"Eleven 'Facts' About Peter"?

[Donald45]

I came across the following article which proposes “Eleven Facts About Peter the Apostle”:

remnantofgod.org/pope1.htm

Is anyone here familiar with these arguments, or of any written response to this article? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and God bless,

Don
+T+

 

[NotWorthy]

I haven’t read through all of them yet, but:

Proof 1aul specifically told the Gentile Romans that HE had been chosen to be their Apostle, not Peter. “I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable” (Rom. 15:16). How clear! Paul had the direct charge from Christ in this matter. He even further relates in Romans 15:18 that it was Christ who had chosen him “to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed.” PAUL Established the Only TRUE Church at Rome during the apostolic era.

If Paul established the Only TRUE Church at Rome, then who was he writing to in His letter to the Romans?!? At the time of his writing this letter, he had never been to Rome. Yet his letter was to an already established Christian Community. If the Christian Community preceded Paul, then he couldn’t have established it.

 

[Milliardo]

Points two and three are rather funny; it said Paul is the Apostle to Rome, but how can that be when the fact is that Paul wrote to a Christian community already established in Rome. Clearly he didn’t found the community there, nor was it recorded, apart from his letter, that he ever preached there. The writer clearly forgot those, even if such a thing is only common sense. of course, all his other points regarding that issue fall apart quickly based on that small point. It’s just common sense. Anyone who uses it will not fall for something like this nonsense.

 

[NotWorthy]

Quick question. If Christians made up the story of Peter in Rome and were already spreading this story before the end of the first century… WHO WERE THEY TRYING TO FOOL???

What did they gain by spreading this malicious and absolutely false statement?!?!?!? Please notice my tongue lodged in my cheek!!!

 

[amills]

Just an observation - did you note that he is trying to prove Catholic Church History from the Bible only. Looks to me that he forgets that he is trying to talk about history but is limiting his resources to only the bible.

The Bible is a religious book. The intent of the Bible for the Churches is to teach religious truth - not history, not science. He forgets that Jesus is for real! He actually lived. There are many sources besides that bible that tell about Jesus and the Church. So too there are many sources that tell us about the early Christians - to arbitrarily dismiss all of these other sources as unreliable and then to jump to the conclusions he did is totally irresponsible.

 

[Liberian]

Donald,

I’ve not seen these specific arguments before, but I will take a stab at answering them.

(1) “Apostle to” means “Person who brings the Gospel to.” It says nothing about being in charge of them.

(2) Other respondents have already mentioned the fallacy about Paul bringing the Gospel to Rome.

(3) The “proof” that Paul planned to “establish” the church in Rome neglects to read the next verse, in which Paul explains that by “establish” he means “that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith of both you and me.” This is hardly “church-planting.”

(4) This depends on (3), whose error demolishes this “proof” as well. I would note again that the verses around the single verse that he cites show Paul explaining that he had preached the Gospel “from Jerusalem to Illyricum,” and because he did not want to 'build on another man’s foundation" he had stayed away from Rome. Now, however, he was running out of places in the eastern Empire and wanted to go to Spain, and Rome was on the way, so he wanted to stop in Rome and see people.

(5) Paul doesn’t mention Peter … but he does mention 28 other people. Not bad for a church that doesn’t exist. I can’t speak to why he neglected Peter; possibly Peter wasn’t there yet. Incidentally, I Peter 5:13 gives greetings from “Babylon,” which was an early Church code word for Rome. The city of Babylon had been destroyed hundreds of years earlier and was just a mound in the desert somewhere by that time.

(6) Acts 28:15 doesn’t mention Peter; it doesn’t mention any other names either. Proof by omission is always EXTREMELY shaky.

(7) Actually, Acts 28:22 doesn’t say anything about the Jewish leaders in Rome knowing very little about the basic teachings of Christ. It says that they hadn’t received any official orders from Jerusalem about the Church but that they had heard bad things through the grapevine. This “proof” is misquoting Scripture.

(8) Certainly Paul never mentions Peter. The obvious explanation is that the Church in Rome was rather large by then and Paul gave greetings only from those with whom he was in direct contact.

