Syriac Peshitta, KJVO "pure" line, and the Comma

[Steven Avery]

And I will point out that the De Oratione Dominica 34 passage, was deliberately hidden by Pro-Comma commentators in the past, and no Pro-Comma advocates today ever go into any real depth about him connecting it to Cyprian's De Unitate 6.5 passage.

Another false accusation.
There is no indication that anybody would have considered it significant, and it is not in the heavenly witnesses section.

And Henry Thomas Armfield does go into some of the allegory questions related to Cyprian.

.... and, in disproof of his assertion, the two instances, which Griesbach had quoted, of our Lord’s coat, and of the hours of prayer. p. 162

It is one thing for you to weave a theory, fair enough.
However, tacky accusations like above only destroy your credibility.

 

[Maestroh]

Do you have a url for the question about the Epistle to the Laodecians?

Doesn't matter. Just answer it now.

I have no idea why you consider it a special question,

Yes, you DO know exactly what is being asked, which is why you're avoiding the question.
You know full well it's the EXACT SAME ARGUMENT you use to try and say "but Jerome."
Because this is so difficult for you to actually answer, you like to waste bandwidth and words as a stalling tactic.

This would embarrass an actual scholar to pull what you do here.

but I would like to see the original question.

The very same guy who admits he cannot link a CARM post from 2018 is demanding one from 2015 be linked.

Jerome writing the Vulgate Prologue is extremely consequent.

Not really.

At c. AD 400, Jerome worked with earlier manuscripts, Greek and Latin. So that makes the heavenly witnesses pre-Nicea

Which begs the question, "Why wasn't the passage cited?" Not only there but all the way through 451 AD and the most explicit affirmation of the Trinity.

and with an existing dispute which led to scribes dropping the verse.

Okay, folks, so Avery's list of excuses NOW is:
a) the text-line split sometime between 40 and 80 AD BUT
b) scribes were nothing but copyists and NOW he goes with
c) there was a dispute that CAUSED scribes to INTENTIONALLY remove the verse

You cannot make these things up, folks.

 

[Maestroh]

Obviously this is a game-changer, even for the textual critics approach.

No, it's just another of your irrelevant "reasons why there's no actual evidence" revealing more about your position than anything else.

This is why none of the textual critics have an intelligent discussion on the Prologue,

It's impossible to have an intelligent discussion with a conspiracy theorist who:
a) thinks Building 7 was an inside job
b) thinks thousands of people have died from the Covid VACCINE
c) thinks atomic bombs didn't ever exist
d) thinks the moon landing was faked

Now, I don't know ANY textual critics who believe that, but I sure do know one online critic who has espoused ALL of those positions.

they simply look for a hand-wave.

According to Steven Avery Spencer, actually evaluating and calculating the lack of evidence = a hand wave.
(Your ad hom is pretty well proof you have absolutely nothing to back up your claims).

Textual criticism has infected the heavenly witnesses discussion.

No, you just don't like the answer. That's all.

Even Walter Thiele saying that Cyprian's Latin likely came from Greek is too hot for them to handle, since it means a Greek heavenly witnesses 2nd century or earlier. If so early, authenticity immediately becomes very likely.

Nice of you to hide that part where EVEN THIELE HIMSELF didn't assign the level of certainty to "this means John wrote it" as the non-scholars such as yourself do.

Most of the textual critics know very little about the evidences

No, they just aren't swayed by online conspiracy theorists.

This is a shortcoming of YOUR argument - not of them.

Get ready folks - here comes his "repetitive list of things to substitute for actual analysis."

(e.g. see my discussion with Ehrman on his blog-forum.)

You mean where you made up some claims about Potamius and he rejected it?

We have men like Forster, Cornwall and Armstrong in the late 1800s who were excellent.

Excellent at not knowing what they were talking about.

Also the French debates with Jean Pierre Paulin Martin, Rambouillet, Maunoury, Vacant and Didiot c. 1890.

