A fisherman from a backwater province of the Roman Empire, he became the rock upon which the Church was built.

No figure in early Christianity is more compelling than Simon Peter. In this vivid portrait, Robert W. Shaffern recreates his life from the shores of the Sea of Tiberias to the circus of Nero, revealing a man whose very human failings make his ultimate faithfulness all the more remarkable. Drawing on Scripture, the Apostolic Fathers, and the latest archaeological evidence, Shaffern reconstructs the world Peter inhabited: the bustling fishing economy of first-century Galilee, the fiery upheaval of Pentecost, the fractious Jewish-Christian communities of Antioch and Rome, debates among Jewish religious authorities, the politics of Roman Judaea, and the brutal persecutions that would end his life. Along the way, he illuminates the enduring bond between Peter and Paul, traces Peter's influence in the writings of Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch, and follows the thread of tradition to the bones discovered beneath Bernini's baldacchino in St. Peter's Basilica.