Origen

Steven Avery

Administrator
You should be reading Murray, not a review of Murray, to get the most accurate account.

Worthless snarky comments indicate to me that your realize your position, which definitely attempts to correct the AV, (no doubt any more) is kaput.

The reviews have a solid place, the Murray text has a solid place.

You actually ignored my first comment from Murray, that is extremely important.

Murray Harris p.166

“the natural association of θεὸς with εὐλογητὸς”

As we see in the AV text and is missing in your English corrections.

If you accept this natural association, which you should, your proposed text is totally refuted, as is the Murray Harris one preference text over the AV.

The fact that Murray Harris made the excellent comment, and then ignored it at crunch-time (when he was down to the wire between the pure Bible and an identity corruption), can be seen as his major failure in the article.

Try not to bypass this point again, since it essentially refutes your position.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator

Who is giving the blessing?

This is a typical Hebrew doxology, where the ones giving the blessing are implied (i.e., His people and creation) and "Blessed" follows the definition "revered, honored in worship, praised, extoled, exalted, magnified." So it is in Romans 9:5 of Christ. Paul uses the same form of doxology in two other places: (1) Romans 1:25, "and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever (ὅς ἐστιν εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας ἀμήν). Amen," and (2) 2 Corinthians 11:31, "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore (ὁ ὢν εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας)." I've also noted this before.

Once again, you avoided answering the question. (Although you finally offered some commentary.)

Here are some options.

1) God
2) Christ
3) Paul
4) his people
5) creation

Try to be consistent with the natural association above.
“the natural association of θεὸς with εὐλογητὸς”

If you have no idea, simply say so.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
even the minority of authors you have quoted that prefer to force a doxology to the Father admit my position is valid, whereas none of these authors have entertained, much less supported yours.

Find any spot where I said this was a doxology to the Father.

Focus.

Maybe if you read my Trichotomy article.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
... Murray clearly writes, "In Romans 9:5b one may isolate three distinct affirmations about Christ: he is Lord of all, he is God by nature, and he will be eternally praised." (p. 167). That is Murray discussing who the doxology is to, and saying it is Christ, despite you saying otherwise.

You missed the fact that on p. 165 he refers to
at least two distinct affirmations concerning Christ, he is "over all", or "blessed for ever"

So he is NOT insisting on three, which would only apply in cases where God is equated in identity with Christ. In our discussion that is circular reasoning.

You should read more carefully and less selectively.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
. This is why I keep saying your interpretation requires an emendation of the underlying Greek.

You are simply wrong here.
If that was true, then Murray Harris, who on Greek-geek text issues is good, would indicate the emendation in his #5.

You keep making wild accusations against the simple clear interpretation of the pure Bible text.
 
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Brianrw

Member
Find any spot where I said this was a doxology to the Father.

Focus.
But I didn't say that. I said you're trying to show I'm wrong because there are writers who say it could be a doxology to the Father if they add punctuation in the right spot. You've not supported your point at all, you're just being contrarian.

Try to be consistent with the natural association above.
“the natural association of θεὸς with εὐλογητὸς”
I've answered that above; “the natural association of θεὸς with εὐλογητὸς” in Greek is "God is blessed," and by extension with Christ as the subject and God as the predicate nom./appositive, it means that Christ, who is God, is blessed forever. I walked you through the translation above. Since you don't seem to want to listen to me, I'll quote it from my old basics textbook:

An adjective in the predicate position is not immediately preceded by the article. The noun is modified by the article. In this case you must use the verb 'is' to show the 'predicating' nature of the adjective . . . when there is no article before the noun or adjective ('independent position'), check the context to determine the translation. Be sure not to supply the article in your translation unless the English demands it. (Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek (1993), p. 67)​
The Greek word εὐλογητὸς is an adjective in the predicate position, thus English translation of just those two words together is "God is blessed." It's one of the simplest constructions in Greek. It is not independent here because it follows ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς and the antecedent is Christ, which has the article. With Christ as the antecedent, Christ here is "God" and is "blessed." We gather here by now that Christ is "over all," is "God," and is "blessed." It's really that simple. This is not a complicated passage. It only becomes difficult when presumption takes over.

