The Johannine Comma: Inspiration? Or Interpolation?

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

Part of the problem is the rigidness of first proclaiming the scriptures had to first be written in Greek. Something that can never be proved.

It has no logic behind it. That documents which were meant travel throughout an entire Greek speaking Empire where originally written in Ancient Paleo Hebrew? Matthew 16:18 doesn't work in Aramaic, or Hebrew. It is only a word play which works in Greek.

[Esaias]

All the manuscripts are in Greek. The epistles were written primarily to Greek speakers. Numerous grammaticism in them show they were penned in Greek.

But somehow there's a burden of proof to show they were NOT written in some other language?

No wonder we're coming down to Trump vs Hillary.

[Steven Avery]

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

Part of the problem is the rigidness of first proclaiming the scriptures had to first be written in Greek. Something that can never be proved.

Hi, Michael. You are right that it is too rigid. However, the evidence is generally strong, with Mark being the major exception, that NT books were written in Greek. There was a Hebrew Matthew, but it seems to be a different gospel with some different stories. Hebrews may have been a combination of Hebrew to Greek (see Eusebius).

The issue with the heavenly witnesses is much simpler. The Greek manuscript line had been subject to some corruption. This was well understood in the Reformation era. And the easiest corruption is losing text.

The solecism in the Greek without the heavenly witnesses is essentially proof of that occurring. (In fact, it would be hard to explain the Greek problem without the text being written in Greek followed by the omission corruption.) Another important example is Acts 8:37, that dropped out of the great majority of mss. Again, the internal evidence (contextual flow rather than grammatical) only fits one scenario. The Greek text was original, and the verse dropped out of many mss. In both verses, the causes could be deliberate, or accidental (e.g. homoeoteleuton), or a combo of both. I would say that the conscious dropping was the greater contribution, especially looking at the Vulgate Prologue of Jerome. However, conscious dropping is often simply a decision that is more comfortable, once the split line exists. i.e. Once you have a split line, errant decisions can be good faith errors.

Steven Avery

[Scott Pitta]

I have seen no documentation the NT was penned in any language other than Greek. Do you have a NT manuscript in mind that is in a language other than Greek that is older than the manuscripts we currently have ??

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Esaias

All the manuscripts are in Greek. The epistles were written primarily to Greek speakers. Numerous grammaticism in them show they were penned in Greek.

But somehow there's a burden of proof to show they were NOT written in some other language?

No wonder we're coming down to Trump vs Hillary.

Ain't that the TRUTH!!!!!

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Scott Pitta

I have seen no documentation the NT was penned in any language other than Greek. Do you have a NT manuscript in mind that is in a language other than Greek that is older than the manuscripts we currently have ??

Exactly, but one must take into consideration that these documents were meant to leave Judea during the late 1st Century. Paul was a Freeborn Roman who went from his Hebrew name Sha'ul ha-Tarsi, to the Roman name of Paulum. He would of first made sure his epistles were in Greek because they were primarily to Romans. Yet, we can clearly see that all the rest of the books needed also to reach the Diaspora Judeans, as well as the Romans. As the LXX was meant for these Diaspora Judeans, the New Testament writings would obviously follow suit.

[Steven Avery]

Originally Posted by Scott Pitta

I have seen no documentation the NT was penned in any language other than Greek. Do you have a NT manuscript in mind that is in a language other than Greek that is older than the manuscripts we currently have ??

That is not a sensible measure. Pretty much all scholars agrees that Latin NT documents were existing in the 2nd century. However, the Latin lands did not have the dry desert (combined with Christian interest and a literary culture) that give the possibility of having early documents preserved. The date of the earliest extant manuscript tells us little about the date of the earliest actual manuscript in each language.

The papyri documents are, with one exception from Syria, all of Egyptian provenance, in desert areas, and an area where gnosticism was strong. They are wild in text and tell us little about the New Testament. Even Kurt Aland warned about their limited ability to shed light on the NT text.

The arguments for Mark being written in Latin (or a Graeco-Latin dialect or in two editions) are quite strong, and have been advanced by a wide variety of scholars. They simply have been bypassed because the hortian Critical Text theories that are popular today focus almost exclusively on a couple of Greek manuscripts. One of which is in "phenomenally good condition" and which the evidences shows was written in the 1800s and then coloured artificially to give it an appearance of age. The other one, Vaticanus, was argued by Hort to have been written in Rome, largely because of some Latin forms of names. The scholars today have rejected the Rome point of origin, they have by "consensus" quite questionably marked the ms. as 4th century, and they have forgotten to explain the Latin name forms and other anomalies in the ms.

Steven Avery

[Esaias]

Mr Avery, your posts here are appreciated. You have definitely put in quite a bit of work in researching the subject.

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

That is not a sensible measure. Pretty much all scholars agrees that Latin NT documents were existing in the 2nd century. However, the Latin lands did not have the dry desert (combined with Christian interest and a literary culture) that give the possibility of having early documents preserved. The date of the earliest extant manuscript tells us little about the date of the earliest actual manuscript in each language.

The papyri documents are, with one exception from Syria, all of Egyptian provenance, in desert areas, and an area where gnosticism was strong. They are wild in text and tell us little about the New Testament. Even Kurt Aland warned about their limited ability to shed light on the NT text.

The arguments for Mark being written in Latin (or a Graeco-Latin dialect or in two editions) are quite strong, and have been advanced by a wide variety of scholars. They simply have been bypassed because the hortian Critical Text theories that are popular today focus almost exclusively on a couple of Greek manuscripts. One of which is in "phenomenally good condition" and which the evidences shows was written in the 1800s and then coloured artificially to give it an appearance of age. The other one, Vaticanus, was argued by Hort to have been written in Rome, largely because of some Latin forms of names. The scholars today have rejected the Rome point of origin, they have by "consensus" quite questionably marked the ms. as 4th century, and they have forgotten to explain the Latin name forms and other anomalies in the ms.

Steven Avery

Yochanan Marcus a Hellenized Judean from the family of Marcus. The name means one who is consecrated to Mars. I wouldn't doubt a Latin copy of Mark, but would maintain it was originally penned in Greek. Individuals have issue with Latin and Greek origins because they keep a view that everyone in the Middle East spoke nothing but Hebrew.

[Scott Pitta]

If we are going to refer to a specific manuscript, we should refer to it by name. That way, everyone knows which specific manuscript is being discussed.

Other than one mention by Paul that letters should be shared, do we have any indication that the epistles were penned with a larger audience in mind other than the local church? I am not aware of any efforts in the NT to copy and distribute any books.

Early Latin texts are early, but are there any Latin manuscripts that are older than their Greek counterparts ?

Matthew may have been written in Hebrew, Mark may have been written in Latin. But until we have evidence, it is all conjecture. Blame it on the translator in me, but I prefer hard evidence over theories. Eusebius had a lot to say about the NT, but the evidence is no longer in hand.

Acts had a textual criticism unique to itself. Codex Bezae is fascinating !!

This is a very interesting post.