I have recently finished republishing a series of posts from years ago that explored the tradition that Peter and Cephas were in fact two different people. Anyone who is not interested in the Bible would not care, of course, but then again, no one like that would be on the blog! For those who are both interested and familiar with the New Testament, the idea is unusual and odd – a bit of a bombshell, actually, since it is normally assumed that these are two names for the same disciple of Jesus, Simon son of Jonah, nicknamed “Cephas” (an Aramaic term that means “rock”) by Jesus. When the term “Rock” was translated into Greek by later story tellers, they simply used the Greek term “Petros,” which gets transliterated into English as “Peter.”
No problem, right?
Well for 99.99% of the readers of the NT over the centuries, right. No problem. But
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Whether Peter and Cephus are one person or two is certainly interesting! I am struck, however by the passage you discuss in Mathew. Do you think the historical Jesus (a Jewish messianic prophet, as I understand) would have been concerned about declaring how he was going to establish his “church”? What would he have been envisioning?
No, I think that is a later view that has been put on his lips. He wasn’t anticipating an ongoing religion, let alone a new one in his name! He wsa expecting the kingdom.
Professor, the issue seems relevant only if Mathew 16:18 is historical. Is the passage considered multiply attested or copied from Mark? If ahistorical could it be another tradition made up to refute a Jewish accusation that nobody thought he was the messiah until he was executed?
I certainly don’t think Matthew 16 is historical; and yes, Matthew more clearly than Mark wants to stress that Jesus was recognized as the messiah.
So Petros is masculine and Petra is feminine?! Well it’s obvious then: Jesus intended the pope to be a woman! It’s settled everyone!
Good luck floating that one before the Vatican…
Thank you Dr Ehrman. Fascinating. I think you’ve made a pretty good case for Cephas and Peter being two different people. One implication of this is that, according to 1 Corinthians 15:5, Cephas might have been the first person to see the risen Christ. In the Church I attend, (Roman Catholic), priests like to point this out- that it was Cephas/Peter who saw Christ first on Easter Sunday, rather than Mary Magdalene, as in John. This annoys my female friends, who see it as an attempt to downplay the role of women in the early Church. However, if Cephas was not Peter, then that’s a whole different ball game 🙂
Since Petros means little stone, would it make sense in these communities for Petros to act as a diminutization of Cephas? (As one might be nicknamed Miguelito in reference to a senior Miguel, or in English we might simply add “Little” in front of another’s nickname.) Maybe an odd fit for someone ministering to Jews, but it would be amusing, cross-lingual wordplay. In any case, it’s been a fascinating series of posts!
Not sure!
I’m not sure you touched on another question. If Cephas is not Peter, how did Cephas get elevated to a “pillar” along with James and John in Gal 2?
We don’t know. We also don’t now why John in particular was elevated, as opposed to others. We can certainly guess (we’re guessing about James as well, since the earliest texts don’t talk about it)
Thanks. And I’m guessing there’s no such thing as a Gospel according to Cephas…
If there was we haven’t heard of it!
“Cephas/Peter was (virtually) not a name or nickname until Jesus gave it to his disciple Simon.”
Who says Jesus did so?
The author of Matthew.
Is this independently verified?
Bart specifies “IF Jesus renamed Peter ’Rock’…”
“Matthew” says all sorts of things which are fictional, as do all of the other gospel authors “John” especially.
So unless one can show that Jesus actually or at least very likely (not “if”) said what Matthew says Jesus said about rocks and stones, how or why is this valid as counter to what Paul seems to have indicated?
But yes, for me as well, an interesting issue.
I think you make an excellent case for Cephas and Peter being two different people. I think it is important for us to read Paul on his own terms and not read him through a canonical or gospel bias or filter.
In reception history, it is clear the gospel writers conflated the two names from Paul. I think is an interesting idea I wish more scholars would take up.
I think Paul was making a point by calling Cephas, “ Cephas”. He did not keep James and John’s names in Aramaic, only Cephas. I think this because there was a Peter out there and Paul wanted to differentiate them.