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Peter still means “rock”
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AHHHHHHHHHH

Well, yes it does...

But it doesnt mean the same size and kind of rock that Jesus is......

Jesus called Peter a cephas, a petros...

In the Greek that is not ROCK like Jesus is THE ROCK

Not BIG ROCK like Jesus is...

Whenever the word rock is used in relationship to Jesus it is Petra...a mass of rock...

Peter is from the Greek word, petros, meaning a piece of a rock

In the Old Testament, Jesus is called a rock...in the Hebrew tsuwr or tsur meaning cliff, (or sharp rock, as compressed)boulder, refuge, an edge, (as precipitous)... (mighty) God (one) rock...

Cephas or kephas, keph is Chadee..it means ...a hollow rock...

From kaphaph...to curve, bow down...

Peter is from the Greek word, petros, meaning a piece of rock.

Yes, I've heard this one before. This interpretation is based on a number of errors.

Your objection to the Catholic interpretation runs as follows; in the Greek manuscripts of Matthew Jesus calls Peter Petros and “this rock” Petra. These two words look very similar (they are, in fact, connected to each other and both mean “rock”) but they are clearly not precisely the same word. You say that this difference of words means that Peter cannot be the rock, as the word petros means “small rock” or “pebble” while petra means “large rock” or boulder. You seem to be maing an argument with one of the two points above – that the larger foundation is either Christ or Peter's faith, and that the man himself is the smaller rock; similar, but not the foundation.

This argument hinges on three vital facts;

That petros and petra really mean “small rock” and “large rock” respectively

That Christ used different words to refer to “Peter” and “this rock”

That Christ intended to differentiate between “Peter” and “this rock” in that way

However, as I will demonstrate, none of these “facts” are true! Remember, in order for this challenge to stand up, all of these facts must be true. If even one is not, then the whole argument collapses.

Firstly, do petros and petra really mean “small rock” and “large rock”? Greek scholars are almost universally agreed in saying that the words petros and petra were synonyms (words which have the same meaning) in first century Greek. The meanings "small rock" and "large rock" are only found in a number of ancient Greek poems which were composed centuries before the time of Christ. Any difference in meaning had disappeared from the language by the time Matthew’s Gospel was written (around the middle of the first century AD). In addition, the difference can only be found in Attic Greek, but the New Testament was written in Koine Greek—an entirely different dialect. In Koine Greek, both petros and petra simply meant "rock." If Jesus had wanted to call Simon a small stone in first century Koine Greek, He would have used the Greek word lithos.

Secondly, did Jesus use two different words to refer to “Peter” and “this rock”? Again, no – He did not. While the New Testament is written in Greek it was not that language that Jesus and the Apostles would have commonly spoken day to day. (There are a number of authorities who maintain that the Gospel of Matthew was not written originally in Greek, but in Aramaic. This position is based on linguistic analysis of the Greek text of the Gospel, as well as records kept by Eusebius of Caesarea.)

Greek was the common language of the first century Near- and Middle East for commerce, trade, education and international communications – but Jews in Palestine would not have spoken it when talking to each other. Jesus might have used the language to speak to non-Jews (such as Pilate) but He would not have commonly spoken to His disciples in that language. For that, He would have used Aramaic – a semitic language related to Hebrew and common in the Persian empire. A number of examples are Aramaic are cited in the New Testament as the words that Jesus actually spoke (the most famous example is “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” found in Matthew 27:46.)

So, when Jesus called Simon “Peter” (meaning “rock”) He would not have said “Peter”. He would not even have said “Petros” (from where we get the English name “Peter”). He would have used the Aramaic – a word which we find eight times in Saint Paul's epistles (four times in Galatians and four times in I Corinthians). This word is Kepha, and means “rock”. It is this word that Jesus would have used when saying “You are Peter and on this rock” - He would have said “You are Kepha and on this kepha”.

But why did Saint Matthew (or whoever translated Matthew into Greek) use different words to represent the same word in Aramaic? The answer lies in a grammatical point which is not present in English, but is present in other modern languages – such as French, Spanish and German.

Nouns in ancient Greek are gendered – that is, some of them are masculine and some are feminine. The word petra is feminine (it is used today in some parts of the world as a female version of the name Peter) and so could not be used to apply to a man like Peter (it would be like calling a man named Stephen “Stephanie”!) The male version of petra is petros – and so that is why Matthew used those words. He was trying to represent what was a perfect pun (using exactly the same words) in Aramaic using a language which did not allow him to do this. In English, virtually all of the effect is lost – few people know that Peter means “rock” - but in Greek at least some of the meaning can be preserved.

Finally, did Jesus intend to differentiate between Peter and the rock upon which He would build His Church? Some people might say that we cannot know what Jesus meant, but they would be wrong. Everything we know about Jesus comes to us through the Apostles and those the Apostles taught. So, we can learn what Jesus meant by this by looking at the Scriptural and non-Scriptural references to Peter's position and status. It is clear, from the wealth of Biblical and extra-Biblical support for the doctrine of Petrine Primacy that Jesus meant exactly what the plain sense of a literal meaning of Scripture means; You are Rock, and on this rock I will build my Church.