Peter in Babylon? - 1 Peter 5:13 (page 3)

snowbird

After the Roman War and Bar Khokba's Rebellion.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/texts/talmud.shtml

I love all things Jewish.

Sorry it took a while to reply; I took my teenage g'son driving!

LOL.

Sylvia

Probably some people are tired of hearing me relate my take on this. It started with the days about 4 years ago when my instructors armed with "What the Bible Really Teaches" kept insisting that Babylon was destroyed because Isaiah said so. And that it was destroyed forever as a consequence of messing around with things in Jerusalem, whether as an instrument of the Lord's ( Jehovah's) punishment of Israel or not.

This was a position of the WTBRT as well.

Well, at that point, I hadn't given the matter much thought, but my intuition or casual reading indicated to me that Babylon had remained as a municipality for centuries and my immediate inquiries seemed to confirm. Moreover, it seemed like the time that Babylon really got clobbered just so happened to be in Isaiah's time - by Sennacherib.

But then I happened to notice the verse in question.

And that NWT text which I came across subsequently had a "Table of the Books of the Bible", pp. 1546-1547. Beside many other questionable dates and authorships for the OT, it stated that Peter I and II were written by Peter between 62-64 AD in Babylon.

Babylon the city that was destroyed forever centuries earlier in another "document" I was supposed to take on faith.

Well, I suppose if I were really credulous, I could believe that Peter consigned himself to a non-existent city to take advantage of it as a communications center with other Christian congregations in Asia minor. Or I could presume that he was referring to another place which was likened to Babylon...

But then there had to be a reason to make any comparisons to Babylon for a place like Rome, would there not?

The most obvious would be destructions of Temple I and Temple II.

But that does not match up very well with writing in the early 60s of the first century AD. Nor does the text of the II Peter. For it concludes speaking of Pau's writing as a body of work, a body which was largely written at the same time or even later than when we are to presume that Peter is living in isolation in Babylon. "In all his letters there are some passages which are hard to understand... and these are the passages which[some] people distort in the same way as they distort the rest of scripture". What's more, its advice given to elders is that of running a very institutionalized organization. As many have asked, are these concerns of 64 AD or decades later?

Reading the two books or epistles, it seems like another window on beliefs or perspectives of those times -but how they are all related seems so mysterious and complicated. Still, I suspect that some arguments for what has become canonical are not so much based on genuine Greek letter authorship of a supposedly aramaic speaking fisherman, but the nature of the beliefs and understandings that are passed on. In part I am reminded of Hebrews when Peter speaks of angels...

But in the second epistle, in contrast to JW theology, I am struck by this passage:

(II Peter 2:4) " When angels sinned, God did not spare them, he sent them down into the underworld and consigned them to the dark abyss to be held there until the Judgment. "

That's one translation anyway. But consider the NWT version. Look how it's finessed in that one so that they have a day pass - like fall to Earth '14 if that is the new requirement.

kepler

By the way,

The tradition of a crypt for St. Peter in Rome goes back a ways...

St. Peter's tomb is near the west end of a complex of mausoleums that date between about AD 130 and AD 300. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The complex was partially torn down and filled with earth to provide a foundation for the building of the first St. Peter's Basilica during the reign of Constantine I in about AD 330. [ 3 ] Though many bones have been found at the site of the 2nd-century shrine, as the result of two campaigns of archaeological excavation, Pope Pius XII stated in December 1950 that none could be confirmed to be Saint Peter's with absolute certainty. [ 4 ] However, following the discovery of further bones and an inscription, on June 26, 1968 Pope Paul VI announced that the relics of St. Peter had been identified.

You suppose Constantine et al. might have read Peter's epistles as well?

leaving_quietly

There's another angle to this. I also questioned that he wrote it in Babylon, but I really don't care one way or another. If so, though, it kinda blows up the whole GB in the 1st century in Jerusalem thing. If there was a 1st century GB, why would they not all stay in Jerusalem?

snowbird

Bar Kokhba, never can get that h in the right order.

I think Constantine read everything pertaining to Christianity.

He, too, has been given a bad rap by the WT.

Sylvia

Band on the Run

I recall learning more about Josephus in college. I knew the name from KH. The man admitted to some despicable behavior that goes to basic character. It may have had something to do with Masada. Perhaps he cheated when they drew lots to commit suicide. I knew the details once upon a time.

Band on the Run

When Pagels discussed Revelation, she made the point that certain numbers stood for political figures and 1st century audiences would all know the meaning. The Romans would execute you if you spelled out the name in text but might look the other way if numbers were used. I don't recall if Peter is believed by scholars to have written these texts. The Pauline letters I most hated were not written by Paul. If Peter did write these letters, I should have been taught about it.

Does it truly matter if it is Babylon or Rome? I don't know what legends connect Peter with Rome. Christians certainly believed Rome after a while. Does the text change if it is a certain city? Maybe a certain city has a stronger tradition than the other. Babylon is still used by writers today to convey a decadent wickedness. There was a fairly recent and spooky HBO series recently that kept mentioning Babylon.

I know from decades of amateur reading of religious history that certain things keep changing. What is the name for the earlier sayings in the synoptic gospels, Q? Q was certain in the 1970s. Recently, I discovered that scholarship changed perceptions of Q. Hardly anyone believed Q existed. Recently, more scholars believe in Q. These are academics, too.

The Witnesses gave you a gift. Your research and reading freed you.

snowbird

Your research and reading freed you.

Amen.

Sylvia

kepler

Here's another background note on the notion that Peter was writing from Babylon in the seventh decade of the first century:

Rome and Parthia were at war over Armenia from 58 to 63 AD. Babylon was Parthian territory Not a good administrative center for Asia Minor. Nor a good perspective from which to evaluate reactions of readers of Paul's Greek epistles.

Band on the Run

I pulled out my Archaeological Study Bible, NIV, because I paid for all these anotations. It starts by saying many scholars dispute that Peter had anything to do with 1 and 2 Peter. Next, it says the editors believe the Peter authorship. A few lines down it addresses the reference to Babylon, concluding that it is Babylon or Rome. Talk about a point of view. On one hand,........,on the other hand.

Peter in Babylon? - 1 Peter 5:13

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