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

[Steven Avery]

I said:
You can still see the letter, despite the fact that someone tried to erase it.
Ranke, Migne, and Chapman all read "testimonium omittentes." The manuscripts say committentes.
How do you explain this?

The manuscripts are mixed.

If you want to give a proposed alternate translation, go right ahead.

 

[Steven Avery]

More Avery speculation:

1. Jerome wrote the prologue to the canonical epistles. How do you know? Cuz it's Jerome's prologue!

2. The Comma was dropped from the Greek mss. How do you know? Because Jerome said it in

.... Do not fear the idea that Jerome didn't write the prologue ascribed to him, nor the idea that the Comma was NOT dropped from the Greek as you claim he says. Follow the evidence. Look at the actual mss of Jerome's prologue.

The idea of a forgery was originally based on the lateness of the extant manuscripts with the Prologue. The theory of an alternate forgery author is extremely difficult.

While the theory of Jerome's authorship is a simple Ockham's razor truth.

There are many evidences that the heavenly witnesses was dropped from the Greek line. Jerome's Prologue is incredibly powerful and straightforward since it talks specifically of the heavenly witnesses being dropped.

 

[Steven Avery]

No such "demand". If the 165 date is true, it helps decimate the textual theories behind the Critical Text. However, it is a fascinating discussion, between the 2nd, 3rd or 4th centuries.

The Thomas Strouse sentence needs a quote and reference. I really trust nothing from Bill Brown without proper referencing.

Apparently Bill Brown did not even read Edward Freer Hills, who he referenced earlier.

Bill Brown is always weak on logic. There could easily have been a mixed line at the time of the Peshitta translation.

Then he makes the same Arian blunder. It is a rather crass blunder since he already had referenced Hills.

Please feel free to quote more from Bill Brown or anybody attacking the authenticity of the heavenly witnesses. I had fun dealing with the inconsistency and poor logic.

And you can continue to whine about the moderation here on the contra anti-Avery forum.

 

[Unbound68]

And you can continue to whine about the moderation here on the contra anti-Avery forum.

"Contra anti-Avery?"

Double negative?
Logic 101?
Bad grammar?

Or does that mean the forum is against opposing you??? I'm so confused.....not.

 

[Conan]

So childish.

And I showed your false statements above.



You made totally false claims about my position on the Syriac transmission history.

And then you just spam and dance.

Steven Avery said:
There could easily have been a mixed line at the time of the Peshitta translation

 

[TwoNoteableCorruptions]

The Athanasius Dipsutation with an Arian at Nice, and ...

The new evidence from the CONTEXT (which you were, but are now, NOT ignorant of) from Potamius of Lisbon giving "the hidden figurative meanings that lye underneath" (LSB, 19.19-20) the literal text of the Comma-less 1 John 5:8(Clause-C), who, also (without a doubt) corresponded that exact same figurative eisegesis in his letter to Athanasius, now irrevocably affects any evidence PURPORTING to be from Athanasius.

The CONTEXT leading into the partial quotation from 1st John 5:8(Clause-C) in highly pseudonymous (and anachronistic/asynchronic) Athanasius which ALSO consists of figurative interpretations (in the exact same style as Potamius) of the "number" three in Isaiah, Moses, Elijah, Paul, and John, in the Psuedographic "Disputation with Arius in the Nicean Synod" now becomes a "Contra" evidence AGAINST you.

It actually strengthens the figurative case AGAINST the Comma.

Potamius and Psuedonymous-Athanasius cross reference one another as definite figurative references.

And in turn, Potamius' underlying hidden figurative eisegesis derives in all probability from Origen's "Commentary On the Gospel according to Matthew" (12.43) and his "mystical" (directly contrasted to the literal) interpretation of the "three" testimonies from Moses, Elijah, and the Gospel (in the singular collective sense) to the "one" person Jesus, quoting *** uncoincidentally *** in Greek the very same same clause (note "CLAUSE") that both Potamius and Psuedonymous-Athanasius later quote, i.e., οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν 1 John 5:8(Clause-C) except in Greek.

A late (after original posting) P.S.

Psuedographic Athanasius could've also been (like Potamius) influenced from the very same Commentary On Matthew 12.43 by Origen (note the real Athanasius was also from Alexandria - and he was familiar with and also quoted from Origen's Commentaries), and Athanasius evidently, as and when it suited him, adopted the same style/kind of eisegetical METHOD of interpreting the Comma-less 1 John 5:8(Clause-C).

