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Thank you in advance for your assistance in exploring this issue!

Pinged in case you are interested in this research project.

Another great A-G post. Thanks.

Not sure how my limited language skills can contribute.

But humbled and happy to read and comment in my usual . . . style.

Wowsers!

And Christ used the term Rock in two very important passages. If one misunderstands the Rock to mean something common or someone other than God, then it can lead to error.

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. – Matt 7:24-25

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed [it] unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. – Matt 16:17-18

INDEED! INDEED! INDEED!

As an example, consider the following passage understanding that God is the Rock, that Jesus was smitten, that the Living Water is the Spirit (John 4, 7:38):

Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us, or not?– Exodus 17:6-7

Or perhaps this one:

And the LORD said, Behold, [there is] a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen. – Exodus 33:21-23

INDEED, INDEED, INDEED.

THE ROCK is used throughout Scripture. And, even in Revelation where the foundations of the New Jerusalem are precious rocks and even the gates living wrought rocks.

It seems that our ROCK is a rock . . . afficianado. Perhaps it's His penchant for solid foundations.

And He HIMSELF is THE MOST AND TRULY ONLY SOLID ETERNALLY SOLID FOUNDATION . . . for anything.

Given Peter's denial and looking at the waves and sinking . . . apart from the faith God imparted to Peter--strengthening his backbone . . . anything built on Peter; ANY TRUST of Peter at all--would have been fool hardy. Even walking in that faith, Paul still had to bat him into shape a bit here and there.

God throughout Scripture and history has used flawed, fallible critters called humans and His kids. But HE HAS MADE IT ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that the only redeemable aspects that were useable were those He HIMSELF imiparted to, infected with, injected into said flawed critters.

AND, even with the God imparted, enlivened inner workings of Holy Spirit--the arm of flesh is STILL subject to error and nonsense. It is still not to be leaned on; still not to be glorified; still not to be trusted; still not to usurp; still not to be elevated. The arm of flesh is basically dangerous.

Oh, great edifices are still built by the flesh. Witness the TV ministries of some folks. More so, witness the great political edifices. Tumbleweeds build a great flashy fire full of sparks and fun. But it's over in a twinkling.

God is determined to have a people refined by the refiner's fire. And as demonstrated in the fiery furnace of old, Only THE ROCK will see us through; be with us in such fiery furnaces.

Well, fine, I guess I'll be the fly in the ointment.

Matthew 16 is really pretty clear. Christ says, speaking to Peter, "You are "Rock" (Petros in Greek; Kepha in Aramaic) and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven ...")

Except for the brief digression whose subject is the church, the subject of the whole sentence is Peter, Cephas, "rocky". If Christ wanted to emphasize in this passage that he himself is the rock to the exclusion of all others, he picked a rather strange time to rename Peter, "rock", and a rather strange mode of speech which left that concept not only unspoken, but not even vaguely implied.

And no, he was not renaming Simon "pebble". He was speaking Aramaic, where Simon's new name was Kepha, "rock". And even if you (against all available historical evidence) think that two first century Palestinian Jews would have spoken Greek to each other, "Petros" is merely "petra" ("rock") switched to a masculine declension.

I think that the descriptive "rock" for God (or anyone else) is intended to emphasize God's utter dependability and trustworthiness, two qualities which Jesus was attempting to encourage Peter to embrace ... ultimately with success.

And I would further say that the position of Peter within Christianity is not that of Abraham in Judaism. It's considerably less, closer to the position of Aaron in Judaism, even down to becoming a temporary traitor in a time of crisis.

Comparing some verses in different translations in my bible software E-Sword they just about all translate this "The Rock".

Example Deut 32:4

Only 3 translations [all paraphrase bibles] use "The Lord" or "God". All the other OT Translations including the KJ use "The Rock." These include NASB [the one you will given upon entering heaven, just kidding], NIV, and the Message.

This article seems to be sayings that only the KJV gets it right as "The Rock."

It is called fact checking vs omitting the truth to teach something. Too bad as "The Rock" is a wonderful Name of God.

