Featured The Holy Trinity in 1 John 5:7

1 John 5:9, "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son. . . ."

The New Testament writings are the witness of man regarding the witness of God. Now how is the witness of God greater?

Now the witness of God is what we as believers receive from God, the Holy Spirit, v10, "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: . . ." Romans 8:16.

The claim given in 1 John 5:7 as, "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." Is only in that text. From heaven we get what? v8, we have the water at Christ's baptism the writing of man telling us, John 1:32, "And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him." And the writing of man regarding the blood, John 19:34, "But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water." And then the Spirit of truth in us according to the writing, John 14:17, "Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." And this according to 1 John 5:8-9, "And there are three that bear witness . . . , the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: . . ." And back to v6, ". . . And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth." And v10, "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: . . ." Romans 8:16.

So how is that witness from heaven, v7, "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one," greater?

 

Um, define "good grammar." I personally don't believe in "good" and "bad" grammar.

 

As I told him, I don't believe in "bad" and "good" grammar. There is just grammar. So I don's see what you have posted as "bad Greek grammar." If it exists in a language it is simply grammar. Now, as to SBG's argument, I don't see the need to "fix" any grammar, either with or without the "Comma." So I don't agree with SBG. The question then, would be to me, is the grammar normative or common, or is it an exception? All languages have grammatical exceptions, and sometimes different usages according to regions. (Check out the usages of εὐθυς/εὐθεος in the different textual traditions, for example. I think there is a difference in usage between Alexandria and Antioch.)

At any rate, were you able to read Conan's post #44? I think he links to a good article about the issues: The Text of the Gospels: The Comma Johanneum and Greek Grammar

 

You didn't define "good grammar" for me. I hesitate to say anything is a "possible explanation" or "impossible" in grammar.

As to the article standing alone with an adjective, that is discussed in A. T. Robertson's massive grammar on pp. 762 to 764. Do you have that grammar? If you do, you don't need me. Check it out for yourself. But he says on p. 764, "The article with numbers is more common in Greek than in English and is a classic idiom."

 

I don't see any of that as a grammatical problem, so I see no need to address your viewpoint.

I will say this. If the "comma" is genuine, and the rewrite is the mythical "bad grammar," then those guys who copied mss in their own language in the early centuries had (alas) lousy grammar in their own language. Or worse, whoever revised the passage in his own language had "bad grammar." Yep, those poor guys didn't know their own language as well as we 21st century experts do.

 

I go with old A. T. Robertson myself. He was a Bible believing Baptist. He found no grammatical problems in the passage. Here is what he wrote in Word Pictures in the NT:

v. 8: "The Spirit and the water and the blood (to pneuma kai to hudôr kai to haima). The same three witnesses of verses 1Jo 5:6,7 repeated with the Spirit first. The three (hoi treis). The resumptive article. Agree in one (eis to hen eisin). "Are for the one thing," to bring us to faith in Jesus as the Incarnate Son of God, the very purpose for which John wrote his Gospel (Jos 20:9)."

v. 9: "If we receive (ei lambanomen). Condition of first class with ei and the present active indicative, assumed as true. The conditions for a legally valid witness are laid down in De 19:15 (cf. Mt 18:16; Joh 8:17; 10:25; 2Co 13:1). Greater (meizôn). Comparative of megas, because God is always true. For (hoti). So it applies to this case. That (hoti). Thus taken in the declarative sense (the fact that) as in Joh 3:19, though it can be causal (because) or indefinite relative with memarturêken (what he hath testified, perfect active indicative of martureô, as in Joh 1:32; 4:44, etc.), a harsh construction here because of marturia, though some MSS. do read hen to agree with it (cf. verse 1Jo 5:10). See hoti ean in 1Jo 3:20 for that idiom. Westcott notes the Trinity in verses 1Jo 5:6-9: the Son comes, the Spirit witnesses, the Father has witnessed."

You see, he has no such grammatical problems as you do.

 

I am what I am.

 

Interesting. It seems that where Alxandria type text uses ευθυς more often than the Antioch type text uses ευθεως. It appears the more common usage of ευθυς by the Alxandria type text it seems is just being lazy. Just looking at this for the first time. I am assuming Antiocia is the same as Byzantine. Alxandria ευθυς ~58x, ευθεως ~36x, Byzantine ευθυς ~16x, ευθεως ~79x.

 

Nice work!

 

Many cases of so-called "bad grammar" are just idioms, not grammar per se. Here is an illustration of that. Someone in the US North might say, "A person can't get any rest around here," whereas a Southerner might say, "A body cain't get any rest around here." This is a regional difference of idiom. The Southerner would be insulted if you said he had bad grammar! And of course, that's what an ignorant New Yorker visiting South Georgia would say to a Southerner.

To apply this to the Greek NT, IMO we simply don't have a large enough corpus of koine literature to trace all of the idioms, especially the regional ones. The grammar of either side in the Comma is probably just idiomatic. Very little has been written on this to my knowledge. I found out the hard way when I ordered it that Moule's An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek was not a book of idioms, but an intermediate grammar. (My son warned me. )