Author and Audience

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1 Peter: Author and Audience

Who wrote the book?

Internal: Peter (1.1a) Author refers to himself as an elder and an eye-witness to the sufferings of Christ (5.1) Author claims to have written with the help of Silvanus (5.12) External: The apostle Peter wrote it through Silas. Conclusion: Since the text is clear about the author, and even getting into specifics, and outside sources agree, there is no reason to think anyone other than Peter the apostle wrote this letter.

Where was it written? Internal: Peter sends greetings from their sister church in “Babylon” (5:13). External: Most scholars think 1 Peter was written in Rome. Babylon (which had come to symbolize a big, powerful, evil city) was substituted as a kind of code name for Rome in much early Christian literature (Rev 14:8, 16:19, 17:5, 18:2,10,11; 2 Bar 10:1-2, 11:1, 67:7). Readers of 1 Peter and Revelation understood Babylon to refer to Rome, the center of power which at times could (and did) pose a threat to the Christian community. In subsequent generations however, church leaders have used the name Babylon as a designation for any major city or country considered to be a center of forces for evil.

Conclusion It makes more sense for it to be written from Rome, as the city of Babylon was never mentioned as a place that the church had spread to, and considering that early church tradition says that Peter was in Rome when he was martyred. Therefore, I would place the geographical location as being Rome.

To whom was it written? Internal: “To the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia,” (1:1b) Seems to be mostly Gentile believers (1.14,18; 2.9-10; 4.3-4).

External: Who would this be? Who is of the Dispersion? Peter uses a lot of imagery and illustrations, even in referring to his location of authorship. So the way that he addresses this letter could be a similar literary technique. Historically for a Jew, the dispersion was what happened when Jews were launched into exile by the Babylonians. More recently, there was a dispersion of Christians from Jerusalem after the murder of Stephen. This idea of being exiled was common in Jewish thought, and Peter was a Jew. The exiles of the dispersion is a play on the Jewish diaspora, as strangers or exiles in the world. He considers them as exiles, aliens, and strangers throughout the book, to communicate to a suffering reader that earth is a foreign land to them, that their real home is in heaven.6

Conclusion: It doesn’t make sense that Peter would be writing to literal exiles from Jewish history or even those dispersed after Stephen’s death, since he seems to be writing more directly to a Gentile audience. Therefore his use of the word dispersion and exile is a literary technique to help the OR in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia to understand the reality of their true home.