Jesus is the Rock Peter is a small stone

The Roman Catholic Church says Peter is the Pope and the rock on which the Messiah Jesus built his church. Both of the above claims of the Catholic Church are false. In this article, I will examine the concept of the rock and how it relates to the Lord in the Bible, not Peter. The Bible's teaching about the Rock as connected to God opens up to us a profound message about the Rock of Salvation, the Lord Jesus. I will also look at the Aramaic word Cephas (Peter - stone) and its meanings. Study and test my writing with the truth of God's word through prayer.

Contents:
Preface
The Roman Catholic Church and the word Cephas
Cephas and the teaching of the Bible petra and petros
Dictionaries and the meaning of the word Cephas

Preface

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that Peter is the rock on which the Messiah Jesus builds His church. The Catholic Church says that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Aramaic, and in Aramaic the word Cephas (the name Jesus gave Peter) means rock, not a small stone. On this basis, the Catholic Church teaches that Peter is the Pope and the universal head and leader of His Church.

When we examine the truth of the Bible, we find that the Bible does not teach that Peter is the head and leader of the congregation, and not the rock on which the congregation is built. However, it is true that the Gospel of Matthew and some other New Testament (NT) Scriptures were originally written in Aramaic, because it was the everyday language of the Jews of the time of the Messiah Jesus, and the Gospel had to be preached to the Jews in their own language first. Very quickly, the Gospel spread among the Gentiles (Acts 10), after which the New Testament texts written in Aramaic were translated and rendered into Greek.

Since the Gospel was very quickly taken to the Gentiles, we can also understand that Greek was the original text of the NT, in addition to Hebrew and Aramaic. In fact, when you compare the Aramaic NT texts with the Greek NT texts, they are very close indeed, in many places almost identical in meaning. The Greek NT texts are also very important when we examine whether the Bible teaches that Peter is the rock on which the congregation is built.

The Roman Catholic Church and the word Cephas

The Roman Catholic Church's catholic.com website, the world's largest Catholic website, says the following about the Aramaic word cephas (in italics):

......... We know that Jesus spoke Aramaic because some of his words are preserved for us in the Gospels. Look at Matthew 27:46, where he says from the cross, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ That isn’t Greek; it’s Aramaic, and it means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ “What’s more,” I said, “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.’ “When you understand what the Aramaic says, you see that Jesus was equating Simon and the rock; he wasn’t contrasting them. We see this vividly in some modern English translations, which render the verse this way: ‘You are Rock, and upon this rock I will build my church.’ In French one word, pierre, has always been used both for Simon’s new name and for the rock.” ........ “If kepha means the same as petra, why don’t we read in the Greek, ‘You are Petra, and on this petra I will build my Church’? Why, for Simon’s new name, does Matthew use a Greek word, Petros, which means something quite different from petra?”.....  “Greek and Aramaic have different grammatical structures. In Aramaic you can use kepha in both places in Matthew 16:18. In Greek you encounter a problem arising from the fact that nouns take differing gender endings.

When we next examine God's Word, the Bible, we will see that Peter is not the Rock on which the congregation is built.

Cephas and the teaching of the Bible petra and petros

The Bible's own testimony proves to us that Peter is not the Rock on which the Messiah Jesus is building His congregation.

John 1:42 και ηγαγεν αυτον προς τον ιησουν εμβλεψας [δε] αυτω ο ιησους ειπεν συ ει σιμων (Simon) ο υιος ιωνα συ κληθηση κηφας (Kephas) ο ερμηνευεται πετρος (Petros) the Byzantine text

In the Gospel of John, the Byzantine text says that the name of Simon (Peter) will be Cephas, which is translated Petros. The Greek text says that the word Cephas is translated in Greek as Petros. The Greek word petros means a stone, a piece of stone taken from a rock.

This is a very significant observation, because the original Greek text says that the Aramaic word Cephas means Petros in Greek - stone, a piece of stone taken from a rock. The Gospel of John is said to have been written in 85 AD and the Greek version of the Gospel of John says the Aramaic word Cephas means a stone, a piece of rock taken from a rock (petros). The Bible proves that the word Cephas - Petros, when combined with Peter, means a stone, a piece of stone taken from a rock, not the rock itself.

John 1:42 - and he brought him to Jeshu. And Jeshu saw him, and said, Thou art Shemun bar Jona; thou shalt be called Kipha. [Pronounced Kepha.] Dr. John W. Etheridge's English Peshitta translation

John 1:42 - And he brought him to Jesus. And Jesus looked upon him, and said Thou art Simon the son of Jona; thou shalt be called Cephas. Dr. James Murdock's English Peshitta translation

John 1:42 - And he brought him to Jesus. And Jesus looked at him and said, You are Simon the son of Jonah; you are called Kepa (a Stone). Dr. George Lamsa's English Peshitta translation

In John 1:42, the translator of the Lamsa translation from Aramaic to English has put in brackets the word "a stone", which means Kepa (Cephas), i.e. Peter.

An ancient Eastern Aramaic text translated from Aramaic into English translates the word Kepha as the English word rock, meaning rock, stone and boulder.

When I looked up Aramaic-English dictionaries online, the following meanings were given to the word Cephas: rock, bedrock, stone.

The word Cephas can mean rock or stone and the context of the text determines the context in which the word Cephas means rock or stone.

