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w_stewart
Guest
But there are apostolic fathers who testify that the rock being referred to in that verse is Peter. Which group is telling the truth and how would you ascertain that?
Why is Peter considered the first "Pope", if it was James who Peter and Paul answered to?
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Mickey
Guest
How do you figure? He says: “The Rock moreover, was Christ”.
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Mickey
Guest
1 Cor 10:4
And all drank the same spiritual drink; (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.)
Eph 2:19-20
Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners; but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God, Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone:
And all drank the same spiritual drink; (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.)
Eph 2:19-20
Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners; but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God, Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone:
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w_stewart
Guest
I said there are apostolic fathers who support the teaching of the Catholic Church that the rock being referred to in Mat. 16:18 is Peter. You cannot deny that. So my question is pertinent. Which of the 2 groups, (one claims that Peter is the rock mentioned in that verese while the other asserts it is Christ) is telling the truth and how would you ascertain that?
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w_stewart
Guest
I have yet to see an official declaration of the Catholic Church denying any of these.
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Mickey
Guest
There are three groups. 1. Peter is the Rock. 2. Peter’s confession is the Rock. 3. Christ is the Rock.
I believe #2 has the most Church Father support.
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Mickey
Guest
That is good to know.
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w_stewart
Guest
Okay. Which of the 3 positions is the correct one and how would you ascertain it is indeed the truth?
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w_stewart
Guest
That should not come a surprise to you.
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Mickey
Guest
Of course not.
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Mickey
Guest
Christ is the head of the Church. Christ is the Rock–the foundation–in heaven and on earth. St Peter’s confession is rock. St Peter is rock. You and I are rock if we confess that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. St Peter was a leader–as was St James (Acts 15) and St John (the beloved of Christ). All the Apostles were Christ’s spokespersons of the Good News. There is no evidence that successors of St Peter should be supreme infallible pontiffs.
You asked. :tiphat:
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w_stewart
Guest
My question was not answered by this latest post of yours. You know that. I wonder why you refuse to directly answer it.
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Mickey
Guest
I answered you. Read it again. Better yet–read the Scriptures and the Church Fathers yourself.
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w_stewart
Guest
Yes you answered me but your answer was NOT responsive to the question. Having an answer is simply not enough. We all need an answer that is responsive to what is asked. Unfortunately, you are unable to do that in regard to my question.
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Mickey
Guest
It surely was responsive. You did not like the answer. Just because w stewart does not like the answer, does not mean that the answer was not responsive.
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Mickey
Guest
St Augustine****
In a passage in this book, I said about the Apostle Peter: ‘On him as on a rock the Church was built’…But I know that very frequently at a later time, I so explained what the Lord said: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,’ that it be understood as built upon Him whom Peter confessed saying: ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ and so Peter, called after this rock, represented the person of the Church which is built upon this rock, and has received ‘the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’ For, ‘Thou art Peter’ and not ‘Thou art the rock’ was said to him. But ‘the rock was Christ,’ in confessing whom, as also the whole Church confesses, Simon was called Peter. But let the reader decide which of these two opinions is the more probable (The Fathers of the Church (Washington D.C., Catholic University, 1968), Saint Augustine, The Retractations Chapter 20.1).
In a passage in this book, I said about the Apostle Peter: ‘On him as on a rock the Church was built’…But I know that very frequently at a later time, I so explained what the Lord said: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,’ that it be understood as built upon Him whom Peter confessed saying: ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ and so Peter, called after this rock, represented the person of the Church which is built upon this rock, and has received ‘the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’ For, ‘Thou art Peter’ and not ‘Thou art the rock’ was said to him. But ‘the rock was Christ,’ in confessing whom, as also the whole Church confesses, Simon was called Peter. But let the reader decide which of these two opinions is the more probable (The Fathers of the Church (Washington D.C., Catholic University, 1968), Saint Augustine, The Retractations Chapter 20.1).
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lion_of_judah
Guest
well, to chime in on my own thread 
, the Koine Greek dispproves a pope anyway, that’s why you see people use Kephas. Because the greek says Petros, as peter, and Petras(huge rock) as something else. And that’s proven to be the statement of “Jesus is the Christ, Son of God”, which is what all churches are built on, except maybe the JW’s or Mormons.
So technically, from a pure greek stance, the Pope doesnt even exist.
, the Koine Greek dispproves a pope anyway, that’s why you see people use Kephas. Because the greek says Petros, as peter, and Petras(huge rock) as something else. And that’s proven to be the statement of “Jesus is the Christ, Son of God”, which is what all churches are built on, except maybe the JW’s or Mormons. So technically, from a pure greek stance, the Pope doesnt even exist.
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Tomster
Guest
Actually, the primacy of St. Peter is insinuated in the changing of his name, promised in the colloquy at Cesarea of Philippi, conferred after the resurrection on the banks of Lake Tiberius, and exercised in the nascent Church.well, to chime in on my own thread
So technically, from a pure greek stance, the Pope doesnt even exist.
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lion_of_judah
Guest
yeah, in aramaic, but in Greek, Jesus used two different words. It’s just like calling some one Joshua at the time, Peter was a common name also.
But Jesus used Petras, thereby meaning something totally different.
But Jesus used Petras, thereby meaning something totally different.
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Randy_Carson
Guest
The word is kepha - not kephale. Kepha and Cephas are the same words.
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.’
However, I suspect you actually know all this. If not, I encourage you to read the following slowly and carefully:
Petros** and Petra– Much Ado About Nothing**
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.
Furthermore, the premise of the argument against Peter being the rock is simply false. In first century Greek the words petros and petra were synonyms. They had previously possessed the meanings of “small stone” and “large rock” in some early Greek poetry, but by the first century this distinction was gone, as Protestant Bible scholars admit (see D. A. Carson’s remarks on this passage in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan Books]).
Some of the effect of Christ’s play on words was lost when his statement was translated from the Aramaic into Greek, but that was the best that could be done in Greek. In English, like Aramaic, there is no problem with endings; so an English rendition could read: “You are Rock, and upon this rock I will build my church.”
Consider another point: If the rock really did refer to Christ (as some claim, based on 1 Cor. 10:4, “and the Rock was Christ” though the rock there was a literal, physical rock), why did Matthew leave the passage as it was? In the original Aramaic, and in the English which is a closer parallel to it than is the Greek, the passage is clear enough. Matthew must have realized that his readers would conclude the obvious from “Rock . . . rock.”
If he meant Christ to be understood as the rock, why didn’t he say so? Why did he take a chance and leave it up to Paul to write a clarifying text? This presumes, of course, that 1 Corinthians was written after Matthew’s Gospel; if it came first, it could not have been written to clarify it.
The reason, of course, is that Matthew knew full well that what the sentence seemed to say was just what it really was saying. It was Simon, weak as he was, who was chosen to become the rock and thus the first link in the chain of the papacy.
Now, forget all your other red herrings for the moment and answer the following
Bottom line question for Dan:
Does Matthew 16:18 reveal that Peter was the rock upon which Jesus would build the Church? Yes or no.
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