 

[TwoNoteableCorruptions]

The idea of a forgery was originally based on the lateness of the extant manuscripts with the Prologue. The theory of an alternate forgery author is extremely difficult.

While the theory of Jerome's authorship is a simple Ockham's razor truth.

There are many evidences that the heavenly witnesses was dropped from the Greek line. Jerome's Prologue is incredibly powerful and straightforward since it talks specifically of the heavenly witnesses being dropped.

Nope.

Not "dropped" or "omitted".

COMMITTENTES.

 

[Unbound68]

Yes Avery.....why don't you (for once) actually address the evidence? The manuscripts of the very prologue you claim talks about Greek mss omitting the Comma has a different Latin word (commitentes) than the one you NEED to support your theory that the Comma was originally in the Greek, but was later dropped (omittentes)!

 

[Steven Avery]

Steven Avery said:
There could easily have been a mixed line at the time of the Peshitta translation

Pay attention. That is a reference to the Greek manuscript line.

 

[Shoonra]

But Bruce Metzger, in his Textual Commentary (p. 717), says "the passage [namely the Comma] is absent from the manuscripts of all ancient versions (Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Slavonic) except the Latin, and it is not found in the Old Latin in its early form (Tertullian Cyprian Augustin) or in the Vulgate as issue by Jerome (codex Fuldensis, copies in AD 541-46, and codex Amiatinus, copied before AD 716) or ass revised by Alcuin (first hand of codex Vercellensis, 9th century)."

So it would appear that nothing in the Peshitta tradition supports the Comma.

 

[Steven Avery]

Yes Avery.....why don't you (for once) actually address the evidence? The manuscripts of the very prologue you claim talks about Greek mss omitting the Comma has a different Latin word (commitentes) than the one you NEED to support your theory that the Comma was originally in the Greek, but was later dropped (omittentes)!

Your post makes no sense.

Do you even have an alternate translation?

If the word is gibberish in the Prologue context then it was not the original text (unless the scribe slipped) and the JW Matt’s idea goes nowhere.

Nope.
Not "dropped" or "omitted".
COMMITTENTES.

See above.

 

[Unbound68]

If you want to give a proposed alternate translation, go right ahead.

No. YOU were the one asked how you would translate the word "committentes," since YOU are the one pushing for Jerome authorship of the prologue!

You claim the prologue says the comma was dropped from the Greek mss, for no other reason than because you've shackled yourself to the English translation of the Latin word "omittentes."

The verifiable manuscript evidence actually shows that the Latin word used in the prologue (committentes) is not the word for DROP or OMIT.

So again, how do you - Steven Avery - think the word committentes, NOT omittentes, ought to be translated???

Are you afraid?

 

[Unbound68]

and the JW Matt’s idea goes nowhere.

What reason do you - of ALL people - have to point this out?

 

[Unbound68]

If the word is gibberish in the Prologue context then it was not the original text

So you're saying the word (committentes) that has been CHANGED INTO ANOTHER WORD (omittentes) via visible signs of erasure is not the original text???

 

[Unbound68]

But Bruce Metzger, in his Textual Commentary (p. 717), says "the passage [namely the Comma] is absent from the manuscripts of all ancient versions (Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Slavonic) except the Latin, and it is not found in the Old Latin in its early form (Tertullian Cyprian Augustin) or in the Vulgate as issue by Jerome (codex Fuldensis, copies in AD 541-46, and codex Amiatinus, copied before AD 716) or ass revised by Alcuin (first hand of codex Vercellensis, 9th century)."

So it would appear that nothing in the Peshitta tradition supports the Comma.

Yep. Which makes the following all the more hilarious:

Steven Avery:
The Syriac lines (Peshitta, along with the Peshitta updates called Philoxenian and Harklean) has long been considered the third major line, after Greek and Latin.

As TC pointed out to Avery long ago, he should be rejecting the Comma outright since it is absent from 2 of the 3 "pure lines" culminating in the KJV! The fact that he won't reject the Comma proves he doesn't actually believe his own nonsense.

 

[Steven Avery]

More Avery speculation:
1. Jerome wrote the prologue to the canonical epistles. How do you know? Cuz it's Jerome's prologue!

Your are welcome to transmit your theories of authorship, your own or JW Matt on the contra AV (and anti-Avery) forum. He seemed to be claiming multiple authors in a long line of scribal transmission. Yet without any specifics. Leaving out the who, when, why, where.

Thanks!

 

[Steven Avery]

As TC pointed out to Avery long ago, he should be rejecting the Comma outright since it is absent from 2 of the 3 "pure lines" culminating in the KJV!