In the Bible, in the Old Testament, the rock of salvation is associated with the Lord (God) in six passages, one of which is in 2 Samuel:

2 Sam 22:47 The LORD (יהוה‎ - YHVH) lives; and blessed be my rock (צור‎ - tsur); and exalted be the God (אלהים‎ - ‘Elohiym) of the rock (צור‎ - tsur) of my salvation (ישׁע‎ yesha‘). KJV

1 Thessalonians 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,

When the Bible uses the words rock of salvation in the Old Testament (OT) text of the Lord, in each of the six passages the Hebrew language uses the Hebrew word for rock, tsur. The Bible teaches that the Lord is the Rock of Salvation (Saviour) in both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

1 Cor 10:4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.

1 Kor 10:4 και παντες το αυτο πομα πνευματικον επιον επινον γαρ εκ πνευματικης ακολουθουσης πετρας η δε πετρα ην ο χριστος the Byzantine text

1 Cor 10:4 and all, each one, drank of The Mashthya d'Rukha {The Drink of The Spirit}, for, they were drinking from The Kepha d'Rukha {The Rock of The Spirit}, which was following with them, yet, that Kepha {Rock}, it was Meshikha {The Anointed One}! Ancient Eastern Aramaic New Testament text

When we look at the Greek New Testament, we find that the Greek word for rock is petra, not petros, which means a stone, a piece of rock taken from a rock. 1 Cor 10:4 in the Greek Byzantine original text says the Messiah Jesus is the Rock (petra) because the Messiah Jesus is the Saviour and Lord God who became flesh (man). The Greek word petra means rock and a piece of stone taken from this rock is petros in Greek. The Bible teaches that Jesus is the Rock of Salvation and we believers, saved by God's grace, are little stones taken from the Rock of Jesus.

The Aramaic translation of 1 Corinthians 10:4 uses the Aramaic word for rock, Kepha. In Aramaic, the context determines whether the word kepha means rock or stone. Whenever the word kepha is associated with the Lord, the God of the Bible (Jesus), it means rock, because Jesus is the Rock of salvation.

The Greek NT makes a clear distinction between the words rock (petra) and stone (petros). This also clearly shows how the Aramaic word kepha means either rock or stone and thus we see the identity, or similarity, of the Aramaic and Greek Bible words.

When the women came to the tomb of Jesus, they saw the stone at the entrance to the tomb had been rolled away. Here the Greek language does not use the word petros, but lithos. The ancient Eastern Aramaic New Testament text uses the word kepha here, which does not mean a rock, but a large stone that had been at the entrance to Jesus' tomb. This and many other passages, for example, show that the Aramaic word kepha does not only refer to a rock, but also to a stone.

Matt 7:9  Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone (lithos)? KJV

Matt 7:9 η τις εστιν εξ υμων ανθρωπος ον εαν αιτηση ο υιος αυτου αρτον μη λιθον (lithos) επιδωσει αυτω Byzantine text

Matt 7:
ܐܘ ܡܢܘ ܡܢܟܘܢ ܓܒܪܐ ܕܢܫܐܠܘܘܗܝ ܒܪܗ ܠܚܡܐ ܠܡܐ ܟܐܦܐ ܡܘܫܛ ܠܗ
9 Or, who is the gabra {the man} from you, if his son might ask him for lakhma {bread}, would he hold out a kepha {a rock} unto him? Ancient Eastern Aramaic New Testament text

In Matthew 7:9, the Aramaic word kepha is found in verse 9, where it means a small stone (an edible size stone). The Roman Catholic Church's catholic.com website gave false and misleading information when it said that the word kepha means rock, not stone, a small stone.

Matthew chapter 16 verse 18 is the Roman Catholic Church's favourite point of justification for their false doctrine when they teach that Jesus is building His church on Peter. This interpretation of the Catholic Church is a false interpretation of this passage of Scripture.

As we have seen earlier, in Aramaic, the word kepha has the meaning of rock and stone and the context of the text determines where it means rock or stone. As has been pointed out before, the Bible says the Lord is the Rock of Salvation and the Bible says the Messiah Jesus is the Head of the Congregation (Ephesians 5:23, Colossians 1:18). The Bible teaches that no created man is the Rock of salvation, nor the Head of the church, nor the Rock upon which the congregation is built, for the Messiah Jesus is the Rock upon which the congregation is built, because Jesus is the Head of the congregation and the Rock of salvation.

The Greek language makes a distinction between the words petra (rock) and petros (stone, a piece of rock taken from a rock), which is made clear in Matthew 16:18. In this passage, Peter (petros) is a small stone taken from the Rock of Salvation by the Messiah Jesus, and the Messiah Jesus is the Rock on which Jesus is building His congregation. In the Bible Jesus says here my congregation, because He is the Rock of salvation and the head of the congregation. The congregation does not depend on man, and is not built on a man, but on Jesus the Messiah.

In the Aramaic Bible the NT also has the same idea, because when the word kepha is related to the Lord, it means the Rock (the Rock of salvation) and when it is related to a man or a stone taken from the rock, it means Peter or a stone. The Aramaic NT Matt 16:18 does not teach Peter to be the Rock upon which the congregation is built, but agrees with the whole Biblical statement of the Word, saying Jesus is the Rock (Rock of salvation) upon which the congregation is built.