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I've run into someone who wants to argue that Cephas and Peter are different people in the GNT of Galatians and that Cephas is derived from the Hebrew Caiphas, rather than the Aramaic Keepha.
Are there any problesm with this?
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Shalom, the greek has Kefas, that is the aramaic Kefa (rock), and Kefa was also called Petros. Petros is also an aramaic name, is not only greek, and in aramaic means "first-born", i think this is why the jews that didnt believed in Yeshua (because many of them did believed), called him Peter Chamor (firstborn ass). Petros is also in the aramaic, for example in the Talmud Yerushalmi Megilla, fol. 75. 2, talks about Yos?f bar Petros. Kefas was also called Shimon and in the Jerusalem dialect Simon (See-mon).
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Greek names have to end with a consonant, so the Aramaic word, when transliterated to Greek, had to be suffixed with an S.
Examples (Greek NT)
Kayafa Kayafas
Cefa, Cefas
Satana, Satanas
Jesu, Jesus (Iesus)
Barnabba, Barnabbas
etc
Now the text of the NT already falsifies their claim:
John 1:42.
thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, Petros
Now, look in Galatians 2:9. This is exactly the same word/name.
And the addition, that Cephas means 'Petros' (A rock) shows that it was not about the Hebraic name Caiphas.
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Small tangent: In the Apostolic Text, I've observed that only contemporary names were absolutely bound to this constraint, e.g. Iakob (Ya`aqov the patriarch) compare with Iakobus (James) and Aaron to list two.