Daniel Wallace makes constructio ad sensum theory out of CT corruptions, often ultra-minority

Steven Avery

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Daniel Wallace makes constructio ad sensum theory out of CT corruptions, often ultra-minority
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php/threads/a.71


support for the basic Daniel Wallace argument that Spirit is not grammatically personalized in the New Testament
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php/threads/a.308

constructio ad sensum
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php/threads/a.70/post-181

Acts 13:2 - do personal attributes make the Holy Spirit a "person"
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php/threads/a.1007/post-2236
Daniel Wallace makes constructio ad sensum theory out of CT corruptions, often ultra-minority

Untranslatable variants are not insignificant variants

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

Acts 21:36
For the multitude of the people followed after, crying,
Away with him.

TR/Byz -
ἠκολούθει γὰρ τὸ πλῆθος τοῦ λαοῦ κρᾶζον Αἶρε αὐτόν
CT - ἠκολούθει γὰρ τὸ πλῆθος τοῦ λαοῦ κράζοντες αἶρε αὐτόν


Greek Grammar and the Personality of the Holy Spirit (2003)
Daniel Wallace
https://www.ibr-bbr.org/files/bbr/BBR_2003a_05_Wallace_HolySpirit.pdf

Wallace blunder to false grammar based on CT text:

"In Acts 21:36 we read of "the multitude of the people crying out" ( τὸ πλῆθος τοῦ λαοῦ κράζοντες): not only is there a gender shift but a number shift too. 4

4. The neuter singular noun πλῆθος followed by the masculine plural participle κράζοντες. It will not do to say that the participle agrees with λαοῦ since that is in the genitive singular. This is constructio ad sensum, pure and simple."


Nope, this is corruptio constructio, pure and simple. Not usually mentioned in grammar literature, since it is nothing but an ultra-minority corruption in the modern versions.


LaParola
http://www.laparola.net/greco/index.php?rif1=51&rif2=21:36

κράζοντες] WH
κράζον] Byz ς
=================================

Mark 9:25-26
When Jesus saw that the people came running together,
he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him,
Thou
dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee,
come out of him, and enter no more into him.

And the spirit cried, and rent him sore,
and came out of him: and he was as one dead;
insomuch that many said, He is dead.


v. 25
TR-Byz -
ἰδὼν δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς ὅτι ἐπισυντρέχει ὄχλος ἐπετίμησεν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἀκαθάρτῳ λέγων αὐτῷ, Τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἄλαλον καὶ κωφὸν ἐγὼ σοι ἐπιτάσσω ἔξελθε ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ μηκέτι εἰσέλθῃς εἰς αὐτόν
Alex -
ἰδὼν δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς ὅτι ἐπισυντρέχει ὄχλος ἐπετίμησεν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἀκαθάρτῳ λέγων αὐτῷ τὸ ἄλαλον καὶ κωφὸν πνεῦμα ἐγὼ ἐπιτάσσω σοι ἔξελθε ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ μηκέτι εἰσέλθῃς εἰς αὐτόν

v.26
TR-Byz - Καὶ κράξαν, καὶ πολλὰ σπαράξαν αὐτόν, ἐξῆλθεν· καὶ ἐγένετο ὡσεὶ νεκρός, ὥστε πολλοὺς λέγειν ὅτι ἀπέθανεν.
Alex - καὶ κράξας καὶ πολλὰ σπαράξας ἐξῆλθεν· καὶ ἐγένετο ὡσεὶ νεκρὸς ὥστε τοὺς πολλοὺς λέγειν ὅτι ἀπέθανεν.

Wallace blunder to false grammar based on CT text
:
... in Mark 9:26 the masculine participles κράξας and σπαράξας refer back to the πνεῦμα of v. 25.


LaParola
http://www.laparola.net/greco/index.php?rif1=48&rif2=9:26

cried .. rent

κράξας] WH
κράξαν] Byz ς

σπαράξας] WH
σπαράξαν αυτον] Byz ς


Nope, this is corruptio constructio (ad absurdum), The ultra-minority corruption is, as usual, accepted by Wallace, in the hortian fog.

