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I have no intention of answering all this over Christmas, but a couple of quick points:

“Only a completely biased reading of Church history could come up with a wild statement like this. Did you not notice that only Simon was given a new name as he accepted a new ministry (i.e. prime minister—the “al bayt”) and the Keys of the Kingdom; and like Eliakim in Isaiah 22:22ff, he would “be a father” (Latin: “Papa”, from where we get “Pope”) to God’s people; what he opened, no one would shut, and what he shut, no one would open?”

You get all that from: “17And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”?????????????

Apart from the keys of heaven, the other promises were made to others as well - and there is nothing new about interpreting the keys as what Peter did at Pentecost and Cornelius’s house - opening heaven to the Jews first, and then the Gentiles. See Matt 18:”18Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” and John 20: “19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came...And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

It is safe to say, at an absolute minimum, that if Jesus MEANT all you say, he could have prevented a lot of confusion by simply saying it. But what Jesus said was “ “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Maybe you think that sounds like he was setting Peter up as his Vicar, but no one else seems to have caught it.

“He rejected it as INSPIRED Scripture (i.e. worthy of being in the Biblical canon, written by an Apostle), and he claimed that it flatly contradicted St. Paul (William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series, The Letters of James and Peter, Revised Edition, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 1976, p. 7)”

Simply not true. See here for a good review:

http://tquid.sharpens.org/Luther_%20canon.htm

“Then why not SAY that? Did you miss the reactions of horror and disgust from the crowd when they first started to argue? “How can this man give us His FLESH to eat?!?” It’s patently obvious that this is the focal point of the crowd’s resistance...I’ll note that you’d have to ignore a great deal of John 6, and twist the meaning of much of the rest, to avoid the fact that the John 6 crowd was upset about Jesus’ “hard saying” about “giving His Flesh to eat”. Do you seriously not see this?”

What I see is that Jesus didn’t TRY to keep them, because he KNEW they didn’t believe. What I see is that bread was brought up, not in reference to the Lord’s Supper (that NO ONE THERE had ever heard of) but in response to the Jew’s question: “26Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life...30So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

It isn’t open to discussion or debate about why Jesus brought up bread. It is in the text itself.

Nor is there any dispute about the objection of the Jews - and it WASN’T cannibalism, unless you think Peter approved of cannibals. There objection is recorded here:

“41So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

They KNEW he wasn’t being literal about his flesh, but they ALSO knew he was claiming to have come from heaven. And Peter understood it too: “we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

Please don’t pretend the Jews were upset over cannibalism. If THAT had been the objection, Peter would have objected as well! The objected is recorded in the text. They objected to Jesus being the Holy One of God, while Peter and others believed.

There was never a hint of the Eucharist in John 6. It wasn’t why Jesus used the metaphor, and the Jews were not objecting to cannibalism. There isn’t anything to argue with you about. It is in the text.

“I don’t worry much about where scripture is disputed in interpretation. / (!) I’m not quite sure what to say, in reply to that. You do realize that this approach would neutralize the vast majority of the Bible, don’t you?”

If I had NO concern, I wouldn’t debate you, would I? My point is that many of the things we can argue about (did Mary remain a virgin?) are pretty stupid, really. In Romans 14, Paul makes my point - the same Paul who rebuked Peter over the content of the gospel.