Markus Bockmuehl builds upon Fr. Fitzmyer in
The Remembered Peter: In Ancient Reception and Modern Debate (again, footnotes omitted):
Peter’s Aramaic name
Kēfa’ has been the subject of far more extensive discussion, partly because its ecclesiological significance was for a long time deeply contested between Catholic and Protestant interpreters. The blossoming of ecumenical dialogue and of Roman Catholic biblical studies since Vatican II has meant that the confessional wind has for some time been more conducive to genuine progress and consensus. The exegetical dividing lines no longer fall among predictably denominational lines. The meaning of the Aramaic term כיפא as “rock” or “crag” has been reasonably demonstrated in the Targums and Dead Sea Scrolls, although the implications are still ignored by some recent commentators who deny that
kēfa’ could be something one builds upon. This is not of course to say that all the difficulties have been removed. One of the major disagreements concerns the authenticity of Jesus’ saying about Peter as the Rock in Matt 16.18; on this matter the major multi-volume commentaries of the last decade continued to reach opposing conclusions. Another abiding problem is the significance of the wordplay employed in that verse.
For present purposes, the answer to the problem of historicity is relatively unimportant. On the more focused question of what the name Cephas might mean to a Jewish audience of the early rabbinic period, answers are more readily to hand and probably on balance less controversial.
We may here discount the suggestion of Clement of Alexandria, occasionally revived on more critical grounds by a small number of scholars, [p. 149] that the Cephas of Gal 1-2 is not Simon Peter but someone else. Clement’s rationale, subsequently adopted by Jerome, seems quite patently an apologetic counsel of convenience with respect to an episode that other patristic writers like Jerome and Chrysostom found equally embarrassing. The primary critical argument derives from Gal 2.7-8, where Paul unexpectedly shifts from otherwise exclusive usage of “Cephas” in order to refer to “Peter”. But the Fourth Gospel is quite clear that Cephas is the same as Peter (John 1.42), and the surprising fluctuation of these two names in the manuscript tradition of Gal 1-2 also suggests that ancient writers on the whole assumed them to be identical. The immediate context of Gal 1-2 is equally unambiguous in affirming that Cephas is the most important apostle and pillar of the Judaean church, whose sole acquaintance Paul seeks out in Jerusalem (1.17-18) – in other words, the figure of whom it might most reasonably be said that he was the key “apostle” for “the gospel of the circumcised” (2.8-9).
Cephas, then, is Peter. What is more, the application of this name to Simon is now widely regarded as dating back perhaps to an early stage of his association with Jesus, some of whose other disciples bore comparable epithets. Interestingly, Jesus’ only reported use of either form of “Peter”
as a proper name addressed to Simon occurs at Luke 22.34, where it is probably redactional. It seems likely, nevertheless, that *both kēfa’ *and its equivalent, Πέτρος, were in use in their respective linguistic settings from the very beginning of the Christian movement. Simon’s brother, by contrast, seems to bear only the Greek name Ἀνδρέας (like Φίλιππος, their friend and fellow Bethsaidan.)
But what resonance might these appellations have among a contemporary Jewish audience? Cephas is not attested as a non-Christian personal name in Hebrew or Aramaic sources from the Second Temple or rabbinic periods. True, Joseph Fitzmyer has rightly drawn attention to the existence [p. 150] of the name
Kēfa’ in a fifth-century Jewish Aramaic papyrus from Elephantine in Upper Egypt, comparing it with the Hebrew name
Ṣur (“rock”) which is repeatedly attested in the Old Testament. But it remains the case that nearly half a millennium of history and culture separates Elephantine from first-century Palestine, where the evidence suggests that Cephas was not current as a name.
The term Cephas would have remained perfectly intelligible in Jewish circles throughout the rabbinic period, so that the name
Šim’ōn Kēfa’ could still be readily understood and interpreted in the later legends of the
Toledot Yeshu. In the absence of evidence for Cephas as a Jewish name, however, this remains as Peter’s most distinctive epithet – his nickname rather than a proper name. Somewhat contrary to Fitzmyer’s inquiry, it seems likely to have been of interest precisely because it was
not a familiar personal name. It is this that characterized him in the Aramaic-speaking churches of Judaea, and which ironically survived even Paul’s move into the Gentile world.
) A guy who claims to present a ‘new’, ‘radical’ image of figures such as Jesus (cue the taglines: “could shake the very foundations of Christianity,” etc.) will be put in front of the camera faster than the guy who essentially reinforces, or at least does not attack, the traditional Christian picture.