(9) Does it occur to the writer of that page that it might have been worth Peter’s neck to show up in a Roman court? I would suggest that the Holy Spirit, having further use for Peter in this world, didn’t want him to get himself killed. (I would note that prudently avoiding violence is not unheard of in the New Testament (Acts 19:30-31).)

(10) “Only Luke is with me” is not the same as “there are no other Christians in this city.” You cannot get from this to the idea that Peter was not in Rome at the time.

(11) How do you get from “you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go” to “Peter would die of old age”? You don’t, unless you have reached your conclusions before you consider the evidence.

Hope this helps.

• Liberian

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I see that Simon Magus is made to trail behind him a lot of stuff about Babylonian Religion.​

This is the usual plagiarising of Alexander Hislop’s ideas about BR - and it is even less excusable. The methods are the same - such as this: “Simon had mixed Judaism, early Christianity and Babylonian, Greek. Paganism into one religion and appointed himself as the leader.Here we see the well documented mixing of religions from several historical sources and The Bible itself. What did he do with this new religion?”

A confident assertion - based on…how much evidence?

None. Sorry, but this will not do. It is a disgrace. If people are going to make surprising assertions about entities, they need to support them. This is an elementary moral duty. Atheists who supply footnotes to their research papers have more integrity than apologists of this type. If people are going to say “Religion X is derived from evil source Y”, it is even more important to give evidence for such a judgement. Hislop’s statements are often equally shakily founded - unfortunately, those who devour his work are not blessed with the ability to spot bad logic.

“We see this quote from Justin Martyr and from Hasting’s “Dictionary of the apostolic church” that Simon Magus was in Rome about the year 45A.D., this is further stated by his birthplace, a village called Gitta. It is also stated that Simon Magus was honored as a GOD, due to his magical “demonic powers that were witnessed”.”

Justin’s assertion to that effect seems to be sufficiently explained by this:

“In 1574 excavators found a fragment of marble on an island in the Tiber River with the inscription “Semoni Sanco Deu Fidio.” Some interpret this as referring to a Sabine deity, Semo Sancus, but most likely it was part of the statue Justin Martyr described as having been dedicated to Simon Magus. There is little doubt in my mind that this is one of many similarities between the papacy and Simon Magus”

So why is it not dedicated “Simoni Sancto” ? God forbid that mere facts should get in the way of a theory The writer gives no indication that he is any better informed about Sabine religion, than about Babylonian.​

It’s curious that our friend here is ultimately reliant on legends which Hislop explicitly rejects. Hislop rejects them, becaus they bring Peter to Rome; this chap accepts them, because they bring Simon Magus to Rome Either way, Rome is eeeevil.

As for Peter’s Roman presence - it may have been very brief, and late: the Roman claim does not require him to have been there for 25 years; it does require him to have been at Rome at *some *time.

…continued…]

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Donald 45:

I came across the following article which proposes “Eleven Facts About Peter the Apostle”:

remnantofgod.org/pope1.htm

Is anyone here familiar with these arguments, or of any written response to this article? Any help would be greatly appreciated

…continued…]

"At the temple of Delphi in Greece, the chief object in the ritual was the PETRA (Pausanius, Bk. 10). At the Acropolis in Athens, Euripides tells us, the niches which held the idols were called the PETRAE (verse 935).## Of which play ? This is as useful as saying, “Shakespeare, Act 2”. If the niches or images were of stone, why should not they be called that ? Or aren’t Greek-speaking populations allowed to call things by names in Greek ? ##

It is well known that even the sacred book which was used in the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, was entitled “Book PETROMA,” PETER-ROMA – PETER’S BOOK (see Potter’s Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 356).Remember that the pagan temples were also called after the PETERS. The temple at Elis in Greece was called PETRON Lycophron, verse 159). Pytho at Delphi was called PETRAessa (Olymp. Ode 6). The oracle temple dedicated to Apollo in Asia Minor was called the PATARA and the oracle there was called PATAReus (“Eus” means “person who, one”) – (Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary, p. 438). Also PATRAE – an ancient town where DIANA had a temple (p. 438), and the oracle in Achaia was called PATRA (Jones, Proper Names of the Old Testament, p. 296). "

The Petroma was not a book - it was a pair of rocks containing a book, according to Pausanias - see link.​

Why is it so unusual for rocky bits of scenery to have rock-recalling names ?

