Origen

Steven Avery

Administrator
Because the construction is "who is over all, God," where "God" is an appositive to Christ. After that follows an adjectival phrase, "blessed for ever," and your remarks lead me to the conclusion that you are using "God blessed for ever" as "God-blessed for ever" (i.e., "blessed by God forever"), which the Greek does not support and which would be ungrammatical in English. Don't confuse the second comma after God, I am only closing the quotation. "Christ . . . who is over all, God blessed forever" is how I would translate it.

Then you are accusing the AV of being a false translation. I have a lot more trust in their Greek than yours.

And there is nothing ungrammatical in our text, which is part of your accusation.

You claim Christ and God is appostive. Others say God is a predicate. Others say God is appostive to blessing. You can duke it out with the Greekies, but I will take the AV!

Carl Conrad covers some of this:
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/1996-12/15925.html

At least we finally got the main point clarified.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
I hope I'm not wasting my time producing such references, as it took a considerable amount of time. I beg your pardon, but any of the writers referencing the English translation and understanding it as referring to Christ as God are either following the English article placed by the translators, or the Greek article placed by the Greeks. The English testimonies are relevant, because I am saying you are misreading the passages, and they are my second, third, fourth witnesses, etc.

Oh, I enjoy then, and tend to look up each one. However,there is a band-wagon element, just like there was for the Sharp errors (although most of them were discarded quickly, the residue of theory continued.)

The English article in the 1611 does support the Jesus is God translation. Neither does the Greek article mandate any such translation. At most you can say it allows for that translation.
 

Brianrw

Member
Then you are accusing the AV of being a false translation. I have a lot more trust in their Greek than yours. There is nothing ungrammatical in our text, which is part of your accusation.
I said your interpretation, which would really be "God-blessed" (i.e., blessed by God)--not "God blessed for ever"--is ungrammatical, and the Greek does not support it. It's hokey English. Please produce some Greek writer, some English commentator, some grammarian (English or Greek) who would support it. Because I have found, precisely, none. The Greek required for that translation and interpretation is ευλογημένος από τον Θεόν.

Did you miss the part where I said I would translated it, "Christ . . . who is over all, God blessed forever"? May I remind you, Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour (Ex. 20:16).

I am saying you are misreading the passage. Please go back and read what I wrote.

You claim Christ and God is appostive. Others say God is a predicate. Others say God is appostive to blessing. You can duke it out with the Greekies, but I will take the AV!
I think you need to brush up on your terms, and this is just an obfuscation of the issue. Wikipedia: "Apposition is a grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side and so one element identifies the other in a different way." I.e., "the General, George Washington" is an apposition. A predicate is the part of a sentence that follows a subject. "God" is not an "appositive" to blessing, since blessing is not a name; it is an adjective

The English article in the 1611 does support the Jesus is God translation. Neither does the Greek article mandate any such translation. At most you can say it allows for that translation.
It does support it (I suspect you meant "it does not"), because articles, not commas, were syntactic. I noted the English authors who read it just fine, without referencing the Greek.

How well do you know Greek?
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
Please read the Carl Conrad page that I put above.

He goes into the appostive question, and once that is gone from your argument, all your attempts go kaput.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
The English article in the 1611 does not support the Jesus is God translation.

That is why Sharp wanted to improve, change, correct the AV.

Granville Sharp
Remarks on the uses of the definitive article in the Greek text of the New Testament: containing many new proofs of the divinity of Christ, from passages, which are wrongly translated in the common English version.

You should stop pretending that the AV supports these faux identity translations.
 

Brianrw

Member
That is why Sharp wanted to improve, change, correct the AV.
I addressed this above already, that the further ahead in time from the translation, conventions of English sentence construction evolve to a point where once easily understood constructions can be in danger of being misread. I will respond the same as I have to you, that Sharp has simply misread it.