By all means, don't take my word for it. Feel free to ask around.

You missed the fact that on p. 165 he refers to
at least two distinct affirmations concerning Christ, he is "over all", or "blessed for ever"
I didn't miss it, because he was going through the verse piece by piece and had only established those points thus far. (Murray) Harris begins laying out the third point beginning at "F. The meaning of θεὸς," mid-way on p. 165, and completes it, where I quoted it, on p. 167, saying (now for the third time), "In Romans 9:5b one may isolate three distinct affirmations about Christ: he is Lord of all, he is God by nature, and he will be eternally praised." (p. 167). I read the whole thing, and understood it. I doubt you did either.

You keep making wild accusations against the simple clear interpretation of the pure Bible text.
No. I'm not trying to accuse you, I'm trying to correct you. But you seem to have no problem of accusing me of wanting to "correct texts" that I don't even need to because I don't agree with Steven Avery's interpretation. It's not the AV translation I have an issue with.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
But I didn't say that. I said you're trying to show I'm wrong because there are writers who say it could be a doxology to the Father if they add punctuation in the right spot. You've not supported your point at all, you're just being contrarian.

Nonsense. Your wrong, as shown in Murray's #5.
Which is plenty of geek-tech support.

And I said NOTHING about adding punctuation to get to the AV text.
Murray's #5 does not need any additional punctation.

=================

Seven errors and one missing link.

You erred in claiming a grammatical problem in the AV text.
First you wrongly attacked "God blessed for ever" as being ungrammatical English.

You erred in claiming a translation problem in the AV text.
Now you say there must be an "is" in translation from the Greek in the natural AV order. Notice that Murray went into rather great depth into the word order of θεὸς with εὐλογητὸς and never made this claim. If it were true, with his thoroughness you would see it in his discussion of #5. Feel free to find authorities that say that the AV is wrong translation because it does not have "is" between "God" and "blessed" as you claim. Even one would help, but they must be referencing Romans 9:5 and its word order and context.

You erred in claiming apposition between God and Christ as some sort of grammatical trigger when it was only your circular conclusion.

You erred in claiming that Christ must have three distinct affirmations. Error shown in the previous post.

You still do not know who is giving the blessing, and how that represents a "natural association of θεὸς with εὐλογητὸς”

You erred in missing the “the natural association of θεὸς with εὐλογητὸς” and then rejecting the clear meaning of that phrase (it clearly is shown in the AV text) and then giving a convoluted, dancing non-explanation to give it essentially an opposite unreal application to the deity text.

You erred in claiming that I need or claim a Doxology to the Father, or some special support in that realm.

You erred in claiming the natural reading of the AV text needs added punctuation, like the Socinian glosses.

Seven errors and one missing link.
There are likely more, but that is a good start.

=================

I've answered that above; “the natural association of θεὸς with εὐλογητὸς” in Greek is "God is blessed," and by extension with Christ as the subject and God as the predicate nom./appositive, it means that Christ, who is God, is blessed forever.

The phrase came from Murray Harris. You are adding your convoluted explanation, designed to match your preferred text. An explanation that did NOT come from Murray Harris and does not apply to his #5. You are falsely mind-reading Murray.

In the AV text there is a "natural association of θεὸς with εὐλογητὸς”
"God blessed" clearly fulfills that natural association.
Unknown blessed
(your text) does not.

'''. (Murray) Harris begins laying out the third point beginning at "F. The meaning of θεὸς," mid-way on p. 165, and completes it, where I quoted it, on p. 167, saying (now for the third time), "In Romans 9:5b one may isolate three distinct affirmations about Christ: he is Lord of all, he is God by nature, and he will be eternally praised." (p. 167).