…continued…]

 

[steveandersen]

Same old tired stuff

Peter was in charge because he was Peter
Not because he was in Rome

He could have easily have gone to Sheboygan and still have been in charge

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

Acts 15:7

"After much debate had taken place, Peter got up and said to them, “My brothers, you are well aware that from early days God made his choice among you that through my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe.”

Looks to me that Peter is apostle to the gentiles (the whole world!).

 

[Atreyu]

I came across the following article which proposes “Eleven Facts About Peter the Apostle”:

remnantofgod.org/pope1.htm

Is anyone here familiar with these arguments, or of any written response to this article? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and God bless,

Don
+T+

Donald, I would be wary of anyone who says something like this:

There are countless supposed historical accounts that Peter was in Rome but they all come from Catholic sources and are not first hand accounts. The earliest accounts are of Catholic fathers but even they do not agree with The Bible. So let’s look to The Bible and see why the apostle Peter was never in Rome and couldn’t be the founder of the Roman Catholic Church.

But at least he agrees that the early church was Catholic! From the rest of his introduction, it’s pretty clear that he’s in-line with the Seventh-Day-Adventists and his idea of something “completely opposite” to the Bible includes the “Sunday Sabbath” which of course is not Catholic teaching (the Sabbath is Saturday; Sunday - the Eighth Day - is the “Lord’s Day”, not the Sabbath). It only takes a cursory reading of the New Testament to discover that the apostles themselves worshipped on Sundays, and so his idea of something “completely opposite” to the Bible really is just plain bogus; he has ignored the overwhelming evidence in favour of his man-made tradition, just like the Jews with their Corban tradition.

Now I only got up to the first so-called “proof”:

We should consider Christ’s commission to Peter. This is often very embarrassing to Catholics, because Christ commissioned Peter to become chief minister to the CIRCUMCISED, not to uncircumcised Gentiles.

“The gospel of the CIRCUMCISION was unto Peter; (For He that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles” (Gal. 2:7-8).

Here we have it in the clearest of language. It was Paul, NOT Peter, who was commissioned to be the chief Apostle to the Gentiles. And who was it that wrote the Epistle to the ROMANS? It certainly WASN’T Peter! “And when James, Cephas [Peter], and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace * that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision” (Gal. 2:9). Paul further mentioned his special office as the Gentile Apostle in II Timothy 1:11: “Whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.”

PETER is NOWHERE called the Apostle to the Gentiles! This precludes him from going to Rome to become the head of a Gentile community. *
Well, either purposely or accidentally, this guy has blatantly ignored Acts 15:
6The apostles and elders met to consider this question. 7After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: "Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe.
Like I said, I only got up to the first proof. If the others are as egregious as this one, I can’t be bothered wasting my time on them.

 

[Atreyu]

Rats. You beat me, Gilbert…

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

**

Donald45:

I came across the following article which proposes “Eleven Facts About Peter the Apostle”:

**

Donald45:
Is anyone here familiar with these arguments, or of any written response to this article? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
…continued, ended, finished ]

This daft thesis gives us no reason not to make Jesus a mystery-monger too - it was His idea to change Simon’s name in the rocky vicinity of Caesarea Philippi. This theory could do that easily - but it is meant to convict only us Romans of being “Babylonian”. The whole “RCism is Babylonian” idea undermines Christianity & Judaism - it is in tendency completely atheistic, because it traces all religions to Babylon (which it treats as bad) fails to explain how false religions differ from true, & treats material similarities between things - names, for instance - as though they obviously have the meaning seen in them.

