What is meant i 1Peter 5:13

[ryarn]

13The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son.

Was there a church at Babylon or did he mean Rome ? or Jerusalem?

 

[canadyjd]

Probably Rome

 

[rlvaughn]

Rome seems to be the most common interpretation, but it seems odd that there is no other biblical evidence that Peter was ever in Rome, and Paul never mentioned it.
Matthew Poole's Commentary:

The church that is at Babylon; Babylon in Chaldea, where it is most probable the apostle was at the writing of this Epistle; the Jews being very numerous in those parts, as having settled themselves there ever since the captivity, and Peter being an apostle of the circumcision, his work lay much thereabout. The papists would have Babylon here to be Rome, as Revelation 17:1-18...

John Gill's Commentary:

Some, by "Babylon", understand Rome, which is so called, in a figurative sense, in the book of the Revelations: this is an ancient opinion; so Papias understood it, as (e) Eusebius relates; but that Peter was at Rome, when he wrote this epistle, cannot be proved, nor any reason be given why the proper name of the place should be concealed, and a figurative one expressed. It is best therefore to understand it literally, of Babylon in Assyria, the metropolis of the dispersion of the Jews, and the centre of it, to whom the apostle wrote; and where, as the minister of the circumcision, he may be thought to reside, here being a number of persons converted and formed into a Gospel church state, whereby was fulfilled the prophecy in Psalm 87:4 perhaps this church might consist chiefly of Jews, which might be the reason of the apostle's being here, since there were great numbers which continued here, from the time of the captivity, who returned not with Ezra...

• Paul is silent with respect to Peter being in the city of Rome. Covering quite a period of years, Paul wrote one letter to the church in Rome, and at least five were written from Rome (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon and 2 Timothy). In these letters to the church at Rome or writing from Rome to others, Paul never mentions Peter. (Yet both Paul and Peter mention one another in letters.) In his last days in Rome, only Luke was with Paul (2 Timothy 4:10-11).
• The letter to the disbursed Hebrews was written from Italy (Hebrews 13:24). Peter is not mentioned.
• Paul’s journey to the city of Rome is recorded by Luke in Acts 27 and 28 without any mention of Peter.
• Peter was an apostle to the Jews (Galatians 2:7-8) and Paul was an apostle to the Gentiles (Romans 11:13). The city of Rome is a Gentile city.
• The word "Rome" occurs nine times in the English New Testament -- Acts 2:10; 18:2; 19:21; 23:11; 28:14,16; Romans 1:7,15; 2 Timothy 1:17. Peter is never mentioned in connection with it.

These five points don't determine where or what Babylon was in 1 Peter 5:13, but does give some reason for believing it was not Rome.

 

[kyredneck]

13The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son.

Was there a church at Babylon or did he mean Rome ? or Jerusalem?

Jerusalem. 'Babylon, the great city' is "where also their Lord was crucified":

8 And their dead bodies lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. Rev 11

19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and Babylon the great was remembered in the sight of God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. Rev 16
18 And the woman whom thou sawest is the great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth. Rev 17
10 standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
21 And a strong angel took up a stone as it were a great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with a mighty fall shall Babylon, the great city, be cast down, and shall be found no more at all.
24 And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that have been slain upon the earth. [Matthew 23:34-37] Rev 18

Since Peter was apostle to the Jews and a pillar of the Church at Jerusalem it wouldn't be surprising that he never left Jerusalem.

 

[HankD]

13The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son.

Was there a church at Babylon or did he mean Rome ? or Jerusalem?

 

[ryarn]

I always thought Rome or Jerusalem but leaned more towards Jerusalem. I think in Revelation Jerusalem just might be the whore that rides the beast, a false church in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem area has 7 hills just like Rome.

 

[rlvaughn]

Jerusalem. 'Babylon, the great city' is "where also their Lord was crucified":...
Since Peter was apostle to the Jews and a pillar of the Church at Jerusalem it wouldn't be surprising that he never left Jerusalem.

I always thought Rome or Jerusalem but leaned more towards Jerusalem....

Unlike Rome, at least we know that he was in Jerusalem.

 

[kyredneck]

Unlike Rome, at least we know that he was in Jerusalem.

Concerning 1 Peter 5:13 "her that is in Babylon"; excerpts (note particularly the last one) from Edersheim 'The Life And Times Of Jesus The Messiah', Book 1, Chapter 1,THE JEWISH WORLD IN THE DAYS OF CHRIST - THE JEWISH DISPERSION IN THE EAST

"...Nor were such the feelings of the Palestinian Jews only. These indeed were now a minority. The majority of the nation constituted what was known as the dispersion; a term which, however, no longer expressed its original meaning of banishment by the judgment of God,12 since absence from Palestine was now entirely voluntary. But all the more that it referred not to outward suffering,13 did its continued use indicate a deep feeling of religious sorrow, of social isolation, and of political strangership14 in the midst of a heathen world. For although, as Josephus reminded his countrymen,15 there was ‘no nation in the world which had not among them part of the Jewish people,’ since it was ‘widely dispersed over all the world among its inhabitants,’16 yet they had nowhere found a real home...."