You added nothing here. Murrray allows two distinct affirmations, as in AV and #5, or three in some other translations, like the one in which he eventually erred. That is why he said at least two.

Notice the "may isolate", showing that this is applicable in some cases, and not others.

Your logic is wrong, again.
You are quote-mining and then digging in with error, instead of trying to understand the issues.
 
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Brianrw

Member
Once again, you avoided answering the question. (Although you finally offered some commentary.)
There's nothing I said there that I hadn't already said before here, but instead of responding, you just posted an unrelated snippet from Abbot.

And that you are not really being careful reading what I write is evident. For example (Edit: I see the tirade has grown since I quoted this, and is filled with more misrepresentations that would take too long to address):
Nonsense. Your wrong, as shown in Murray's #5.
Which is plenty of geek-tech support.

And I said NOTHING about adding punctuation to get to the AV text.
Murray's #5 does not need any additional punctation.

You erred in not realizing the “the natural association of θεὸς with εὐλογητὸς”.

You erred in claiming a grammatical problem in the AV text.

You erred in claiming apposition between God and Christ as some sort of grammatical trigger.

You erred in claiming that Christ must have three distinct affirmations.

There are likely more, but that is a good start.
  1. Murray's #5 is grouped by punctuation, not definition. Major, Minor, None is the UBS punctuation apparatus. Most of the translations listed by Murray speak of Christ as God.
  2. I (rather, Metzger) said the UBS Committee, not Steven Avery, added punctuation to force a doxology to the Father.
  3. If you have a valid opposing view, I'm all ears. I don't see how you can. You haven't shown me "in error."
  4. I didn't say there was a grammatical problem with the AV. I said your interpretation of it treats it as an ungrammatical construction ("God-blessed," i.e., "blessed by God"), which also requires an egregious emendation of the Greek text.
  5. I said the placement of the articles and the participle demonstrates it.
  6. Where, precisely, have you demonstrated this? (see response below)
I have not claimed an error in any of the texts of the AV we are discussing. Either you are deliberately mischaracterizing what I am saying, misunderstanding me, or failing to distinguish the actual reading of the text from your interpretation of it. I don't have the time to go and correct all the misstatements above. I also did not say you believe it should be a doxology to the Father, only that you are using that passage to prove me wrong, rather than advocating for what you actually interpret the text to mean. At least get those right.

Now you say there must be an "is" in translation from the Greek in the natural AV order. Notice that Murray went
Rather, I told you how to translate a predicate adjective. I explained why there should not be an "is" in the AV text here, "because the passage would be misread as a doxology to the Father." When a literal translation may result in a serious misunderstanding, you find a method of expression that preserves the meaning and avoids the misunderstanding.

Predicate or not predicate is determined by the article, not the word order. You are misunderstanding both me and (Murray) Harris. Harris, pointing out the unlikelihood that it is a doxology to the Father, deals with what would form a normal Pauline doxology equivalent to "blessed be God" and that is εὐλογητὸς ὁ θεὸς, which he uses repeatedly, not θεὸς εὐλογητὸς. The basic point Harris makes is that the article would be expected before θεὸς to form the construction "Blessed be God," but it's missing. These authors only comment on legitimate translations. The reason you don't find yours is because it's not correct.

You added nothing here. Murrray allows two distinct affirmations, as in AV and #5, or three in some other translations, like the one in which he eventually erred. That is why he said at least two.
Specifically, "at least two," and not with any mention of your "#5" on p. 165. And you omit what goes after: "But poised between these two affirmations is the term θεὸς." And this leads to the conclusion I quoted on p. 167. Your "AV and #5" is actually discussed on p. 166:

harris_p166.jpg

I assume you'll object if I explain that to you, and since I have explained it to you already to no avail, I'll let his source, Charles E.B. Cranfield, explain this one to you instead:

