About the author The Reverend Doctor Mark Germine was born December 18, 1954. He has a daughter, Laura, and a grandson, Raphael. He is a scientist and physician, who has studied all of the world's major religions and religious traditions. He has published scores of professional papers in the diverse areas of medicine, psychology, psychiatry, geology, materials science, mineralogy, philosophy, and theology. In theology he has written and published on the merging of all major religions and science. He earned his Master's degree in geology at Rutgers University in 1981, and his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1988 at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in 1988, after a career in geology. He completed his residency in psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine in 1992. In 1995 he received the Annual Master Award of the American Psychological Foundation for the understanding of the human mind, and is the only physician to ever have won this award. Since his completion of his residency at Yale University School of Medicine he has practiced clinical psychiatry. He entered the ministry in 1997 in the Unitarian Church, and began preaching the Book of Eli in 1999. He is now living in Pennsylvania, and about to open the first Church of Eli as pastor.