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Which of course must be considered.

An alternate thesis is that in the verse I provided Christ is clearly speaking to Peter, and in the earlier verses no distinction is made once he makes the observation that Peter is "peeble." The case can just as easily be made that Christ was referring to himself as the Rock....

An alternate thesis is that in the verse I provided Christ is clearly speaking to Peter, and in the earlier verses no distinction is made once he makes the observation that Peter is "peeble." The case can just as easily be made that Christ was referring to himself as the Rock....

You think anybody gives a rat's behind
'bout that alternate thing you got?

...in the earlier verses no distinction is made once he makes the observation that Peter is "peeble."

If you are suggesting Peter (Gk: Petros) means "pebble" or "little stone", you are relying on an outdated and faulty analysis. As Greek scholars — even non-Catholic ones — now admit, the words petros and petra were synonyms in first century Koine Greek, the Greek of the New Testament. (How the "little stone" translation crept in is a fascinating tangent, but it's too long and off point for here). In Koine Greek, both petros and petra simply meant "rock." If Jesus had wanted to call Simon a small stone, the Greek lithos would have been used. (For an Evangelical Protestant Greek scholar’s admission of this, see D. A. Carson, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984], Frank E. Gaebelein, ed., 8:368).

Further, we know that Jesus spoke Aramaic, and, as John 1:42 tells us, in everyday life he actually referred to Peter as Kepha or Cephas (depending on how it is transliterated). It is that term which is then translated into Greek as petros. And what does Kepha mean? It means "a large, massive stone", the same as petra. (It doesn’t mean a little stone or a pebble—the Aramaic word for that is evna.)

The case can just as easily be made that Christ was referring to himself as the Rock....

Not that I have seen. The linguistic, syntactic, and grammatic evidence all say otherwise.