So according to NT, Peter was never in Rome
Peter's Confession about Jesus
- Thread starter Provita
- Start date
And according to the earlist writings Peter was NOT the first bishop (pope) of Rome ....
the first was Linus ...
the first was Linus ...
And according to the historical writings (Irenaeus of Lyon) mr. Peter was alive and kicking in year 79 - even though he was supposed to have been crucified and died in
year 66 ........
year 66 ........
One more funny thing - in the second century two sites competed about beeing the burial place for mr.Peter : St.Sebastiano on the Appian way and the other was
the supposed tomb on vatican hill.
It seems that the life and whereabouts of mr. Peter is clouded in a lot of uncertainty !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the supposed tomb on vatican hill.
It seems that the life and whereabouts of mr. Peter is clouded in a lot of uncertainty !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That Peter was crucified in Rome is a long standing tradition, as are the many events on Jesus' walk to Golgotha. The NT does not deny that Peter went to Rome, or that Mary and Mary Magdalan traveled together and lived in Ephesus. If you reject unwritten tradition, you might as well not be a christian, or even a bible christian, since it has always been an unwritten tradition among all christians to venerate scripture and use it for edification.Lord Insane said:
Provita said:Then why does the greek word for rock, yes it is petra (easily remembered in Greek class cause of petrolium) , appear in the dative case, which translates as if to mean "the rock next to me" ? He was speaking directly to Peter, so if Peter was the rock, their cases would agree, simple rule. "You (nominative, unless its understood in the verb) are Peter (nominative, agreeing with you), and on this rock (dative, not agreeing with peter whatsoever by instead, when understood like most greek, means basically "this rock right next to us") I will build my chuch (accusative) ... etc.
Provita,
here you can find by a search the Greek line in question
PETROS
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Lawdog said:
petros is nominative -os ending
the words petros and petra were synonyms in first century Greek. They meant "small stone" and "large rock" in some ancient Greek poetry, centuries before the time of Christ, but that distinction had disappeared from the language by the time Matthew’s Gospel was rendered in Greek. The difference in meaning can only be found in Attic Greek, but the New Testament was written in Koine Greek—an entirely different dialect. In Koine Greek, both petros and petra simply meant "rock." If Jesus had wanted to call Simon a small stone, the Greek lithos would have been used. The argument doesnt work and shows a faulty knowledge of Greek.
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 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.
Stumped yet?
"Wait a second," you say. "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?"
Because he had no choice, 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.
You have masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns. The Greek word petra is feminine. You can use it in the second half of Matthew 16:18 without any trouble. But you can’t use it as Simon’s new name, because you can’t give a man a feminine name—at least back then you couldn’t. You have to change the ending of the noun to make it masculine. When you do that, you get Petros, which was an already-existing word meaning rock!
I admit that’s an imperfect rendering of the Aramaic; you lose part of the play on words. In English, where we have ‘Peter’ and ‘rock,’ you lose all of it. But that’s the best you can do in Greek."
Beyond the grammatical evidence, the structure of the narrative does not allow for a downplaying of Peter’s role in the Church. Look at the way Matthew 16:15-19 is structured. After Peter gives a confession about the identity of Jesus, the Lord does the same in return for Peter. Jesus does not say, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are an insignificant pebble and on this rock I will build my Church. . . . I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven." Jesus is giving Peter a three-fold blessing, including the gift of the keys to the kingdom, not undermining his authority. To say that Jesus is downplaying Peter flies in the face of the context. Jesus is installing Peter as a form of chief steward or prime minister under the King of Kings by giving him the keys to the kingdom. As can be seen in Isaiah 22:22, kings in the Old Testament appointed a chief steward to serve under them in a position of great authority to rule over the inhabitants of the kingdom. Jesus quotes almost verbatum from this passage in Isaiah, and so it is clear what he has in mind. He is raising Peter up as a father figure to the household of faith (Is. 22:21), to lead them and guide the flock (John 21:15-17). This authority of the prime minister under the king was passed on from one man to another down through the ages by the giving of the keys, which were worn on the shoulder as a sign of authority. Likewise, the authority of Peter has been passed down for 2000 years by means of the papacy.
