PETER SENT TO ROME IS
TOTAL NONSENSE!
PART II
PETER SENT TO ROME
IS TOTAL NONSENSE!
PART II
JAN LILLEBY
Peter’s whereabouts was the focus of the first part in this article-series.
We found out that he never left Israel to arrive at Rome. Peter in Rome, - that is a pure human fantasy and not Biblical facts. I will narrow it down to Roman Catholic legends, since they are the ones to propagate such a theory as if it is a Biblical and historical fact.
This Part II of my article is to display more specifically what Acts 9:33 means, quote:
“Now as Peter was traveling throughout the land, he went down to [visit] the saints (God’s people) who lived at Lydda.”
There were more places inside Israel which Peter went to, or could have visited in his travelling around.
Notice that the words indicate to us that Lydda as well as Joppa thereafter, were just two of those towns he went to. They are specifically named in Acts because of the great miracles God performed through Peter’s ministry. Peter might just as well have done other kind of healings/miracles in the other towns, but probably not so astonishing as the healing of Aeneas and the raising of Tabitha from the dead. The only other apostle mentioned in Acts, raising a dead person up, is Paul (Acts 20:7-12).
To be sure to supply the reader with as correct information as possible, I have taken the liberty to ‘zizzor’ from Wikipedia a substantial paragraph naming the most important towns in the time of the apostles. Towns that most probably had Messianic believers among the population – just like Joppa, Samaria, Caesarea and Lydda which are recorded by Luke, the author of the Book of Acts.
This just goes to utterly confirm that Peter’s travelling was never outside of Israel. This must be the final conclusion – and it dismisses sternly the fabricated ‘history’ of Peter having arrived at Rome in the first century.
Just the mere idea of Peter (and the other eleven) ever having travelled outside to preach to the Gentile nations/provinces is feeble speculation.
Matthew 28 and the Great Commission has been translated very incomplete and is a source of misleading most Bible students. The commission goes only for preaching inside of Israel’s land.
Again, the recorded history of the apostles in the Acts confirms to us that their mission was only for the nation Israel, as they offered the Second Advent of Christ, to come establish His Kingdom on earth, with His throne on Zion. Peter had all the opportunity in the world to take the first ship out of there, and set course for Greece, or some other nation by the Mediterranean coasts. But he didn’t. He never decided for himself to leave Israel, neither was he directed or told by Christ to go to foreign lands to preach. Peter was not taken by force and sent to Rome neither. Luke would have written if Peter was arrested and sent abroad.
He was only commissioned to go to Israel. Acts confirms this in many ways. Check out the list below and get learned in Biblical geography…it could really come handy!
Peter must have visited several of these towns – which are: Gadara, Amathus, Jericho, Sepphoris, Gophna, Akrabatta, Thamna, Lod (Lydda), Emmaus, Pella, Idumaea, Ein Gedi, Herodeion. In addition to these, he might as well have visited his hometown Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee, we can just speculate. Peter’s wife is only mentioned indirectly in Luke 4:38-40, as we learn that Jesus healed his mother in law of Typhus fever. It is probable that Peter’s wife was still alive 36 CE, even his mother in law. Why not go to visit them? On route up to Galilee he might have come by through Samaria, where he and John had been earlier to assist Philip (Acts 8). Peter must have had lots of friends/believers in Christ there.
Wikipedia web on Early Roman period
See also: Judaea (Roman province)
Judea lost its independence to the Romans in the 1st century BCE, becoming first a tributary kingdom, then a province, of the Roman Empire. The Romans had allied themselves to the Maccabees and interfered again in 63 BCE, at the end of the Third Mithridatic War, when the proconsul Pompey ("Pompey the Great") stayed behind to make the area secure for Rome, including his siege of Jerusalem in 63 BCE. Queen Salome Alexandra had recently died, and a civil war broke out between her sons, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. Pompeius restored Hyrcanus but political rule passed to the Herodian dynasty, who ruled as client kings.
In 6 CE, Judea came under direct Roman rule as the southern part of the province of Judaea, although Jews living there still maintained some form of independence and could judge offenders by their own laws, including capital offences, until c. 28 CE.[25] The province of Judea, during the late Hellenistic period and early Roman Empire was also divided into five conclaves: Jerusalem, Gadara, Amathus, Jericho, and Sepphoris,[26] and during the Roman period had eleven administrative districts (toparchies): Jerusalem, Gophna, Akrabatta, Thamna, Lod, Emmaus, Pella, Idumaea, Ein Gedi, Herodeion, and Jericho.[27]
END OF WIKIPEDIA QUOTE
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