None of whom you've read because you don't read French.
Indeed, I caught you on this in the very same post I asked you about Paul and the Laodicean epistle.

 

[Maestroh]

Moving to the 20th century, after Edward Freer Hills and Raymond Brown,

Brown didn't advocate the Comma, either.
He didn't advocate Cyprian quoting it, either.

ignorance has been the norm.

Online hack is upset a settled issue is settled.

Michael Maynard spurred a change with his book, all of a sudden readers saw the evidences throughout the centuries.

No, Maynard spurred laughter with a book that could have been half the size it was - and that still provided NO EVIDENCE we didn't already know.
His book was basically a compilation of the data into one spot. That was it's sole value.

Then we have Grantley McDonald, whose logic and reasoning (and facts) were often faulty.

Guy who hides information when it contradicts him accuses others of flawed reasoning and logic.......

At least Grantley added extensively to the history, albeit with a very skewed approach.

Dr McDonald is to be hated on because, wait for it, he disagrees with the conclusion of a KJVO nut.

Bill Brown forgets

Nothing. I forget nothing.

that the 99.9% on the Mark ending is all three major language lines, Greek, Latin and Syriac.

1) and 89% of it is from the 8th century or later (which you suddenly want to invoke when it's 1 John 5:7)
2) and the CJ is missing 100% - not 99% - from TWO of those lines and 99% of the early Latin as well

And the heavenly witnesses is strong in Old Latin and Vulgate Latin,

Of course - because it was AUTHORED in Latin because it was a LATIN CORRUPTION.
Not hard for smart people to understand.

 

[Maestroh]

clearly from the 2nd century through history

Everyone recall his EARLIER quote about how we have no GREEK manuscripts from the first 3 centuries or so?
We have no LATIN, either - but now he wants to change his paradigm to make it fit.

There is no valid comparison.

Not being performed by you, you're correct.

Bill has been told this again and again,

I've been told time and again by this guy that
1) the 99.9% DO MATTER when it's Mark but the 100% DO NOT matter when it's 1 John
2) there are no 1 John manuscripts from the first three centuries in Greek - but there aren't in Latin, either - and he tries to shove the reading back into the early days

so he really does need to focus.

I'm being told to focus by the guy who:
a) hid information on my thesis
b) has now been exposed as NOT UNDERSTANDING what Horne said and yet is now acting like he never said that
c) didn't know what Bulgaris actually believed after years of boasting on him
d) didn't know there's a solecism in 1 Jn 5:8 that he just finally knew about it.

I think you need to quit projecting your errors of research onto me.
And you need to get offline and learn.

Anyone who actually considers the Mark ending as non-authentic, not originally written by Mark, should, to the thinking mind, be automatically disqualified

Never mind this is the majority position even of CHRISTIANS.....

and worthless on other textual issues.

Let the hatred flow through you.....

That includes most textual critics, remembering that the idiots who assigned an A-B-C-D-E grade consider its non-authenticity "certain".

And Avery winds up back where he always does, right where Dan Wallace and James White pointed out years ago - this whole thing is about CERTAINTY, it is not about anything else.

 

[Maestroh]

This has been answered right above.

Amazing how you go with that when you don't answer things - but cut and paste spam-like otherwise.

You are giving an absurdly circular argument,

Keep reading - the rest of you will laugh....

based on your personal rejection of the positions of Eugenius Bulgaris and Georgios Babiniotis

I REJECT their claims NOT because of circular argument but because of ANALYSIS of the argument.
This so-called "can't happen in Greek" HAPPENS in verse 8.
There's no TC decision on verse 8, it appears everywhere.

Meaning it CAN happen.

and others that the heavenly witnesses inclusion resolves the grammatical issue in the earthly witnesses.

Except it doesn't - there's still a grammatical issue there.

Try to actually respond in dialogue.

I have. It isn't may fault you keep forgetting what you typed two days ago.
You're 72, may want to get checked for some dementia.

