In 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, Paul clearly and in no uncertain terms, identifies who *petra* is, and it's NOT Peter.
Peter himself also states that the Rock,*Petra*, is Jesus.
Peter – rock
Matthew 16:18 - http://bible.cc/matthew/16-18.htm
Jesus said that Peter was *petros*(masculine) and that on this *petra*(feminine) He would build His church.
Greek: 4074 Pétros (a masculine noun) – properly, a stone (pebble), such as a small rock found along a pathway. 4074 /Pétros (”small stone”) then stands in contrast to 4073 /pétra (”cliff, boulder,” Abbott-Smith).
“4074 (Pétros) is an isolated rock and 4073 (pétra) is a cliff” (TDNT, 3, 100). “4074 (Pétros) always means a stone . . . such as a man may throw, . . . versus 4073 (pétra), a projecting rock, cliff” (S. Zodhiates, Dict).
4073 pétra (a feminine noun) – “a mass of connected rock,” which is distinct from 4074 (Pétros) which is “a detached stone or boulder” (A-S). 4073 (pétra) is a “solid or native rock, rising up through the earth” (Souter) – a huge mass of rock (a boulder), such as a projecting cliff.
4073 (petra) is “a projecting rock, cliff (feminine noun) . . . 4074 (petros, the masculine form) however is a stone . . . such as a man might throw” (S. Zodhiates, Dict).
It’s also a strange way to word the sentence that He would call Peter a rock and say that on this I will build my church instead of *on you* as would be grammatically correct in talking to a person.
There is no support from the original Greek that Peter was to be the rock on which Jesus said he would build His church. The nouns are not the same, one being masculine and the other being feminine. They denote different objects.
Also, here, Paul identifies who petra is, and that is Christ. This link takes you to the Greek.
http://biblehub.com/text/1_corinthians/10-4.htm
1 Corinthians 10:1-4 For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
http://biblehub.com/text/romans/9-33.htm
Romans 9:30-33 What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock (petra) of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
http://biblehub.com/text/1_peter/2-8.htm
1 Peter 2:1-8 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,”
and
“A stone of stumbling, and a rock (petra) of offense.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
All occurrences of *petra* in the Greek.
Round, like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel.
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning reel.
This topic of Peter as the Rock, surfaces from time to time. On each occasion, the protestants posit their defense of the Greek terminology and catholics step in to clarify this misinterpretation of scripture. Like that song, we go around like a wheel within a wheel.
Metmom, this is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that you point to the petra vs petros argument. As has been repeatedly pointed out to you in the past (and will continue into the future), Aramaic was the language Jesus and the apostles and all the Jews in Palestine spoke. It was the common language of the place. We know that Jesus spoke Aramaic because some of his words are preserved for us in the Gospels.
In Paul’s epistles—four times in Galatians and four times in 1 Corinthians—we have the Aramaic form of Simon’s new name preserved for us. In our English Bibles it comes out as Cephas. That isn’t Greek. That’s a transliteration of the Aramaic word Kepha (rendered as Kephas in its Hellenistic form). And what does Kepha mean? It means a rock, the same as petra. (It doesn’t mean a little stone or a pebble. What Jesus said to Simon in Matthew 16:18 was this: ‘You are Kepha, and on this kepha I will build my Church.
Dear Metmom, please save this piece of information and the next time you are tempted to post a discourse on petra vs petros, remember that Jesus and his disciples spoke Aramaic, not Greek. Simon was renamed Kepha - Rock.