Not at all. Inclusion/omission is quite different than alternate variants (a basic point about which the textcrits are generally clueless). Actually I do not know of any verse that took over an historic language line that is not true scripture. That includes the Mark ending, the woman caught in adultery, Acts 8:37, the heavenly witnesses, 1 John 2:21b, Father, forgive them, and much more. These are all missing in the corruption critical text.

 

[Steven Avery]

No. YOU were the one asked how you would translate the word "committentes," since YOU are the one pushing for Jerome authorship of the prologue!

Wake up. I accept the traditional translations (there are about three available.) If you, or your sources, think the original was different, then you would need a new alternate theory of the translation text. Without that, all the committentes stuff is a waste of time, and it was just a scribal error, corrected in the manuscript line.

Matt actually offered:

“they commit”
“they are perpetrating”
“they are commencing”
“they begin” etc.

(SA: Maybe they threaten.)

Most of all, whatever the translation, it will have to fit the over-all context.

Since he does not have an alternate translation that fits the context, the speculation is worthless.

What is really important is getting the original thought (no matter how awkward) that Jerome was originally conveying by the word: “commitentes” (before edited and corrected)?

If it is awkward, then it likely was NOT the original intended word.

 

[Steven Avery]

Here is Grantley McDonald to JW Matt two years ago, March 2020.

This post should have put the speculation of a different meaning to rest.

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

Grantley McDonald

Your interesting observation raises many questions about the practices of the editors of this text in the past. That they should have missed this reading in so many manuscripts staggers belief.

However, I doubt that “committentes” is the correct reading. The author – incidentally, I don’t believe that it was Jerome – claims that some scribes or translators write down (“ponentes”) the water, spirit and blood, but miss out the Father, Word and Spirit. The only possible sense I can wrest from “committentes” is that some scribes or translators “commit to writing” the testimony of the Father, Word and Spirit. “Committentes” would thus mean the same thing as “ponentes” – but then of course the author’s pointed contrast disappears. He is unhappy that some authors leave out the Father, Word and Spirit, not that they also commit these words to the page. Arguing simply from the sense of the passage, I think “omittentes” must be the correct reading.

There are several possible ways in which the “o-” could have been read as “com-”. Once this had happened in one manuscript copy, it was likely transmitted to further copies unless later scribes intervened. It would be interesting to trace the variants in the entire text of the prologue in the various manuscripts to see if this variant could be isolated to a particular textual family. Of course, such an error could have happened independently more than once.

Firstly, the “c-” might have crept in through visual similarity with the “o-”. But this still leaves some details unexplained.

Alternatively, it is possible that Fuldensis (or its archetype) was copied from a defective exemplar in which this word was illegible or damaged (a real possibility if the archetype was written on papyrus). The scribe of Fuldensis might then simply have guessed at the missing letter or letters.

A third possibility is perhaps the most plausible: it is possible that an early scribe mistook the “o” for an abbreviation. The Tironian sign for “con-” or “com-”, preserved as an abbreviation in many different kinds of Latin hands through the middle ages, looks like a reversed “c”, which is easily confused with an “o”. (See Ulrich Friedrich Kopp, Tachygraphia veterum 2 [= Palaeographia critica vol. 2.2], p. 52). This would explain the misreading quite economically.

Then, as you have shown in some of the manuscripts, some later readers corrected “committentes” to “omittentes”, because they clearly realised that “committentes” just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

I’m so glad that you brought this to our collective attention. Even if we seem to be dealing with a rogue reading, you are quite right to ask what the absence of this variant from any critical edition says about editorial standards in the past. It is possible that the judgement of the editors of yesteryear was compromised by short library opening hours, poor lighting or failing eyesight. (Those filthy splotches in Fuldensis are caused by a reagent used in the nineteenth and early twentieth century to bring out faded letters, which shows that an early editor was really struggling to read this page.) However this oversight might have happened, I hope your discoveries encourage us to do better in the future.

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

I doubt that “committentes” is the correct reading.

Arguing simply from the sense of the passage, I think “omittentes” must be the correct reading.

they clearly realised that “committentes” just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

 

[TwoNoteableCorruptions]

Wake up. I accept the traditional translations (there are about three available.) If you, or your sources, think the original was different, then you would need a new alternate theory of the translation text. Without that, all the committentes stuff is a waste of time, and it was just a scribal error, corrected in the manuscript line.

Matt actually offered:



Since he does not have an alternate translation that fits the context, the speculation is worthless.



If it is awkward, then it likely was NOT the original intended word.

How do you know I don't have another (or several) translations of the Prologue?