☞ The Preface: Excerpt from the novel, Under the Purple Sky
In the past, my ideas for writing a novel weren’t original. The idea for this book came to me when I was studying the Holy Scriptures to prepare for teaching. I knew right away that the Ruach Kodesh (Holy Spirit) had inspired my idea. Five years later, I rewrote the last draft of this book.
I didn't realize until later, but I had created a fictional universe. From my imagination, I offer a futuristic epic tale set when the Old Earth has passed away, and the New Earth has become a reality.
These are the premises of the story: If Adam and Eve had not rebelled against their Creator, what would the world be like? Or imagine a world like the Messianic Millennium on a larger scale, its boundaries extended throughout the galaxy. It is a world in which the Jewish sages likened to HaOlam HaBa, “The world to come.” In the story, the Adamic race has seeded the galaxy and established many worlds.
I consider the novel as an extended, embellished parable written in the form of today’s modern literature. The Jews were the first people to use analogy as a story form. They had a way of illuminating Scriptures by using parables with common themes: Rabbis and students, royal personages and their loyal subjects, owners and servants, farmer and seeds, and the Kingdom of Heaven.
I wrote this story to uplift us and give us hope for the future. The Scriptures is not all doom and gloom. We should do as the prophets of old, who often gave people warnings balanced with hope for the future.
This book includes a glossary at the end of the book for those of you unfamiliar with the transliterated Hebrew words and a few invented words.
~The author, V. C. Cheney