[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

There's so much nonsense, I don't even know where to start. I can't begin to refute every single claim, there are so many made, so I'll start wit the main points. Peter was certainly not in Babylon. Babylon had long since been destroyed, and the area it once stood on was no longer called Babylon. As Anti-Catholics so often love to point out, Babylon is used in many places in Revelations to signify Rome. So, yes, Peter writes that he's in Babylon, that is the biblical proof that the sola-scriptura types need to establish he's in Rome. (incidentally, non-biblical Jewish and Christian sources also routinely identify Rome as Babylon, including 4 Esdras, the Apocalypse of Baruch, and the Sibellyne Oracles.)

Actually, Josephus makes reference to the city of Babylon as an urban center for Judaism at least as late as 36BC, within a century or so of Peter's Epistles (I don't make any claim that the city had been rebuilt into as great a metropolis as its former days).

“Before I conclude this section, I must take notice of a passage in Josephus, which not only confutes all notions of a spiritual or mystical Babylon, but throws a great light on our present inquiry; and this passage is of so much the more importance, because Josephus was a historian who lived in the same age with St. Peter; and the passage itself relates to an event which took place thirty-six years before the Christian era, namely, the delivery of Hyrcanus, the Jewish high priest, from imprisonment, by order of Phraates, king of Parthia, with permission to reside in Babylon, where there was a considerable number of Jews. This is recorded by Josephus, Antiq. xv. c. 2, in the following words: dia touto desmwn men afhken, en babulwni de katagesqai pareicen, enqa kai plhqov hn ioudaiwn. Josephus then adds, that both the Jews in Babylon, and all who dwelt in that country, as far as the Euphrates, respected Hyrcanus, as high priest and king.
(http://www.geocities.com/arwoodco/1PETER.html)

So, when Peter says that he is writing from Babylon, the simplest read on the matter is that Peter... was writing from Babylon. After all, when Paul wrote from Rome, he stated "I'm writing from Rome".

That said, if one supposes that Peter was writing from a "metaphorical Babylon", that doesn't necessarily lead us to Rome. While Rome could be seen as a "metaphorical Babylon", we find another Christian writer speaking of a "metaphorical Babylon" within the pages of Scripture -- referring to Jerusalem.

Revelation 16: 17-18 -- And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, [and] so great.

Josephus, the Jewish Wars -- Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one-and-twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared; I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner temple, as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, "Let us remove hence".
Revelation 16:19-20 -- And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
Josephus, The Jewish Wars -- And now there were three treacherous factions in the city, the one parted from the other... Accordingly, it so came to pass, that all the places that were about the temple were burnt down, and were become an intermediate desert space, ready for fighting on both sides of it; and that almost all that corn was burnt, which would have been sufficient for a siege of many years. So they were taken by the means of the famine, which it was impossible they should have been, unless they had thus prepared the way for it by this procedure.
Revelation 16: 21 -- And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, [every stone] about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.
Josephus, The Jewish Wars -- The engines, that all the legions had ready prepared for them, were admirably contrived; but still more extraordinary ones belonged to the tenth legion: those that threw darts and those that threw stones were more forcible and larger than the rest, by which they not only repelled the excursions of the Jews, but drove those away that were upon the walls also. Now the stones that were cast were of the weight of a talent, and were carried two furlongs and further. The blow they gave was no way to be sustained, not only by those that stood first in the way, but by those that were beyond them for a great space. As for the Jews, they at first watched the coming of the stone, for it was of a white color, and could therefore not only be perceived by the great noise it made, but could be seen also before it came by its brightness; accordingly the watchmen that sat upon the towers gave them notice when the engine was let go, and the stone came from it, and cried out aloud, in their own country language, "THE SON COMETH!"
Revelation 18:2 -- And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

Now, to reiterate: the simplest read on Peter's Epistles would be to understand that when he claims to be writing from Babylon -- he's writing from Babylon. HOWEVER, if one believes that Peter is writing of a "metaphorical Babylon", the most obvious candidate would be the "metaphorical Babylon" recorded in the pages of the New Testament -- that is, Jerusalem.

So that'll hafta be my response to the first part of your Post; it's late afternoon, and I have to run. But, while I don't expect to have time tonight, I'll try to address the remainder of your Post on the morrow.

Best, OP

[dangus]

>> Actually, Josephus makes reference to the city of Babylon as an urban center for Judaism at least as late as 36BC, >>

The author of the web site you linked to apparently reaches a conclusion that Josephus meant the ancient city of Babylon, although it is generally understood that he meant Selucidae, comtrary to the author's opinion, which is as unrealted to actual Babylon as Baghdad. Why? Perhaps Josephus found a certain irony that another Jewish leader was forced into exile in Mesopotamia. For Jews, Babylon=exile.

It is interesting that Jerusalem experienced an earthquake, and three factions, as did the city of Babylon. I don't buy the assertion that hail meant that people were throwing stones at them, however. And of course you knowthat those events aren't juxtaposed like that in Josephus' writings, so it is hardly conclusive. On the other hand, there are many dissimilarities between Jerusalem and Babylon.

You're the first Protestant I've ever heard suggest that. (And frankly, I'm rather relieved you don't buy the argument that Rome is the whore Babylon!) The largest problem against the assertion that Jerusalem=Babylon is that there's no metaphorical meaning; the Christians in Asia minor would have no reason to feel oppressed by Jerusalem; it was hardly the capital of an empire; and no-one would be in exile *in* Jerusalem, or *from* Jersualem. Again, Babylon=exile.

>>Now, to reiterate: the simplest read on Peter's Epistles would be to understand that when he claims to be writing from Babylon>>

Other than the fact that it didn't exist anymore. If I write to my friend complaining about life in the Soviet Union, she knows I mean Massachusetts, for the same reason Peter's readers knew he meant Rome:
* It would make no sense for me to be in Russian
* Russia is no longer called the Soviet Union
* I've referred to Massachusetts as the Soviet Union before.

(A little poetic license... I actually call Massachusetts "the People's Republic," but since there still is China, I've changed the details so it fits my analogy.)