Peter, the rock, Jesus was talking about in Mt.16:17-20

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SoonerServant

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Many Catholics say that in this passage, when Jesus says,“And you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hades will not overcome it.” is saying that Peter is the rock of which Jesus spoke.

The issue I have with this, is, that the word Peter, in Greek, is petra. Which means an individual stone or a portion of a larger rock.
However, the word rock, in this context, in Greek, is petros. Which means a large rock formation suitable for a foundation.

The passage would actual read,“And you are petra, and on this petros I will build my church, and the gates of hades will not overcome it.”

I don’t believe the church of Christ was founded on Peter, but on the truth that Peter confessed when he proclaimed Jesus to be the one true son, of the living God.
 
SoonerServant said:
The passage would actual read,“And you are petra, and on this petros I will build my church, and the gates of hades will not overcome it.”

I don’t believe the church of Christ was founded on Peter, but on the truth that Peter confessed when he proclaimed Jesus to be the one true son, of the living God.
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So would the Church then find its foundation, not upon Peter and his successors, but rather upon the Truth that they proclaim?

I think I would agree this is an important distinction. I truly believe that Peter was the first given this power. And that all Christians are the cornerstone of Truth. All Christians are Popes, infallible when they are declaring the Truth of Christ through the Holy Spirit.
 
It makes since right? It’s all in the context of the roots of the words. That should be my motto, “context, context, context!”
 
Sooner, that is a very common argument - most the Catholics (and many others) on this forum will have already heard it and will have already rejected it for several reasons.

This article - if you’ll excuse the tone and just focus on weighing the arguments given - will help you understand why the Petra/Petros argument is not sufficient to disprove that Peter is the rock.

catholic.com/library/Peter_the_Rock.asp

I suggest you check up on it before the postathon starts, because unless you understand the opposing position you’ll never be able to refute it. 🙂 Of course, I hope you’ll weigh the evidence with an open mind searching for truth rather than a particular conclusion. If you do that, I think you’ll at least see that the view that Peter is the rock isn’t as crazy as it seems. There are even Protestants who believe it. 🙂
 
noma said:
All Christians are Popes, infallible when they are declaring the Truth of Christ through the Holy Spirit.
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Funny you should say that. I’ve kind of tongue-in-cheek said before that all Protestants think they are popes (except taking infallibility much much farther). 🙂 I never thought I’d find anyone who admitted it!
 
This is insufficient information. Yes, Jesus and the Apostles spoke Aramaic, but, we don’t have any manuscripts from the New Testament left in their original language. And, actually, we have manuscripts in both Attic and Koine Greek. In the comparison of the many, many, many copies, scholars deemed it nessesary that the distinction between the two words be made clear in modern concordances.
 
I would also like to address the issue about Jesus handing the keys to the kingdom, to Peter alone.
 
It cannot be made clear in this passage whether Jesus was talking to Peter or whether he was panning acrossed all his discples, when He said this. However, Mt. 18:18 brings a little more light to whom He was talking.
 
18"I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be[d]bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[e] loosed in heaven. Mt. 18:18

This is later on, after he had already said it before.

In the beginning of the chaper, it starts with,“At that time the discples came to Jesus and asked,…”

It’s apparent in this passage that Jesus is talking to all his discples.
 
SoonerServant said:
This is insufficient information. Yes, Jesus and the Apostles spoke Aramaic, but, we don’t have any manuscripts from the New Testament left in their original language. And, actually, we have manuscripts in both Attic and Koine Greek. In the comparison of the many, many, many copies, scholars deemed it nessesary that the distinction between the two words be made clear in modern concordances.
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Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter- isn’t that a bit of a coincidence? He just happened to change his name to rock and then the whole rock thing happened?

