL C. ROSENBERG is a New York Times bestselling author with more than 2.5 million copies in print. His books include The Last Jihad, The Last Days, The Ezekiel Option, The Copper Scroll, Dead Heat, Epicenter, Inside the Revolution, The Twelfth Imam, and The Tehran Initiative. He is the cofounder and president of the Joshua Fund, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to mobilize Christians “to bless Israel and her neighbors in the name of Jesus, according to Genesis 12:1-3,” whose methods include providing humanitarian relief to the poor and needy in the Middle East. As a communications strategist, he has worked with some of the world’s most influential leaders in business, politics, and media. He has been interviewed on hundreds of radio and TV programs, including ABC’s Nightline, CNN, FOX News Channel, History, and MSNBC. He has been profiled by the New York Times, the Washington Times, World magazine, and the Jerusalem Post. He has addressed audiences all over the world, including Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Russia, Philippines, France, Germany, and Belgium, and has spoken at the White House, the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol, and the European Union Parliament.
The first page of his first novel—The Last Jihad—puts readers inside the cockpit of a hijacked jet, coming on a kamikaze attack into an American city, which leads to a war with Saddam Hussein over weapons of mass destruction. Yet it was written months before 9/11 and published before the actual war with Iraq. The Last Jihad spent eleven weeks on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list, reaching as high as #7. It raced up the USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists, hit #4 on the Wall Street Journal list, and hit #1 on Amazon.com.
His second thriller—The Last Days—opens with the death of Yasser Arafat and a U.S. diplomatic convoy ambushed in Gaza. Two weeks before The Last Days was published in hardcover, a U.S. diplomatic convoy was ambushed in Gaza. Thirteen months later, Yasser Arafat was dead. The Last Days spent four weeks on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list, hit #5 on the Denver Post list, and hit #8 on the Dallas Morning News list. Both books were optioned by a Hollywood producer.
The Ezekiel Option centers on a dictator rising in Russia who forms a military alliance with the leaders of Iran as they feverishly pursue nuclear weapons and threaten to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. On the very day it was published in June 2005, Iran elected a new leader who vowed to accelerate the country’s nuclear program and later threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.” Six months after it was published, Moscow signed a $1 billion arms deal with Tehran. The Ezekiel Option spent four weeks on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list and five months on the Christian Booksellers Association bestseller list, reaching as high as #4. It won the 2006 Gold Medallion award from the CBA as the year’s best novel.
In The Copper Scroll, an ancient scroll describes unimaginable treasures worth untold billions buried in the hills east of Jerusalem and under the Holy City itself—treasures that could come from the Second Temple and whose discovery could lead to the building of the Third Temple and a war of biblical proportions. One month after it was released, Biblical Archaeology Review published a story describing the real-life, intensified hunt for the treasures of the actual Copper Scroll. The Copper Scroll spent four weeks on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list, two weeks on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list, two weeks on the Publishers Weekly hardcover fiction list, and several months on the CBA bestseller list. It won the 2007 Logos Bookstores Best Fiction Award.
In Dead Heat, America is in the midst of a heated presidential election when the Secret Service learns of a catastrophic terrorist plot to assassinate one of the candidates. U.S. forces attempt to stop the terrorists before millions lose their lives, but events threaten to spin out of control. Dead Heat debuted at #4 on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list. It also became a USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and CBA hardcover bestseller.
Epicenter: Why the Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Future, Joel’s bestselling nonfiction title, explains why the eyes of the nations are increasingly riveted on the State of Israel and gives readers ten future headlines before they happen. It explains what is happening in the Middle East and how it will impact our world by examining geopolitical and economic trends, as well as examining events through the “third lens” of the Bible. It contains exclusive interviews with top political, military, intelligence, business, and religious leaders in Israel, Iran, Iraq, and Russia. It also contains previously classified documents from the CIA, Pentagon, and White House. Epicenter is available in hardcover and a 2.0 updated and expanded softcover edition. Epicenter appeared on the New York Times political bestseller list, as well as the CBA and Publishers Weekly religion lists. It also appeared on the Top 100 list in Christian Retailing and won the 2007 Retailers Choice Award from Christian Retailing.
Inside the Revolution: Why the Followers of Jihad, Jefferson, and Jesus Are Battling to Dominate the Middle East and Change the World explores the growing tensions within the Muslim world three decades after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. A national bestseller in 2009, it describes the Radicals, the Reformers, and the Revivalists, explaining in detail who each group is, why they matter, what they want, and how far they are willing to go to get it. An updated paperback edition was released in 2010.
The Twelfth Imam and The Tehran Initiative are the first two political thrillers in a new trilogy and were released in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Both were New York Times bestsellers and widely acclaimed as the best of Joel’s novels. They focus on David Shirazi, a CIA operative of Iranian descent, who is sent undercover deep inside Iran to disrupt or destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program without sparking a new war in the Middle East. The series also considers these questions: What if an American president, well-meaning though he might be, miscalculates on Iran? What if he waits too long to take decisive action to neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat, and Tehran suddenly emerges with the Bomb? What would Iran do then? What would Israel do? What would the U.S. do? The novels also consider how Shiite End Times theology could be driving Iranian foreign policy and what might happen if someone claiming to be the Islamic messiah known as the “Twelfth Imam” or the “Mahdi” were to emerge in the Middle East. How would that reshape events and potentially set into motion the apocalypse?
Joel is an evangelical Christian with a Jewish father and Gentile mother. He was raised in Fairport, New York, graduated from Syracuse University in 1989, and studied at Tel Aviv University. He and his wife, Lynn, have been married since 1990 and have four sons. They live just outside of Washington, DC.