The irony, it could be used to destroy his whole argument. After all, if a foul spirit is personalized to masculine, how much more should it be possible .. somewhere .. for the Holy Spirit? However, the root of the whole problem, as often, is simply a rinky-dink corruption. When it comes to the modern version GNT:

One good solecism deserves another.

CARM
Wallace and the foul spirit masc grammar pneuma in CT of Mark 9:25-26
http://forums.carm.org/vbb/showthread.php?228338-1-John-5-7&p=7014867&viewfull=1#post7014867

From the perspective of Daniel Wallace, this quandary has 4 solutions.

1) Point out that Mark has an unusual personalized, masculine grammar pneu
ma, for a foul spirit, out of the blue. Inconsistent with other NT uses. And thus John could be similarly inconsistent, and personalize the fair, not foul, usage of 1 John 5:7-8. Negating the paper. As this ad hoc personalization by John becomes at least as likely as the Wallace alternate attempt of a metaphor of witnessing, which is rather an unsupported, special pleading explanation of the unusual grammar.

2) Follow the idea of Jim expressed above that the masculine does not refer to pneuma. Contextually, grammatically parsing speaking, this is very difficult.

3) Acknowledge that the GNT followed by the NETBible is simply following an ultra-minority corruption. While this is clearly the logical and proper answer, it is one that a "rabid" (quotes are words used by Wallace) CT proponent like Wallace would be loath to use, as it means that the Alexandrian ultra-minority corruption "infects" his text.

4) Duck the question. Hand-wave. Mum.

Considering the thoroughness of the paper, it is pretty much inconceivable that Wallace missed this dissonance. Give him the benefit of the tiny doubt? Anyway, a good question to ask him now.

If Stanley E. Porter reviewed this paper he almost surely would have caught this one.

NT Textual Criticism
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NTTextualCriticism/permalink/934216323332035
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Steven Avery

Administrator
reviewing five constructio ad sensum examples from Daniel Wallace

In that section of Greek Grammar and the Personality of the Holy Spirit, Wallace highlights five constuctio ad sensum. Two are above, and worthless, based on Alexandrian ultra-minority corruptions.

Two others are also really easy to explain. Colossians 2:19 and Matthew 28:19 are simply implied subjects. There is not really a gender shift involved. In the old days the grammar books would simply say that the concordance was with the implied antecedent or substantive.

natural gender - Colossians 2:19
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php/threads/c.70.a/post-181

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

Matthew 28:19
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost:

πορευθέντες οὖν μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος

Daniel Wallace

In Matt 28:19 the Lord instructs the eleven to "make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them" (μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς): although "nations" is neuter, the pronoun "them" is masculine because people are in view.

A Greek grammar, and Greek and English scripture lexicon (1812)
Greville Ewing
https://books.google.com/books?id=RKkGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA62

(2.) An adjective sometimes agrees in gender and number, not with the substantive immediately expressed, but with another implied in that one, and understood; ... In such instances, ανθρώπους or some similar word is understood.

Carl Conrad on b-greek wrote similarly, although he does call it constructio ad sensum.

(2) I don't think the shift to AUTOUS, the masculine plural pronoun, bears any relation to expectations of success or failure; I think it's simply a matter of CONSTRUCTIO AD SENSUM, inasmuch as "discipling" involves individual persons, turning them individually into MAQHTAS, rather than turning an EQNOS into a MAQHTHS.
=====================================

Galatians 4:19
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,

TR-Byz
- τεκνία μου οὓς πάλιν ὠδίνω ἄχρις οὗ μορφωθῇ Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν
Alex -
τέκνα μου οὓς πάλιν ὠδίνω μέχρις οὗ μορφωθῇ Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν

In Gal 4:19, Paul speaks of "my children, whom" (τέκνα μου οὓς), using the masculine relative pronoun to refer to the "children."

Oh, no. Another Alexandrian ultra-minority corruption, this one was not even in the original CT of Westcott-Hort. Can't anybody here play this game?

LaParola
http://www.laparola.net/greco/index.php

τέκνα] *א* B D* F G 062 323 1739 pc Tertullian Ambrosiaster Didymus
τεκνία] *א2 A C D2 Ψ Byz it vg Clement ς WH
=====================================

So far, 0 for 5.
More from Wallace are discussed here, 4 new ones. (They spend time on the Galatians verse which is only a corruption.)