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Lawdog said:
There is no agreement amongst scholars (except Roman Catholic ones). The same would apply to the other comments about 'bishop' ('universal' or not).
Apart from Revelation's much later figurative usage, Strongs 897 (used and translated 'Babylon' in 1 Peter 5) appears in the New Testament on four other occassions to refer to a real city and in each case it is Babylon itself, not Rome.
By comparison Rome is specifically mentioned in the New Testament 15 times as 'Rome' so why would anyone (without a specific RC agenda) deduce that here uniquely a reference to a specific real city called Babylon actually refers to a real specific city called Rome? By any reasonable objective (not RC dogma) analysis Babylon here is not really very likely to mean Rome.
I have read the support for the theory that Peter was in Rome but there is not one contemporary source (scriptural or otherwise) that says Peter was definitely in Rome. Certainly scripture that quotes a different city cannot really be evidence.
Certainly Babylon as a great city had long since perished but there was certainly a Jewish community still in that area which was also within the Roman empire at the time.
Again if Peter was in charge of the whole church as the 'Bishop' (or more correctly 'overseer') of Rome, you would have expected at least one reference to that somewhere in the later new testament books, but there is not one such reference. As I have stated elsewhere in another post, the concept of an overall human head of the church is anathema to both Jesus and the apostles in the scripture that we actually do have.
The problem is that if you modify scripture in accordance with non scriptural (and later) human traditions, where do you stop? And unless you are a Roman Catholic it's no good quoting papal authority. To the rest of us he's just a man like any other.
regards,
Gordon.
Lawdog said:
But the King in this case is Jesus Christ himself. If you consider the following actual history of papal selection:
'In 1378, after the death of the French-born Pope Gregory XI, the Romans rioted to ensure the election of an Italian; the cardinals complied by choosing Pope Urban VI. Later, in the same year, French and other cardinals moved to Fondi and elected another rival Pope. The Council of Pisa met in 1409 to resolve the conflict, but only managed to elect a third claimant. The conflict was only resolved by the Council of Constance (which met between 1414 and 1418), which received the abdication of one claimant and deposed the two others. The Council then proceeded to elect Pope Martin V, ending the Papal Schism. Since that election, it was declared that no council would have authority over the Pope, and that a papal election could not be undone.
It should be noted that through much of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the number of cardinals often hovered around the 20s, travel was difficult and usually at least some cardinals did not get to the conclave in time, and the cardinals were usually factionalized along political and family lines. Hence, the papacy came under family control, national (French of Italian or specifically Roman, for instance) control, and there were sometimes conclaves that lasted months and even years -- in a divided, small college, the shift of a vote or two could make signficant differences'
So at times there was more than one pope. At other times none at all for some time. This is not exactly an unbroken chain for passing authority!
So how can you possibly believe that there was an unbroken line of choice of popes by the King (Christ)? These selections were clearly human decisions based on all the normal human prejudices and weaknesses. Not surprisingly evidence indicates that in the past there were often some very bad decisions made (not what you would expect if they were divinely chosen).
Rodrigo Borgia (Alexander VI) was one (albeit extreme) example who despite everything was still honoured by appearing on a Vatican City stamp! The nearest equivalent to that would be present day Germany issuing a stamp with a picture of Adolf Hitler on it!
How can you, as a rational thinking person, honestly believe that men like Alexander VI were seriously chosen by Christ to be in charge of the whole christian church?
To most of us, this is absolutely incredible (in the true sense of the word)!
regards,
Gordon.
Lawdog said:
It is not 'an unwritten tradition among all christians to venerate scripture and use it for edification' the instruction to read scripture is included within scripture. Jesus refers to people requiring to know scripture many many times.
