Robert F. Smith Posted July 12, 2019 Share Posted July 12, 2019 5 hours ago, Valentinus said: I am tending to lean your direction in this debate. I'm curious, how much time would Peter have had to learn Greek from the time he joined Jesus until his death? We are speaking from ignorance here, but Peter likely knew nothing more than a spoken Greek phrase here or there when he began following Jesus, and could probably not read the Greek on the plaque placed on Jesus' cross at his crucifixion. We do not even know whether Peter was literate (could read and write Aramaic, much less Hebrew). After Jesus' death, as leader he would likely have learned to speak Greek as the heavy load of missionary responsibility began to weigh on him. Yet, he could have turned to translators for help in writing letters and in having conversations with the new Greek members of the faith. He was much slower in accepting Greek members than Paul, as you know. He may even have learned Latin in Rome as the decades went by. However, we just don't know. The epistles in his name may have been written down entirely by translators. 2 Link to comment
PacMan Posted July 12, 2019 Author Share Posted July 12, 2019 19 hours ago, Vance said: I think you are reading too much into it. First, Matthew was written by Matthew, I assume. We know that Acts was written by Luke. Both were written in Greek. Both are writing based upon their own or someone else's memory of the event. It is likely that neither account was 100% accurate. That said, I think that IF Matthew, who wrote it, thought that Jesus was referring to Peter, and IF he understood that you should never use the feminine when referring to a person, THEN he would not have used "petra" in that verse. You and the rest of us are only guessing about what Jesus really said. Just sayin. That’s precisely why I said to start with the text, we need to make assumptions. To assume Matthew, however, was not accurate has more difficulty because there’s nothing upon which to base the assumption. Link to comment
Vance Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 On 7/12/2019 at 2:44 PM, PacMan said: That’s precisely why I said to start with the text, we need to make assumptions. To assume Matthew, however, was not accurate has more difficulty because there’s nothing upon which to base the assumption. You mean other than the fact that he is human and therefore fallible. Can any account ever be 100% accurate when a human is involved it its translation? Just sayin. On a personal note, I have found it rather humorous that it was a Catholic Priest who first told me that Peter could not be the "rock" upon which "the Church" was built precisely because the rock upon which the church was built is from the Greek "petra" and the Greek word used for Peter was "petros", making the two incompatible. Link to comment
PacMan Posted July 14, 2019 Author Share Posted July 14, 2019 2 hours ago, Vance said: You mean other than the fact that he is human and therefore fallible. Can any account ever be 100% accurate when a human is involved it its translation? Just sayin. On a personal note, I have found it rather humorous that it was a Catholic Priest who first told me that Peter could not be the "rock" upon which "the Church" was built precisely because the rock upon which the church was built is from the Greek "petra" and the Greek word used for Peter was "petros", making the two incompatible. 🙄 Link to comment
SeekingUnderstanding Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 On 7/10/2019 at 8:10 AM, PacMan said: Sorry. The difference is between conveying an idea not explicitly stated (imply) versus a conclusion not explicitly stated (infer). See the example of the statue. It doesn’t fit your explanation. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/infers Dude, the text implies, you inferred. So you could say, from these verses in Acts, I inferred... or these verses in Acts imply ... 1 Link to comment
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