“I take for granted that the chief task of theologians and biblical scholars is to use the tools of their trade to seek meaning and truth... But they are not primarily defenders of past positions.” (R. Brown in “The Critical meaning of the Bible” p56) 

  Readers of the dialogue of Heinz Vogels, Arthur Menu, and François Brassard need to approach it with an open mind. We were all brought up on “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” writ large on the dome of St. Peter’s in Rome “TU ES PETRUS ET SUPER HANC PETRAM...” pronounced without any hesitation as the very words of Jesus to Simon near Caesarea Philippi, and recorded in Mt 16:18. 

  Unless you have kept up on scripture study, you may be surprised to learn that the most respected Roman Catholic scripture scholars today do not think these are the very words of Jesus. At best, they say that these words are from the risen exalted Jesus and put into the mouth of Jesus during his ministry by the author of Mt. This translation of Mt’s Greek has been used to support a particular view of papal primacy. It has been used (abused?) very effectively so that it is very difficult for us to hear any other translation of this text. Today, we know that we will never know the very words of Jesus, an uncertainty that we just have to live with. We believe that the Spirit of Jesus is with the whole christian community in so far as it remains true to God’s Way. 

Mt.’s text reads “You are Petros, and on this petra I will build my ekklesia.” The key words are Petros, this petra, and ekklesia. Petros is not the masculine form of petra. The best Greek lexicon, Liddell and Scott, says that petros has to be distinguished from petra. They signify two distinct things, one a single stone and the other a shelf of rock. Whatever ‘this petra’ is, it is not Petros. Nor is it the accepted practice of biblical scholars to revert to Aramaic dialects to determine the meaning of Greek words or puns. 

There is no difficulty with the notion that Jesus may have given Simon the name Petros. The difficulty lies in equating Petros with the idea that Simon is therefore a solid shelf of rock suitable for building on. Jesus is the rock. Mt’s gospel does show, however, that Simon did receive a special revelation from God. There is no doubt either that Simon Peter holds a prominent place in the christian scriptures and also that, in subsequent church history, the church in Rome became the principal church of Christendom. 

Ekklesia in Mt, however, is not so easy. Most of the time in the christian scriptures, ekklesia means the local group of disciples, and occasionally it means all of them as a whole. In Mt 16:18, it is impossible to determine which meaning it has. In Mt 18:17, it clearly means the local gathering. Note that it is not exegetical to borrow its meaning from some other writer and then apply it to Mt. There is nothing in Mt to show that Jesus during his ministry had foresight of a world-wide ekklesia. 

After the death of Jesus, the group of disciples saw themselves as one, and they used words such as the Way, koinonia, and ekklesia to describe themselves. From this initial unity there developed a diversity of groups and the language to describe them. Ekklesia became the term used to distinguish a local group of christians from a synagogue of Jews and the whole christian community from others. The scriptures written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit reflect that.