The related point is the comparison of the theories of inclusion and omission.

Not how TC works.

Omission is exceedingly easy,

Not across the board it isn't.
In ONE scribe's work? Absolutely.
In 500 scribes's work? Get out of town.

and is well-supported by Jerome's Vulgate Prologue

Written 150 years after Jerome was dust....

and the earlier comment from Eusebius about the three are one.

That's in verse 8.

Also the common sense understanding that many writers would prefer the short text, rather than the long text,

The same guy who told us on this same thread that scribes DID NOT MAKE textual decisions is now telling us they did.

which wades right into the Christological controversies, including the Sabellian likely endorsement of the verse.

Which is more likely: that Christians intentionally omitted commenting upon this to the Sabellians?
Or that Christians EXPLAINED WHY THE SABELLIAN UNDERSTANDING OF THIS VERSE WAS WRONG?

They never did the latter for only one reason: they didn't have it.

Inclusion is a very messy theory. That can be handled separately.

It's what the evidence shows.
I realize that upsets you but one of us is dealing with evidence, the other (you) explaining why there is none.

I read the grammatical part carefully, and made a few important corrections.

If you read it so carefully then why did you - and do you - continue to hide the information contained therein as if it doesn't knock your position into the sea?
Also, those who offer correction have to be willing to receive it - and you're not.

So any correction you offer is automatically disqualified by your inconsistency.

Not the Cyprian section.

btw, it was quoted as p. 33-34, when it is p. 35-36.

So in other words, you've had my thesis since at least May 6th...and you just admitted you haven't even read it.

 

[Steven Avery]

Facundus' eisegesis:

Facundus of Hermiane (circa 546-548 AD)

LIBER PRIMUS. (PL 67 0534C)

CAPUT III.

[Capitula]

Quod unus de Trinitate passus contra Nestorianos aptius dicatur, quam una de Trinitate persona. Personarum nomen in Trinitate Sabellii causa usurpari coeptum; et de baptismo in nomine Domini Iesu.

[Text]


The Witness of God is Greater. 1500 years of the Heavenly and Earthly Witnesses. A Source Book.

By Mike Ferrando [Updated: 6/6/2021]

Page 251

Facundus of Hermiane (circa 546-548 AD)

FIRST BOOK. (PL 67 0534C), Chapter 3.

[Chapter Heading]

"Which one of the Trinity suffered."

[Text]

"...[9.] In fact, the apostle John also in his letter writes about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit: "There are three who testify on earth, spirit, water and blood and these three are one" [1 John 5:8]. With "spirit" it indicates the Father, as does the Lord, who in the Gospel of John himself says to the Samaritan woman: "Jesus saith to her: Woman, believe me that the hour cometh, when you shall neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, adore the Father. You adore that which you know not: we adore that which we know. For salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father also seeketh such to adore him. God is a spirit: and they that adore him must adore him in spirit and in truth." [John 4:21-24]. [10.] By "water" it indicates [TWOGG, Page 65] instead of the Holy Spirit, as explained by the words of the Lord who reports in his Gospel: "If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that believeth in me, as the scripture saith: Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." [John 7:37-38]. Continuing, he adds: "Now this he said of the Spirit which they should receive who believed in him: for as yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." [John 7:39]. [11.] By "blood" instead it indicates the Son, since he was part of the flesh and blood of the Holy Trinity. So the apostle John speaking of Father, Son and Holy Spirit does not say that there are three ‘persons’ who testify on earth, that is spirit, water and blood, and that these three are one..."
​

Facundus is interesting, and we have discussed the Fulgentius-Facundus comparison.
You make a critique or two that I will pass on.

For now, notice that any text that has "on earth" will be from a text, or an earlier text, that has the heavenly and earthly witnesses.

 

[Steven Avery]

Again, the Eugenius comments are in the context of the text with both the heavenly and earthly witnesses.