There are Scots called Petrie - do those three letters PTR make them pagan priests ? Was the Pontifex Maximus in Rome called PTR ? (Answer: no, he was called Dwayne on Sundays, & Clyde on other days ) If not - why not ? An explanation has to account for what does not fit it - not for this datum alone, or that. It’s at least possible that some Greek place-names are from pre-Greek roots, roots which do not mean what they are said to. The PTR idea seems to assume that Greek, like Hebrew, is triliteral - Hislop seems to treat Hebrew as the original tongue of the human race; he certainly tends to construe non-Semitic names as Semitic. As the saying goes: “Nonsense in - nonsense out”. The page is reliant on mistakes which are no less wrong for being old.

What about all those Mesopotamian & other temples not called by PTR-names ? 1400 temple-names are recorded, and they are not of that form. Nor were priests there - of whom there were many kinds - called PTR. See Andrew George’s edition of the various TN.-lists in his book “House Most High”.
Mesopotamian temples are called things like:

• Esagila - House that lifts high the head
• Etemenanki - House, foundation-platform of the universe
• Ebabbar - Gleaming House
• Ekur - House that is a Mountain
• Eanna - House of Heaven

etc. They never begin with P.

Why does he quote sources as out-dated as Lempriere & Bunsen (150+ years old) & Potter (300+) ? They might not now be reliable. They aren’t - Bunsen is less reliable than James Allen, for instance, who is a professional Egyptologist, not a dilettante. Allen, who is an authority on Middle Egyptian, has a far better idea of the semantic features of the language than Bunsen, Hislop, or our informant.

One can’t expect Hislop-copying Fundamentalists to understand Allen’s grammar of Middle Egyptian - but if they don’t, they have no business to make remarks about the language.

Here is what Pausanias says about the Petroma - it is not quite what our informant, who has taken from Hislop, says.

BTW, does Hislop give any evidence that the Petroma was known of by Roman Christians ? No. So this page can’t quote Hislop’s evidence that they did.

Have Fundamentalists ever heard of checking facts, intellectual integrity, or other such things ? One has to wonder.

I think you can disregard the page - its intellectual value is round about nil.

Hope this helps ##

Atreyu:

Like I said, I only got up to the first proof. If the others are as egregious as this one, I can’t be bothered wasting my time on them.

Don’t worry - they are ​

 

[AndyF]

I came across the following article which proposes “Eleven Facts About Peter the Apostle”:

remnantofgod.org/pope1.htm

Is anyone here familiar with these arguments, or of any written response to this article? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and God bless,

Don
+T+

Don’t believe a word. Actually, I like the way they present up front a preview of the grabage that’ll come later so you don’t have to read the rest. These people are the very same that have replaced the Gospel with the De Vinci code.

All that’s left is to organize. Just add water, and presto an instant cult is born.

AndyF

 

[NotWorthy]

…continued, ended, finished ]

This daft thesis gives us no reason not to make Jesus a mystery-monger too - it was His idea to change Simon’s name in the rocky vicinity of Caesarea Philippi. This theory could do that easily - but it is meant to convict only us Romans of being “Babylonian”. The whole “RCism is Babylonian” idea undermines Christianity & Judaism - it is in tendency completely atheistic, because it traces all religions to Babylon (which it treats as bad) fails to explain how false religions differ from true, & treats material similarities between things - names, for instance - as though they obviously have the meaning seen in them.

There are Scots called Petrie - do those three letters PTR make them pagan priests ? Was the Pontifex Maximus in Rome called PTR ? (Answer: no, he was called Dwayne on Sundays, & Clyde on other days ) If not - why not ? An explanation has to account for what does not fit it - not for this datum alone, or that. It’s at least possible that some Greek place-names are from pre-Greek roots, roots which do not mean what they are said to. The PTR idea seems to assume that Greek, like Hebrew, is triliteral - Hislop seems to treat Hebrew as the original tongue of the human race; he certainly tends to construe non-Semitic names as Semitic. As the saying goes: “Nonsense in - nonsense out”. The page is reliant on mistakes which are no less wrong for being old.

What about all those Mesopotamian & other temples not called by PTR-names ? 1400 temple-names are recorded, and they are not of that form. Nor were priests there - of whom there were many kinds - called PTR. See Andrew George’s edition of the various TN.-lists in his book “House Most High”.
Mesopotamian temples are called things like:

• Esagila - House that lifts high the head
• Etemenanki - House, foundation-platform of the universe
• Ebabbar - Gleaming House
• Ekur - House that is a Mountain
• Eanna - House of Heaven

etc. They never begin with P.

