The Third Testament-A Guest Post

John Eklund is a first-time author who has written a historical piece of Catholic fiction based on Church history since the time of Christ. According to his website, the book uses real-life locations and Church events fashioned into a fictional story, which especially intrigues me since one of the locations mentioned in the book is the beautiful Devil's Lake State Park which my family loves to visit for camping trips. The Third Testament is widely acclaimed in Catholic circles so when the author proposed the following guest post, I was eager to agree. Please be sure to visit The Third Testament Website for more information as well as for information on ordering the book.

Joining in Holly's Life Size Catholic Pay it Forward Blog MEME, I offer you a guest post by The Third Testament author, John Eklund:

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:

Brief Description of The Third Testament:

Guided by a mysterious old friend, forlorn Catholic professor Fred Sankt unlocks the hidden truths of the past two thousand years, and struggles to achieve a heavenly reprieve from the deep and dark troubles that mercilessly haunt him.

Book website: www.thethirdtestamentnovel.com