how does John Stanojevic get around the many Orthodox commentaries and blame Reformation printing instead

[Steven Avery]

Hefin Jones
Yes - there is no question that the comma occurs in Greek Orthodox printed texts prior to 1904. However, it didn't regularly appear in the lectionary manuscripts and entered the Greek Orthodox tradition via western priniting houses providing Greeks with texts when they were not allowed to print themselves by the Turk who ruled over them. This historical reality is explored by Orthodox historian John Stanojevic.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/NTT...3230447949&reply_comment_id=24889844224009243
And I am curious as to how John Stanojevic gets around these commentaries.

Steven Avery
This emphasis on "western printing houses" does not seem accurate, since Orthodox scholarship was strongly in favor of the heavenly witnesses verse, as I pointed out on the Evangelical Textual Criticism board.
Robinson Reviews Stanojević’s Orthodox New Testament Textual Scholarship
https://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/.../robi...
For balance, it should be pointed out in any discussion of the Orthodox position on the heavenly witnesses that Vasilios Antoniades even disagreed with the Orthodox position on the majority text of the Pericope Adulterae! So he is the outlier, and pretty extreme in the Hortian mode.
And there has been a robust defense of the verse among the Orthodox, Greek, Russian, Serbian et al writers since the 1600s.
From my studies to date (tweaks and additions appreciated) these are Orthodox supporters of the verse.
Cyril Lucaris (1572–1638)
Peter Simeonovich Mogila - (1596-1646) - Romanian Orthodox - Metropolitan of Kiev
Græco-Russian Synod at Jassy, 1643 - Orthodox Confession of Faith - signed by the Eastern Patriarchs
Synod of Jerusalem, 1672 - approves Confession
Theophane Prokopowicz- (1681-1736)
Hyacinth Karpinski - (1721-1798) Russian Orthodox
Eugenius Bulgaris (1718-1806) world-class scholar
Gorodetsky Nikolai Ivanovich Platon, (1737-1812) Metropolitan of Moscow,
Ireneus (Ivan) Yakimovich Falkowsky- (1762-1823)
Neophytus Vamvas (1770-1856)
Mikhail Petrovich Bulgakov, (1816-1882) - (Metropolitan of Moscow Macarius)
Mikhail Luzin (1830-1887) - Russian Orthodox Bishop
And I am curious as to how John Stanojevic gets around these commentaries.

Jovan Stanojevic simply ignores the historical Orthodox scholarship beyond looking at the printed editions and lectionaries, he does not go into Orthodox commentaries which essentially help to refute the position that the Orthodox retained the verse due to the quirks of who had printing presses. Actually the heavenly witnesses verse was enthusiastically accepted as true Bible.
Stanojevic (against authenticity) does look at a couple of modern scholars. Curiously he includes as an Orthodox scholar against authenticity Pavlos D. Vasileiadis who has a book against authenticity, and I am almost certain he is a Jehovah Witness!
Christos. Karakolis and George Valsamis are listed as considering the verse legitimate.
" Contemporary Orthodox scholars are divided regarding the Comma. "

 

[Steven Avery]

p. 14

p. 152

 

[Steven Avery]