Some examples of the same archaic English structure utilized in Titus 2:13:
  • τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ πατρὸς ἡμῶν, "of God and our Father" (Gal. 1:4, Phil. 4:20, 1 Thess. 1:3).
  • τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρὶ, "to God and the Father" (Col. 1:3, Col. 3:17, Eph. 5:20, Jas. 1:27)
  • τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ πατρὸς, "of God, and of the Father" (Col. 2:2)
All of these are "Sharp" constructions, all of them appropriately use the rule. Do they speak of one person, or two? Were they "mistranslated"? Certainly not. Since you say the "Sharp" rule is invalid, however, what is the distinguishing proof, outside of your own theological concept?

The issue is not about Sharp, who is for the most part being used by you as a straw man against the Greek usage of the article. The Greeks had their own rules of grammar, which English speaking grammarians both learn from them and observe from their writings. Just because Sharp stretched the rule for a couple of passages, or wanted to correct the KJV, does not change how the article is supposed to be used when translating into English.

You say "they don't work," but you can't say why. I both told you where it doesn't work and why. You just criticize a rule that rings true everywhere in the New Testament when applied correctly, and say it doesn't work because it has built in exceptions. That's how rules work, e.g.: "I before E, except after C, or when sounding like A as in neighbor or weigh." By your standard, that's "not much of a rule," because there are two exceptions. It's easy to be contrarian. Defending your own position is difficult.

Please read the Carl Conrad page that I put above.

He goes into the appostive question, and once that is gone from your argument, all your attempts go kaput.
Conrad makes two viable options: (1) That the passage speaks of Christ as "God who is over all" or (2) that the ending should be "blessed forever [be] God who is over all." He then gives it over to prayerful analysis. Which is your preferred reading? The AV certainly doesn't supply the translation he advocates.

Metzger addresses this in his dissenting opinion in his Textual Commentary (2nd Ed., pp. 460-462; the rest of the committee felt it was "tantamount to impossible" that Paul, in his theology, would ever call Christ "God blessed for ever"). Metzger calls the proposal followed by Conrad as “awkward” and “unnatural.” (2nd Ed., pp. 460-462.):

The interpretation that refers the passage to Christ suits the structure of the sentence, whereas the interpretation that takes the words as an asyndetic doxology to God the Father is awkward and unnatural . . . If the clause ὁ ὢν κ.τ.λ. is an asyndetic doxology to God the Father, the word ὢν is superfluous, for "he who is God over all" is most simply represented by ὁ ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς. The presence of the participle suggests that the clause functions as a relative clause . . . and thus describes ὁ Χριστὸς as being "God over all." . . . Pauline doxologies . . . are never asyndetic, but always attach themselves to that which precedes . . . Asyndetic doxologies, not only in the Bible but also in Semitic inscriptions, are differently constructed; the verb or verbal adjective always precedes the name of God, and never follows it, as here . . . In light of the context, in which Paul speaks of his sorrow over Israel's unbelief, there seems to be no psychological explanation to account for the introduction of a doxology at this point.” He says in his article on the punctuation of the passage, “Put another way, in Rom. 9:5 it is grammatically unnatural that a participle which stands in juxtaposition to the phrase ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα ‘should first be divorced from it and then given the force of a wish, receiving a different person as its subject.

Again, there is a difference between being contrarian and actually defending your view. You haven't shown yourself right, you are only wildly throwing alternate translations at me--none of which match the reading of the AV or your preferred interpretation--and then attacking me as though I'm trying to change the AV. It doesn't make any logical sense. I want you to provide sources that advocate your understanding of the verse.

How well do you know Greek?
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Conrad makes two viable options: (1) That the passage speaks of Christ as "God who is over all" or (2) that the ending should be "blessed forever [be] God who is over all." He then gives it over to prayerful analysis. Which is your preferred reading? The AV certainly doesn't supply the translation he advocates.

Conrad disagrees with your appositive claims, that it must be Christ and God, and without that your correction of the AV is kaput. Your apposition claim is false, and your English grammatically unsound claim is false.

Focus.