Why does he quote sources as out-dated as Lempriere & Bunsen (150+ years old) & Potter (300+) ? They might not now be reliable. They aren’t - Bunsen is less reliable than James Allen, for instance, who is a professional Egyptologist, not a dilettante. Allen, who is an authority on Middle Egyptian, has a far better idea of the semantic features of the language than Bunsen, Hislop, or our informant.

One can’t expect Hislop-copying Fundamentalists to understand Allen’s grammar of Middle Egyptian - but if they don’t, they have no business to make remarks about the language.

Here is what Pausanias says about the Petroma - it is not quite what our informant, who has taken from Hislop, says.

BTW, does Hislop give any evidence that the Petroma was known of by Roman Christians ? No. So this page can’t quote Hislop’s evidence that they did.

Have Fundamentalists ever heard of checking facts, intellectual integrity, or other such things ? One has to wonder.

I think you can disregard the page - its intellectual value is round about nil.

Hope this helps ##

Don’t worry - they are ​

Gottle, I can’t read a word you wrote. The words are too small!

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Gottle, I can’t read a word you wrote. The words are too small!

Sorry - should I repost ? ​

 

[Damascus]

Gottle of Geer has the most informative posts I have ever read on this forum.

I am happy I can read the font size. I just wish I was smart enough to understand everything GG says. I just get bits and pieces and research the rest.

Its not easy being stupid.

 

[NotWorthy]

Sorry - should I repost ? ​

Ah, no, cut and paste into Word is a wonderful tool.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I came across the following article which proposes “Eleven Facts About Peter the Apostle”:

remnantofgod.org/pope1.htm

Is anyone here familiar with these arguments, or of any written response to this article? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and God bless,

Don
+T+

PROOF FOUR: We find Paul not only wanting to establish the Church at Rome, but he emphatically tells us that his policy was NEVER to build upon another man’s foundation. “Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, LEST I SHOULD BUILD UPON ANOTHER MAN’S FOUNDATION”(Rom. 15:20). If Peter had “founded” the Roman Church some ten years before this statement, this represents a real affront to Peter. This statement alone is proof that Peter had never been in Rome before this time to “found” any church. Peter Not in Rome

I don’t see how this is an affront to anyone - let alone a proof of Peter’s absence.​

PROOF FIVE: At the end of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans he greets no fewer than 28 different individuals, but never mentions Peter once! See Romans 16 --read the whole chapter! Remember, Paul greeted these people in 55 or 56 A.D. Why didn’t he mention Peter? – Peter simply wasn’t there!

Apart from anything else, this section is additional to what we call chapter 15, which is the real close of the letter. Peter may have been elsewhere at the time, or he may have been present, and it might have been unwise to mention him. There is simply no way to tell. But our ignorance of the facts then, does not add up to proof of his absence from Rome then. Our friend is goping beyond the available evidence. OTOH, we have the positive testimony of Clement of Rome that Peter, like Paul, was present at some point in Rome.​

**PROOF SIX: **Some four years after Paul wrote Romans, he was conveyed as a prisoner to Rome in order to stand trial before Caesar. When the Christian community in Rome heard of Paul’s arrival, they all went to meet him. “When THE brethren [of Rome] heard of us, they came to meet us” (Acts 28:15). Again, there is not a single mention of Peter among them. This would have been extraordinary had Peter been in Rome, for Luke always mentions by name important Apostles in his narration of Acts. But he says nothing of Peter’s meeting with Paul.
Why? Because Peter was not in Rome!

Why does he have to mention Peter, if P. was there ? If there were some sort of necessity to mention at every turn anyone who might conceivably be important to a Church, the objection would be fatal. But there isn’t - so it’s not.​

**PROOF SEVEN: **When Paul finally arrived at Rome, the first thing he did was to summon “the chief of the Jews together” (Acts 28:17) to whom he “expounded and testified the kingdom of God” (Verse 23). But what is amazing is that these chief Jewish elders claimed they knew very little even about the basic teachings of Christ. All they knew was that ‘‘as concerning this sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken against" (Verse 22). Then Paul began to explain to them the basic teachings of Christ on the Kingdom of God. Some believed – the majority didn’t.

