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Re: Cephas

gdoudna@ednet1.osl.or.gov (Greg Doudna) wrote:

>I would add a comment to Larry and others: if we didn't have
>John 1, there would be no direct NT evidence indicating an
>identity, apart from the indirect argument that the names 
>Cephas and Peter have similar meanings and in certain ways
>the two figures appear to correspond in roles.  As for the
>meaning of the names being the same, this argument would
>hold greater weight, it seems to me, if other instances
>could be cited in the ancient world in which names were
>translated in meaning across languages.  I don't know that
>such instances don't exist; I just am not aware of any in
>the case of names.  (Counterevidence welcome.)

     One bit of couterevidence comes to mind right away.  Take the following
from Pausanias, for instance, where he says of the name-title of the Roman
emperor TO DE ONOMA EINAI TOUTW *AUGOUSTOS, O( KATA GLWSSAN DUNATAI THN
*E(LLHNWN SEBASTOS (from BAGD, s.v. SEBASTOS).  Cf. Lu. 2:1; Acts 25:21,25;
27:1. The Luke reference shows that the transliteration of the Latin of the
emperor's name-title could also be used in Greek (See BAGD, s.v. *AUGOUSTOS).
 Oskar Cullmann has suggested (supposedly in reference to the translation of
*KHFAS to *PETROS in Jn. 1:42), that "the fact of translation supports the
contention that Cephas was not a proper name, since one does not translate
proper names" (_TDNT_, s.v. *PETROS, *KHFAS, VI:101).  It might be that "Peter
/Cephas", in analogy to the example above, should not be seen simply as a
proper name, but  as a name-title.

David L. Moore
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