And if Conrad goes into questionable stuff, I could care less.
As I cited Conrad to refute your bogus apposition claim.

And I do not know Greek, I know how to study and discern charlatan analysis, like those who defend the short corruption text of the heavenly witnesses, or the solecism in 1 Timothy 3:16.

Once you realize that American and English seminarians are not Greek fluent, you might begin to believe and trust your Authorized Version, and move out of your AV correction mode.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Again, there is a difference between being contrarian and actually defending your view. You haven't shown yourself right, you are only wildly throwing alternate translations at me--none of which match the reading of the AV or your preferred interpretation--and then attacking me as though I'm trying to change the AV. It doesn't make any logical sense. I want you to provide sources that advocate your understanding of the verse.

The AV is the gold standard. You are looking to align yourself with corrections to the AV. When I study, I find out more and more that the attacks on the AV are kaput. The latest example was your relying on the supposed appositive connection of God and Christ in Romans 9:5. Your whole shtick was built on that ... and it is simply your weak theory.

As for Sharp's silliness, it is more humor than anything else. I could go into it more, but I see you are locked into correcting the AV. There are tons of scholar and arguments that refute this whole Sharp-Wallace attempt. (Porter vs. Wallace was interesting.) You can start with the whole presupposition of calling ontological beings as persons. Did you read the b-greek discussion? Some excellent points there. (The best one was on CARM, but it is kaput.)

My main purpose has to be to come up to speed on Romans 9:5. You have helped mightily in that regard. See my trichotomy article, this is something fundamental, that has been missed by .. afaik .. everybody.
 

Brianrw

Member
Conrad disagrees with your appositive claims, that it must be Christ and God, and without that your correction of the AV is kaput.
And Metzger disagrees with Conrad. What now? Do we play "rock, paper, scissors" with authorities? Do a straw poll?

I think you need to focus, and I think you don't understand or are "shading" what you are reading. I'm going to "Focus" on a few points:

  1. Conrad gives two alternatives, which he says depend on punctuation: either it equates Christ with "God who is over all" or it means "blessed forever [be] God who is over all." Where does Conrad propose your interpretation?

  2. The AV reading is not "blessed forever [be] God who is over all," which is Conrad's preferred reading. If his translation is then, wrong, why are you using him against me when by default he gives only one other option (the one I advocate, and which is followed by the AV)? As you would say of Conrad's reading preference, if it were correct, the learned men of the AV would have translated it that way.

  3. Conrad does not dismiss the validity of the apposition. He says that whether an apposition is in view depends upon where a "comma" is placed and follows the committee decision in the UBS4, not the Textus Receptus. Are we now proponents of the critical texts? Why not follow the NA? Paul did not punctuate the passage with a comma. "Commas" didn't exist, Paul wrote the passage in such a manner that it could be read without it.

  4. As for "kaput," he expresses only his opinion ("I will say for myself only") that the passage be rendered "blessed forever [be] God who is over all" and that "ultimately the choice between the alternatives must fall to the prayerful and thoughtful reader of the passage."
I would like you to stop being a contrarian, and advocate for your view. Can you produce anyone, Greek, Latin, English, who precisely supports your interpretation of the verse?

How well do you understand Greek?

You are looking to align yourself with corrections to the AV.
It seems more like Steven Avery's interpretation of the AV is the "gold standard." I'm not correcting it. I'm saying you're misreading it. In Greek and English alike, I simply advocate for a proper reading of the passages.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
And Metzger disagrees with Conrad. What now?

Focus.

If you can not prove your appositive view, about 25 posts of yours are now of no value.
And all your insistence that the grammar calls Christ God, against the AV, is gone.

You are avoiding the Logic 101.

And I know this is hard for you, because you leveraged everything on your apposition claim.

We do not know what Greek and Latin texts was providentially used by the AV.
Maybe they liked Bezae which was in their libraries.
Maybe they felt your apposition is NOT impelled by the Stephanus and Beza texts.
Only a native, fluent Greek would even be in a position to comment with some authority, like we have for the heavenly witnesses.
 