As between (i) [i.e. "who is God over all, blessed for ever," p. 465] and (ii) [i.e. your "AV and #5" reading, "who is over all, God blessed for ever," p. 465], (ii) should probably be preferred. According to this explanation, v. 5b affirms first Christ's lordship over all things (cf., e.g., 14:9; Phil 2.10) and secondly His divine nature. To take the three words ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς together [i.e., reading (i)] is less satisfactory; for a statement that Christ is 'God over all' would be open to misunderstanding--it could suggest a meaning which it is absolutely certain that Paul would never have intended (namely, that Christ is God to the exclusion of, or in superiority over, the Father). So, putting a comma at the end of v. 5a, we translate v. 5b: 'who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.' (C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans, Vol. 2 (1975), p. 469)​
On p. 465, Cranfield notes reading is specifically to separate "God" from "over all," to avoid the potential misunderstanding he states above. This is specifically why Harris refers to θεὸς, etc. as a "second predicate" to "Christ." Cranfield is also very clear on p. 466, that

The one substantial argument which has been adduced in favour of (iii), (iv) or (v) and against (i) and (ii) [the AV reading]--and it has been used from early times--is that the in the rest of the Pauline corpus there is no clear instance of the use of θεὸς with reference to Christ.​
Reading (ii) is what we find in the AV (p. 465).
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Eusebius ... He is also not "ante-Nicene."

Many or most of his writings were Ante-Nicene. Even the Historia ecclesiastica was 313 or 314, although it was finished edition was 325 or 326. The fifteen books of Praeparatio Evangelica were about a decade before Nicea. So far, it looks to me that his Gospel writings were Ante-Nicene, although I do not know if there is a chronological listing of estimated dates. His Life of Constantine and his writings for Nicea would not be considered Ante-Nicene.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Specifically, "at least two," and not with any mention of your "#5" on p. 165. And you omit what goes after: "But poised between these two affirmations is the term θεὸς." And this leads to the conclusion I quoted on p. 167. Your "AV and #5" is actually discussed on p. 166:

You are going on and on about nothing. Murray Harris has some variants he likes with two affirmations, like #5, some with three. For you to insist on three shows that you are losing the thread of the conversation and twisting and turning to make a big zero point.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
Harris, pointing out the unlikelihood that it is a doxology to the Father, deals with what would form a normal Pauline doxology equivalent to "blessed be God" and that is εὐλογητὸς ὁ θεὸς, which he uses repeatedly, not θεὸς εὐλογητὸς. The basic point Harris makes is that the article would be expected before θεὸς to form the construction "Blessed be God," but it's missing. These authors only comment on legitimate translations. The reason you don't find yours is because it's not correct.

You are totally confused. You are calling the AV a non-legitimate translation. Murray has it in his #5. He does not say it needs an emendation and he does not say it is missing an "is". And it is 100% my text.

Romans 9:5 (AV)
Whose are the fathers,
and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came,
who is over all,
God blessed for ever.
Amen.

Plus I have nothing about a "doxology to the Father." And nothing about "blessed be God". So your writing above is all over the map, in error. When you have the section about
εὐλογητὸς ὁ θεὸς, ... or ... θεὸς εὐλογητὸς
You are discussing positions that have nothing to do with my AV text.
If you need an article in Greek for "blessed be God" that is totally irrelevant since it is not the AV text.
And I have tried to help you with this error you make multiple times of straw man argumentation against positions that I do not take and are not the AV text.

You are going down the rabbit hole of adding even more accusations against the AV text. I highlighted two of your accusations against the AV text above, now you are adding a third, calling it an illegitimate translation.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Cranfield is also very clear on p. 466, that

The one substantial argument which has been adduced in favour of (iii), (iv) or (v) and against (i) and (ii) [the AV reading]--and it has been used from early times--is that the in the rest of the Pauline corpus there is no clear instance of the use of θεὸς with reference to Christ.​

That might be true of many opponents.

However, you are against the AV reading for numerous other reasons.

