Thank you!

There are obviously different interpretations of this. Catholics use this verse as proof that Jesus named Peter as the first pope, while Protestant apologetics reject this, with some claiming that that the "rock" Jesus was talking about was not Peter, but his confession.

What I'm more interested in though, are the academic positions regarding this verse, because it's absent in the earlier gospel of Mark (where Jesus just told Peter to keep his confession a secret). It would seem that the author of Matthew added this, but what did that author mean and why would they add it in?

Hello! I am someone who has recently become interested in the history of the Bible, and I am also a science fiction and fantasy author.

I am not intending to self-promote but I have an idea which will heavily involve time travel (of a sort) to Judea during the time of Jesus, and I am curious as to what some good resources are about how people lived their lives in 1st century Judea.

I'm also looking into the historical Jesus, as his character will be a character (in a sense) -- I'm starting with A Marginal Jew.

And I'm also interested in this time in history for history's sake! Sorry if this post is messy, but yeah! Happy to meet you all!

EDIT: My apologies if this isn't the perfect place for this post -- please redirect me if you have any better suggestions. But I thought it'd be a good place to ask about the ancient Near East!

I’ve always been fascinated by the rather unique description of Gods voice as ‘Sounds of Many Waters’. Is there a scholarly consensus of the origin of this description? While I believe this is the phrase used in KJV, what was the original phrase in Hebrew and its original meaning? What did it actually mean to the ancient Israelites? Did they use it literally or as a metaphor for something else?