To me the petros petra argument seems crazy. It’s clear what Jesus said and it’s clear that the Catholic Church was the Church that resulted from Jesus’ ministry. If Jesus is God, and the Catholic Church is not the Church he wanted-- that means he got it wrong doesn’t it? As he knows everything that would happen, you think he would have gone out of his way to clarify. But he didn’t and this is what we have. One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
 
No, I’m afraid God doesn’t deal in coinsedences. If God changing Peter’s name from Simon, is your arguement, then let me present you this fact. He also changed Paul’s name and Jacob’s too. (In the OT)
 
Paul’s first name, Saul, meant; [someone] Hoped for or prayed for. Then when he converted, it was changed to Paul, which means; small or humble. But, I’m sure that a man like Paul wasn’t someone hoped or prayed for, and I’m sure that when he converted, it was just coinsedence that he became humbled.
 
SoonerServant said:
This is insufficient information. Yes, Jesus and the Apostles spoke Aramaic, but, we don’t have any manuscripts from the New Testament left in their original language. And, actually, we have manuscripts in both Attic and Koine Greek. In the comparison of the many, many, many copies, scholars deemed it nessesary that the distinction between the two words be made clear in modern concordances.
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On a side note SS, how did the original writings of the Apostles and the rest of the inspired writers get handed down to us?
 
SoonerServant said:
18"I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be[d]bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[e] loosed in heaven. Mt. 18:18

This is later on, after he had already said it before.

In the beginning of the chaper, it starts with,“At that time the discples came to Jesus and asked,…”

It’s apparent in this passage that Jesus is talking to all his discples.
Click to expand...
So Jesus called all of them Peter and told all of them that they were the Rock (singular, not multiple rocks) on which he would build his church? And even though the Greek and Aramaic which are the original NT languages both very clearly distinguish between ‘you’ addressed to a singular person and ‘you’ addressed to a group? :rolleyes:

Yes, it’s abundantly clear that the passage was addressed to all, so abundantly clear that for 1,500 years until the reformation most EVERYONE in Western Europe thought the idea of a Papacy founded on Peter was the correct interpretation … and even today half of all the world’s Christians still do (including, one presumes, more or less half its Bible scholars and experts as well)
 
SoonerServant said:
Many Catholics say that in this passage, when Jesus says,“And you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hades will not overcome it.” is saying that Peter is the rock of which Jesus spoke.

The issue I have with this, is, that the word Peter, in Greek, is petra. Which means an individual stone or a portion of a larger rock.
However, the word rock, in this context, in Greek, is petros. Which means a large rock formation suitable for a foundation.

The passage would actual read,“And you are petra, and on this petros I will build my church, and the gates of hades will not overcome it.”

I don’t believe the church of Christ was founded on Peter, but on the truth that Peter confessed when he proclaimed Jesus to be the one true son, of the living God.
Click to expand...
Opponents of the Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16:18 sometimes argue that in the Greek text the name of the apostle is Petros, while “rock” is rendered as petra. They claim that the former refers to a small stone, while the latter refers to a massive rock; so, if Peter was meant to be the massive rock, why isn’t his name Petra?

Note that Christ did not speak to the disciples in Greek. He spoke Aramaic, the common language of Palestine at that time. In that language the word for rock is kepha, which is what Jesus called him in everyday speech (note that in John 1:42 he was told, “You will be called Cephas”). What Jesus said in Matthew 16:18 was: “You are Kepha, and upon this kepha I will build my Church.”

When Matthew’s Gospel was translated from the original Aramaic to Greek, there arose a problem which did not confront the evangelist when he first composed his account of Christ’s life. In Aramaic the word kepha has the same ending whether it refers to a rock or is used as a man’s name. In Greek, though, the word for rock, petra, is feminine in gender. The translator could use it for the second appearance of kepha in the sentence, but not for the first because it would be inappropriate to give a man a feminine name. So he put a masculine ending on it, and hence Peter became Petros.
 