p. 168

Scholars agree that the comma was translated from Latin where it gradually became a part of the standard text.36 It is not surprising that in the subsequent period its deletion was virtually unthinkable. Even Lorenzo Valla and Giannozzo Manetti did not dare to omit or to critically comment on it, although they were otherwise very critical of the textual sequences that they believed to be a secondary addition to the Vulgate.37 The Comma in Antoniades’ edition essentially agrees with variants b in both passages in the ECM. However, in the first case Antoniades’ text is missing xai between o 7rcro]p and o Xoyo$. The Antoniades text of the Comma was not based on any manuscript but on the Textus Receptus. As Antoniades stated in the introduction, despite the lack of any witness in lectionaries, church fathers, ancient versions, Old Church Slavonic version, and any Greek manuscript copied independently from the Latin, it was retained in his edition according to the decision of the Holy Synod (cf. Appendix 9,1). Due to the lack of support in the manuscripts, Antoniades printed the Comma in smaller type. From the sixteenth century onward the Comma was contained in all the Greek New Testament editions prepared for the Orthodox Church. Richard Simon noted at the end of the seventeenth century that all editions of the Greek Apostolos lectionary that he consulted contained the Comma.38 Isaac Newton probably correctly observed that the Comma became part of the Orthodox editions through the Venetian presses.39 The Comma in the Byzantine lectionary is within the pericope that is assigned for the Thursday of the twenty-fifth week after Pentecost (1 John 4:20-5:21), even though it seems that the Comma was not inserted in the printed Apostolos lectionary before the end of the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is not present, for example, in the printed Apostolos editions from 1525, 1550, and 1578 (cf. Table 2). However, the Comma was included no later than 1602.40 After that time all thirteen printed Apostolos lectionaries published before the end of the nineteenth century, to which I had access (which are marked in bold in Table 2 above), contain the Comma.41 Contemporary Orthodox scholars are divided regarding the Comma. On one hand, the recent research of P. Vasiliadis represents an attempt to elaborate reasons for the exclusion of the Comma from the Scriptures, and on the other hand, C. Karakolis and G. Valsamis believe that insertion of Comma by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is legitimate.42 I believe that the Comma should be omitted from the text because its inclusion cannot be justified on the basis of manuscript evidence.

36 Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek: Introduction and Appendix, 103-06;
Rudolf Schnackenburg, Die Johannesbriefe, 7. ed., HTKNT (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1984), 44-46;
Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament A Companion Volume to die United Bible Societies> Greek New Testament, 647-49;
Juan Jr. Hernandez, “The Comma Johanneum: A Relic in the Textual Tradition,” EC 11, no. 1 (2020).

37 Nigel G. Wilson, From Byzantium to Italy: Greek Studies in die Italian Renaissance (London: Duckworth, 1992), 74; Annet den Haan, Giannozzo Manetti’s New Testament Translation Theory and Practice in Fifteenth-Century Italy, BSEH 257/BTSI 19 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2016), 71.

38 Richard Simon, Critical History of the Text of the New Testament Wherein is Established the Truth of the Acts on Which the Christian Religion is Based, trans. Andrew Hunwick, NTTSD 43 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2013), 173. A. Hunwick translated incorrectly Απόστολος as Apostolic. Cf. Histoire critique du texte du Nouveau Testament: Où l’on établit la Vérité des Actes sur lesquels la Religion Chrétienne est fondée (Rotterdam: Leers, 1689), 203.

39 Herbert W. Turnbull, ed. The Correspondence of Isaac Newton 3: 1688-1694 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 84, 98.

40 McDonald, Biblical Criticism in Early Modem Europe: Erasmus, the Johannine Comma, and Trinitarian Debate, 112.

41 These lectionaries were printed in the following years: 1633, 1663, 1692, 1795, 1801, 1806, 1830, 1839, 1844, 1847, 1850, 1855, and 1856.

42 Pavlos D. Vasileiadis, “Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7, 8): A Study on its Interpolation and Removal from the Biblical Text” (Master, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2013);

Christos Karakolis, “Критический текст Нового Завета: православная перспектива,” 180;

Critical text of the New Testament: orthodox perspective

“Критический текст Нового Завета: православная перспектива,” in: Μ. G. Seleznev (ed.), СОВРЕМЕННАЯ БИБЛЕИСТИКА И ПРЕДАНИЕ ЦЕРКВИ: Μатериалы VII еждународной богословской конференции усской равославной Церкви: Μосква, 26– 28 ноября 2013, Moscow: SS Cyril and Methodius Theological Institute of Post- Graduate Studies, 2016, 171–84.

George Valsamis, ed. The New Testament Original Greek (Koine) Text (Athens: Elpenor, 2014), 478 n. 6.

 

[Steven Avery]

Lakis Vasilakis
Steven Avery Vasileiadis's master's thesis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece) was checked and reviewed by top Greek professors on the NT textual criticism, such as Petros Vassiliadis and Johannes Karavidopoulos. Karavidopoulos even included two references to Vasileiadis's master's thesis in the latest edition of his "Introduction to the NT".
If your Greek permits, you can read in Greek the actual positions of the Greek Orthodox scholarship on the Comma Johanneum issue.
You can find it here:

https://ikee.lib.auth.gr/record/132539/files/GRI-2013-10995.pdf

or here:
https://archive.org/details/pv-mth-comma-johanneum