The Sign of the Cross: A Story of Peter and Paul Part One: AD 30 to 43 (The Empty Cross)

This is Part One of a projected three volume work that tells a fictional story about Peter, Paul and others set in the earliest days of Christianity. It is not history, but it weaves a plausible narrative about how the figures who appear in the New Testament and other early Christian and Jewish texts might have related to each other. We see both conflict and conversion as characters attempt to formulate an answer to the question: "Who was the crucified Galilean preacher?" Each character's answer affected the drama of the evolution of two religious systems, Formative Judaism and Early Christianity as each existed prior to 64 AD.

John T. Conroy, Jr. ("Jack" to his friends) received a BBA from the University of Notre Dame in 1959, received his MA from Fordham University in 1961 in Philosophy, and after many years, returned to Notre Dame and received his Ph.D. in Theology, with a concentration in Hellenistic Judaism and Christian Origins. He taught Theology in Southwest Florida and is now a faculty member of the Saint James of Jerusalem School of Theology.