Where did the Catholic Church come from? Ask any Roman Catholic this question and, without a moment's hesitation, they will tell you they are the heirs of St. Peter. He was the first pope, leading and guiding the young Christian movement from Rome. This claim can be traced back to the first century Epistle of Clement to James. The second-century embellishment, known as the Teaching of Simon Cephus, asserts that Peter served in Rome for twenty-five years.However, there is not a single, solitary scrap of Scripture that places Peter at Rome. Not one. In the Acts of the Apostles, we read of Peter at Joppa, at Caesarea, he made a trip up to Syrian Antioch, and he played a major role in the Jerusalem Council in AD 49. When Paul wrote to the saints at Rome in AD 57, he greeted about twenty of the faithful by name--but not Peter, the supposed bishop. Paul was imprisoned in Rome from AD 60 to AD 62, and wrote at least five epistles during that period. Again, Peter is strangely missing.From Torah to Paul advances a provocative new theory of church history. Far from being the heirs of St. Peter, the Catholic Church is shown to be the offspring of the false apostles, the oldest heresy of Christendom. The evidence produced in this book proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the conventional wisdom on Catholic origins, believed by hundreds of millions, was in fact the grand deception of the ages.

Karl Oakes is fascinated by every facet of the human experience: man's mysterious origin, his ancient past, and his religious impulses. The author is married to the lovely and gracious Denita, has three wonderful children, and is an elder in the church of God that meets in their home. Karl now resides in Eugene, Oregon.