Posted on 06/02/2018 6:34:56 AM PDT by Salvation
That's a bogus argument which has been thoroughly discredited even by Protestant Bible scholars. "Petra" ("rock") belongs to a feminine declension. To make it a man's name ("Rocky"), you have to move it to a masculine declension and it then becomes "Petros". That's all there is to it.
The words in Aramaic ("Kepha ... kepha") are exactly the same, which is where Peter gets his other nickname, "Cephas".
If the author does not know or will not admit that this is the real issue then he’s either too uneducated to opine or too dishonest to address the truth. ‘B,’ is far more likely.
Your charity needs work.
You weren't there and you don't know.
Eusebius quotes Papias, who lived, oh 1900 years closer to the events in question than you or I do and no doubt knew people who knew the Apostles personally, as saying that Matthew was written (a) for Jewish converts; (b) in Jerusalem; and (c) in Hebrew.
We have it in many forms. Are you inferring that of the many forms and translations that exist today that there are no differences?
When Jesus said, “this rock”, He was referring to Peter’s confession of who Jesus was, not Peter himself.
So Augustine was wrong too.
I don’t think so.
How do you carve Peter’s confession away from Peter himself? Takes a fine fillet knife to do that.
Produce your citation, don’t just name-drop. Augustine said many things.
My question involves the oldest and best mss in existence. Do you believe the Holy Spirit caused them to be preserved in an inerrant form or an error-prone form?
Jesus is the reason for modern religions and a lot of different religions bank on their own versions of certain things that make little difference to those who worship Christ rather than their own brand(s) of religion. The Bible tried to make it uncomplicated and then men decided to complicate the heck out of it by deciding certain facts/beliefs had more validity than others' interpretations and too often, Jesus is relegated to a secondary position to the arguments.
Instead of honoring those who were honored by God, we worship and pray to dead mortals and all the while ignore that we have been given an open line, direct to God - kind of like the bit in the Bible about those worshiping the idols they made out of wood and used other parts of the same wood to make chairs and tables...how much more complicated can we make it when the message of the New Covenant is to worship God and Praise Jesus by confessing to Him that we realize our personal inadequacies and thanking Him for His incredible gift of Grace?
Augustine (354-430):
“In a passage in this book, I said about the Apostle Peter: ‘On him as on a rock the Church was built.’ . . . But I know that very frequently at a later time, I so explained what the Lord said: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,’ that it be understood as built upon Him whom Peter confessed saying: ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ and so Peter, called after this rock, represented the person of the Church which is built upon this rock, and has received ‘the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’ For, ‘Thou art Peter’ and not ‘Thou art the rock’ was said to him. But ‘the rock was Christ,’ in confessing whom, as also the whole Church confesses, Simon was called Peter. But let the reader decide which of these two opinions is the more probable.” (The Retractions, 1:20:1)
https://carm.org/early-church-fathers-peter-the-rock
Jesus and Simon had personal names:
Jesus of Nazareth
and Simon, son of Jonah
They both had official names (names of office)
Jesus - Christ (Messiah)
Simon - Peter, Petros, Cephas, (Rock man)
This expression, “Simon, who is called the Petros,” seems to make it quite clear that “Petros” is the name of an office and not a personal name and that it is thus parallel to “Jesus, who is called the Christ.” The great Petrine text in Matthew shows that Simon is called the Petros because he is to be the foundation of the Church.
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/simon-the-petros
Peter was a fallible human being, prone to sin. His confession was of a different nature: divinely inspired:
Matthew 16:17
And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
There are many. Are there no differences between them? Are they translations?
Pick one:
1. The Holy Spirit was able to preserve inerrant mss of the divinely inspired words of Scripture, and did so.
2. The Holy Spirit was unable or unwilling to preserve inerrant mss of the divinely inspired words of Scripture, and so the oldest and best mss in existence are error-prone [thus making a mockery of the following passage:
2 Timothy 3:16
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
Because if the Scriptures are error-prone then we cannot objectively know which passages contain errors and which do not.]
I have some that are a little less vague:
"The Lord says to Peter: ‘I say to you,’ he says, ‘that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.’ . . . On him [Peter] he builds the Church, and to him he gives the command to feed the sheep [John 21:17], and although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single chair [cathedra], and he established by his own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were that also which Peter was [i.e., apostles], but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one Church and one chair. So too, all [the apostles] are shepherds, and the flock is shown to be one, fed by all the apostles in single-minded accord. If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he [should] desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?" (Cyprian of Carthage, The Unity of the Catholic Church 4; 1st edition [A.D. 251]).
"[Christ] made answer: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church. . . .’ Could he not, then, strengthen the faith of the man to whom, acting on his own authority, he gave the kingdom, whom he called the rock, thereby declaring him to be the foundation of the Church [Matt. 16:18]?" (Ambrose of Milan, The Faith 4:5 [A.D. 379]).
"Philip, the presbyter and legate of the Apostolic See [Rome] said: ‘There is no doubt, and in fact it has been known in all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the apostles, pillar of the faith, and foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the human race, and that to him was given the power of loosing and binding sins: who down even to today and forever both lives and judges in his successors’" (Acts of the Council of Ephesus, AD 451, session 3).
And a last one, a bit more modern:
The obvious pun which has made its way into the Greek text . . . suggests a material identity between petra and Petros . . . as it is impossible to differentiate strictly between the two words. . . . Petros himself is this petra, not just his faith or his confession. . . . The idea of the Reformers that he is referring to the faith of Peter is quite inconceivable. . . . For there is no reference here to the faith of Peter. Rather, the parallelism of “thou art Rock” and “on this rock I will build” shows that the second rock can only be the same as the first. It is thus evident that Jesus is referring to Peter, to whom he has given the name Rock. . . . To this extent Roman Catholic exegesis is right and all Protestant attempts to evade this interpretation are to be rejected. (Dr. Oscar Cullman, writing in Gerhard Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament)
Those that do not recognize the teaching authority of the Church often miss the fact that without that authority, even the core beliefs of their own personal interpretation of someone else’s version of Christianity is seriously cast into doubt.
7
The way people do it now, yes it is parsing.
You didn’t answer my questions. Are there no differences between them? Are they translations?
If Jesus was going to give authority to men, he had no other kind to choose from.
The passage is clearly a grant of authority to Peter. It doesn't say "Your confession of faith is the key to the kingdom of heaven, but "*I* will give to *you* the keys of the kingdom of heaven". Any reasonable reading of the text sees that.
Yes, let the reader decide. Did God choose a fallible and sinful man upon which to build His church, or did He choose the divinely inspired eternal, unchanging confession re Christ, the Son of the living God.
The answer is obvious.
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