The names don't have obvious meaning in English but they did in their original languages. Simon is a Hebrew name from the torah and means "he who hears". Peter comes from Petros, the Greek translation of Cephas, the original Aramaic name Jesus gave him and means "rock". So Jesus gave a Jewish guy with a Hebrew name an Aramaic (nick)name because Jesus saw him as the rock (foundation) of his church.
Hmm, makes it more likely that Jesus never existed and the whole thing is made up by the church, imo. It's always retrospective with names and meanings, especially if you name them "foundation".
Yeah, his name was Simeon bar Jonah, Simon, son of Jonah, or by modern style, Simon Johnson. Then Jesus pops up and starts calling him the Rock... Simon the Rock Johnson. (also fun gravy, Dwayne means fishhook)
Pretty much this. Cults isolate you as their first step. Anything that can be used to make you feel beholden to them, or "fresh/new". They make you think your parents are the enemy, and convince you that your real "family" is inside the cult.
Had a friend in college who wiped out repeatedly - stumbling down stairs, walking into trees while talking, stepping on his own feet - all through freshman year.
Jesus has so many things in common with Trump. It's crazy.
Two thousand years from now, people will be reading the gospel of Little Marco Rubio, Lyin Ted Cruz, and RINO Lindsey Graham. Maybe they'll just be known as "Little", "Lyin", and "Rino". And everything Trump has done will be said to be a miracle.
Paul's is the funniest because he only got one letter changed from "Saul," even though he had used to be the biggest menace. He was a Christian hunter. Not like a professional one, more like McCarthyism but against Christians.
Saul was a perfect example of sin, and Jesus said, "Let's switch that 'S with a P, and he's all good. '"
(Please don't hurt me, I'm joking)
Edit: Wait, my bad. Jesus changed his Roman name, "Paul" to "Saul," (which was Paul's, Jewish name), and after Jesus died, when Paul moved to Rome, he went by "Paul" again. That's also right before he was imprisoned and executed and where he'd write parts of the N.T.
I had to double-check everything, lol. That felt like the mendala effect. It turned out he also spent some time in the Bahamas dreaming about some guy named Yosef.
Saul (Sha'ul) is a Jewish/Hebrew name. Paulos is a Greek name. Even until now, bilingual people who are of a minority culture (compared to where they're living) often have two names, one in their their native (family) language and one in the local majority language, one official, the other unofficial.
This was not limited to Paul, even in that immediate timeline. Levi (Jewish name) was also called Levi (Greek name). There's no reason to believe Paul "changed" his name sheet his conversion. He continued to go by Saul after he became a Christian. He went by his Jewish name among Jewish people, then his Greek name when he travelled across Rome and interacted with Greek-speakers.
I think you're getting your timeline mixed up. Paul converted to Christianity some time after Jesus died and quickly became a leader in the early church due to his prolific letter writing, with letters on all aspects of Christian life. Many of these letters (and a few that modern scholars believe are from people pretending to be Paul) ended up getting included into the New Testament as scripture because they were so popular and influential on early Christianity. However, these did not invent Christianity. All of these letters are to Christian communities that already existed in Paul's own time, and a few of them mention how he used to persecute Christians because he was a hardcore Jew and thought they were corrupting Judaism.
I always thought the timeline was really confusing. That was the narrative we were taught in church. He persecuted early followers.
"According to the Acts, Paul lived as a Pharisee and participated in the persecution of early disciples of Jesus, possibly Hellenised diaspora Jews converted to Christianity,[12] in the area of Jerusalem, before his conversion.[note 1]"
Someone on another mission trip is Acolyte Paul! I assign the names, otherwise we'd have a bunch of Jews dead from an argument over who gets to be Acolyte John. So, you are Acolyte Pink!
The cool thing about being on an instance with downvotes disabled is I never have to worry about this sort of petty random downvoting stuff because I never see downvotes.