[dsc]

“You are stuck on the single issue of whether it was possible that the manuscript could have started in another language.”

I’m not “stuck” on it; that was the topic of discussion.

“I am arguing from the standpoint that saying it "may have been" or that "it was with x degree of certainty"

Here’s a quote from your first post in this thread, No. 17:

“You should go read Michael Crichton's recent article on junk science. There is not a shred of supportable evidence of any factual kind that supports Matthew having been written originally in anything other than greek. Nor was there a need for it to be written in other than Greek. The claim that it was written in Aramaic arose out of a need to support another claim that has since been surrendered. It also arose out of an ignorance of Chaldee.”

Doesn’t support your version of events.

“Many would very much like to replace both Petra and Petros with Kephas. The Result is then to emasculate the meaning of two separate words and render them gender neutral and nearly meaning neutral in order to support a claim that heretofore has been absolutely unsupportable because the language in the greek is so clear.”

And you are trying to make the gender specificity of Greek the defining issue, when it didn’t exist in the original Aramaic spoken by Our Lord.

“In essence, it's like arguing that the US constitution was written originally in piglatin in order to try and do away with freedom of speach through supplanting a less specific word or phraseology in the prior claimed language to skewer the freedom and allow abridgement of it.”

Didn’t follow the link to the Tim Staples article, eh? Your argument is lying down at the crossroads with a stake through its heart.

Anyway, you have the logic backwards. In English, we have two first person singular pronouns: I and me. They are differentiated grammatically but not semantically. Japanese has a whole slew of them, and they have significant differences. For instance, the “I” in the title of the famous Japanese novel “I am a Cat” is in Japanese “wagahai,” which is used only by royalty and never, never, never by anyone else. Even a using it in a joke—and I’m the only one I ever heard try—is regarded as questionable taste.

That specificity cannot be expressed in English. But what we’re talking about is the reverse of this. We’re talking about going from less specificity to more, as if one were translating the pronoun “I” from English into Japanese. No matter which of the several Japanese pronouns the translator selects—watashi, watakushi, washi, boku, ore, etc.—the constellation of implications inherent in the Japanese pronoun cannot be assigned in reverse to the original "I" used in English.

We can't say, "Oh, it says "washi" so the guy was talking like an old grandfather," or "It says "boku," so the guy was talking like a young boy," or "It says "ore" so the guy was talking like a tough guy." None of those assumptions would be valid.

All we can do is go back to the original and examine it in context.

IOW, the word for rock used in the Greek doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. It must be—it can only be—the original word for rock Our Lord spoke in Aramaic that yields His meaning.

I asked you to support your claim that there are—how many did you say? A dozen?—different words for rock in Aramaic. So far, it seems you haven’t gotten around to that. I’ve only found mention of two—evna and cephas or kephas—and, as the Staples article says, "…just as Greek has a word for 'small stone,' lithos, so does Aramaic. That word is evna. But Jesus did not change Simon's name to Evna, He named him Kephas, which translates as Petros, and means a large rock."

The rest of your anti-papist arguments are equally moribund, so I’ll skip over them.

“Petra throughout the entire NT is always used to denote immovable rock structures. Petros as a word is moveable rock on a smaller scale”

Hmmm. I’m looking at my Word Study Greek-English New Testament, and *all* the listings for “petros” are references to Peter by name. Looks like we don’t have the NT using “petra” for “immovable rock structures” and “petros” for “boulders and rocks that can be lifted by hand.” Looks rather like Staples is right: “Petros is simply the masculine form of the feminine Greek noun petra. Like Spanish and French, Greek nouns have gender. So when the female noun petra, large rock, was used as Simon's name, it was rendered in the masculine form as petros. Otherwise, calling him Petra would have been like calling him Michelle instead of Michael, or Louise instead of Louis… Protestant Greek scholars like D.A. Carson and Joseph Thayer admit there is no distinction in meaning between petros and petra in the Koine Greek of the New Testament… [Joseph H. Thayer, Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996), 507; D.A. Carson, "Matthew," in Frank E. Gaebelein, ed., The Expositor's Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), vol. 8, 368.] As you pointed out, petra means a 'rock.' It even usually means a 'large rock.' And that's exactly what petros means, too — large rock. It does not mean 'pebble' or 'small stone,' as you've been told. The Greek word for 'pebble' or 'small stone' is lithos, not petros.”

