PeterC wrote: ↑Sun Jun 23, 2024 2:57 pm
How did obfuscation over the names 'Cephas' and 'Petros' arise?
* Note that one letter kappa in Greek represents two letters, kaph and qoph in Aramaic.
The name Kephas used in Galatians and I Corinthians may have been originally represented in Aramaic by the letters kaph and peh, followed by a soundless aleph, or by kaph, yodh (as a vowel carrier) and aleph. This is as כפא and כיפא, reading from right to left. There would have been no Aramaic letter in the place occupied by sigma, added in Greek to give the word a masculine case. Both versions mean stone.
Kephas could, however, equally have been represented by the letters qoph, peh and aleph or by qoph, yodh, peh and aleph (קפא and קיפא).
Originating in this way, from the use of a qoph rather than a kaph, Kephas (or Kaiphas with a different choice of Greek vowels) is the short version of the family title of the Jewish High Priest at the time, known to us through the gospels and the work of Josephus (Antiquities 18 ii.2, iv.3) as Joseph Caiaphas. The alternative representations of this version (קפא and קיפא) are found in names scratched on the sides of ossuaries, in what is likely to have been the family tomb of the High Priest Joseph.
There are therefore two possibilities for the origin of the name Kephas (in Greek) in Paul’s letters. One is that there was someone (of some significance) called ‘stone’ and the other is that there were one or more persons designated with the title קפא or קיפא, that is the title of the High Priest Joseph’s family, with whom Paul was interacting.
Kephas could have been a title, rather than a nickname meaning stone. As such, as the title of Joseph’s family, it would mean that that Paul was dealing with a person (or persons) of some consequence.
This realisation opens the way to understanding how two distinctive characters, described with differing roles and attributes, came to have improbably coincident names, in the languages that were in use at the time. Paul is described in Galatians and I Corinthians as interacting with someone who could have been a member of the High Priest Joseph’s family. This member, or these members, carried the family title קפא or קיפא which transliterates equally well as Kephas/Cephas (Κηϕας), or as Kaiphas/Caiphas (Καιϕας),
1 but which has no literal equivalent.
1 'Καϊάφας,' but hardly likely to be an issue
Paul would certainly have been aware of Joseph Caiaphas, who had
...served as High Priest and who had been in office for an unusually long time. There is also a strong chance that other members of the family existed and were among Paul’s contemporaries. If so, Paul would have known who they were and would likely have interacted with them. He certainly did have a predilection for moving in high circles.
This understanding of the situation is consistent with the way the languages in use at the time interacted and were interpreted. It is more plausible than a projected association between Paul and an individual whose nickname, presumed as meaning ‘stone’, is incongruous, unexplained and largely unreported
The Simon recorded in Mark as part of the group that went to Jerusalem to challenge the Roman and Jewish authorities, could not realistically have been a member of the High Priest’s family. So, this Simon would not have held the family title.
But it is plausible that there were other influential members of the family, playing a part in Jewish life in Jerusalem, besides the former High Priest 'Joseph.' The way Aramaic was reproduced in Greek provides strong testimony that the Kephas who interacted with Paul was one of them.
Identifying Kephas in this way, on the basis of language, provides an important step forward.
But it does only address one half of the issue. What now has to be explained is how someone, called Simon in the gospels, could have been attributed a nickname (meaning stone) that just happened to transliterate into Greek in the same way as the title of members of the High Priest’s family. This is not likely and, I suggest, not the case, given that a better explanation is available.
It is known that the author of Mark used Paul’s letters as a source of material for his gospel. He would have been particularly interested in finding references in these letters to characters associated with Jesus. He would indeed have expected that Paul, as an early founder of Christianity, would have sought out and worked with any surviving followers of Jesus.
Central among these in Mark’s narrative is Simon, who played a key part in the confrontation with the Roman and Jewish authorities in Jerusalem. There are however no direct references to anyone called Simon in Paul’s letters.
What Mark did was find was a number of references which provide a [name that may have been considered to be a] title, Kephas (Κηϕας), while missing (at least, as the text of the letters now appears) a forename. The title itself clearly has Aramaic origins.
The early gospel writer could well have been hampered in deciding what these origins were. In none of several references in Mark, is the Jewish High Priest mentioned by name. This suggests that the author was unaware who at the time this should have been.
[An author of Mark or other] gospel writers [may well have been] able to identify the High Priest as Joseph, called Caiaphas by Josephus and represented in Aramaic by either by קיפא or קפא.
[An] author of Mark decided that Kephas must have been transliterated from כפא meaning ‘stone’, failing to recognise that it could equally have come from the similar-sounding קפא, representing the title of the High Priest.
He also decided that the references to Kephas provided evidence of what he already believed to be the case, that Paul was involved with the Simon who featured in Mark’s own source narrative.*
Simon, it should be noted, was one of the most common Jewish forenames in use at the time. It is possible that Mark was helped to his conclusion by a direct reference (now no longer available) that he had to a character, possible one of several with the title Kephas, who also had the forename Simon.
Having decided that Kephas meant stone and that this applied to his gospel character, he incorporated this into his text.
In this text, written in Greek, Jesus was given to assign the nickname Petros to Simon.
Mark then did, what Paul did not do, thereafter use Petros for his character Simon, as implicitly a translation of Κηϕας.
The reason that Paul himself did not provide a translation of this word of Aramaic origin, is now no longer puzzling, but clear.
There is no translation of the Aramaic word קפא, which could be represented either as Κηϕας or Καιϕας, because it is a title with no known or obvious origin. (Quote from 'Who Was Cephas?' minus footnotes)