Rome woooes the senses with Matthew 16:13-20 etched in gold along the Vatican’s towering Basilica’s perimeter under Michelangelo’s Dome and Pieta at the entrance. However, have Evangelicals really understood the text?
Here, accepting Simon Cephas' confession as the divergence between Rome and Protestants misses the Hebrew reading, with the insertion of Petter (Petra) — a pun often used in Talmudic discussions with Cephas the rock. Such imagery refers to the Maccabean religious absorption of Edom/Petra/Nabataeans now comprised of Herodians and Rome for Simon Peter who was standing before syncretism not contextualization at Caearea Phillpi all below the highest peak in the Holy Land, Mt. Hermon; another big rock ‘taking on a life of its own’ within the Jewish fables known as the Books of Enoch.
God’s revelation impacts people reckoning with sin and idolatry back through the Persians, Babylonians, Egyptians and those of Ur of the Chaldees who made up Abraham’s apostate family. Including Esau’s brother and law, Nebaioth (Gen. 25, 28, 36), meaning prophet, who is the Petter Chamor, from the firstborn of Abraham, Ishmael. Whose children are today sadly cast as some evil seed, rather they represent a missiological trajectory to redeem the mixed multitude. Through the promise of inheritance, Isaac carries the oracles of God for its revelational purpose, Paul’s allegory with Hagar and our Heavenly Jerusalem in Galatians 4 points to the destination of the seed of promise which is available to all people!
So Jesus rode in on a donkey when he came to redeem the lost sheep. Donkeys, needed no explanation from the Good Shepherd, but were slandered into a symbol of stupidity in the West. A very clever travel companion who instinctively knows the safest, shortest route, the Donkey is the only contaminated animal (Tumah, not unclean as it is normally translated) holy enough through Pidyon haBen (redeeming the firstborn offspring), as described in Exodus 13. Jesus spoke ‘the Petter pun’ on ‘Ceiphas,’ a hardened sinful man (Luke 5:8) who by his confession becomes holy as an exept Petter (firstborn) for the lost sheep in the church (Edah) and becomes one of its pillars out of the New Testement.
Nevertheless, all things whatsoever a Qehel Pharisee like Paul bids must be kept and observed which explains Paul’s authority to rebuke Simon Peter for his ‘cultural ethno-centricity’ as described in the Epistle to the Galatians. Simon understood his ‘exemption’ to bring the gospel to Cornelius in Acts 10, but made a mistake for the perpetual tension that exists between Jewish Qehel observance and having become a Hebrew and following Acts 15 as discipilship. Thus his actions for not with fellowshipping and dining with gentiles in Antioch. The heavy yoke Peter mentions at the Jerusalem could be in view here.
RASHI (Talmud Commentator from the 1100s) states this about the Apostles “who purposely infected their culture in order to sway the Notzri faith away from Judaism (into Messianic Noahides) ; they themselves were not heretics and did so for the benefit of the Jewish people.” Even more conclusive is the Hebrew word Petur, meaning ‘Firstborn’ redeemed also implies ‘exempt’ which describes the role of a Petter Chamor, a Baal Teshuva who guides the Pilgrim Messianic Noahides like Cornelius. Therefore, Simon Ben Jonah continued the tradition of revelation toward the nations.
Possibly, the most enduring testament in Rome to ‘Simon St. Peter’ is the Alexamenos Graffiti on Palatine Hill. The academics claim such an animal god was brought from Egypt as an evil demiurge. Perhaps this simple ‘unclean, yet kosher’ donkey harkens us back to how missiology functioned through an intelligent illustrative animal and its allegorical significance. Finally, why the pattern of the cross etched upon the beast of burden’s back?
