Galilee, Israel — After all these years, in regards to St. Peter, the famous apostle and disciple of Jesus, we can now report of his scandalous past. Until recently, records were not available, but after filing numerous FOIA requests, we finally have the results. Known as Simon Peter around town, Peter owned a fishing club, along with his brother Andrew. Another pair of brothers, James and John also were cohorts of Peter, and they all worked together at Peter’s Fishing Club. He had settled in as a very successful commercial fisherman, and also decided to follow Jesus.
As a fisherman, Peter was fairly decent, but he was a little slack in his business acumen. The records that we received from our FOIA request showed that Peter spent a couple of tours in prison, because he didn’t have a fishing license, which was bad enough. But the magistrate in Galilee also had Peter arrested because he didn’t have the proper permits to operate a fishing club, and his boats weren’t registered with the proper agencies. It looks as though Peter was known to have “gone rogue” from time to time.
It is easier to understand now why he lied to Jesus, lied about Jesus and all, because he didn’t really want to go back to prison.
That’s when Jesus decided to make Peter a fisher of men, and changed his name to Simon and put him in His witness protection program.