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

Returning a minute to the theme of the article, it is noted that his editor W. Hall Harris, DTS faculty and project director and managing editor of the NET Bible, is one of the people who makes the general mistake:

Textkit - Nov 2014
Greek Grammar and the Personality of the Holy Spirit
http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=62484

17. Exegetical Commentary on John 14
W. Hall Harris III
https://bible.org/seriespage/17-exegetical-commentary-john-14

"Although neuter pronouns are used to refer to the Spirit in this verse, agreeing with the gender of pneu'ma, later in the Gospel masculine pronouns are used (constructio ad sensum) at 15:26, 16:7, 8, 13, and 14.

Which we know to be false. The person who noticed this (John Milton, using the name Isaac Newton) says:

> Since gender shifts due to constructio ad sensum are unremarkable, if the NT authors indeed conceived of the holy spirit as a "person," we may well expect to see natural gender taking precedent over grammatical gender in various passages that speak of it . So why don't we ? That's the million dollar question. The NT's silence in this regard speaks volumes against the claim that the holy spirit is a "person."

As you can see, I do not agree that actual substantive constructio ad sensum gender shifts are unremarkable.
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Wallace omits a salient CT corruption that would refute his thesis


CARM 8-09-2015
1 John 5:7
Acts 28:26 - Well spake the Holy Ghost - masc grammar in ultra-minority CT
http://forums.carm.org/vbb/showthread.php?228338-1-John-5-7&p=7017520&viewfull=1#post7017520

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

Acts 28:25-26

And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed,
after that Paul had spoken one word,

Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers,
Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear,
and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive:


The Acts verse is a better analogy than the Mark verse, because the Holy Spirit is speaking contextually. This was discussed some on b-greek and Rob Bowman has tried to make it fly. Why is it missing in the Wallace paper? Since he is stuck with the CT text, he should have included this verse.


28:25-26
TR - ἀσύμφωνοι δὲ ὄντες πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἀπελύοντο εἰπόντος τοῦ Παύλου ῥῆμα ἓν ὅτι Καλῶς τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ἐλάλησεν διὰ Ἠσαΐου τοῦ προφήτου πρὸς τοὺς πατέρας ἡμῶν
λέγον Πορεύθητι πρὸς τὸν λαὸν τοῦτον καὶ εἰπὲ, Ἀκοῇ ἀκούσετε καὶ οὐ μὴ συνῆτε καὶ βλέποντες βλέψετε καὶ οὐ μὴ ἴδητε

CT- ἀσύμφωνοι δὲ ὄντες πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἀπελύοντο εἰπόντος τοῦ Παύλου ῥῆμα ἓν ὅτι καλῶς τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ἐλάλησεν διὰ Ἠσαΐου τοῦ προφήτου πρὸς τοὺς πατέρας ὑμῶν
λέγων πορεύθητι πρὸς τὸν λαὸν τοῦτον καὶ εἰπόν ἀκοῇ ἀκούσετε καὶ οὐ μὴ συνῆτε καὶ βλέποντες βλέψετε καὶ οὐ μὴ ἴδητε

Note: It should be noted that in the Majority Text and Received Text Greek New Testaments, the participles in Mark 9:26 and Acts 28:26 are neuter instead of masculine.
Correct. The Mark verse is discussed above. The Acts data is similar.

LaParola
Acts 28:26
λέγων] WH
λέγον] Byz ς
http://www.laparola.net/greco/index.php?rif1=51&rif2=28:26
Daniel Wallace and others build their grammar concepts on ultra-minority corruptions that are in a small fraction of the mss (Likely way under 1%, I'm seeing if I can get fairly exact data.) Clearly this is a dicey methodology, more so since Wallace does not tell his readers about the textual situation. It is pretty easy to understand that if only a few localized Egyptians mss have the gender discord, and the mass of 1000+ mss from everywhere in large regions of Europe and Asia have concord, that the discord should be seen as just a little scribal faux pas, of no import. Just because Fenton Hort could not see it, due to Vaticanus-primacy glasses, does not make it difficult to understand.

One obvious problem, if you accept this CT corruption as actually the Johannine written text, as Wallace invariably does, then the Wallace thesis in the Personality paper goes sayonara.

