Why be good?

[pocaracas]

Wait, Randy... Babylon is the other way... South-East from Israel.

There's not much in the post for all your typing. If you would like to see a full-on refutation of the "Peter was never in Rome" nonsense, it's available here.

But we can be sure of this: "Babylon" in 1 Peter is code for Rome.

I'll provide you with some Protestant scholarship on the subject, and let me say that while I understand that you are an atheist with little interest in what Protestants or Catholics think, you have to keep in mind that Protestants generally have NO interest whatsoever in supporting anything that Catholics might have to say regarding the primacy of Rome - the seat of the Papacy. Consequently, what I'm presenting now is the testimony of hostile witnesses:

Protestant Scholars Admit Babylon is a Code-Word for Rome

J.N.D. Kelly

"It seems certain that Peter spent his closing years in Rome. Although the NT appears silent about such a stay, it is supported by 1 Peter 5:13, where 'BABYLON' is a code-name for ROME, and by the strong case for linking the Gospel of Mark, who as Peter's companion (1 Pet 5:13) is said to have derived its substance from him, with Rome. To early writers like Clement of Rome (c. 95), Ignatius of Antioch (c. 107), and Irenaeus (c. 180) it was common knowledge that he worked and died in Rome" (THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF POPES [Oxford Univ Press, 1988], p. 6).

Shotwell and Loomis

"The First Epistle of Peter has been the fundamental text for the contention that Peter was in Rome. Its closing salutation, 'The church that is in Babylon....saluteth you' (1 Peter v,13), refers UNDOUBTEDLY to Rome. Babylon was then in ruins, and there was no tradition for five centuries that Peter had been there, whereas the tradition connecting him with Rome is one of the STRONGEST in the Church. Babylon is used for Rome in the Sibylline Oracles and in Revelation (14:8; 16:19; 17:5; 18:2,10).....

"Upon the whole, there seems nothing improbable in the tradition and the belief of Catholic writers in St. Peter's early labors in Rome. His martyrdom there, at a later period, is vouched for by a fairly continuous line of references in the documents from Clement on" (THE SEE OF PETER [NY: Octagon Books, 1965] by James T. Shotwell and Louise Ropes Loomis, p. 56-57, 58-59).

New Bible Commentary

"In 5:13 the writer sends greetings from 'she who is in Babylon, chosen together with you'. This seems like a reference to the local church in Babylon, but it is unlikely that Peter would have gone to the former capital of Nebuchadnezzar's empire.

"By Peter's time it was a sparsely inhabited ruin (fulfilling Isaiah 14:23). In Rev 16:19 and 17:5 'Babylon' is used as a cryptic name for Rome, and Col 4:10 and Phm 24 (most likely written in Rome) show that Mark was there with Paul. In 2 Tim 4:11 Mark is in Asia Minor, and Paul sends for him to come, most probably to Rome."

"The fact that neither Peter nor Paul mentions the other in the list of those sending greetings from Rome merely suggests that they were not together at the time of writing their letters. All this points to the theory that Peter was writing from Rome, which is supported by the evidence of Tertullian (praescrip haeret, 36) and Eusebius (Eccl History, 2.25.8; 2.15.2 and 3.1.2-3)" (NEW BIBLE COMMENTARY [Intervarsity Press, 1994], p. 1370 edited by Donald Guthrie with D.A. Carson, R.T. France, J.A. Motyer, and G.J. Wenham).

I'm no scholar of the subject, so... I'm going to cherry-pick what someone else has written (these guys also seem to be christian):
http://www.biblestudytools.com/commentar...-rome.html

Although evidence for the identification of Babylon with Rome may initially appear convincing, upon careful examination it becomes clear that Babylon cannot mean Rome. Those who propose that Babylon be understood as a code name for Rome often point to evidence of such use in early extra-biblical writings: 1Pe. 5:13 as well) Rome is called Babylon.]”6 However, such evidence is inconclusive because these other writings date much later than the book of Revelation: “Often supporters of the symbolic view use the Sibylline Oracles (V. 143, 159, 434) and the Apocalypse of Baruch (11:1; 67:7) to prove that Babylon was a code name for Rome (Swete, Charles, Ladd), but the composition of these two works came in the second century, quite a while after John wrote Revelation.”7 Some assert that Peter’s use of the term Babylon (1Pe. 1Pe. 5:13) must point to Rome. But this is an argument from silence. It is also possible to take Peter’s mention of Babylon as denoting the city on the banks of the Euphrates, which served as a center of Jewry beyond the time of Peter’s writing (see Babylon’s Historic Fall).8 The Babylon is Rome view also fails to explain passages in the OT which designate Babylon as the place of final judgment. Identifying Babylon as Rome implies that God gave numerous prophecies utilizing a code name which would not obtain its true meaning until hundreds of years later. Thus, the prophecies given to the original recipients could not be understood using the normal meaning of terms with which they were familiar. Such a view violates the rules of historical-grammatical interpretation and turns the interpretation of prophetic passages into a guessing game

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Wait a minute, wasn't this Simon of Cyrene in Rome?
And what did he convert to? He saw a dying (or already dead) man nailed to a cross. There was no christianity, then...

Simon of Cyrene was the man forced to carry Jesus' cross because Jesus had been beaten so badly by the Roman soldiers that He did not have the strength to do so. Mark mentions it here:

Mark 15:21
A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross.

Why would Mark throw in such an insignificant detail? Because the audience for whom his gospel was written (he wrote from Rome, remember) KNEW RUFUS PERSONALLY.

So, what we can gather from Mark and Paul is that as a result of his encounter with Jesus, Simon eventually became a Christian as did his wife and son, Rufus.

And when does Paul mention Rufus? In his letter to which church? The Church in Rome where Rufus was living - a church, by the way, which Paul did not know personally at the time of his writing that epistle.

So, we see that Mark and Paul, independently of one another, mention Rufus' name in their respective writings. This is an example of the internal evidence that points to the historical reliability of the New Testament.

There are other examples, of course.

hmm...
Let me see if I got this straight...
Rufus was in Jerusalem to help out J.C. carry his cross.
He then moved out to Rome (with Peter?) where he lived out his life as a believer and was someone other romans could resort to as someone who could verify the account given to them by Paul (written, at least, 30 years after the events that Rufus witnessed as, at least, a teenager).

How could Paul know Rufus?
How was Rufus still alive at the time of Paul's writing?