Upon This Rock: The Life of St. Peter

From the Mount of Olives to the road to Rome, this dramatic saga, based on the life of St. Peter, offers a passionate and provocative profile of the man whom Jesus chose to found his church

YA The pomp and grandeur of the Christian religion has served to ob scure the fact that it was begun by fishermen and laborers led by a car penter and that the first Christians came from the humble classes. Upon This Rock corrects that misconception while imbuing the story of the life and martyrdom of St. Peter with a stature all the more magnificent for his hum ble origins and very human nature. Murphy begins the story of St. Peter with the final Passover in Jerusalem and tells of the founding of Christian ity through the eyes of Quintus, a Greek and an unbeliever. It is the voice of Quintus in his detachment that constantly asks readers to believe the story and ultimately to share the experience. Quintus is an Everyman watching what he does not fully under stand until he, like readers, is pro foundly touched. Young people inter ested in fiction that is at once exciting and uplifting will welcome this biblical tale. Mary A. Williams, Harris County Public Library
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The difficult task of reconstructing the ambiance of the early Christian era is accomplished in a colorful and credible novel by the author of the acclaimed Vicar of Christ. Murphy cautions in a prefatory note that his characterization of Peter, the disciple chosen by Jesus to be the "rock," the foundation of the Catholic Church, is the "best fit" between what little can be gleaned from the New Testament and what scholars have attributed to the people of the time. He draws Peter as a man of conflicting emotions, a man who bears the stigma of betraying the Master, as attested by the Gospels, a man who may also be branded "the drunkard, the adulterer, the waffler," as he is in a fictional dialogue with the latter-day disciple, Paul. The novel is shaped as a chronicle by Quintus, a Greek follower of The Way, who records Peter's struggle with himself and with his floundering leadership. We hear his anger at God caused by his daughter's paralysis; we witness the colloquial repartee between Peter and Paul as they attempt to reconcile Christian Jews and Gentiles. Although some of the author's invention may be controversial, in this robust novel he captures the sweep of events that led to the martyrdom of the first Pope.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Murphy, author of the bestselling The Vicar of Christ ( LJ 5/1/79), here tells the story of St. Peter and the first-century church. The story is told by Quintus, a fictional Gentile follower of Jesus. Peter, Mary Magdalene, Paul, John, and numerous other biblical figures , including Christ himself, are brought vividly to life. The author invents private lives for these people and meshes them so well with what is known from the Bible that the reader truly seems to be privy to inside information. Though not always complimentary, the portrait of Peter that emerges shows a very human man, struggling to be faithful to the Master he sometimes misunderstands but never ceases to love. C. Robert Nixon, M.L.S., West Lafayette, Ind.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.