Peter and the Rock

'Upon this Rock': Matthew 16.18 and the Aramaic Evidence

“…16.18 was kPpiP. It may be that the term~~-~ 'gradually laid aside its original sense of "rock", assuming the sense of "stone", while the sense of"rock" was expressed by the term ~,j~ ', 76 but at least for the first century it appears that the sense of 'rock' was still quite possible. Perhaps another Aramaic term would have been possible as well, but if so what would be the connection between the new name for Simon and the statement that Matthew says Jesus made at the time of Peter's confession?…”

New Testament Greek Language and Linguistics in Recent Research

“…in this article, we survey and assess these developments since the time of Barr's publication with a specific focus upon theories and applications that have been significantly informed by modern linguistics. therefore, while works that fall within our time-line like thrall (1962), Harris (1978), Maloney (1981), Spencer (1984), Caragounis (2004) and Johnson (2004) may make contributions to our understanding of the language, these works are not developed in light of an established linguistic framework, and so are not treated in the following discussion. likewise, broader concerns revolving around the language of the new testamentsuch as the language of Jesus, Asianic, literary and Semitic influence, language formality, dialect and register variation, and the history and current state of Greek grammars and lexica-are not taken up here either.…”