Replies

roamer: Then there is no reason to differentiate, and one or the other would have been used - Why use both in the very same sentence?

Sigh.... you haven't read the posts, have you? Let me repeat that more clearly for you. Because, as I posted earlier:
1. Jesus spoke Aramaic

2. What Jesus said to Simon in Matthew 16:18 was this: ‘You are Kepha, and on this kepha I will build my Church.’

3. Kepha means a rock, the same as petra. (It doesn’t mean a little stone or a pebble

4. When you understand what the Aramaic says, you see that Jesus was equating Simon and the rock; he wasn’t contrasting them

5. If kepha means the same as petra, why don’t we read in the Greek, ‘You are Petra, and on this petra I will build my Church’? Why, for Simon’s new name, does Matthew use a Greek word, Petros, which means something quite different from petra?" Greek and Aramaic have different grammatical structures.

In Aramaic you can use kepha in both places in Matthew 16:18. In Greek you encounter a problem arising from the fact that nouns take differing gender endings.

"You have masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns. The Greek word petra is feminine. You can use it in the second half of Matthew 16:18 without any trouble.

But you can’t use it as Simon’s new name, because you can’t give a man a feminine name

. You have to change the ending of the noun to make it masculine. When you do that, you get Petros, which was an already-existing word meaning rock.

Is that clear enough -- you use two because of the grammatical structure in KOINE GREEK.

STOP trying to use English grammar to explain texts which were spoken in Aramaic and written in Koine Greek -- both the grammar systems differ from English.

If you spoke a language other than English or Spanish (which are both relatively simple grammatically), you would see that grammar can differ wildly across languages)

Sigh.... you haven't read the posts, have you?

Sure I have. Every one.

Let me repeat that more clearly for you.

Gee, thanks.

1. Jesus spoke Aramaic

No, it is assumed that Jesus spoke Aramaic. I don't hold that assumption to be true.

2. What Jesus said to Simon in Matthew 16:18 was this: ‘You are Kepha, and on this kepha I will build my Church.’

Only if one assumes that Jesus spoke Aramaic. To impose Greek or Aramaic assumptions upon a man who was quintessentially Hebrew, not only in language (as I assume), but in manner of thought, is just a ludicrous position to take.

It is far more likely that Jesus spoke Hebrew... And that Matthew (while no longer extant) was written originally in Hebrew, as was the book of Hebrews (this is more important than you know).

But that is not real important to the translation of this single verse. It does not stand alone. To understand what it means, one needs only to compare it to concepts throughout the Bible. Then any ambiguity just simply falls away.

To presume some dynasty founded upon this single verse, one would have to willfully ignore the purpose for which Christ came, as stated overwhelmingly. He came to institute a *direct* method of accessing the Father. For what possible reason would that entail yet another succession, and yet another hierarchy, not to mention yet another imposing priesthood?

It simply doesn't make any sense at all.