[metmom]

Being Catholic, I am not at all familiar with the bible, so I can’t offhand cite the scripture where Jesus called himself ‘the rock’. I do know that He did call Peter the rock on which he would build his church.

Here is the Greek, that the Bible was written in.

Peter – rock Matthew 16:18 - http://bible.cc/matthew/16-18.htm

Jesus said that Peter was *petros*(masculine) and that on this *petra*(feminine) He would build His church.

Greek: 4074 Pétros (a masculine noun) – properly, a stone (pebble), such as a small rock found along a pathway. 4074 /Pétros (”small stone”) then stands in contrast to 4073 /pétra (”cliff, boulder,” Abbott-Smith).

“4074 (Pétros) is an isolated rock and 4073 (pétra) is a cliff” (TDNT, 3, 100). “4074 (Pétros) always means a stone . . . such as a man may throw, . . . versus 4073 (pétra), a projecting rock, cliff” (S. Zodhiates, Dict).

4073 pétra (a feminine noun) – “a mass of connected rock,” which is distinct from 4074 (Pétros) which is “a detached stone or boulder” (A-S). 4073 (pétra) is a “solid or native rock, rising up through the earth” (Souter) – a huge mass of rock (a boulder), such as a projecting cliff.

4073 (petra) is “a projecting rock, cliff (feminine noun) . . . 4074 (petros, the masculine form) however is a stone . . . such as a man might throw” (S. Zodhiates, Dict).

It’s also a strange way to word the sentence that He would call Peter a rock and say that on this I will build my church instead of *on you* as would be grammatically correct in talking to a person.

There is no support from the original Greek that Peter was to be the rock on which Jesus said he would build His church. The nouns are not the same, one being masculine and the other being feminine. They denote different objects.

[omegatoo]

Your post indicates that the masculine form of the word (boulder or pebble) would not properly describe a rock to be used for a foundation. So either Jesus would have had to use the improper masculine form and have his church built on a pebble, or he would have had to give Peter a feminine name to have the word forms agree. That seems a bit of a stretch.

Anyway, the scripture I was looking for was where Jesus said that He was the rock and foundation, because that is what was asserted in the post I replied to, and what prompted my question about interpretations.

O2

[Salvation]

Have you ever studied a foreign language. Genders, etc. verbs, past, present, future have different forms.

[Elsie]

Here is the Greek, that the Bible was written in.

NOW you've done it!

Them WRITTEN IN HEBREW folks will come a'swarming around!