THE PETER CYCLE

The Peter stories were written during the year 1993 while I was goingthrough an emotional and religious transition. At that time, I made friends with a group of religious people from various faith backgrounds. I found myself very uncomfortable regarding fundamentalist Christianity's slavish worship of Paul the Apostate, and its utter disregard for theoriginal true apostle Peter, and his Jewish version of the Jesus faith.

In the words of Dr. Hugh J. Schonfield, in his very scholarly work on the evolution of Christianity, "Christianity has robbed Peter to pay Paul".

The name of Peter is still given lip service as the one chosen to bear the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven; yet it is Paul who undeservedly is the real chief apostle of gentile Christianity.

These Peter stories were written to honor the man who, had he really triumphed, would have given the world a very different kind of Jesus religion, - one which would have been very Jewish in nature. Due to nothing more than a sad historical accident, he was deprived of this triumph, and over the foundation that he laid, a false and hatefull teacher built a false and antisemitic philosophy which has done great damage to the Jewish People over the past 2000 years. Not only did this man lie about the Jewish People and their religion in contemptuous terms, but he also deprived the gentiles of their right to know and choose the religion that Peter might have passed on to them, a religion that might have brought about a healing relationship between Jew and gentile.

These stories are a tribute to that simple and proud Galilean fisherman who got lost in history and was lost to his people. There is a legend among certain Jews that arose in the early middle ages to the effect that Peter,in his later years, realized his error in believing the Nazarene to be the Promised One. That he repented, returned to the Jewish fold, and composed the ALEYNU prayer which concludes all Jewish prayer services.

For a full discussion on the antagonism between the Jewish People and Paul the Apostate, and the Jewish judgment upon that MESHUMAD, see my JN series to be presented on this web site at a later date.