“'you are petros and upon this petra' doesn't literally work for the language either in greek or in english because it isn't what's being said.”

What works is what Our Lord actually said: I’m giving you the new name “Rock,” and upon this rock I will build my church.

“The word translated "and" is a conjunctive that can also mean a number of other things - among them "but".

If you’re not going to examine the arguments your correspondents post, you really ought to stop making implications about other peoples’ honesty.

Again from the Staples article: "Also, when a demonstrative pronoun is used with the Greek word for 'and,' which is 'kai,' the pronoun refers back to the preceding noun. In other words, when Jesus says, 'You are rock, and on this rock I will build My Church,' the second rock He refers to has to be the same rock as the first one. Peter is the rock in both cases.

"Jesus could have gotten around it if He'd wanted to. He didn't have to say, 'And,' kai, 'on this rock I will build My Church.' He could've said, 'But,' alla, 'on this rock I will build My Church,' meaning another rock. He would have then had to explain who or what this other rock was. But He didn't do that."

“Absent the word meanings, a lot of error can be sold and has been.”

Yes. To you.

“Along with a lot of…bad will.”

I don’t feel any bad will toward you.

[Havoc]

Ok, so much to say. Saying maybe and saying definitely so are not one in the same thing. Which you have seen me arguing all through this exchange. What you did in reply to my last post was to throw the entire conversation out the window in favor of how you could color a single post. That is nothing if not decietful. You are arguing on the side of certainty equating to a factual translation existing absent the translation. I am arguing from a standpoint of strong opinion being nice but not conclusive and not therefore a factual substitute for having an actual prior text in front of us for evidentiary value. But you should talk to the Mormons, I'm sure they'd love the case you're trying to make.

And you are trying to make the gender specificity of Greek the defining issue, when it didn’t exist in the original Aramaic spoken by Our Lord.

No, I'm merely stating that Gender specificity is one more thing on the block that differentiates in Greek. The thing that you're couching and trying to dance around is the most obvious brought on by the conversation and the simple fact that petros has it's own meaning aside from petra. The words are different in their specific meaning. It's like having one word Man (that means specifically "male", but generically, human) and another word woman, (that means specifically female, but generically, human) and saying that there is no difference between the words because they both mean Human. This is the stretch that you are making. As a language professional, it is dishonest and decietful.

Furthermore, we have to ask a simple question, why the two words? It is the underlying question that must be answered.

First to say that two words aren't supported in the aramaic, we have to rule that there are no aramaic words for mountain or cliff which are meanings applied to petra in scripture. There are words in Aramaic for mountain, and for cliff. In fact, go here and plug the word mountain into the search and for me it pulls up 14 words. Put in Cliff and it gives 2, that's 16 and we've barely gotten started.

So, we must also look at the references in the NT:

Matt 7:24-25 "Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his hous upon a rock (Petra). [25] And the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock(Petra)."

Matthew 16:18 "And I say also unto thee, that thou art Petros and upon this Petra I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail."

Matthew 27:60 "And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock (petra); and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed."

Mark 15:46 "And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock(petra), and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre." -- see matthew 27:60 above.

Luke 6:48 "He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundatin on a rock(petra!); and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock(petra)." -- dug deep (ie bedrock).

Luke 8:6 "And some fell upon a rock(petra); and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away because it lacked moisture."

Luke 8:13 "They on the rock(petra)are they, which, when they hear receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away."

Romans 9:33 "As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and a rock(petra) of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed."