The Roman Catholic church of course opposed the translation of scripture into native languages for centuries and insisted that the Bible (and church services) were conducted in Latin, a language which hardly any of the congregation would have been able to understand. There is of course still a faction within the Roman Catholic Church which believes that services should be in Latin.
'The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) was convened by Pope John XXIII primarily as a pastoral council, to make the historic teachings of the Catholic Church clear to the modern world. It issued documents on a number of topics including the nature of the Church, the mission of the laity, and religious freedom. Vatican II also issued instructions for a revision of the liturgy, which led to the intermediate 1965 Missal and later the Mass of Paul VI or novus ordo mass. The most visible element of these reforms was that the mass could now be celebrated in the vernacular as well as in Latin. (However, it was intended that Latin continue to have priority.)'
Unscriptural tradition may be useful on occassions but it has always to be taken on board very carefully and weighed against scripture and certainly should never have equal or greater authority than scripture itself. Scripture warns against that very thing.
regards,
Gordon.
Lord Insane said:
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M*W: This is an astute observation!
Lawdog said:
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MW: Truth is... Peter died for his faith in christianity. Peter died and did not reach infalability. Where does Peter come into the picture? He represents the planet Jupiter.
his bastard son Cesare is one of my favorite historical characters. he was reputed to have regularly had young boys kidnapped so that he could drink their blood.Gordon said:
true or not, you have to be a very "special" person to garner such a reputation that someone hundreds of years later can read something like that about you.
Your counterpoint is typical of those who cannot argue against a correction: your strategy: repeat the correction as if you yourself had come up with it.
If you knew language, you would realize that the Latins took words like ebiscopus from their more ancient neighbors, the Greeks, and changed the "p" into a more familiar "b", the e in front of b drops off through the passage of centuries..... episcopus-ebiscopus-bishop
Note the word "as": This usage would be similar to the U.S. President adressing the military "as commander-in-chief." It doesnt stop him from being President. Peter's inclusion of himself among the council of elders doesnt change his status as Bishop.
The Church hierachy does not "lord it" over people. But in case you hadnt noticed, we are at war with the principalities and powers like Paul said. Therefore the Church is structured in a military hierarchic fashion and requires the obedience of its faithful.
I believe that christian beliefs outside of the Catholic Tradition have validity in as much as the conform to what the Church has constantly taught. However, the great scandal of protestantism is that they hold such high moral expectations of their followers but offer only two sacraments instead of seven, thats like going into battle with only two pieces of armour from a seven peice suit.
Also, they can only be traced back to Luther, although they often claim further heritage with medieval heretics. The whole ugly Da Vinci Code drama we have heard is the result of protestantism's recent marriage to neo-paganism.
Better to be hot or cold, not lukewarm.
We have changed some of our traditions, and not our beliefs, but have only clarified our beliefs. If you blame the Church for mistaking the geocentrism, you might as well blame Luther too, for in his writings he does not encourage science and also would have rejected Galileo.
The great thing about our faith is that, with regards to such issues one may disagree with the Pope. It is only on faith and morals that you may not.
Yes, the indications of the trinity go back to Genesis, but I said the word, the very word TRINITY, its not there, its nowhere in scripture.
Matthew 23 makes this quite clear.
So according to your interpretation, you call no one, not even your Dad, "father"? Obviously your over-literal reading has serious limitations.
The Pope's title is "servant of the servants of God"
regards,
Gordon.[/QUOTE]
Lord Insane said:
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M*W: Lord Insane, it seems you are quite sure Mr. Peter never set foot in Rome. I am interested in your belief, even though I have set foot in the dungeon where Mr. Peter was imprisoned. I just don't believe that Mr. Peter was Jesus' choice (Jesus didn't exist, either), so why should I believe in a Mr. Peter??? No one shouldn't. Mr. Peter is also referred to as the planet Jupiter, who did live and thrive in Rome. When Jesus says, "get thee behind me, Satan," he was referring to the planet Jupiter going behind the Sun. There is no christian religion, only christian astrology!!! Hear me now, believe me later!