Catholics claim:
In the Bible verse Matthew 16:18, "And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it."

In this verse the Church teaches, Jesus is talking to Peter, and calls Peter the rock upon which I will build my church.

The EOC and I think most mainline protestants do not disagree with this interpretation. Even if some reformers did, keep in mind that this interpretation is novel compared to the orthodox translation.

Un-orthodox view:

Jesus was talking about "Peter's confession" that Jesus was the Christ. Jesus could not have possibly meant Peter was the rock, because petra is used in the greek to refer to "this rock" and Petros is used to refer to Peter's new name. Petra is a "big rock" and Petros is a pebble.

I have never seen the counter to the following argument, so please unorthdox christians, help me out here:

Jesus spoke Aramaic. When translated (when the oral tradition was written), it was written not in the language it was spoken in, but rather in Greek, hence the confusion over Petros and petra. They both mean the same thing, but when translated, the author couldn't give Peter (Petros) a femine form name (petra). In Aramaic (as well as English, among other languages) there is no confusion: Peter=rock. You are rock, and on this rock I will build my church. Jesus is clearly referring back to the thing just preceding it in the sentence, i.e. Peter is the rock.

I value all replys.

In the immediate vicinity of where this transpired, so I have read, there is a huge boulder sticking out of a cliff...

Whatever the Aramaic interpretation, a name change in the bible from Simon (grain of sand) to Peter (Rock) is significant. God changed Abram's name to Abraham, which, I think , means from "Father" to "a Father of many nations"...OPK - True?

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Psalm 18:2
The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;
My God, my strength, in whom I will trust;
My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

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Isaiah 44:8
8 Do not fear, nor be afraid;
Have I not told you from that time, and declared it?
You are My witnesses.
Is there a God besides Me?
Indeed there is no other Rock;
I know not one

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1 Corinthians 10:3-5
3 all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. 5 But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

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nah, Jesus wasn't talking about himself at all...

Then why the use of 2nd person - you are rock?

And what about the incredible amount of authority Christ gave the Apostles?

Binding and loosing, forgiving sins?

The next question is - did they have appointed successors.....

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Then why the use of 2nd person - you are rock?

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...you are peter, and on this rock (myself) i will build my church...

that's how i would read it

[This message has been edited by schmendeler (edited 6/13/2006 5:40p).]

It's all one sentence. "This rock" refers to the thing immediately preceding it, Peter. You know, person he just called rock.

See, this is where personal interpretations become problematic. It's a real contortion of the language to obtain any meaning from the verse other than Peter is the rock Christ is referring to. As I pointed out, the EOC and Catholic Church both agree on the proper interpretation.

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The next question is - did they have appointed successors

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Matthias, Paul, Timothy, Mark, Luke, etc...