Plenty of people are in the same position in New York - therefore, New York has no clergy.​

Existence of ignorance is not proof of absence of persons - not in Rome, then, not in NY now, or anywhere else at any time else. How many Evangelicals living in the same city as Jews know the Kaddish or the Shemoneh Esreh ? Is every Filipino Catholic an expert on the Hadith ? Yet the Philippines have a sizeable Muslim population.

…continue]

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

…cont’d & ended]

Rome was a cosmopolitan city of over 200,000 people; possibly (but doubtfully) of a million: not a town in the US Midwest of 2,000 or so, where everyone is familiar with everyone else. It was the hub of a vast world-wide empire, & full of religions, races & cults. So there is no more reason why the Roman Jews should know of Peter than for the Patriarch of Moscow to know what the JWs there intend.

It’s essential to have a feeling for history - & too often people seem to lack this ##

PROOF EIGHT: After the rejection of the Jewish elders, Paul remained in his own hired house for two years. During that time he wrote Epistles to the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians, Philemon, and to the Hebrews. And while Paul mentions others as being in Rome during that period, he nowhere mentions Peter. The obvious reason is – the Apostle to the circumcision wasn’t there!

Nor does he mention Seneca, Tigellinus, or Nero’s wife Poppaea, who was a convert to Judaism. He mentions no Roman rabbis, or any of the Roman governing class in Judaea who made things difficult for the Jews just before the war of 66; he never mentions the Herod family in his letters. It is because he ignores all these first-century people whom he might be expected to name, however fleetingly, that some have thought his letters are second-century forgeries.​

A knowledge of the Classics would show how authors often “fail” to mention contemporaries & events which to us would seem to cry out for a mention: Paul nowhere mentions his illustrious contemporary Philo, let alone his embassy to Rome in 40 or so, which succeeded in stopping the mad Emperor Gaius from setting up his image in the Holy of Holies. He nowhere mentions the Emperor Claudius (41-54), unless he alludes to him cryptically as ho katechōn in 2 Thessalonians.

Why must people of the past write about what we think important ? Can’t they have their own priorities ? ##

PROOF TEN: The Apostle Paul distinctly informs us that Peter was not in Rome in 65 A.D. – even though Catholics say he was. Paul said: “Only Luke is with me” (II Tim. 4:11). The truth becomes very plain. Paul wrote TO Rome; he had been IN Rome; and at the end wrote at least six epistles FROM Rome; and not only does he NEVER mention Peter, but at the last moment says: “Only Luke is with me.” Peter, therefore, was never Bishop of Rome!

This reasoning is self-refuting - Paul blames certain Christians for not helping him; they were not “with him” as Luke was. So they must have been absent from Rome: but if they were, why blame them ? “Is with me” =/= “is in Rome”, but “is helping me”. Do we know Peter was not in prison, or not dead ? No.​

PROOF ELEVEN: Peter’s death is foretold by Christ himself (John 21:18-19.) “. When you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Hmm, it sounds like Christ himself said that Peter would die of old age. Why would Peter’s death in old age glorify God? Peter was the one that ran from Christ the night of his trial and crucifixion. This exchange is after Christ rose from the tomb and Peter was forgiven three times, just as he denied his master three times before the cock crowed that fateful night of Christ’s trial.

This is no disproof at all - it fits the tradition of Peter’s crucifixion in Rome.​

“Why was he in Babylon? Because history shows that there were as many Jews in the Mesopotamian areas in Christ’s time as there were in Palestine. It is no wonder we find him in the East. Perhaps this is the reason why scholars say Peter’s writings are strongly Aramaic in flavor, the type of Aramaic spoken in Babylon. Why of course! Peter was used to their eastern dialect.”

He may have been: a difficulty is the lack of a tradition suggesting this; other Apostles are associated with the area. That is a good theory, but there is no certainty either way; & “Babylon” may = Rome. Especially if Peter is one of the two witnesses in Rev. 11.​