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To: RaisingCain
First of all, this is English, not Greek.

Again, from the above post:

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.


13 posted on 08/04/2012 3:20:47 PM PDT by NYer (Without justice, what else is the State but a great band of robbers? - St. Augustine)
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To: NYer
When Matthew’s Gospel was translated from the original Aramaic to Greek

Please provide a link to the facsimile of the Aramaic text of Matthew.

I won't hold my breath waiting ...

99 posted on 08/06/2012 8:22:35 AM PDT by dartuser ("If you are ... what you were ... then you're not.")
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