Imvisible allegory is seen in the pretense that Cyprian mentioned Father, Son and Holy Spirit when his text had no such reference, AND the additional pretense that he was making an invisible allegory from spirit, water and blood without any reference to those three items anywhere in Cyprian’s writing.

See the superb Henry Thomas Armstrong quote.

I left out one point.

Invisible allegory will confuse the reader who actually checks the text and finds out that there is nothing to substantively match the allegory. They will feel deceived.

TNC tries to make analogies that simply are not in this ballpark.

 

[Steven Avery]

It will be demonstrated that I did not, in fact, make any error at all, but Steven Avery Spencer once again simply doesn't know what he's talking about. You'd think that somebody so sure of everyone else's errors would ensure he understood the subject BEFORE he said something incorrect. But you'd be wrong.

Horne's first edition was in 1821. Even then, his "advocacy" of this passage hardly reaches the absurd lengths of the KJVOs. What Horne was doing was (wait for it) what ACTUAL SCHOLARS do. He was weighing the arguments on both sides of the issue and in both cases, he is objecting to what are obvious problems with saying such nonsense.

And the proof that what I am saying is correct is in the difference between the 1821 edition, where he seems to come out in favor of it, and the 1869 edition where he comes out against it.

1821 edition (choose page 561 of 720)

An introduction to the critical study and knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. v. 4.

babel.hathitrust.org

1) The connexion of the disputed clause requires its insertion, inasmuch as the sense is not perfect without it.
2) The grammatical structure of the original Greek requires the insertion of the seventh verse, and consequently that it should be received as genuine.

Otherwise the latter part of the eighth verse, the authenticity of which was never questioned, (as indeed it cannot be, being found in every known manuscript that is extant,) must likewise be rejected

Now compare with the 1869 edition I cited (on page 415 of 844)

An introduction to the critical study and knowledge of the Holy Scriptures / by Thomas Hartwell Horne, edited by Thomas Hartwell Horne (the author), John ... v.4.

babel.hathitrust.org

1) The connexion of the disputed clause requires its insertion, inasmuch as the sense is not perfect without it.
'This argument is rebutted by the fact that the context admits of an exposition, which makes the sense complete WITHOUT the disputed clause.

Avery IS correct about ONE thing: he's correct that this is listed under the authenticity arguments for 1 John 5:7. But then notice starting with the very first point - in EVERY case, he cites the claim and the smaller print UNDER the claim is a REBUTTAL to that claim, just as I used it in my thesis

And your thesis was simply wrong in stating that Horne was giving a "solecism anyway" argument, similar to that of John Oxlee, to counter Frederick Nolan.

Why not simply accept the correction?

All the other stuff you write above is mildly interesting, and totally irrelevant to the correction.

You misunderstood the quote you gave from Horne.
Mistakes happen.
You so much wanted it to be a "solecism anyway" quote that you did not look carefully.

===============================

And I understand that it is hard for you to accept and acknowledge your error on the 16 blunder verses. It would severely undermine your ongoing bluster writing.

However, you would look a little better if you acknowledged the simple small corrections, like this one about Horne's quote.

===============================

 

[Unbound68]

Steven Avery said:
Also the French debates with Jean Pierre Paulin Martin, Rambouillet, Maunoury, Vacant and Didiot c. 1890

None of whom you've read because you don't read French.

Exactly.

What is the relevant bibliographic info for each of the works of those whom you mention Avery? And what exactly did they have to say on the matter?

If you aren't able to answer from a first-hand reading and understanding of the primary source material, doesn't that automatically disqualify anything YOU have to say on the matter?

Name dropping isn't research.

P.s. --
I'm still waiting for you to give me the relevant bibliographic info on Thiele as well. I want you to tell me what he actually said.....not what Maynard claims he said.

It took me quite a while to track down Thiele's work.

 

[TwoNoteableCorruptions]

Presumably you are referencing Gregory Nazianzen as Gregorius.

No. I meant Gregorios Babiniotis (spelling may have been wrong and may be wrong now). But that's who I meant.

