Julio

This topic has not yet been exhausted, here, I think.
Allow me to ask again:
Is there enough internal evidence to call it a forgery?
[I need to know it from the experts, please. Thanks.]

"And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." KJV

ApostateAbe

I am no expert, and you will not find experts here, but it is my tentative opinion that the passage is not forged, if by "forged" you mean "written by someone other than the author of the gospel of Matthew." I have such an opinion because it is the only time anywhere in the New Testament that the name "Simon Barjona" is used, and such uniqueness is expected more or the original author than of an interpolator, who would generally attempt to disguise the writing as that of the original author. On top of that, there doesn't seem to be any underlying motive unexpected for the author of the gospel of Matthew, which pays strong respect to the Jewish Christian perspective, and Simon Peter became the leader of the Jewish Christians.

Julio

Thanks, Abe.
Interesting comment.
I am looking for internal evidence, primarily.
To me, the omission of that episode in Mark 8 and Luke 9 is important.
Not to mention that John would have been present and quotes nothing about it [except the reference offered by Scofield to John 6:68-69].
Could you reflect on it for a moment, and tell me what you think?

ApostateAbe

Since the passage is not found in the corresponding chapters of Mark and Luke, then we know that the passage is unique to Matthew, but that point doesn't indicate one way or the other that the passage was interpolated. It seems to be something somewhat expected, again, of the author of Matthew, and not as much for Mark or Luke. Matthew is often characterized as the gospel that is especially Jewish in its perspective, and this passage matches it.

Chili

No expert here but to me it is obvious that the keen insight of Peter to recognize Jesus as the Christ was to be the rock of the NT religion, which then is why Peter moved to Rome but not until he 'emptied first' his frock of Judaism and put on a new cloak of faith on his first post resurrection fishing trip where he dove head-first into the celestial sea to gather the insight needed to make Jesus' promise come true. It just means that Cathlicism is a mystery religion that so is beyond criticism and obviously beyond hell . . . to say that before it can be criticized it must be understood and second that it is not possible for Catholics to go the hell as Catholic.

show_no_mercy

In the widest net for the term "forgery", yes this part is a forgery. The entire gospel of Matthew is a "forgery" of Mark.

bacht

Seems to be part of Matthew's attempt to re-habilitate Peter's image and the general emphasis on Jewish-Christianity. In Mark Peter is a bit of a dummy.

Then there's the church's need to establish the line of apostolic authority back to Jesus, putting Peter as the first of what would later be the bishops of Rome (and ultimately popes of the western church).

Julio

Yes, I accept that.
I assume, a priori, that the passage has to be forgery [or an interpolation] based on the internal evidence that no other apostle or sacred writer ever proposes or endorses it, to the very end of the NT.
Would I be right with this assumption?

Toto

There is a reason that Abe is not an expert (although there are some experts who post here.) This criterion that he has invented makes no sense. It assumes that all of the forgery in Christianity is a clever attempt to deceive. In fact, some interpolaions are clumsy, so obvious that even modern scholars are confident that they are forgeries. And it is not clear that the author of the passage thought of it as forgery, if the Holy Spirit told him to insert the text there.

In any case, Simon Barjona is just Simon the son of Jonas or John. All common names, found in the NT.

Simon Peter was the the head (or the invented founder) of the Catholics. Some modern day scholars, including Protestants, accuse Catholics of adding this passage.

James is generally held to be the head of the Jewish Christians.

There is motive enough to look askance at this, as did Joseph Wheless in Forgery in Christianity, who also points out that Jesus has given Simon a name based on Greek word play, or pun, when he was supposedly speaking Aramaic.

andrewcriddle

Peter is the Greek form of the Aramaic Cephas ie Cephas means rock in Aramaic and Peter means rock in Greek. Peter is called Cephas in several places in the NT. The passage in Matthew 16:17-19 is probably a Greek version of an originally Aramaic pericope.

NB This is not to say that the pericope goes back to the Historical Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

The reason for suspecting that this goes back to an Aramaic version is that the pun works better in Aramaic (Kepha Simon's new name compared to Kepha rock) than it does in Greek (Petros Simon's new name compared to Petra rock).