LilyM said:
Yes, it’s abundantly clear that the passage was addressed to all, so abundantly clear that for 1,500 years until the reformation most EVERYONE in Western Europe thought the idea of a Papacy founded on Peter was the correct interpretation … and even today half of all the world’s Christians still do (including, one presumes, more or less half its Bible scholars and experts as well)
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Exactly Lily-- the Protestant position is quite clearly schismatic with that of the early Christian Church (easily demonstrated by looking at the Church Fathers) and in any case-- THIS IS HISTORY-- what grew out of Jesus’ ministry IS the Catholic Church, that was that until the reformists split away from it to a Protestant position!! So it seems to me, if you’re a Protestant, you must think God got it wrong and we messed up the message and went off in totally the wrong direction for 1500 years until the Reformation and then everything was put right again!!!

If God is God then things happened, were said, reported and interpreted the way he intended for a reason.

ONE Church, HOLY, CATHOLIC and APOSTOLIC.

What does Sacred Scripture say about those who are schismatic? Those who are oposed to this Unity of Faith???
 
  • Speaking of His Church, the Saviour called it a kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God (Matthew 13:24, 31, 33; Luke 13:18; John 18:36);
  • He compared it to a city the keys of which were entrusted to the Apostles (Matthew 5:14; 16:19),
  • to a sheepfold to which all His sheep must come and be united under one shepherd (John 10:7-17);
  • to a vine and its branches,
  • to a house built upon a rock against which not even the powers of hell should ever prevail (Matthew 16:18).
  • Moreover, the Saviour, just before He suffered, prayed for His disciples, for those who were afterwards to believe in Him – for His Church – that they might be and remain one as He and the Father are one (John 17:20-23); and
  • He had already warned them that “every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate: and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand” (Matthew 12:25).
    These words of Christ are expressive of the closest unity.
St. Paul likewise insists on the unity of the Church.
  • Schism and disunion he brands as crimes to be classed with murder and debauchery, and declares that those guilty of “dissensions” and “sects” shall not obtain the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:20-21).
  • Hearing of the schisms among the Corinthians, he asked impatiently: “Is Christ divided? Was Paul then crucified for you? or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Corinthians 1:13).
  • And in the same Epistle he describes the Church as one body with many members distinct among themselves, but one with Christ their head: “For in one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free” (1 Corinthians 12:13).
 
To show the intimate union of the members of the Church with the one God, he asks: “The chalice of benediction, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread, which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord? For we, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one bread” (1 Corinthians 10:16-17).
Again in his Epistle to the Ephesians he teaches the same doctrine, and exhorts them to be “careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”, and he reminds them that there is but “one body and one spirit-one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all” (Ephesians 4:3-6).
Already, in one of his very first Epistles, he had warned the faithful of Galatia that if anybody, even an angel from heaven, should preach unto them any other Gospel than that which he had preached, “let him be anathema” (Galatians 1:8).
Such declarations as these coming from the great Apostle are clear evidence of the essential unity which must be characteristic of the true Christian Church.

The other Apostles also persistently proclaimed this essential and necessary unity of Christ’s Church (cf. 1 John 4:1-7; Apocalypse 2:6, 14-15, 20-29; 2 Peter 2:1-19; Jude 5:19). And although divisions did arise now and then in the early Church, they were speedily put down and the disturbers rejected, so that even from the beginning the Christians could boast that they were of “one heart and one soul” (Acts 4:32; cf. Acts 11:22; 13:1). Tradition is unanimous to the same effect. Whenever heresy threatened to invade the Church, the Fathers rose up against it as an essential evil.
 
SoonerServant said:
No, I’m afraid God doesn’t deal in coinsedences. If God changing Peter’s name from Simon, is your arguement, then let me present you this fact. He also changed Paul’s name and Jacob’s too. (In the OT)
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Saul was a Jew with Roman citizenship - a rare privilege.

He used his Greek name, Paul, when he was preaching in Roman provinces to foster greater accepance of his message.

He also circumcised one of his travelling companions to avoid scandalizing the Jews.

Paul knew how to “become all things to all men” in order to win them for Christ.
 
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