Very welcome

Thanks for the response. You comment that the “Biblical MSS of course are Koine Greek.” Some like to lay on this heavily and I would like to make a quick note. The earliest manuscripts we have of any of the books of the New Testament are in Greek, yet not a single manuscript is an original. They’re all copies. From the mere fact of Greek manuscripts we can’t conclude that the originals must have been written in Greek. Yes, there may be a presumption of that, but not actually a proof. A interesting historical quote comes from Irenaeus in Against Heresies 3:1:1 in 180AD. He says “Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching in Rome and laying the foundation of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon his breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.” Secondly, your reading of Matt 16 and differentiating two different words doesn’t fit well with the context. For example, when God changes names it’s for a significant reason, and with your reading you are saying Jesus changed Simon’s name just to minimize or diminish him and point out that he is an insignificant stone. The result is “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! You are an insignificant little pebble. Here are the keys to the kingdom of heaven!” Such an incongruous sequence of statements would have been not merely odd, but inexplicable. And thirdly, I think D.A Carson gives insight to the thought, reason and a history of using two words in Greek, and as I said in my earlier post, many other non-Catholic Biblical scholars agree. For example Carson says in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary. “Although it is true that petros and petra can mean “stone” and “rock” respectively in earlier Greek, the distinction is largely confined to poetry. Moreover the underlying Aramaic is in this case unquestionable; and most probably kepha was used in both clauses (“you are kepha” and “on this kepha”), since the word was used both for a name and for a “rock”. The Peshitta (written in Syriac, a language cognate with Aramaic) makes no distinction between the words in the two clauses. The Greek makes the distinction between petros and petra simply because it is trying to preserve the pun, and in Greek the feminine petra could not very well serve as a masculine name." Carson also says in the -Zondervan NIV Bible Commentry. “The word Peter petros, meaning “rock” (Gk 4377), is masculine, and in Jesus’ follow-up statement he uses the feminine word petra (Gk 4376). On the basis of this change, many have attempted to avoid identifying Peter as the rock on which Jesus builds his church. Yet if it were not for Protestant reactions against extremes of Roman Catholic interpretations, it is doubtful whether many would have taken “rock” to be anything or anyone other than Peter.”

We do have to think through the matter carefully

Not sure of your point here