A dialogue that can be repeated.
One of the things I try to accomplish when I give a seminar is that those who listen to me can immediately become effective apologists and need not wait until they are experts in theology; so that they may work with what they know, even if it is a single argument.
I illustrate this from my own experience, and you can use this same procedure the next time you have a text of the Bible in your hands.
Some years ago, before I took a real interest in reading the Bible, I used to try to avoid the missionaries who came to my door. Many times I have felt ashamed of this attitude of mine. Why open the door, or why prolong the conversation (sometimes they would catch me outside the house), when I had nothing truly important to say.
I had a Bible, no doubt. I used it, perhaps, in the same way that you use yours today: to dust off the dust that settled on it while it sat on the library shelf. It was one of those “family” Bibles, plated with beautiful colors and so heavy that my son could not lift it until he turned five.
As I said, I had a Bible, but I did not feel very drawn to it, so that I had little to say when the missionaries cornered me. I did not know which verses to refer to in order to explain the Catholic position.
For a mere layman I was fairly well informed about my faith – at least I never doubted it or ceased to practice it – but my disorderly reading did not equip me sufficiently for a verbal duel.
Until one day I obtained a precious piece of information that I launched like a wave against the first missionary who rang the doorbell of my house. This proved to me that becoming an accomplished apologist is not so difficult. Here is what happened.
When I opened the door, the lone missionary introduced himself as a Seventh-day Adventist. He asked me if he could “share” with me a few passages of the Bible. I invited him to do his reading.
He passed from one page to another, quoting various verses, trying to demonstrate the errors of the Church of Rome and the manifest truth (according to him) of his own position.
Not much to say
Some of the verses were fairly familiar to me -for I was not completely uninformed with respect to the Bible – but many were new to me. Familiar or not, the verses that were read did not generate in me an apt response, because I did not know enough of the Bible to answer effectively.
Finally the missionary read Matthew 16:18: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.”
“Hold it right there! -I said-, I know that verse; it is where Jesus designated Simon the head of the Church; it is where he designated him as the first Pope.” I paused and smiled tolerantly, knowing what the missionary would say in response.
I knew that on his door-to-door rounds he would not receive any defense of the Catholic position, but at some point a Catholic can speak as I had planned to do. He had an answer to my objection; I knew what it would be and I was ready for it.
“I understand your thinking -he said-, but Catholics misunderstand this verse because they know nothing of Greek. That is the problem of your Church and its followers; you do not know the language in which the New Testament was written. To understand Matthew 16:18, we have to go beyond English, to the Greek.”
“Is that all?” -I said, like one who is managing the situation. I was trying to act as though I had not noticed the trap that had been set for me.
“Yes -he said-, in Greek the word for rock is ‘petra,’ which means a large and massive stone. The word used for Simon’s new name is different; it is ‘petros,’ which means ‘small stone, pebble.’”
In reality, what the missionary was telling me at this point was false. Together with scholars of Greek -both Catholic and non-Catholic- one must admit that the words “petros” and “petra” were synonyms in the Greek of the first century. At that time, in some ancient Greek poetry, centuries before Christ, both words appeared with the same meaning: “small stone” and “large stone,” interchangeably. But that difference was far removed from the time when the Gospel of Matthew was translated into Greek. The missionary’s argument did not work, and it showed a false knowledge of Greek as well as a lack of understanding of the etymologies of “petros” and “petra.”
“Case closed,” he thought
It was the missionary’s turn to pause and smile tolerantly. He had acted according to the training he had received. He had been told that a Catholic would rarely have heard the text of Matthew 16:18, and much less could argue with it to prove the institution of the papacy. He knew what he had to say to prove the contrary, and he said it.
“Well -I replied, beginning to use that precious information I had obtained-, I agree with you that we must go beyond English, to the Greek”. He smiled a little more and nodded. “But I am sure that you will agree with me that we must go beyond Greek, to the Aramaic”. “The what?”, he asked. “The Aramaic,” I said. “As you know, Aramaic was the language that Jesus and the Apostles and all the Jews of Palestine spoke. It was the common language of the place”. “I thought it was Greek”. “No”, I replied, “many of them (if not most) knew Greek, of course, because Greek was the official language (lingua franca) of the Mediterranean world. It was the language of culture and commerce, and most of the books of the New Testament were also written in that language because they wrote them not only for the Christians in Palestine but also for Christians who were in places such as Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, places where Aramaic was not the language that was spoken”
“But note that I said that the greater part of the New Testament was written in Greek, but not all of it. The Gospel of Matthew was written by him in Aramaic or Hebrew (we know this from the notes preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea), but it was translated into Greek early on, perhaps by Matthew himself. In any case the original Aramaic-Hebrew was lost, so that all we have today is the Greek translation.”
