Hi, Marco!
I can see why you might perceive a conflict with my statement; however, notice that I am making a distinct argument: not two Simons names changed to Cephas by Christ as members of the Twelve. Hence, there could have been an actual person not named Cephas by Jesus Christ who, as part of the 72, was involved in the emergence of the Church.
…though I only searched the first link, here’s my take from it:
…again, as the Church emerged the Disciples were under the threat of imprisonment, exile, and death. It would be necessary for the leadership to maintain a close nit circle and having two Cephas amongst them would prove some confusion… so there would almost organically be a reference to Cephas of “x” son of “xy,” to distinguish the second Cephas from Simon Peter in matters concerning authority and doctrine.
Still, as we are viewing the past with suppositions and agendas, it is not beyond possibilities that the second Cephas (if such person was actively involved with the Twelve) be acclaimed as known intimately by St. Paul and spoken of in 1 Corinthian 15:5 or Galatians 2:9. The problem I have is there is missing evidence in Scriptures of this second person named Cephas. Of course, this does not negate the fact that indeed there was that second Cephas; it only demonstrate that the Cephas of Scriptures always comes back to Simon Peter, Son of Bar-Jona, brother of Andrew.
…and as I suggested in a previous post, we must be careful not to jump into conclusions when reading Sacred Scriptures… for instance in that very passage (1 Cor 15) we are told that Jesus appeared first to Cephas then to the Twelve:
…from this passage we could conclude that:
- Cephas, a person, outside of the Eleven, was chosen by Christ to be His Witness instead of the Eleven.
- Cephas, Simon Peter, was chosen by Christ to be His Witness before appearing to the Eleven.
- The account where Mary Magdalene arrives at the Tomb and is met by Christ and sent to the Eleven is not correct.
- The appearance of Christ to Cephas and the Eleven had a distinct function than that of His appearance to Mary Magdalene.
- Jesus appearance to the Eleven (James and the Apostles) had a double mention or that the appearance to “more than five hundred” had a greater importance than that of the Apostles.
- St. Paul is not an Apostle (“then by all the apostles.” The statement seems to clearly demonstrate that he himself was not part of the apostles).
Still, there is one more part of this passage that is open to a huge speculation… the passage states that Christ was seen by more than 500 at once… yet, it does not clarify if this huge number of Believers were gathered all in one place (which with the persecution would seem almost impossible for such a massive gathering to have taken place) or if Jesus actually appeared to them simultaneously as individuals or a mix of individuals and small groupings… something that could very well have taken place since Jesus was now in His Glorified Body.
Maran atha!
Angel