Oh, so you do have a secret code book. Did Peter have the same one? Did you get the secret decoder ring with it? or didn't you save up enough boxtops?
I never once said it wasn’t a real place. Why do you lie about what I said? Listen, I don’t mind you embarrassing yourself by trying to refute obviously known history, but there’s absolutely no reason to lie about what I said. I never once said there was no Babylon. I never once said that Babylon no longer existed, had no population in it, etc. Don’t lie about what I said. Do you think you can muster up the integrity to actually deal with what I said rather than making things up out of thin air?
Good --- I accept your admission of the truth that Babylon was a real place in Peter's day. So what is left to refute. Your code book is inaccurate. You should trade it in for a good encyclopedia.
Let us part company then by meditating on those famous words of the Apostle Peter from that Jewish church at that real place in Babylonia:
"The Church that is at Babylon ... greeteth you". [I Peter 5:13]
What more needs to be said. Amen.
You wrote:
"Oh, so you do have a secret code book.”
Did I claim to?
“Did Peter have the same one?”
No, Peter had common sense. Do you?
“Did you get the secret decoder ring with it? or didn't you save up enough boxtops?”
When I was no longer a child I put away childish things.
“Good --- I accept your admission of the truth that Babylon was a real place in Peter's day.”
I am glad you do. Now maybe you could explain why you were ignorant enough to insinuate I believed otherwise.
“So what is left to refute. Your code book is inaccurate. You should trade it in for a good encyclopedia.”
Got several. The ISBE, put together by Protestants, says that Babylon means Rome in 1 Peter. Vol. 1, p. 391.
“Let us part company then by meditating on those famous words of the Apostle Peter from that Jewish church at that real place in Babylonia: "The Church that is at Babylon ... greeteth you". [I Peter 5:13]. What more needs to be said. Amen.”
Well, according to at least two cursive mss. of 1 Peter 5:13 two extra words were considered necessary at that point. Those words were “en Roma”. Early Christians knew Peter was writing from Rome. Thanks to the PROTESTANT editors of the ISBE for providing that little factual gem!
When Peter writes his first epistle he addresses it to [I Peter 1:1] To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappodocia, Asia, and Bithynia who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the father. These folks were Israelites along the southern shore of the Black Sea in an area that Paul was told to stay out of [Acts 16:7]. The order in which Peter names the provinces of Asia Minor (east to west and back) clearly proves that this letter was sent from Babylon in the east....not Rome in the west.
Peter's manner of speaking and writing was not apocalyptic...it was plain...almost blunt. He would never inject anything mystical about his whereabouts. It was not until after Peter died that Rome was even suggested as a possible modern Babylon by John in chapter 17 of Revelation.
I always come back to [Acts 28:21-22] "And they said unto him, We neither received letters out of Judaea concerning thee, neither any of the brethren that came shewed or spake any harm of thee. But we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest: for as concerning this sect, we know that every where it is spoken against." These words, of course, being spoken by the leaders of the Jewish community in Rome upon Paul's arrest and arrival there. Doesn't it seem likely that these Jewish leaders would have heard more than this....about this sect.....if the Apostle Peter had been setting up the church at Rome and ostensibly recruiting Jews....because that was his responsibility [Galatians 2:7].