Aramaic in the New Testament
And I continued: “We know that Jesus spoke Aramaic because some of those Aramaic words have been preserved for us in the Gospels. Look at Matthew 27:46, where He says from the cross: ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani’; that is not Greek, it is Aramaic and means ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’”
“And there is more -I said-, in the epistles of Paul – four times in Galatians and four times in First Corinthians- we have the Aramaic form of Simon’s new name, which has been preserved for us. In our Bibles in English it appears as ‘Cephas.’ This is not Greek. It is the transcription of the Aramaic word ‘Kepha’ (also translated as ‘Kephas’). And what does ‘Kepha’ mean? It means a large, massive stone, the same as ‘petra.’ (It does not mean a small stone or pebble – the Aramaic word for that is ‘evna.’) What Jesus said to Simon in Matthew 16:18 was this: Thou art ‘Kepha,’ and upon this ‘Kepha’ I will build my church.”
“When you understand what is expressed in the Aramaic, you will realize that Jesus was regarding ‘Simon’ and ‘Rock’ as equivalent; he was not simply comparing them. This is seen most clearly in some modern English translations, which give the verse this sense: ‘You are Rock, and upon this rock I will build my church’ (You are Rock, and upon this rock I will build my church). In French one and the same word, ‘pierre,’ has always been used for both, for Simon’s new name as well as for the rock.”
For a few moments the missionary seemed confused. It was obvious that he had never heard such a reply before. His brow furrowed as he searched for a thought, and he came back with a counterblow.
Then the following happened
“Wait a second -he said-, if ‘Kepha’ means the same as Petra, why do we not read in Greek ‘You are “Petra” and upon this “petra” I will build my church’?; why, for Simon’s new name, does Matthew use the Greek word ‘Petros,’ which means something truly different from ‘petra’?”
“Because he had no other alternative -I said-, Greek and Aramaic have different grammatical structures. In Aramaic you can use ‘Kepha’ in both parts of Matthew 16:18. In Greek you run into a problem that arises from the fact that nouns take different endings according to gender.”
“You have masculine, feminine, and neuter. The Greek word ‘petra’ is feminine. You can use it without any problem in the second half of Matthew 16:18. But you cannot use it to express Simon’s new name, because you cannot give a man a feminine name (at least formerly one could not). You have to change the ending of the noun to make it masculine. When you do that, you get ‘Petros,’ which is a word that actually already existed and means ‘rock.’”
“I admit that it is an imperfect translation of the Aramaic, because you lose part of the play on words that is made in that language. In Spanish, where we have ‘Pedro’ and ‘roca,’ or in English, where we have ‘Peter’ and ‘rock,’ it is all lost. But it is the best that can be done in Greek.
Furthermore, if Matthew had wanted to say that Simon was a small stone, he would have used the common Greek word for small stone, ‘lithos,’ and then we would read in Matthew 16:18: ‘You are “Lithos,” and upon this “petra” I will build my church.’ But it does not read that way precisely because Matthew was trying to convey the play on words that appears so clearly in the Aramaic.”
My turn to pause
I stopped and smiled. The missionary smiled in turn uncomfortably, but said nothing. We exchanged smiles for about thirty seconds. Then he looked at his watch, noticed how time had flown, and excused himself. I never saw him again.
What followed from this encounter? Two things: one for me, another for him.
As far as I am concerned, I began to develop a sense of confidence. I began to see that I could defend my faith if I engaged in a little work. The more I worked, the better the defense would be.
And I realized that any Catholic who can read could do the same. You cannot begin to suspect that your faith is false simply because you cannot answer a particular question.
Once you develop a sense of confidence, you can say to yourselves: “I do not know the answer to this problem, but I do know that I can find it if I search in the books.” The answer is there; it is enough to devote some time to seeking it.
And the missionary? Did he gain any fruit?
I think so. I think he left with a doubt, upon verifying his knowledge (or lack of it) about Catholics and the Catholic faith. And it is to be hoped that his doubt has since matured in such a way that it leads him to think that Catholics have something to say in favor of their religion, and that he ought to pay more careful attention to the faith which he once opposed with such confidence.
Translator: Mrs. Virginia Miró Quesada, Arequipa, Peru, for Apologetica.org
Source: Catholic Answers