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Brianrw

Member
Please explain the Greek construction as it supports your interpretation, and explain it correctly. Why is θεὸς εὐλογητὸς "God-blessed" (i.e., "blessed by God") and what ancient writer or commentator supports your view?

You are quoting writers against me who advocate for the translation, "God who is over all be blessed for ever," but never those who advocate for "blessed by God for ever." Why is that?
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Please explain the Greek construction as it supports your interpretation, and explain it correctly. Why is θεὸς εὐλογητὸς "God-blessed" (i.e., "blessed by God") and what ancient writer or commentator supports your view?

And I do not see any significant difference between God-blessed or God blessed. I covered that earlier, And I doubt if hyphens are a bit thing like that in the AV. So I am simply saying the AV text is pure and true.

If you want to go down 20 or so ECW we could do that, you probably would find a few that are inconsistent. In many cases you will be working with ambiguous texts.

On certain verses (well two, anyway) there may be a band-wagon approach to finding "Jesus is God" in the New Testament contra the Arians. You saw how they even mistakenly brought Ephesians 5:5 into the mix. The Arians could accept that anyway, in most cases, with a lighter definition of God. This came up with Erasmus. Erasmus was under pressure on Romans 9:5 in a way similar to the heavenly witnesses.

Note my point about Ephesians 5:5. You were including ECW that had that verse in their deity group. Yet we know they were wrong. So we should be very careful in quoting and accepting Athanasius et al as the arbiters of New Testament truth.
 
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Brianrw

Member
And I do not see any significant difference between God-blessed or God blessed. I covered that earlier, And I doubt if hyphens are a bit thing like that in the AV.
"God-blessed" means "blessed by God." It's not proper English grammar, but from what you covered earlier, you said there was an implied noun and said if "God" was removed, who would do the blessing. I'm asking you to demonstrate why it is a proper translation of the Greek θεὸς εὐλογητὸς, or offer someone in support of it. It should be easy, if you are right. But it won't be.

If you want to go down 20 or so ECW we could do that, you probably would find a few that are inconsistent. In many cases you will be working with ambiguous texts.
You won't find the support you're looking for.

You saw how they even mistakenly brought Ephesians 5:5 into the mix.
"Mistakenly" and "wrong" is taking it too far. I simply said I disagree, but that their interpretation of it is valid and does follow the rule. Normally "Christ" would be an title, not a proper name, and in its truest sense they would be applying the rule of the article properly. But I feel Paul utilizes it in such a way that one might consider it a proper name, so I disagree. That is my opinion.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
"God-blessed" means "blessed by God." It's not proper English grammar,

What is wrong with it? Looks perfectly fine to me.

Is "God blessed" significantly different?

What would be proper if that is what you want to say?

(Are you really saying that "blessed by God" is fine in English and not "God-blessed"? Really?)

==========

Here is awkward English

Christ is over all, God, blessed forever

==========
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
"Mistakenly" and "wrong" is taking it too far. I simply said I disagree, but that their interpretation of it is valid and does follow the rule. Normally "Christ" would be an title, not a proper name, and in its truest sense they would be applying the rule of the article properly. But I feel Paul utilizes it in such a way that one might consider it a proper name, so I disagree. That is my opinion.

Do you really think Paul was analyzing what is a proper name (e.g. Lord Jesus Christ might be different than Jesus) before he wrote Ephesians so he could bet the grammar "right" according to a "rule" invented by somebody who had no Greek fluency 1750 years later?

We are in the Sharp Land of the Absurd.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
You won't find the support you're looking for.

Are there even any who specifically indicate whether God or Christ is blessed for ever?

Are there even any who specifically indicate who is giving the blessing?

Those are the key issue in either supporting or rejecting the pure AV text.

It would be mildly relevant also if someone puts "Christ over all" or "God over all".

