Peter in Babylon?

[flameburns623]

One of the ocasional claims I have come across questioning the succession of His Holiness from Peter is that the Apostle Peter actually spent his final years, NOT in Rome but in Babylon.

In viewing Peter Madrid’s program “Pope Fiction”, it appears Mr. Madrid, as with many other Catholic apologists who explore this topic, glosses over this somewhat more-difficult assault on the claims of the RCC.

One example of such claims:

First of all, there is no place in the New Testament where there is any hint or any record of any kind that Peter was in Rome. In 1 Peter 5:13, it tells us very plainly that he wrote that epistle from the city of Babylon [In Peters day Babylon was still a city and a territory—See Josephus, *Antiquities, Book xv, Ch 2, 2. “The ancient city of Mesopotamia, an area which was then a center of pure and uncompromising Judiasim” p. 65, 1 Peter by A. M. Stibbs. ACT 2:9 tells us they were in the Pentecost crowd. “After the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 Babylonia became, and for centuries remained, a seat of Jewish Schools devoted to the study and interpretation of the law” Dictionary of the Bible, p. 72, by J. J. Davis]

. This is far to the east of the Roman Empire and not in Rome which is in the western part of the Empire. This is where Peter apparently had much of his ministry among the many Jews scattered there from previous centuries. He was there preaching that the Messiah had come, that Jesus Christ was that promised Messiah, and that Jesus Christ was the only hope of salvation. He was there preaching to those people when he wrote the epistles of 1 and 2 Peter. He wrote to those who were in what is now Asia Minor or what is now modern Turkey. All of these districts that he mentions are in a little section of eastern Turkey. The New Testament gives no statement or hint whatever that Peter was ever in the City of Rome, the Capital of the Roman Empire in his day.
There is some groundless tradition that says Peter was in Rome. One problem with the tradition is that the tradition is full of errors, mistakes, things that are incorrect. I’ve read parts of Josephus, all of the Apostolic Fathers, in English translation. Time and time again, as I read in these old writings, or check some writers reference to them. The references are there but in the very context in which the references are found the whole thing was full of things that are contradictory to the New Testament. Therefore being contrary to the New Testament their evidence is worthless.

from the following link:

christianbeliefs.org/articles/peter&rome.html

Any good responses to this claim?

 

[Spirithound]

Well, Peter’s tomb is in Rome. The bones in the tomb are missing the feet, as we would expect from someone who was crucified upside down. Often someone crucified upside down would have their feet chopped off to take them down.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

One of the ocasional claims I have come across questioning the succession of His Holiness from Peter is that the Apostle Peter actually spent his final years, NOT in Rome but in Babylon.

In viewing Peter Madrid’s program “Pope Fiction”, it appears Mr. Madrid, as with many other Catholic apologists who explore this topic, glosses over this somewhat more-difficult assault on the claims of the RCC.

One example of such claims:

from the following link:

christianbeliefs.org/articles/peter&rome.html

Any good responses to this claim?

Take a look at the following link. The bunny who wrote the above passage couldn’t tell the difference between using “Babylon” as a code word for IMPERIAL ROME (whereas of course other fundamentalists see “Babylon” as a code word for the Vatican, which takes up a couple of square miles of greater Rome itself), and the real Babylon, which by the time Christ came wasn’t much more than a glorified village, a remnant of the Babylonian Empire.

Link follows -

catholic.com/library/Was_Peter_in_Rome.asp

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Take a look at the following link. The bunny who wrote the above passage couldn’t tell the difference between using “Babylon” as a code word for IMPERIAL ROME (whereas of course other fundamentalists see “Babylon” as a code word for the Vatican, which takes up a couple of square miles of greater Rome itself), and the real Babylon, which by the time Christ came wasn’t much more than a glorified village, a remnant of the Babylonian Empire.

Link follows -

catholic.com/library/Was_Peter_in_Rome.asp

My apologies to “Bunny”. Believe it or not, I used the word “bunny” in a sarcastic sense to refer to the original poster, and then after I’d posted it, found that the second poster had in fact used “bunny” as a signature.

With luck like mine… I remember being at a display of ambulance vehicles once, in a voluntary role I won’t go into. I looked at one type of vehicle, and said to this other bloke standing nearby, “I think the Ambos find it a bit cramped. They can’t even stand up in them! Anyway what are you doing here?”

He gave me this snide look, and said, “I sell them”.

 

[Zenas]

Babylon, which is where Peter claimed to be when he wrote his first epistle, was a code name for Rome among 1st Century Christians.

I don’t know what contradictions there are between scripture and the church fathers, but the written evidence that Peter was in Rome is overwhelming. Iranaeus of Lyons wrote in the late 2nd Century about the church at Rome having been founded by the apostles Peter and Paul. There may be even earlier evidence that Peter was the first Bishop of Rome.

 

[flameburns623]

For what it is worth: I am a Catholic. And have had the blessed fortune to have not only been to Rome but to the excavations under the Vatican where the bones of St. Peter are reputed to be found. I have read and seen the evidence for this and am familiar with the case for Peter’s final resting place in Rome.

For myself, I am comfortably convinced that the evidence for the final resting place of St Peter to be in Rome is as overwhelming as historical evidence can be.

However, I also know of some Protestants who INSIST, based primarily on New Testament evidence that Peter was never in Rome. Apparently there is a competing burial site in or near Babylon which professes to be the actual tomb of St. Peter–no idea of the antiquity of this claim or the evidence for it. An internet search does not seem to readily disclose the claim, though I have seen it in print somewhere along the line.

Thanks for the responses received thus far!