I cover this dynamic in my Trichotomy post.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
  1. Murray's #5 is grouped by punctuation, not definition. Major, Minor, None is the UBS punctuation apparatus. Most of the translations listed by Murray speak of Christ as God.

This is strange. #5 is a valid direct translation of the TR text, an alternative Murray should have chosen based on his association comment “the natural association of θεὸς with εὐλογητὸς” #5 starts with the AV. Then it gives a number of texts that are close.

None of them in #5 speak of Christ as God. About 3 of the 10 groupings from Murray Harris speak of Christ as God, so your statement above is simply wrong, both on #5 and his full listing.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
As between (i) [i.e. "who is God over all, blessed for ever," p. 465] and (ii) [i.e. your "AV and #5" reading, "who is over all, God blessed for ever," p. 465], (ii) should probably be preferred. According to this explanation, v. 5b affirms first Christ's lordship over all things (cf., e.g., 14:9; Phil 2.10) and secondly His divine nature.

How does God blessed for ever, affirm his "divine nature"? As a doxology to Christ you can easily say that, since "divine" is a very fluid word. e.g. Angels are divine. The doxology obviously does not say "Jesus is God", but it does affirm his divine nature. I have a special post where I explained to you these distinctions.

All that from Cranford in the quote above is very different than your restranslations and attack on the AV text.

Focus.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
There's nothing I said there that I hadn't already said before here, but instead of responding, you just posted an unrelated snippet from Abbot.

Yet you still have not answered the question of who is doing the blessing.

=========================

Once again, you avoided answering the question. (Although you finally offered some commentary.)

Here are some options.

1) God
2) Christ
3) Paul
4) his people
5) creation

Try to be consistent with the natural association above.
“the natural association of θεὸς with εὐλογητὸς”

If you have no idea, simply say so.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
  1. Murray's #5 is grouped by punctuation, not definition. Major, Minor, None is the UBS punctuation apparatus. Most of the translations listed by Murray speak of Christ as God.
  2. I (rather, Metzger) said the UBS Committee, not Steven Avery, added punctuation to force a doxology to the Father.
  3. If you have a valid opposing view, I'm all ears. I don't see how you can. You haven't shown me "in error."
  4. I didn't say there was a grammatical problem with the AV. I said your interpretation of it treats it as an ungrammatical construction ("God-blessed," i.e., "blessed by God"), which also requires an egregious emendation of the Greek text.
  5. I said the placement of the articles and the participle demonstrates it.
  6. Where, precisely, have you demonstrated this? (see response below)

And I answered #1 in depth, above.
Although I will add that I do not know what you mean with "Murray's #5 is grouped by punctuation, not definition" Are you talking about the order of the translations? Or where #5 is in the group of 10? It is extremely unclear.

2. Why would we care about the Metzger punctuation to make a doxology to the Father? If you are now saying that my interpretation from the simple reading of the AV text matches the Greek TR punctuation, that would be fine.

3. My valid opposing view is he simple and clear read of the AV text. On geek level, Murray #5. Which definitely does not have your "Jesus is God" retranslation.

4. "God blessed" is the actual AV text. Thus you are claiming it is ungrammatical. And Murray did not claim that #5 needed an emendation.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
...Harris, pointing out the unlikelihood that it is a doxology to the Father, deals with what would form a normal Pauline doxology equivalent to "blessed be God" and that is εὐλογητὸς ὁ θεὸς, which he uses repeatedly, not θεὸς εὐλογητὸς. The basic point Harris makes is that the article would be expected before θεὸς to form the construction "Blessed be God," but it's missing.

While the word order has an extensive discussion, the bottom line is that you are saying that θεὸς εὐλογητὸς, two words with a natural association, work much better as a doxology to Christ and not well as a doxology to God. Which is my position, simply by reading the AV text.
 

