1 Peter 5:13
1 Peter 5:1313The church in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you greetings, as does my son Mark.
Even Watchtower publications acknowledge that 's "Babylon" is a symbolic reference to literal Rome. The Insight on the Scriptures entry on "Babylon" notes that Peter likely wrote from the imperial capital and cloaked it under the prophetic name. In the rs framing of the Babylon-the-Great question, this admission sits uncomfortably alongside the standard claim that Babylon in Revelation is not a city at all but "the world empire of false religion."
This verse is the key that unlocks the Babylon-the-Great argument at the door. If Peter can call Rome "Babylon" in a first-century letter, then John's use of "Babylon the Great" in Revelation — written in the same era, to the same kind of persecuted church, using the same imperial-capital imagery — has an obvious candidate: Rome. The angel himself in tells John the woman is "the great city that has a kingdom over the kings of the earth." Combine + , and the "world empire of false religion" reading loses its text-level anchor. Ask your JW friend gently: "Your own Insight book agrees Peter's Babylon is Rome. Why is John's Babylon a concept rather than a city, when both writers use the same code-word and the angel in actually calls it a city?" Let the text tension do the teaching.