Reasons we know PETER is the “Rock”
• Jesus & the Apostles conversed in Aramaic.
• The Aramaic word for “rock” is “kepha”.
• So Jesus actually said, “You are “Kepha”, & upon this “kepha” I will build My Church.”
• You KNOW that because when Peter is referred to by his ACTUAL NAME in the NT he’s called “Kephas” (or “Cephas”): John 1:42, 1 Cor 1:12, 1 Cor 3:22, 1 Cor 9:5, 1 Cor 15:5, Gal 2:9 (KJV); + Gal 2:11, Gal 2:14 in Douay-Rheims.
• Matthew’s Gospel was originally written in Aramaic. See Sts. Papias & Irenaeus (2nd century) & Eusebius’ history.
• When Matthew’s Gospel was translated into Greek, the translator knew some Greek readers might not know the word “kepha” MEANT “rock”. So to make the “rock” image clear, he used the Greek word for rock, “petra”: “upon this ‘petra’ I will build My Church.”
• “Petra” is feminine; Peter was a man. So Matthew had to take “petra" & masculinize it to “Petros” (-‘os’ = masculine ending). He HAS to use “petra” for rock so his Greek readers will understand the CONCEPT; he CAN’T use the feminine “petra” for Peter’s NAME.
• The claim that “petra” means “rock” but “Petros” means “stone” was true in ATTIC Greek—but NEVER in KOINE Greek, the Greek of the NT (entirely different dialect). In Koine Greek, both “petra” & “petros” meant “rock” (see 4th & 5th tweets).
• And by Jesus’ time, any distinction between “petra” & “Petros” had ceased to exist EVEN IN Attic Greek. Between the 8th & 4th centuries BC they were used as “rock” & “stone” in Attic Greek poetry, but that distinction had long disappeared by the time Matthew was translated into Greek (Koine Greek having become more popular in the 4th century BC & continuing in widespread use until the 5th century AD). Greek scholars—even non-Catholic ones—admit the words “petra” & “petros” were synonyms in 1st century Greek (see 4th & 5th tweets).
• If Matthew had wanted Peter to mean “stone”, not “rock”, he would’ve used the Greek word for stone: “lithos”, or even clearer, “psephos”, which means “small stone” (e.g., Rev 2:17).
• Jesus uses the second-person personal pronoun “you” (singular) 7 times in these 3 verses. The context is clearly one of communicating a unique AUTHORITY to Peter here—& to Peter alone.
• Insisting on “stone” vs. “rock” is asserting that Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh & blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, *you are an insignificant stone*, & on this rock I will build my Church. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” So what Jesus is ACTUALLY doing is giving Peter—the MAN, not his “faith”, not his “confession”—a 3-fold blessing:
1) “Blessed are you...”
2) “…upon this rock I will build…”
3) “I will give unto you the keys…”
What He is NOT doing is blessing him, then undermining that authority, then blessing him again.
• The “rock” obviously CANNOT be Christ because He’s the BUILDER (“upon this rock I will build My Church.”). Christ, rather, is “the wise man who built his house UPON the rock” (Matt 7:24)—the builder, the cornerstone, the foundation of the Faith—but Peter is His foundation for the Church.
• And you know that because (looking at the grammar) with “You are Kepha, AND upon this kepha”, “THIS kepha” must refer back to the closest noun. To say “this kepha” refers to Jesus, or to Peter’s “confession” 3 verses earlier, is to completely ignore the sentence’s structure. He DIDN’T say, “You are “Kepha”, BUT upon THIS [other] “kepha” I will build my Church.”