Paul Calvert interviewed Joel Rosenberg to find out more

Joel Rosenberg

Joel Rosenberg is an American Jew who seems to have a knack of writing fictional stories that subsequently come true! I asked him about the titles of his books.

"The first novel I wrote was called 'The Last Jihad', then 'The Last Days', 'The Ezekiel Option' and 'The Copper Scroll'. My latest book is a non fictional book called 'Epicentre' about why the current rumblings in the Middle East will change your future.

The first 4 are novels; political thrillers with a strange way of coming true! My first one 'The Last Jihad' puts you inside the cockpit of a hijacked jet on the first page, hijacked by radical Islamic terrorists coming in on a kamikaze attack mission into an American city. I wrote that 9 months before September 11th 2001 and as the plot of the last jihad unfolds my fictional American President finds himself in a war with Saddam Hussein over terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

I was literally finishing this book on the morning of September 11th 2001, so all those things happened and I had written about them ahead of time!

When 'The Last Jihad' was published people thought, how is it possible? People were amazed that I could write a novel so close to reality and they wanted to know how I had done it and what I thought was going to happen next.

Radio show hosts would say "your name is Rosenberg, that's Jewish isn't it?" Then they wanted to know why some of my characters in the story were talking about Jesus. They would ask "what are you, an evangelical Christian?" I would reply, "Well yes", but they didn't understand how that could be possible, to be Jewish and believe in Jesus. So I had a chance to talk about my faith with about 20 million people in less than 60 days when 'The Last Jihad' was published in autumn 2002.

These books have opened doors for me because they have intrigued people, the second book opens with the death of Yasser Arafat; 13 months after the book came out Arafat was dead. The third book 'The Ezekiel Option' is about an alliance between Russia and Iran that tries to destroy Israel. On page 358 of the book, one of my fictional Islamic characters says "we're going to wipe Israel off the map". Five months after 'The Ezekiel Option' was published the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said "we're going to wipe Israel off the map".

This has drawn enormous media interest, particularly secular media like CNN, FOX, MSNBC, ABC News, The Washington Post; all kinds of American media outlets that have said, "Explain to us how you are doing this". So I tell them that a lot of it is based on Bible prophecy. They respond by saying, "come on, the Bible's not relevant to our day and age is it?" My reply is, "actually I think it is" and we get into a very interesting discussion about the Middle East, about prophecy and Gods plan and purpose for our lives particularly for this part of the world here in Jerusalem.

Each book is based on a series of Bible prophecies, but I couldn't have told you that the parts I was making up were going to come true! There's nothing in the Bible about kamikaze pilots hijacking a plane to fly into an American city, so that was strange; Saddam Hussein is never mentioned in the Bible, but there are other things that are mentioned in the scriptures that are woven throughout the novel. People then begin to wonder if we are getting closer to some of those prophecies's happening but I have to admit I have been as amazed as many others when other elements of the books have come true.

I believe God has used these things coming true to draw attention to the novels to give me an opportunity to talk about my faith and why I believe the Bible is relevant for our lives.

My journey to faith in Jesus began with my family. My father was raised as an orthodox Jew. His family escaped as orthodox Jews out of Russia around 1907. Both my father and mother became believers in Jesus in 1973 and I eventually came to know the Lord because I saw their lives change. For my father it was very interesting because as he studied the New Testament it became clear that Jesus was saying that he's the Messiah. For an orthodox Jew that's a very challenging thought. On the other hand he thought there are only 2 options, either Jesus is the Messiah or he isn't. If he is, I've got to figure out what I'm going to do with that, but if he isn't the Messiah (and he's clearly saying that he is) did he know that he wasn't and was just lying, or did he think that he was the Messiah and was just delusional? When my father studied the life of Jesus, his miracles, teachings, his love, his compassion, his love even for his enemies, my father couldn't conclude that he was a liar or a lunatic, so they came to the conclusion that Jesus was the Messiah. Watching my father and mother go through that process and seeing their lives changed for the better really caused me to start a spiritual journey of my own.

Being a Jew I believe that God has a special end time plan for his people. Deuteronomy chapter 9 says that God has chosen the Jewish people and given them the land of Israel. However, three times he says in that chapter that it's not for your own sake or because you're righteous or better than anyone else, God has just chosen them, a group of people to do something special through.

Now a lot of us Jews say, "couldn't you have chosen someone else?" We've gotten chosen for a lot of persecution; the Holocaust and so on, but the Bible came through the Jews and the Messiah came from the Jews and a lot of the great blessings of our world have come through the Jewish people. I'm very grateful to the Lord that he has opened my heart and helped me understand that Jesus is the Messiah and I love to talk to people about that.