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I didn't say that -- you are misinferring that. They spoke Hebrew which adopted a lot of words from other languages as its own.

Needless to say though the word used there in Matthew 16 comes out of the oldest Hebrew from the pages of the Torah and what it means fits Peter perfectly and helps those who choose to to understand that passage. If you have a concordance you can find it easily.

Being a former Catholic I spent 25 years believing Peter to be the Rock, then another 25 thinking that it really meant "pebble". I can understand why Catholics would question that, it does seem a strange rendering. But if you assume that Jesus spoke Hebrew, and that perhaps Matthew was first written in Hebrew, and Matthew is the only place where that passage appears, it would seem that the Hebrew of the OT would be the FIRST place to look for an understanding of it.

Peter was the first apostle chosen, the first to confess Jesus as the Christ, the first to deny him, the first to speak out at Pentecost, the first leader of the Church at Jerusalem. He had a lot of firsts. It cannot be denied.

The word for Peter derives from the Hebrew "peter" [pitrah] [Strong's Concordance #6363] and it means "the firstling", "the firstborn", "the one who opens the womb".

Jesus is saying "Thou art the firstborn [the firstling]" of the Rock [like the one in the wilderness which issued forth after it was struck]. It was Peter whom Jesus first rushed to see after his resurrection. And it might well be said that the Church at Jerusalem where Peter was the first leader was the church of the firstborn. The Gospel went first to the Jews in Jerusalem ----

When people get the meaning of Peter's name right, it helps in understanding other parts of the NT. That being said, the first thing to issue forth from the Rock in the Wilderness along with the water, may very have been "small stones", and thus the "living stones" of which Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:4-5.

This may be the FIRST time that it has been explained in this way, but it won't be the last.

"The word for Peter derives from the Hebrew "peter" [pitrah] [Strong's Concordance #6363] and it means "the firstling", "the firstborn", "the one who opens the womb"."

If you had a snowball in hell's chance of being right about this meaning for Peter, you would in fact be presenting the Catholic Church with one of the greatest apologias for the Papacy that has ever existed.

Think about it - Christ our High Priest of the order of Melkisidek and Son of David, naming Peter his very own first-born? - you can't possibly have any clue about the implications of what you are saying!

Anyway, I don't know why you are all getting so wound up about Petros/Cephas/Kepha. The most important scriptural evidence for Peter's primacy and the Papacy is this:

Is 22:15 "Thus saith the Lord God of hosts: Go, get thee in to him that dwelleth in the tabernacle, to Sobna who is over the temple: and thou shalt say to him:
16 What dost thou here, or as if thou wert somebody here? for thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here, thou hast hewed out a monument carefully in a high place, a dwelling for thyself in a rock.
17 Behold the Lord will cause thee to be carried away, as a cock is carried away, and he will lift thee up as a garment.
18 He will crown thee with a crown of tribulation, he will toss thee like a ball into a large and spacious country: there shalt thou die, and there shall the chariot of thy glory be, the shame of the house of thy Lord.
19 And I will drive thee out From thy station, and depose thee from thy ministry.
20 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliacim the son of Helcias,
21 And I will clothe him with thy robe, and will strengthen him with thy girdle, and will give thy power into his hand: and he shall be as a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Juda.
22 And I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder: and he shall open, and none shall shut: and he shall shut, and none shall open.
23 And I will fasten him as a peg in a sure place, and he shall be for a throne of glory to the house of his father.
24 And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house, divers kinds of vessels, every little vessel, from the vessels of cups even to every instrument of music.
25 In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall the peg be removed, that was fastened in the sure place: and it shall be broken and shall fall: and that which hung thereon, shall perish, because the Lord hath spoken it."