"My friend...the myth is that Peter was in Rome. You cannot show me, from scripture, that this is not so"
Please. There is a mound of quotes from the early Church that says he WAS in Rome and died there. There is archaeological evidence, verified by highly secular forensic archaeologists, that a Christian memorial over, what early Christians understood to be the remains of Peter, was built approximately 80 years after his death, with overlap of the lifetimes of the builders and those who saw Peter buried MORE than merely possible. There is no other site in the Christian world that EVER claimed to have Peter's remains besides Rome. Yet none of this matters to you because the Bible doesn't mention any of this specifically.
Well, the Bible doesn't even "mention" that St. Peter died at all! Do you acknowledge that he did? After all, he'd be 2000 years old or so by now. That's getting SERIOUSLY along in years! If the criterion you advance about scriptural mention being needed to confirm a fact is valid, then, by your own logic, we must come to the conclusion that Peter never died. Nor did any other Apostle, apparently, except James the Brother of John, whose death IS mentioned in Acts 12. Sure, St. Paul was in a world of trouble at the end of Acts, but it doesn't *say* that he was ever executed.
Your logic is non-existent. The doings, travels and deaths of the Apostles are in NO WAY exhaustively chronicled in the New Testament. ALL of these men died. Only ONE has a specific mention of the event. I assure you, the early Christians took note of the deaths of ALL of the Apostles when they occured. Peter's martyrdom was NOT unnoticed by them. Neither was his burial place, since it was doubtless dug by them. All they had to do was keep the memory of that spot alive for 80 or so years before there is clear-cut archaeological evidence that a monument was built over the grave for *Peter*.
I'm 48 years old. By definition, I have no personal memory of anything before 1957 (actually, 1959, but I digress!). HOWEVER, I have perfectly reliable family memories of events in the lives of my grandparents, that took place in the 1910 timeframe, from the older sisters of my father - my aunts. That's 95 years ago. All of my aunts are now deceased, but their memories live on in my mind and the minds of their own children (even more so, obviously). At least the ones that seem significant. I submit that Peter's burial place would be "significant" to the Roman Christians, and they, just like me, would have NO TROUBLE remembering his Roman ministry and where he was buried.
*Why* do you discount their witness as if they had lied about the circumstances of St. Peter's life, death and burial in Rome?
Just wanted to say that you can't be surprised others would not trust the Church's contention that Peter was in Rome? I would not blindly accept everything from Church fathers. I'd rather take a pick and choose approach. After all why would one accept everything from the same people that passed down immortality of souls or perpetual virginity to cite a couple of wacky examples. FYI I don't accept every rabbinical tradition passed down to me either. There's trememdous freedom in this approach.
Simple. Matthew 10:5