Steven Avery
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
for additional study


Returning to the group of Wallace examples and his other books (notes on constructio ad sensum) compared to the historic explanations.

b-greek thread
Galatians 4:19 - Constructio ad sensum?
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=1506

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


These are simply notes for future reference, condensed from the thread.


footnote 3 examples: See also, regarding τέκνον,

Phlm 10 (παρακαλῶ σε περὶ τοῦ ἐμοῦ τέκνου, ὃν ἐγέννησα); ... I would wonder if this isn't an issue of attraction to Ὀνήσιμον.
LaParola
δεσμοῖς] WH NR CEI (TILC) Nv NM
δεσμοῖς μου] Byz ς ND Riv Dio
http://www.laparola.net/greco/index.php?rif1=64&rif2=1:10

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

2 John 1
(τοῖς τέκνοις αὐτῆς, οὕς [in which the antecedent of the masculine οὕς is both a feminine singular and a neuter plural]).
... covered by Smyth
§1055, where it says that
"[w]hen the persons are of different gender, the masculine prevails." Would this be subsumed under ad sensum?

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

The word παιδίον is similar:

Mark 5:41
(κτρατήσας τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ παιδίου λέγει αὐτῇ), in which the feminine pronoun is bracketed by παιδίον and τὸ κοράσιον;... is certainly an instance, with the switch from τὸ παιδίον to αὐτῆς.
ταλιθα κουμ] *א B C L M N Σ f1 28 33 892 1241 1424 2427 al cop WH NR CEI TILC Nv
ταλιθα κουμι] A Δ Θ Π Φ 0126 0133 0126 0133 f13 22 124 543 565 579 700 1071 Byz ite itq vg syrp syrh syrh(gr) arm eth ς ND Riv Dio NM

ἔγειρε] WH NR CEI ND Riv Dio TILC Nv NM
ἐγεῖραι] Byz ς

Byz-TR - Καὶ κρατήσας τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ παιδίου, λέγει αὐτῇ, Ταλιθά, κοῦμι· ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον, Τὸ κοράσιον, σοὶ λέγω, ἔγειραι.
Alex - καὶ κρατήσας τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ παιδίου λέγει αὐτῇ Ταλειθά κούμ, ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Τὸ κοράσιον, σοὶ λέγω, ἔγειρε.
============

Mark 9:24-26 (παιδίου... αὐτόν... νεκρός) ... also offers a true example. (SA: This is a critical text corruption.)

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

Wallace gives this list of about 35 more proposed gender shifts. How many of them are real and significant?

6. Cf., e.g., Matt 25:32; Mark 3:8; 5:41; Luke 2:13; 10:13; 19:37; John 1:12; 6:9; 17:2, 24; Acts 5:16; 8:5, 10; 9:15; 13:48; 14:4; 15:17;25:24; 26:17; Rom 2:14, 26; 4:9-11; 9:23-24; Gal 1:22-23; 4:19; Eph 2:11; 4:17-18; Phil 3:7; Col 2:15; Phlm 10; 1 Pet 2:19; 2 Pet 2:17; 2 John1; Jude 7, 12.

For number shifts ... Omitted from this list are the numerous examples in Revelation...

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

Galatians 4:18-20
καλὸν δὲ ζηλοῦσθαι ἐν καλῷ πάντοτε, καὶ μὴ μόνον ἐν τῷ παρεῖναί με πρὸς ὑμᾶς, τέκνα μου, οὓς πάλιν ὠδίνω μέχρις οὗ μορφωθῇ Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν· ἤθελον δὲ παρεῖναι πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἄρτι, καὶ ἀλλάξαι τὴν φωνήν μου, ὅτι ἀποροῦμαι ἐν ὑμῖν.

Wallace lists this ... as an instance of constructio ad sensum. Would you agree with this? Is it not more sensible that οὕς here is referring to ὑμᾶς rather than τέκνα μου?

Wallace:
In Gal 4:19, Paul speaks of "my children, whom" (τέκνα μου οὕς), using the masculine relative pronoun to refer to the "children."
I think your proposal that οὕς refers to ὑμᾶς is plausible, especially with τέκνα being a vocative, but I wonder if the Wortfeld relationship of ὠδίνω with τέκνα makes τέκνα the likelier antecedent.

