Testimony of a Former Irish Priest

BereanBeacon.Org ^ | Richard Peter Bennett

[Iscool]

why would God allow the entire Church for 1500 years to be confounded into believing that Peter was the Rock and had the primacy?

Because the Church is not the church that Jesus Christ founded...

Peter was no pope...Peter wouldn't let anyone bow to him...Peter did not pray to Mary...

And God will allow people to be deceived if they make His words of none effect...

It's like one astute fella said...If you mess with that book, God will mess with your head...

[Cronos]

Do note that I’m a few hours behind you, so catching up. I posted the links to impartial sites on statistics and history. Do read those and comment. Also, do note that wtc.org is not a valid site to cite.

[Cronos]

Of course, you are interested that Jesus said

" 17Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter,[c] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[d] will not overcome it.[e] 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[f] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[g] loosed in heaven." 20Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

Now remember that Jesus spoke Aramaic and in Aramaic what Jesus said to Simon in Matthew 16:18 was this: ‘You are Kepha, and on this kepha I will build my Church.

Peter is the english translation of the Aramaic Kepha

Iscool: If the name Peter was meant to say rock, we wouldn't call Peter by the name of Peter...His name would be Rock...Or little Rock...Maybe Peter was part Indian...Maybe he was called Peter little rock...

You do show ignorance in that phrase. Jesus didn't use the ENGLISH word Peter (Modern English didn't come about until 1700+ years later and even Old English was 1000 years in the future), but in ARAMAIC. In ARAMAIC Jesus renamed Shimeon KEPHA So Matthew 16:18 was this: ‘You are Kepha, and on this kepha I will build my Church'

You do follow that, right. The new name of this disciple WAS ROCK (KEPHA in the original language)

Iscool --> you are reading the text in ENGLISH when the original was in Aramaic and/or Koine Greek. All of your errors and the other sola scriptura errors is because of this and other incorrect assumptions. Because of THIS fault of yours we say sola scriptura is in error, because you do NOT read the bible, you read what you want to see in an English Bible, with it's translation errors.

Let me repeat this once more, your statement was If the name Peter was meant to say rock, we wouldn't call Peter by the name of Peter...His name would be Rock... how about if we start using Aramaic and say that St.Peter in ARamaic is St. Kepha and Kepha = rock --> would you understand it now?

[trisham]

“You are Rock (Peter), and upon this rock I will build my Church”, makes perfect grammatical sense. It's the only way the sentence makes sense. Jesus is telling “the Rock” that the Church will be built upon him. Why would he change Peter's name to Rock and then in the next breath tell him that He's building the Church on Himself as Rock? He would have said, “upon ME I will build my Church”, if that were the case. Why give Simon a dramatic new name, “Rock”, and then change the subject by calling Himself “Rock”? Why rename Simon at all? Why then does Jesus confer the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven on Peter and give him the power of binding and loosing, which is universal jurisdiction over the Church. Awesome power and authority, wouldn't you agree? If Jesus is building the Church on Himself as Rock, why would he rename Peter "Rock", immediately change the subject, then turn back to Peter and give him the primary authority to govern the universal Church on Earth? The whole passage is about Peter and the primacy. There's no other rational explanation.

Read the post again carefully. He called him a “this” because He had just named him a “this”, the Rock.

***********************

Excellent analysis of this most compelling piece of Scripture.

[Lera]

Yes I know all countries do not do this.

The post I originally responded too was talking about the Inquisition.
I specifically wrote that Spain collected it on all agricultural goods including livestock for the Roman Catholic Church.
Spain did this until about 10 years after the Inquisition.

I later wrote than SOME European countries still collect for their churches from members of those churches and automatically remove a certain percentage from paychecks.
Some does not mean all .

[trisham]

So you hang out with lousy Catholics. Whose problem is THAT?

*******************

LOL!

[trisham]

Excellent post!

[wagglebee]

Yes it was.

When God changed a person’s name, He also charged that person with significant responsibility to His people and it was the same with Saint Peter. God only changed the name of one person in the New Testament, to pretend that it was insignificant would be foolish.