1 Cor 10:4 "And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock(petra) that followed them: and that Rock(petra) was Christ."

1 Peter 2:8 "And a stone of stumbling and a rock(petra) of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed."

Petros has it's own seperate meaning - and not because it's being used as a name. The word predated the usage as a name. Just as every one else here has a name which means something in the language from which it comes. The word doesn't lose meaning or usage just because it is used also for a name elsewhere. If there had been some reason to assume no difference intended, the author could have simply said petros twice. He didn't. Masculinity/femininity arguments are worthless as this is state of being. The sentence structure is modified for the gender of the state of being word used. The sentence structure is gender modified to support the differentiation in use. And, simply put, it would not have been problematic to call Peter by the name Petra, if that had been what was intended. For all the arguing about the appropriatness of using a fem. gender word to name someone, it didn't bother the Apostles a whit to refer to Jesus a masculine gender male as Petra. So one wonders why it is appropriate to call one man petra and not another. Peter is never referred to as petra - only as petros.

One can't say the difference doesnt' exist in Aramaic; because it does. Petra is used to denote mountains, cliffs, seplechres, bedrock, etc and some of those examples are in scripture that I've posted just now. Petros is not used properly to refer to this things. Petros would be a "piece of" a mass, not a mass. If a cliff side fractures and falls to the ground, the loose rock that falls is petros, the cliff itself is petra. One grounded one not. The passage doesn't say 'you are petros and upon this petros' which would be proper. Remember this is a state of being language where love is love is love; but all love isn't the same, thus there are like a bazillion different words meaning love in Greek to differentiate between the kinds of love.

The last point I would make is that Christ spoke at a minimum, three languages. Aramaic, Chaldee, and Greek. Christ had a skilled trade, remember, and the trade language was Greek. This is also the son of God who was filled with the spirit and displayed their gifts. Tongues is one of those gifts - the ability to speak in other languages. So to say that Christ spoke in Aramaic therefore the entire text must have been written in Aramaic is rather absurd. Indeed, one would have to find such telltale signs in every manuscript in the entire NT anytime Christ is quoted in order to sustain such a charge. It is not the case. From a scientific background, I cannot say that the text was not written prior in Aramaic. But I cannot either say that it was because it is somehow intuitive - it is not. The possibility doesn't make it a forgone conclusion. Nor does it produce the original text that it may be scrutinized for clarity.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But neither is presence of evidence, evidence of presence. An axiom learned from long study of Archeology and Egyptology. The point of scientific methodology is to keep people from selling silly notions instead of facts. Such silly notions are things like dilute whiskey is a cureall and perfect spot remover. It allows us to seperate the fanciful from the factual so that we don't have people running off at every notion - like say that Paul was the Greatest of the Apostles and led the others because he alone was chosen as a minister specifically to the Gentiles - the largest group of people on the planet, he was chosen by christ for that office, he was given direct authority to open the doors to the Gentiles, his writings far outweigh in number and impact those of all the others, He had the authority in him to correct Peter when Peter went into error... See how easily such nonsense gets started. All it takes is someone coloring a situation and reading more into it than is there and error is born. It is the goal of science to clarify by searching for facts - the testable and knowable - so that one may say certain things are true beyond a doubt and some things might be true or false but are not proveable either way and that finally some things are utterly false. As Humans we want to act on what is true beyond a doubt, investigate that which is not proven, and abstain from that which is false. So while it is instructive to say that it's possible Bethoven finished his unfinished symphony, it is'nt proper to sit down and finish it and present that as the finished work. While Fermat may have finished and misplaced his full last theorem, it isn't proper to sit down and write out on paper one's opinion of what that might have been and then say it was. It is no more proper to sit down and write something out in Aramaic and pretend it was the original for something that doesn't exist as an original but that became a Greek version. Absent an actual original, the only thing there is - is speculation. Some of that speculation may be good or bad. But it is nonetheless speculation - not fact. testing theory is testing theory - it is not the end result.