Pundit or Prophet?

I recently read a fascinating book by Joel C Rosenberg, a work of fiction called The Copper Scroll. It's actually the fourth book in the series. I was vaguely aware of his first book The Last Jihad but never read it. The guy is an interesting combination of influences. He has an inside-the-beltway background, and is an Evangelical Christian from an Orthodox Jewish background. He also has an uncanny knack for writing things that come true. The Last Jihad opens with Muslim extremists using hijacked aircraft in a Kamikaze attack on an American city. So what you ask? He actually wrote this before 9/11. The Copper Scroll deals primarily with a search for Temple treasure supposedly buried since the destruction of the second Temple in 70 A.D. (C.E.) and the tantalizing clues contained in a scroll that was found at the Qumran site where the Dead Sea scrolls were found. This scroll was uncovered in 1956 I believe, and was unique in that it was made of copper, not papyrus or animal hide like you would expect. It took scholars 4 years to figure out how to unroll the scroll without destroying it, but once they did, they were surprised. It was unlike any other scroll they had found in that it contained clues to the location of 63 ( I believe) different caches of treasure from the Temple, ranging from gold and silver in enormous quantities to the golden utensils used in the Temple. Archaeologists and scholars have dreamed for over 40 years now about finding this treasure, and what is might portend for the future of Israel and that finding it would be the final capstone to a growing interest in rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem.
The book is is quite a page turner and action packed from beginning to end and covers a lot of geopolitical ground very astutely. He also has a new nonfiction book called Epicenter: Why the Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Future. I read the first chapter online and it picks up where his fiction leaves off, explaining what he thinks might happen and why. I'm not sure how this guy stayed under my radar for so long except that, politically, I have kind of unplugged myself lately, being pretty burned out and alienated by what has been going on in Washington lately, so the folks I used to listen to regularly, like Rush Limbaugh, I hardly ever hear anymore. I'm also totally out of touch with Christian publishing these days, and although he didn't start out with a Christian publisher, Joel Rosenberg's books are currently being put out by Tyndale (you know, the Left Behind guys). Anyway if you want a fascinating perspective on what's going on in the world, give this guy a read. I know I've got some catching up to do.