1) You have said that:

Next, he criticizes my use of John 21:15-17 and says that Jesus is our only ruler, but this is untrue. Granted, only God has the ultimate authority, but in this passage, Jesus clearly delegates Peter (and only Peter) as the temporal head of the Church on earth.

Peter was delegated the only temporal head of the Church; however, as the parallel between the papacy and the prime minister of Israel shows, he was appointed not because he was to be the only head of the Church in history but because he was the first to fill the office of the papacy that would be passed on from generation to generation. In addition, the testimony of the early Church witnesses to this fact.

2) If Peter was the only one to receive the keys as being necessary for him to hold the place of primacy, why were those keys given also in Matthew 18 to the 12, and not only to Peter?

The other apostles received only the power to bind and loose in Matthew 18; they did not receive the keys of the kingdom. I already explained in my second rebuttal the difference between the keys of the kingdom and the power to bind and loose.

3) Wouldn't the fact that the 12 and later, all Apostles of Christ possessed the keys of the kingdom demonstrate that Peter was not the alone leader of the Church?

Same as above. The other apostles received the power to bind and loose but not the keys.

4) Can you demonstrate from the text itself of Acts 15:5-31 that it was Peter's and not James's "judgment" that the Gentiles not be burdened with anything but the 4 things listed in the passage, of which was included in the letter?

I explained this in my opening statement. Peter spoke after the debate, indicating that he was giving his authoritative judgment on the matter after hearing the arguments. Then, after he spoke, nobody challenged him; rather, everyone just backed him up. The word for "judgment" that James used, "krino," can be translated as "opinion," which fits in perfectly with my interpretation. He was merely suggesting a pastoral implementation that the council liked, so they used his wording in their letter.

5) Since there is no extant Aramaic manuscript (since none ever existed), and since the Gospel according to Matthew was written in Greek, as I have demonstrated in other places throughout this debate, can you examine the two different words used in Matthew 16:16-19, and provide lexical sources (Thayer's, etc.) that demonstrate they have the same meaning?

I'm glad you asked this question because that quote from Vincent's Word Studies that you used in your rebuttal is irrelevant. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek, not classical Greek, in which the two words are synonyms.

In Aramaic "Peter" and Rock are the same word; in Greek (here), they are cognate terms used interchangeably by this period."¹

Although it is true that petros and petra can mean "stone" and "rock" respectively in earlier Greek, the distinction is largely confined to poetry.²

But this distinction [between petros and petra] is almost entirely confined to poetry, the common prose word instead of petros being lithos, nor is the distinction uniformly observed.³

It can be shown from the scriptural usage of Greek that petra does not refer exclusively to a huge rock. It can also refer to a stone or small rock. For example, in Romans 9:33 and 1 Peter 2:8, the Greek word lithos (a small stone) is coupled with petra in the imagery of making a man stumble and fall. The verse in the Old Testament from which this is taken is Isaiah 8:14: "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble, and a rock that makes them fall." The image is of a man walking on his way and stumbling over a stone or small rock so that he falls to the ground. It is not the picture of a big boulder appearing in his way or coming down from the sky and crushing him under its weight. Paul only refers to stumbling in Romans 9:32, and one cannot stumble and fall over a petra if it is a huge, massive rock.⁴

You asked for lexical sources, but unfortunately, I don't have any that say they're synonyms. The only lexicon I have access to (an online one that isn't very good) says that "petros" means "Peter," which doesn't help. However, I think that the sources I quoted (most are Protestant) prove my case.

Endnotes

1) Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary New Testament
2) D. A. Carson, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Volume 8
3) John A Broadus, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew
4) Robert Sungenis, "Will the Real Rock Please Stand Up!," The Catholic Answer 9:2 (May/June 1995)

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