Excellent breakdown! Very thorough and clear. The only thing I would add would be a little more detail on the Matthew 16 account. Here is an excerpt of my own...

In Matt. ch. 16 at the beginning of the chapter the Pharisees and Sadducees were tempting Jesus to prove himself. Jesus warns his disciples against them.
Then in verse 13, Jesus asks his disciples who people say that He is.
Then in verse 15 Jesus asks his own disciples who they say that He is.
Verse 16 Simon Peter is the only one to apparently answer, "Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God." Verse 16 Jesus praises Simon Peter, and says that flesh and blood (or physical proof that the Sadducees and Pharisees sought) didn't reveal it to him, but "my Father which is in Heaven."

Verse 18 could possibly be read that Jesus is calling Peter the rock upon which his church will be built on, but another reading could be acceptance as Jesus as Christ without proof (faith) is what Jesus will build his church on.

Combine this with all of your other "God is the Rock" data, along with the fact that Mark, Luke and John only record Peter saying that Jesus is the Son of the Living God, and nothing about Peter being the foundation of the church, you don't see Peter as being the Rock that Christ's church is based on. Surely if this was the main imphasis of the conversation, the idea would have been re-iterated in the other Gospels or Epistles, but the rest of Scripture is completely silent on Peter being "the Rock."

Sincerely

Moses struck the rock twice and was not allowed to enter the promised land.

Numbers 20:7 And HaShem spoke unto Moses, saying: 9 And Moses took the rod from before HaShem, as He commanded him.

10 And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said unto them: 'Hear now, ye rebels; are we to bring you forth water out of this rock?'

11 And Moses lifted up his hand, and smote the rock with his rod twice; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their cattle.

12 And HaShem said unto Moses and Aaron: 'Because ye believed not in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.'

Jesus is the Rock, from which living waters flow

Jon 4:13

Jesus answered and said unto her, "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: 14but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

The rock that Moses struck was flinta rock of water and a rock of fire. Co-incidence?/ I think not. (LOL)

De 8:15

Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;

Ps 114:8

Which turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters

The Stone Edition Torah translation of Deut 32:4, which is part of The Song of Moses

"When I call out the Name of HaShem, ascribe greatness to our God

The Rock!"

What suggestions do the defenders of the Septuagint and the Vulgate have for the alleged insertion of "rock" into the text? I can not see why the compilers of the Masoretic text would have done so. Also, knowing the extreme care that they used when handling the Word of God, to add a word that wasn't there at least in some text that they considered reliable would seem unthinkable.

Speaking as a Catholic, of which (Catholicism) this post seems directed against, I have honestly never understood why the passage in Matthew gives Protestants such consternation.

Jesus used the word for "rock" to rename Simon bar Jonah.

Does this mean that Catholics/Catholicism believes that God is no longer a "rock of salvation"? IOW, does it mean that Catholics believe Peter REPLACES God? I can say with reasonable confidence, "of course not".

It's a symbolic description of Peter's role in the new Church Jesus was founding. That doesn't mean that God isn't the Head of the Church, it simply means here, on earth, the earthly, fleshly, visible head is the Pope.

Here's something to consider: There can be, logically speaking, two "rocks", one, the "Rock", being God, "rock steady for all eternity", and the other a "rock" as in a cornerstone for the visible Church here on Earth. Note the Capital and lowercase lettering. Does that make it more palitable? Does that stress enough the Catholic teaching I know to exist?

The Pope is the Vicar (meaning representitive, not substitute for) of Christ here on earth, a "little 'r' rock" if you will. God, is the "Rock", the "Rock of Salvation", an eternal rock Who's Nature is to build on Faith. What better way to build a mighty Church on earth than to confer such authority to a leader, a "rock on the earth", as Peter?

Put another way, IMO, the point of Matt 16:18 is not to "replace" God as "the Rock", but rather to place a "rock", in the form of Peter, a human being, here, on Earth, a foundation upon which the rest of the Church can rely. I think that notion is supported by the plain reading of the passage.

Forget about debating "rocks", and get into the meat of the Word.