Did Peter Really Found the Church in Rome? (vIDEO)

Welcome to the home of Episode 161 of the Misquoting Jesus Podcast with Bart Ehrman. Below, you can watch the entire episode, read its description, and see links to related resources.

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episode description

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In Episode 161, Bart Ehrman examines the traditional claim that the Apostle Peter founded the Christian church in Rome and became its first bishop. The historical evidence, he argues, is surprisingly thin. Paul’s letter to the Romans, probably written in the early 60s, describes a substantial Christian community in Rome but never mentions Peter—even though Paul knew Peter personally and greets more than 25 Roman Christians by name. The earliest sources connecting Peter with Rome, including 1 Peter and 1 Clement, are later and do not establish that Peter founded the Roman church. Later church traditions increasingly connected Peter with Rome, Ehrman argues, because claiming apostolic succession provided churches with greater authority.

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The episode also explores how the Roman church may actually have originated through ordinary travelers and converts rather than a single founder, as well as the gradual development of church hierarchy.

In the listener Q&A, Ehrman discusses exorcism, competing scholarly portraits of the historical Jesus, whether the New Testament resembles fantasy literature, Stoicism’s influence on Christianity, and how widespread apocalyptic beliefs were among Jews in Jesus’ time.

Key takeaway: The traditional Peter-as-founder story appears to be a later development rather than something firmly established by the earliest evidence.