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Well, first of all, to call someone a "piece of rock" in the greek looses something in the translation. The modern equivalent would be "chip off the old block". There is nothing diminishing about it.

Christ named him Kephas/Kepha (hollow rock - translated petros - piece of rock.) To get a petros, it must fracture loose from a petra. Just as to get lithos, it must fracture free from either petra or petros. Lithos would be pebbles - to correct you if I may. Petros is larger than pebbles by quite a bit; but, is still loose rock. And as it must fracture from Petra to become petros - chip off the [old] block - or mountain as it were..

The theological point is that Christ is literally saying, you may be a chip off the block; but, I'm founding my church on the block. This is both instructive and a play on words.. Christ showing humor. The passage doesn't show a grant of authority to a single person. Thee is singular or plural. And given that the use of the keys is demonstrated boldly by Paul in the acts about chapter 9 or 10 if memory serves (it's late), without knowledge or leave from Peter to so do, it cannot then be said that Peter alone was given the keys. Nor can it be said Peter alone was given authority to bind and loose. This authority is given in this chapter and verse, yet the others plainly are stated as having it. It doesn't mean Jesus handed down at different times. When he said Thee, he was speaking to the group, not merely to Peter. The problem is that all the apostles demonstrate use of these two things all through scripture after this event. And it isn't by the leave of Peter. When Paul was commissioned, he had yet to meet Peter. When Paul opened the doors of the kingdom to the Gentiles, he still hadn't met Peter. He was given his authority, office and direction by Christ - not Peter. This is the difference between knowing what you were taught and knowing scripture I'm sorry to say. I don't know who taught you; but, you and scripture are in clear contradiction of one another.

“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.

The theological point is that Christ is literally saying, you may be a chip off the block; but, I'm founding my church on the block. This is both instructive and a play on words.. Christ showing humor.

If Peter is getting this name in Aramaic as John 1:42 shows he clearly was, how could Christ be punning in Greek when he's naming Peter in Aramaic?

As for the "state of being" argument--you can make it for some words in Greek and not others. Adjectives mean the same whether they get the masculine or feminine or neuter endings. In any case, I think it is a stretch to have Christ saying "Thou art [a little rock] and upon THIS [different big rock] I will build my Church." What's that "This" doing there then? That "this" in Greek is "taute"--it refers to something mentioned right before. You're having Him totally switch ideas in the middle of the sentence just to cling to this rather dubious distinction between petros/petra--when far more natural is to assume Christ meant: "I will call you "Rock", and on this "Rock" I will build my Church." See? Simple.

The passage doesn't show a grant of authority to a single person. Thee is singular or plural....When he said Thee, he was speaking to the group, not merely to Peter.

First of all, "thee" historically, has been a singular pronoun in English. "You" was its plural, only now it has been merged into singular as well. But that's a side issue, because I'm basing this on the Greek. "dwsw soi tas kleidas ths basileias". "Soi" is the 2nd person singular pronoun--if Christ wanted to spread this over all the apostles He would have said "humin"--you plural. In the passage preceding this, Christ says "who do you [humeis] say I am?"--clearly plural. Peter answers "You [Su] are Christ, Son of the Living God." And the rest of the verbs in that passage-to bind, to loose-are singular as well.

the use of the keys is demonstrated boldly by Paul in the acts about chapter 9 or 10 if memory serves (it's late), without knowledge or leave from Peter to so do, it cannot then be said that Peter alone was given the keys.

Sorry...couldn't find the ref. I checked Strong's and the only other use of "key" in the NT is in Luke and Revelations. No mention about Paul or any other apostle getting them.

Nor can it be said Peter alone was given authority to bind and loose.

That's right, the other Apostles had it as well in Matt 18: which, by the way, is clearly plural: you would bind "desete", you would loose "lusete". I find it interesting that this power is given to Peter singly, and then all the apostles collectively--and you'll find this same idea preserved in the close relationship still preserved in the Church between Peter's successor and the bishops via Church councils.

This is the difference between knowing what you were taught and knowing scripture I'm sorry to say. I don't know who taught you; but, you and scripture are in clear contradiction of one another.

LOL...I CERTAINLY didn't pick this stuff up in Catholic school. What if it was just "me and my Bible"--searching the Scriptures. There couldn't be anything wrong with THAT approach could there? ;)