[trisham]

I do not feel burdened when I ask a mother if I may talk to her child. I do not feel burdened if I tell Mary how much I love her and ask her for access to Her Son. And indeed, in my life, it is because -- without any explicit or obvious involvement on her part -- He came crashing into my life, that I love her all the more, just as my love and gratitude for my daughter deepens my love for my wife.

I'm really running out of gas. But I want to say this. What so many non-Catholics seem to thing of as hindrances and burdens are to me gifts and helps and joys. When I am at Mass, I often find myself smiling broadly. Here in this remarkably diverse community are all these hundreds of very different people, all here to worship Love and the Father of Love and the Love in our hearts and flowing between us and all over the universe. The cries of the babies sound like the calls of exotic birds in the bird house at the zoo. Here are children, adolescents, young adults, mothers and fathers, and us older folks, some very disabled and not long on this side of the Jordan. Maybe some of them FEEL burdened to be there. To me they are part of the wonder and joy.

Mary is not an obstruction to me.

**********************

Beautifully said, dear poet.

[trisham]

bookmark

[Mad Dawg]

It's interesting.

Nancy and I met a couple some decades ago. They were converts, and as far as I could tell had no religion at all, no sense of Jesus beyond a kind of, let's all feel good and embrace liberal social causes. Unitarian Catholics? (I don't remember if they had a Subaru ...) (But then, I have a Subaru, so maybe that's not a good index ...)

Still, there was SOME hunger in them, or they wouldn't have joined up.

I guess my 'stance' with respect to the parade of half-hearted Catholics (and half-hearted Christians is the old Buddhist line, "If you hold a lotus to a rock long enough, who knows, maybe it will take root."

When Nancy and I got hitched, her maid of honor was a sort of classic "It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere," person. Very dear and sweet, but, wow, no awareness of anybody knocking at her door, and an active resistance to the idea that there was only one Lord worth the title.

7 years later she was doing exquisite calligraphies of Bible texts -- with real and grateful heart.

So I've learned to leave the whole conversion thing to God. He's really good at it. In the meantime, I'm glad the lotuses are at least NEAR the Rock, even when they vote for Obama and stuff.

[Cronos]

I meant it to emphasise that:
1. This tithing was followed by Protestant as well as Catholic governments across Europe
2. This still IS followed by Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Austria, etc. i.e. mainly those who still follow it now are Protestant in name countries,
3. The diezmo was introduced in Aragon and Catalonia when they were frontier states (Marches) on the frontier between the CArolingian Empire and the Moors.
4. This was used to construct Churches and feed clergy (pretty important for the Reconquista)
5. In practice, the diezmo did not always retain its original purpose of subsidizing the Church. Feudal lords who were patrons of a monastery or church would gain the benefit of the tithe, or they might outright by the right to the tithe from the Church, becoming, effectively, tax farmers.
6. the diezmo was not always exactly ten percent. The actual amount differed in different places and times. Nor was it extended to all products of agriculture and husbandry, which led to market distortions as farmers shifted to whatever was not taxed.
7. In the Middle Ages, monarchs managed to participate in the benefit of the diezmo.(Joseph Pérez, Isabel y Fernando: los Reyes Católicos, Second Edition, Editorial NEREA, 1997, ISBN 8489569126. p. 83–84.) Ferdinand III of Castile proposed to Pope Innocent IV the possibility that the royal treasury would receive the third of the diezmo destined for the construction of churches, in order to pay the costs of the siege of Seville.[Enrique Ossorio Crespo, op. cit. mentions this, but incorrectly refers to Innocent VIII, an obvious chronological impossibility. Joseph Pérez, op. cit., mentions Innocent IV and confirms the date, but does not mention the context of the siege. ] A share of two ninths was granted in 1247 (Joseph Pérez, Isabel y Fernando: los Reyes Católicos, Second Edition, Editorial NEREA, 1997, ISBN 8489569126. p. 83–84.) Seville was captured in 1248.[Diego Ortiz de Zúñiga, Antonio María Espinosa y Carzel, Volume 5, Imprenta Real, 1796, p. 254] Once this first participation was agreed to, the royal share came and went for some years.(Joseph Pérez, Isabel y Fernando: los Reyes Católicos, Second Edition, Editorial NEREA, 1997, ISBN 8489569126. p. 83–84.) Beginning in 1340, a portion of the diezmo was repeatedly assigned to the State, under the designation of tercias reales ("royal thirds").[Joseph Pérez, Isabel y Fernando: los Reyes Católicos, Second Edition, Editorial NEREA, 1997, ISBN 8489569126. p. 83–84] This became permanent in 1494
6. Your statement "This is why they forced the country to become..." is wrong as Spain was conquered BACK from the Muslims. There was no forced conversion of Protestants as there were no Protestants during the years of the deizmo. Unless of course, you consider it ok for the Spanish muslims to remain followers of Islam and not moriscos.
7. The reason for the conversion (forced or otherwise) of Muslims (Moriscos) was because the enemy was the Muslim moors and any co-religionists were considered potential spies or worse -- wouldn't you agree with their paranoia?

