This is a circular claim of no merit.
This allegations assumes the one making it even knows what a circular claim is.
This is not a circular claim:
1) This “mixed line” theory is an invention without a shred of evidence.
a) It IS a theory - that's all it is.
b) there is ZERO evidence supporting it.
To find EVIDENCE supporting a "mixed line" (he used to call it a split line but whatever), what Avery has to produce for us is A or A SET of manuscripts that HAVE THE COMMA in the early centuries VERSUS manuscripts that DO NOT HAVE the COMMA in the early centuries.
Without that as evidence - he has a theory.
He's not arguing from EVIDENCE, he's arguing that his EVIDENCE once existed....without a shred of evidence to support that idea.
The topic under discussion is the authenticity of an original Greek text of the heavenly witnesses.
Amazing how Avery admits here he thinks the original Greek text is somehow recoverable. Perhaps since he also is arguing the necessity of a pure Bible text - at least at points in history - he can provide us with the names of the pure Bibles PRIOR to the throwing together of the TR in 1516.
Those who accept authenticity then logically speak of the mixed line in the centuries where it fell out of the Greek
No, you do not LOGICALLY SPEAK. You ASSUME THE EVIDENCE EXISTED.
That is in no way logical, you're simply appealing to invisible manuscripts that in this case there is no evidence at all they existed. Furthermore, YOU DON'T HAVE A MIXED LINE, you have ONE READING attested in every single Greek extant Greek manuscript. It's not even a 10-to-1. It's a 100% versus 0% proposition.
(a period where we have very few extant manuscripts.)
And ALL of them (in Greek, which is what Avery says we're talking about - I'm just pointing this out since his next tactic is to go running to Latin) AGAINST the Comma. ALL of them.
Bill Brown works with his presupposition that the verse is not authentic,
You have this precisely backwards in your accusation.
YOU work with the presupposition it is authentic - and then you go hunting for evidence.
YOU are using the circular argument and then gaslighting the rest of us.
I simply look at the Greek manuscripts of the first 10 centuries and say, "It isn't in ANY of them."
I look at all the other languages - and it's only in Latin.
I look at the Greek Church Fathers - nada.
I look at all the other Church Fathers - nada.
Then in Latin it pops up in the mid to late 4th century by a heretic who doesn't even quote it correctly.
And that tells me the MOST LOGICAL CONCLUSION is, "This is a Latin corruption." Then I look at the fact the OL has corruptions all over the place, so badly that within 2 centuries of so of the presumed original date of the Latin, Jerome pieces together one standard Bible, the Vulgate. Oh yeah - and he doesn't include it, either.
In other words, ALL of the evidence tells the open-minded person what this is. ALL of it.
so he simply closes his eyes to masses of evidence supporting the original Greek.
Well if there was this mass of evidenece, you'd post it.
But the reason you don't is - you don't have anything.
This includes the Vulgate Prologue of Jerome
This is Latin, not Greek.
Not only is there no solecism in terms of being an insurmountable Greek error, but I wrote a thesis on this approved by a Greek grammarian and a PhD from Sheffield, while Avery himself can't even read the language.
Consequently, there's one of us who possesses the expertise to address this, and the other who lacks it.
Also evidences like Walter Thiele on Cyprian agreeing that his Latin came from an early Greek (although Thiele stopped short of the logical conclusion - authenticity.)
Thiele simply said he thought Cyprian quoted it.
HE ALSO regarded it as a corruption - so who cares?
This doesn't help your case.
Also the Athanasius Disputation and Potamius writing to Athansius and much more.
Again - you've been corrected on these, but like Donald Trump screaming about fraudulent votes he cannot prove, you continue with the false claims.
One surmises this is because the evidence is so nonexistent.
Circular claims are the main argument of the contra heavenly witnesses crew.
I just DEMONSTRATED how you argued your point in a circle.
You just demonstrated that all you can do is accuse me of things.
Plus convoluted reasoning to try to deny powerful evidences.
If the evidence is so powerful, why do you have to continually misrepresent it?