You never reviewed the actual ECW.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
you said there was an implied noun and said if "God" was removed, who would do the blessing.

You misquoted me, I told you this once before.

As I clearly wrote that you had put God in the wrong place!

(Nothing about it being removed, why mangle the Bible text? Let the Socinians speculate on that.)

And if God was in the wrong place, in your faux apposition to Christ, like you had, then who would do the blessing?
(And I would add, who receives the blessing.)
 

Brianrw

Member
Do you think Paul was analyzing what is a proper name before he wrote Ephesians so he could bet the grammar "right" according to a "rule" invented by somebody who does not know Greek 1750 years later?
Your mistake here is stating it was "invented" by Sharp. Paul had to write the expressions without the aid of punctuation, and the article does a lot of heavy lifting, which is one of the reasons I criticized the "punctuation" argument above. If you don't read the Greek New Testament, it's easy for you to say they didn't "know the rule." If you read it, you realize very well they do. That doesn't mean that there won't be places where you will encounter ambiguity or a place where two rules collide, and only one applies. I've heard even the native Greeks note this about the NT.

Are there even any who specifically indicate whether God or Christ is blessed for ever?
Are there even any who specifically indicate who is giving the blessing?
I've already told you in another place, "blessed" in that sense follows the definition of "honored in worship, revered, praised, extolled, exalted." Paul is expressing that he is praised and exalted for ever.

I don't see other interpretations among them, where there is no ambiguity, other that that Christ is called "God over all." I'm putting my notes together for you.

What is wrong with it? Looks perfectly fine to me.

Is "God blessed" any different.

What would be proper?
Proper English would be "who is over all, blessed by God for ever," for the way you seem to interpret it. But I don't think you understand the egregious manner in which you have to alter the Greek to get translation. You still haven't responded how you can get that out of θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας ἀμήν. Two nominatives can't yield that type of construction.

The article demonstrates three things:
  1. Christ . . . who is over all
  2. Christ . . . who is . . . . . . . .God (where "God" is an appositive)
  3. Christ . . . who is . . . . . . . . . . . . blessed for ever
In other words, "Christ . . . who is over all, God blessed for ever" means Christ is "over all" and "God" and "blessed for ever."

Either your beliefs change to match the scripture, or you try to change the scripture to match your beliefs. The most logical way to understand the passage, given that Paul did not have the aid of punctuation, is to render the passage that way. But because proclaiming the Deity of Christ is objectionable, Socinians, Unitarians, and others have muddied the waters with "alternate" translations: adding a Greek comma, semicolon, or colon; removing words, transposing words, etc.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Your mistake here is stating it was "invented" by Sharp. Paul had to write the expressions without the aid of punctuation, and the article does a lot of heavy lifting, which is one of the reasons I criticized the "punctuation" argument above. If you don't read the Greek New Testament, it's easy for you to say they didn't "know the rule." If you read it, you realize very well they do. That doesn't mean that there won't be places where you will encounter ambiguity or a place where two rules collide, and only one applies. I've heard even the native Greeks note this about the NT.

This is all a joke.
You only support Sharp's attempted corrections in two verses. More or less. You do not even know for sure.

And when we studied the list of exceptions, we ended up with about a dozen. That was fun!
(I can probably put together a shorter list, by checking my bookmarks, this was on the old CARM.)

And you acknowledged that the article omission really only shows or demands connection and relationship!
(As is obvious in Ephesians 5:5, see Calvin.)

You are totally a prisoner of the idea of grammatical rules. You have been duped by American seminarians.
Often they put Christological preferences over language understanding.

Once again.

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Vasileios Tsialas, Athens, Greek

"Grammar books do not make language; it is language that makes grammar books. In other words, language existed long before grammar books came into existence. So language is a natural phenomenon that cannot be enclosed in a technical enchiridion."

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Did you read Vasileios and others on the Granville Sharp thread?

And I have asked you this again and again.
There are about five dynamite posts in the three pages, it starts a little slow and picks up.

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