Brianrw

Member
This is strange. #5 is a valid direct translation of the TR text, an alternative Murray should have chosen based on his association comment “the natural association of θεὸς with εὐλογητὸς” #5 starts with the AV. Then it gives a number of texts that are close.
It's not strange, I've been trying to tell you that you've misunderstood (Murray) J. Harris. It's just a grouping of published translations by punctuation. He says that before the chart on p. 149. He also indicates that "Major, Minor, None" is the UBS punctuation apparatus in note "a" beneath #9 on p. 151. I pointed that out several days ago here. You have also misunderstood his point about "the natural association of θεὸς with εὐλογητὸς."

What he is debating is whether θεὸς should be directly attached to the end of ἐπὶ πάντων ("over all") or before εὐλογητὸς (adj., "blessed"), not whether it is attached to ὁ ὢν ('who is") and thus to "Christ." (See Cranfield's Romans: A Shorter Commentary, p. 222 for a clearer reading; more technical in his longer commentary on p. 465). Thus Harris says the AV reading treats "God" as a second predicate to "who is." (Murray) Harris goes on (from your above quote) to remark in agreement with Cranfield, Romans, p. 469, which I quoted for you already above (and pasted again below):

As between (i) [i.e. "who is God over all, blessed for ever," p. 465] and (ii) [i.e. your "AV and #5" reading, "who is over all, God blessed for ever," p. 465], (ii) should probably be preferred. According to this explanation, v. 5b affirms first Christ's lordship over all things (cf., e.g., 14:9; Phil 2.10) and secondly His divine nature. To take the three words ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς together [i.e., reading (i)] is less satisfactory; for a statement that Christ is 'God over all' would be open to misunderstanding--it could suggest a meaning which it is absolutely certain that Paul would never have intended (namely, that Christ is God to the exclusion of, or in superiority over, the Father). So, putting a comma at the end of v. 5a, we translate v. 5b: 'who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.' (C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans, Vol. 2 (1975), p. 469)​

In his abridged commentary, he writes concerning the above point, "We take it then that in v. 5 Paul is affirming that Christ, who, in so far as His human nature is concerned, is of the Jewish race, is also lord over all things and by nature God blessed for ever." (p. 222).

Cranfield notes that readings (iii), (iv), and (v) were deliberately formulated against readings (i), "God over all," and (ii), the AV reading, to deliberately avoid, as he says, "the use of θεὸς with reference to Christ" (p. 466):

The one substantial argument which has been adduced in favour of (iii), (iv) or (v) and against (i) and (ii) [the AV reading]--and it has been used from early times--is that the in the rest of the Pauline corpus there is no clear instance of the use of θεὸς with reference to Christ.​

He notes again on p. 468:

With regard to the one really serious argument against (i) and (ii) [the AV reading] and in favour of taking either all or part of v. 5b as an independent doxology referring to God, while it may well be true that Paul has nowhere else in the extant epistles explicitly referred to Christ as θεὸς . . . to conclude that he cannot have done so here seems to us quite unjustifiable."​
If the construction didn't refer to Christ as θεὸς, there would be no reason to address it thus.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
It's not strange, I've been trying to tell you that you've misunderstood (Murray) J. Harris. It's just a grouping of published translations by punctuation. He says that before the chart on p. 149.

Note: that url will not work sometimes on a PC. It looks like Google has a practice to only allow the pages to come up a limited number of times. I get around it with my iPad (and may try a second PC for pictures), but it is much better to actually pic or quote a section.

And there is ONE punctuation with translation that matches the AV. #5. The AV there is perfect, the others are close, because they only vary from the AV a little.

And Murray Harris gets very close to choosing that his choice.

In fact, Murray Harris is only giving an educated guess as to the punctuation behind the AV. However, the key point is that he has put in one group those texts that do read properly.

You do not like the simple and clear reading of the AV text, because it does not give you the Christ is God apposition, and you seek to "correct" it with some of the other groups. For our purposes it is not really relevant what are the Greek punctuation possibilities behind the pure Bible text.
 
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