Several years ago my wife Jennifer and I were planning a trip to Germany (a trip we never ended up taking but still hope to). I had recently bought the book 1000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz and was looking through the section on Bavaria. I came across the remarkable story of the village of Oberammergau. In the seventeenth century the people of Oberammergau were ravaged by the bubonic plague, the Black Death. Guided by faith, the villagers made a pact with God to perform a Passion Play every ten years for eternity in exchange for a reprieve from the Black Death. They performed the first play at Pentecost in the year 1634, and miraculously no further lives were lost. The passage in Schultz’s book made me say “Hey, that sounds like something that could be in the Bible.” Around that same time I was reading Dan Brown’s infamous novel The Da Vinci Code. In the novel Brown erroneously describes the council of Nicea as the place where the early Church leaders decided what events and writings should be included in the Bible. All of a sudden a light bulb went on in my head. I became deeply intrigued by the question- What modern day events and writings would be worthy of being deemed “biblical.” It was then that I decided to begin writing The Third Testament, a pro-Catholic novel about the history of God’s people dating from the time of the apostles until the present day. I spent the next six years researching and writing about the most fascinating topics in the history of the Church and the world, and I loved every minute of it.

For those interested, here is more information about my book:

I hope to slowly build up my collection of  “Book Badge Reviews” and “Doodle Summaries” on my blog.  I will happily accept good Catholic reference, spiritual or fiction books in exchange for my honest review (and possible Doodle Summary).
I have also been known to trade book for book…check out A Treasure Chest and Hand in Hand with Jesus