 

[Steven Avery]

No. I meant Gregorios Babiniotis (spelling may have been wrong and may be wrong now). But that's who I meant.

Georgios

 

[Unbound68]

You make a critique or two that I will pass on.

Another example of not having a firm grasp on proper ENGLISH grammar by a non-Greek reader who thinks he knows Greek grammar.

 

[Steven Avery]

Most of the textual critics know very little about the evidences (e.g. see my discussion with Ehrman on his blog-forum.) We have men like Forster, Cornwall and Armstrong in the late 1800s who were excellent. Also the French debates with Jean Pierre Paulin Martin, Rambouillet, Maunoury, Vacant and Didiot c. 1890. Moving to the 20th century, after Edward Freer Hills and Raymond Brown, ignorance has been the norm. Michael Maynard spurred a change with his book, all of a sudden readers saw the evidences throughout the centuries. Then we have Grantley McDonald, whose logic and reasoning (and facts) were often faulty. At least Grantley added extensively to the history, albeit with a very skewed approach.

The French debate has an historical element, the last of the series of important written debates, going back to David Martin vs, Thomas Emlyn. And I only picked up the gist from my high school French, however I did put together the only complete bibliography with urls.

“the French debate c. 1885 - Martin - Rambouillet - Manoury - Vacant - Didiot - Philippe”

Martin, who was the contra in the heavenly witnesses debate, is said to have written a superb book on the Mark ending, defending authenticity, comparable to Burgon. If I remember, his books have unusual script and formatting.

 

[TwoNoteableCorruptions]

Fallacy of composition.

I'll come back later with a detailed and focused analysis of Eugenius' grammatical argument, and without having to resort to your exploding fireworks factory ??? type post's (skyrockets flying in all directions ??? = diversionary tactics of talking about multiple evidences designed to distract from the main point in question).

 

[TwoNoteableCorruptions]

Bill explains the grammatical argument in his paper.

His 16 Blunder Verses contradict his own explanation.

It is an embarrassment that the contras accept such an obvious blunder as including verses that do not match Bill's own explanation.
Verses with masculine or feminine substantives and neuter grammar, which are clearly totally irrelevant.

Presumably you are referencing Gregory Nazianzen as Gregorius.

Even without Eugenius' (what you effectively describe as) "invisible allegory" symbolic spirit, water, blood concept, you still don't comprehend the full scope and/or implications of Eugenius' argumentation - which will be Bourne out in good time.

Note: Avery is now deliberately diverting with his scattergun diversionary tactics to take the heat away from Bills SPECIFIC grammar issues.

 

[Unbound68]

Note: Avery is now deliberately diverting with his scattergun diversionary tactics to take the heat away from Bills SPECIFIC grammar issues.

Yup.

 

[Unbound68]

I say a new thread should be started dealing solely with Avery's "grammatical argument."

We wouldn't want any more of it getting buried in this thread under another 29 pages of diversion.

 

[Steven Avery]

Note: Avery is now deliberately diverting with his scattergun diversionary tactics to take the heat away from Bills SPECIFIC grammar issues.

Do you see any place where Bill Brown actually tries to discuss any points through the reactive harumph posturing posting? I don’t.

Plus, he can never acknowledge a factual error. We see that in the 16 Blunder Verses, and now also in the Horne discussion. Throwing sand is his skill.

When I rarely find him trying to make a semi-coherent point, I take the effort to respond right to point. Then he tries a five-word dismissal. Deficient and defective argumentation.

If you see important grammatical issues that deserve a dialog, share away.

However, you should have the integrity to also deal with the 16 blunder verses.

==========

btw, Bill tries to quote me, adding all sorts of liar and insult claims, on the BVDB forum. CARM has a rule that deals directly with that approach, which they call bullying.

 

[logos1560]

Then he tries a five-word dismissal. Deficient and defective argumentation.

You seem to be describing your own deficient and defective posting.