[hosepipe]

[ First you say it was "the", not "this". You were unfortunately wrong, and you were called on it. ]

I said it was "A" rock not "THE" rock... big difference..
I said Nothing about "THIS" anything..
We might be on the same page here..

[AnAmericanMother]

My apologies. Of course you said "a". In this passage, it's neither "the" NOR "a".

There IS no "a" (indefinite article) in Greek. If the speaker means "a", he uses no article at all (you can't tell the difference in Greek between "rock" and "a rock"; they are the same).

In this passage, Christ doesn't say "the" -- he says "this very" - the word tauth -transliterated taute - you may recognize it from our word tautology. It means "the same". It's intensified with the demonstrative pronoun th , so it's not just "this rock" - it's "this very same rock right here". Don't see how he could be much more emphatic than that. It just isn't possible that he meant "a" rock.