"... Philo tells its deepest ground, and that of Israel’s loneliness in the heathen world, when speaking, like the others, of his countrymen as in ‘all the cities of Europe, in the provinces of Asia and in the islands,’ he describes them as, wherever sojourning, having but one metropolis - not Alexandria, Antioch, or Rome - but ‘the Holy City with its Temple, dedicated to the Most High God.’21 A nation, the vast majority of which was dispersed over the whole inhabited earth, had ceased to be a special, and become a world-nation.22 Yet its heart beat in Jerusalem, and thence the life-blood passed to its most distant members. And this, indeed, if we rightly understand it, was the grand object of the ‘Jewish dispersion’ throughout the world...."

"...Far other was the estimate in which the Babylonians were held by the leaders of Judaism. Indeed, according to one view of it, Babylonia, as well as ‘Syria’ as far north as Antioch, was regarded as forming part of the land of Israel.30 Every other country was considered outside ‘the land,’ as Palestine was called, with the exception of Babylonia, which was reckoned as part of it.31 For Syria and Mesopotamia, eastwards to the banks of the Tigris, were supposed to have been in the territory which King David had conquered, and this made them ideally for ever like the land of Israel. But it was just between the Euphrates and the Tigris that the largest and wealthiest settlements of the Jews were, to such extent that a later writer actually designated them ‘the land of Israel.’ Here Nehardaa, on the Nahar Malka, or royal canal, which passed from the Euphrates to the Tigris, was the oldest Jewish settlement. It boasted of a Synagogue, said to have been built by King Jechoniah with stones that had been brought from the Temple.32 In this fortified city the vast contributions intended for the Temple were deposited by the Eastern Jews, and thence conveyed to their destination under escort of thousands of armed men. Another of these Jewish treasure-cities was Nisibis, in northern Mesopotamia. Even the fact that wealth, which must have sorely tempted the cupidity of the heathen, could be safely stored in these cities and transported to Palestine, shows how large the Jewish population must have been, and how great their general influence.

In general, it is of the greatest importance to remember in regard to this Eastern dispersion, that only a minority of the Jews, consisting in all of about 50,000, originally returned from Babylon, first under Zerubbabel and afterwards under Ezra.33 Nor was their inferiority confined to numbers. The wealthiest and most influential of the Jews remained behind. According to Josephus,34 with whom Philo substantially agrees, vast numbers, estimated at millions, inhabited the Trans-Euphratic provinces. To judge even by the number of those slain in popular risings (50,000 in Seleucia alone35), these figures do not seem greatly exaggerated. A later tradition had it, that so dense was the Jewish population in the Persian Empire, that Cyrus forbade the further return of the exiles, lest the country should be depopulated.36 So large and compact a body soon became a political power. Kindly treated under the Persian monarchy, they were, after the fall of that empire,37 favoured by the successors of Alexander. When in turn the Macedono-Syrian rule gave place to the Parthian Empire,38 the Jews formed, from their national opposition to Rome, an important element in the East. Such was their influence that, as late as the year 40 a.d., the Roman legate shrank from provoking their hostility.39..."

"...That among such a vast community there should have been poverty, and that at one time, as the Palestinians sneered, learning may have been left to pine in want, we can readily believe. For, as one of the Rabbis had it in explanation of Deut. xxx. 13: ‘Wisdom is not “beyond the sea” - that is, it will not be found among traders or merchants,’68 whose mind must be engrossed by gain. And it was trade and commerce which procured to the Babylonians their wealth and influence, although agriculture was not neglected. Their caravans - of whose camel drivers, by the way, no very flattering account is given69 - carried the rich carpets and woven stuffs of the East, as well as its precious spices, to the West: generally through Palestine to the Phoenician harbours, where a fleet of merchantmen belonging to Jewish bankers and shippers lay ready to convey them to every quarter of the world. These merchant princes were keenly alive to all that passed, not only in the financial, but in the political world. We know that they were in possession of State secrets, and entrusted with the intricacies of diplomacy. Yet, whatever its condition, this Eastern Jewish community was intensely Hebrew. Only eight days’ journey - though, according to Philo’s western ideas of it, by a difficult road70 - separated them from Palestine; and every pulsation there vibrated in Babylonia. It was in the most outlying part of that colony, in the wide plains of Arabia, that Saul of Tarsus spent those three years of silent thought and unknown labour, which preceded his re-appearance in Jerusalem, when from the burning longing to labour among his brethren, kindled by long residence among these Hebrews of the Hebrews, he was directed to that strange work which was his life’s mission.71 And it was among the same community that Peter wrote and laboured,72 amidst discouragements of which we can form some conception from the sad boast of Nehardaa, that up to the end of the third century it had not numbered among its members any convert to Christianity.73..."


"... the sad boast of Nehardaa, that up to the end of the third century it had not numbered among its members any convert to Christianity..."

 

[Van]

Certainly the RCC tradition has Peter in Rome. Certainly there are mentions of Babylon that actually refer disparagingly to Rome in scripture. And there are documents that refer to Peter in Rome that date from about 170 AD.

But, scripture does not put Peter in Rome. So as others have said before, Rome seems to be the location of "Babylon" in 1 Peter 5:13, but this is speculation and cannot be used as a basis of doctrine.