[Cronos]

Repeating your post as a question to Iscool:

“You are Rock (Peter), and upon this rock I will build my Church”, makes perfect grammatical sense. It's the only way the sentence makes sense. Jesus is telling “the Rock” that the Church will be built upon him. Why would he change Peter's name to Rock and then in the next breath tell him that He's building the Church on Himself as Rock? He would have said, “upon ME I will build my Church”, if that were the case. Why give Simon a dramatic new name, “Rock”, and then change the subject by calling Himself “Rock”? Why rename Simon at all? Why then does Jesus confer the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven on Peter and give him the power of binding and loosing, which is universal jurisdiction over the Church. Awesome power and authority, wouldn't you agree? If Jesus is building the Church on Himself as Rock, why would he rename Peter "Rock", immediately change the subject, then turn back to Peter and give him the primary authority to govern the universal Church on Earth? The whole passage is about Peter and the primacy. There's no other rational explanation.

[Mad Dawg]

Peter means little rock...

Let me get this straight. You're saying Peter was from Arkansas?

[trisham]

When God changed a person’s name, He also charged that person with significant responsibility to His people and it was the same with Saint Peter. God only changed the name of one person in the New Testament, to pretend that it was insignificant would be foolish.

********************

Excellent observation.

[Mad Dawg]

I'll leave it to my betters like MD

Snort!

Guffaw!

[Collapse onto the floor in a pool of laughter.]

Thank you.

New description of the difference between East and West:
West: Well, if you MUST know, it's kinda like this ....
East: Shaddup, just shaddup and Listen! HE will tell you, why listen to me?

[trisham]

Let me get this straight. You're saying Peter was from Arkansas?

************************

LOLOLOLOL!

[Mad Dawg]

Thank you. Interesting.

I think that one consequence of the utter neglect given to the period between, say, the reign of Augustus and the rise of Luther is that people have NO IDEA of the political turmoil and chaos all over the the Mediterranean littoral and Europe for hundred and hundreds of years. The idea that peoples from north eastern Europe stomped through Spain and occupied North Africa, or that Muslims went roaring back the other way and darn near got into France (and, much later ,Vienna) is just not known, and so its effect on society and on the wild fears of the people is not appreciated.

Tom Sowell, in related news, is very good on how far more white people have been enslaved than black -- and on how the slave trade persists. But it's an aspect of history that is just neglected unless one goes a-looking for it.

[Mad Dawg]

Wouldn't an apophatic thread be kind of a contradiction in terms?

;-)

[bkaycee]

You do show ignorance in that phrase. Jesus didn't use the ENGLISH word Peter (Modern English didn't come about until 1700+ years later and even Old English was 1000 years in the future), but in ARAMAIC. In ARAMAIC Jesus renamed Shimeon KEPHA So Matthew 16:18 was this: ‘You are Kepha, and on this kepha I will build my Church'

Hmmmm. But this scripture was written in GREEK not ARAMAIC and Petra(rock) and PETROS(small stone) are 2 different words. Conjecture about a fictitious Aramaic version is just that.

Most Early Church Fathers DID NOT take this verse to mean that the Church was built on Peter. They understood it to mean that the church was built on the Confession that Jesus is the Christ.

Rom 10:8 "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame."