Featured The Holy Trinity in 1 John 5:7

They were Latin speaking Christians. They are preserved in Latin only, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of the reading in Greek. Even Cyprians supposed quote is rejected as a quote by many scholars as an interpretación. But even if it is a genuine quote it is in Latin, not Greek. This proves the reading did not exist in Greek, because no Greek Father quotes the spurious words in Greek, proving it was a Latin addition to the Word of God in Latin. The Old Latin has a reputation for wild readings. No othe ancient Bible has the spurious words. Not the oldest Latin, not the Syraic, not the coptic, not the Georgian, not the Gothic, nor any other. I wonder why that is? There is not one shred of evidence that it existed but in the Latin, and not all of the Latin. Had other Bibles been translated from the Latin they would have the extra words as well, but they do not. Only the Wycliffe was translated from Latin in the late 1400's. All the others are from the Original Greek.

 

What untrue witness to the Word of God. What disrespectful attitude to Gods Word. First off, not just anyone could copy the word of God. Anyone that knows anything about ancient manuscripts knows that most of the ancient world only about 10% of the people could read and write. So it is impossible that any Tom, dick and Harry could produce a Greek manuscript. They were trained scribes that passed on the word of God in the original Greek language to us. Without Greek manuscripts we don't have the word of God. God used Greek manuscripts to give us the word of God. The English Reformation happened because of the bible translated into English from the original Hebrew and Greek. Not the Latin of the Roman Catholic Church. It took great expense to copy a Greek manuscript. Writting material was very expensive it took a lot of effort mainly done by scribes and monks. Anyone that knows anything about textual criticism knows of the great difficulty in producing handwritten copies of the Word of God. What a great debt that we owe these Christian scribes to pass on the word of God to us.

 

The Text of the Gospels: The Comma Johanneum and Greek Grammar

Why didn’t Eugenius, whose Greek was supposed to be so good, come up with this? I believe that he was so strongly theologically motivated to keep the “received text” here that he either did not see any other grammatical options, or that he deliberately ignored them. This then set the tone for the 19th-century apologists who similarly desired to protect the text.

In conclusion: the fact ought to be accepted that masculine adjectives/pronouns/participles can and do modify neuter substantives, in plain contradiction to Eugenius' claim

The Text of the Gospels: The Comma Johanneum and Greek Grammar


Eugenius is apparently the source of much of the grammatical speculation [spread by writers such as Robert Dabney and Thomas Holland – JSJ] about First John 5:7-8 that has circulated. In what follows, I shall suggest that there is a fairly simple alternative. As before, Greek quotations from New Testament texts are taken from the Textus Receptus to forestall the objection that there is some sort of text-critical difficulty that, in the mind of the King-James-Onlyist, will invalidate the argument; likewise English quotations from the New Testament will be taken from the KJV. After that, I will present a more detailed response to Eugenius’ argument.
Have a look at First John 5:8:

και τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες εν τη γη το πνευμα και το υδωρ και το αιμα και οι τρεις εις το εν εισιν. – “And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.”

Now, a bit of a grammar lesson, to help folks better understand the argument. “That bear witness” in English is actually a relative clause, but in Greek it’s a participle. A part of what? A participle. Participle comes from the Latin “to have a share in” and what participles do is share in the qualities of both an adjective and a verb – they are verbal adjectives. Another thing that adjectives get to do from time to time is to pretend to be nouns. We do this with proverbial statements in English, “The good die young” or “The poor shall always be with you.” The latter example shows that Greek does it too, since it’s a quotation from the New Testament. In Greek (and Latin) it’s done much more frequently, and not just with proverbial statements.
Greek does this most often by planting a definite article in front of the adjective or participle. That’s the syntax of “there are three that bear witness.” It is a substantive participle, standing in where one might expect a noun instead. Had the author written οἱ μαρτύρες, “witnesses,” it would mean essentially the same thing, the difference being that the participle describes the referent in terms of the action inherent in the verb. Greek does this all the time, such as at John 3:16, “everyone who believes” is actually a substantive phrase parallel to “three who bear witness.”

Now, why is this important? It means that the substantive functions more like a noun than like an adjective. That means it does not modify another noun (or nouns) in the sentence, but gets its number and gender from its understood antecedent, and its case from how it is used in the sentence. There is therefore no need for it to agree with anything in the sentence. Here, the author is clearly thinking of “witnesses, those who give witness.”
Notice also that “the spirit, and the water, and the blood” all have the definite article. This not only suggests that they are discrete elements, but that they are to be associated with the subject and with each other without being the same as each other. They are three different types of witnesses. Instead of the participle modifying them, they stand in apposition with the substantive participle. They are the particular examples of the witnesses. Since the substantive is acting as a noun, there is no need for “grammatical concord” between the substantive participle and the nouns which stand in apposition to it. It does not matter that “those who give witness” is masculine and that the three nouns are neuter.
Are there other examples of this? Actually there are many throughout Greek literature, but two stand out in the New Testament:

See the full article at The Text of the Gospels: The Comma Johanneum and Greek Grammar

 

Yes I know you are a begining student of textual criticism. Reading out of date material that now no modern textual critic believes. This was an conjecture by Westcott and Hort (Hort's actually). Hort gave 8 examples of where he thought the Byzantine text conflated "western" and Alexandrian readings. So he conjectured the Byzantine text was made up of 2 previous text types, "western" + Alexandrian. His conjecture carried the day back then with students. But not Scrivener and Burgon, they were not fooled. Metzger took up the flawed reasoning and tried to take it farther by showing "western"+Alexandrian couplets in the Greek Septuagint. Metzger tried to say they were Lucian's. Remember Hort only suggested Lucian. It was pointed it out by Old Testament Textual critics that these "couplets" already existed in the Old Latin in the 2/3rd century AD, so they could not have been created by Lucian in the 4th. Metzgers failure was quietly forgotten about.

Another reason people reject it today is that Hort's example of 8 couplets doesn't mean squat. It's only 8 examples, so what? That's all he could come up with. Even the total 8 doesn't hold today, but even if they did they as so few in number it doesn't mean anything. Further more at least 4 examples of Alexandrian couplets have been found. Does that mean the Alexandrian was made from the "western" and Byzantine text types?

No one on this planet believes lucian is responsible for almost all of the Greek Manuscripts on this planet. Its mear conjecture with no proof whatsoever.

 

There is not one piece of evidence to support it. I just explained it to you above. It is mear conjecture that Lucian was responsible for anything. It was a guess. Do you know why they proposed Lucian's name? Because his name was mentioned by Jerome as editing an edition of the Septuagint. So they conjectured his name. You saw Metzger's failure above. He was the first to try to actually prove it.

 

In other words, they were looking for someone to pin it on. That is the Greek Byzantine manuscripts. They wanted to get rid of their testimony. A reason to dismiss them in block so they could justify editions like Westcott and Hort. The big block of another Text type was getting in their way, and they had to have a reason to dismiss them. Remember Scrivener and Burgon were not fooled even before the writers named by you wrote.

 

What are you talking about? That made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

As a matter of fact you post on textual criticism made absolutely no sense whatsoever. I had scanned it and saw the old theories but just look in more detail and saw the hideousness of the statements. They are all wrong, someone took facts and mixed in lies. Let me guess, you got it from a KJVOnly site. You did not get that from reading their actual books because they mixed in lies with the quotes. I am sure you did not do it but KJVOnlys, they do that. You just followed their works not knowing any better.

There is no doubt you got the grammar argument from the KJVOnlys as well, but you didn't admitt that.

 

Your in deep error. You have lost all reasonability. You are going against all Greek scholars for an old argument brought up by KJVOnlys to try to rescue words not written by John. You get your information from KJVOnlys without naming them as your source. You are mislead by them.

 

You did not come up with this. This is a discussion on the internet. Name your source. You are decieving people acting like you came up with it. Now tell the Baptist Board where you got it from. Quit acting like it is your work.

 

You have been proven wrong already. One, by the link I gave. Two, by all the independent Greek scribes, over 700 did not have a problem with the grammar. Because scribes when they saw a problem some of them would correct it. Why is that? Because they were honest scribes and did not add to God's word. Over 700 Greek scribes did not correct it. That is a fact Plus all the other ancient language Bibles did not correct it as well, but read as the Greek. Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Slavonic. Only exception is some of the Old Latin. Its missing from the earliest Latin Vulgate manuscripts. Jerome had no problem with the grammar.

Only KJVOnlys have recently revived the discussion, and you have not named them as you source, which is misleading of you to the BB. You adopted their argument, which you did not give them credit for. You did not come up with this independently. It was brought up by KJVOnlys and TROnlys, which is where you got it from. This is at least the 3rd time I have seen you use their sources.