And I would agree with you Jason. A constructio ad sensum is not necessary here.

Galatians 4:19 - Constructio ad sensum?
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=1506
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
textual criticism forum post - 8-10-2015 with HTML

[textualcriticism] Greek Grammar and the Personality of the Holy Spirit - Non-translatable variants are not Insignificant Variants
Steven Avery - August 10, 2015


Non-translatable variants are not Insignificant Variants
- Interplay of Grammar and Textual Variants

Posted here - Steven Avery - August 10, 2015 - small updates made, Greek font added
http://www.purebibleforum.com/showpost.php?p=187&postcount=5

Greek Grammar and the Personality of the Holy Spirit (2003)
Bulletin for Biblical Research 13.1 - Pages 97-125

Daniel Wallace (b. 1952)
https://www.ibr-bbr.org/files/bbr/BBR_2003a_05_Wallace_HolySpirit.pdf

First, let me say, that from the Received Text point of view, I believe that the article by Daniel Wallace here is important, one of the more important textual-related papers in recent years, and that the thesis is accurate.There is no grammatical reason to make the Holy Spirit a person in the New Testament. If that personhood is your doctrinal perspective, the reasons should be contextual and interpretative, they should not be based on NT grammar (claiming that the NT has constructio ad sensum where the author is thinking of the Holy Spirit as male, a person.) And I believe that Daniel Wallace does an excellent job showing why many of the traditional arguments for the personhood of the Holy Spirit that are based on Greek grammar are flawed. Wallace actually notes (and names, with reference spots given) that dozens of commentaries, and even a few grammarians, have been mistaken here. (And he is correct in all but one of the Johannine verses that is his focus. So learn, and let caveat emptor guide your reading of modern writers. Clearly, for many, doctrine was influencing basic grammatical analysis.)

However, in the course of the article, frequently variants are discussed as original that are ultra-minority Vaticanus texts. The reader is not told by Daniel Wallace that they are discussing ultra-minority variants as Johannine fact, and questionably building grammar theories around such texts. In these variants, generally you will have a word with masculine grammar in the CT, where the Received Text (and with one exception the Byz text) has neuter grammar. The great irony here is that those examples are very difficult for the thesis of Daniel Wallace, and even refute his thesis, if you accept the CT as the autographic text.

Note: frequently in these discussions I will be taking a classical ad hominem approach, to the man, from the basis of the position of Daniel Wallace. Personally, I do not accept the CT variants as the authentic scripture.

First I would like to document a few of those verses where the ultra-minority text was accepted by Daniel Wallace and have the potential to skew the paper. In two ways.

1) Supporting questionable theories about the frequency and nature of constructio ad sensum.
2) Offering examples that refute the thesis propounded by Wallace (the lack of personalization of pneuma) if they are in fact scripture.

If anyone has feedback on the textual situations, please share away. LaParola, which I am using, is very sketchy here on three verses. Not supplying a list of uncials, not giving early church writer (ECW) supports. It looks to me clear that the UBS texts should have long ago rejected the ultra-minority Vaticanus reading (that can be seen by WH and Byz) as ultra-minority and corrupt. That the grammatically dissonant reading just came in by Hort's Vaticanus-primacy position. However, the CT texts have not been updated.

This first one is given in the context of an example of examples of constructio ad sensum. It actually stands more as an example of how an Alexandrian scribe did not know Greek, perhaps he felt that Isaiah was the referent. Or even possibly wanted to make an "orthodox" doctrinal point by placing pneuma as personalized. (Considering the early nature of the corruption, I don't consider this likely, but since orthodox corruptions are all the rage, it is worth mentioning!)

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

Variant #1

Acts 21:36 (AV)
For the multitude of the people followed after, crying,
Away with him.

TR/Byz - ἠκολούθει γὰρ τὸ πλῆθος τοῦ λαοῦ κρᾶζον Αἶρε αὐτόν
CT - ἠκολούθει γὰρ τὸ πλῆθος τοῦ λαοῦ κράζοντες αἶρε αὐτόν


Daniel Wallace ->
"In Acts 21:36 we read of "the multitude of the people crying out"
(τὸ πλῆθος τοῦ λαοῦ κράζοντες): not only is there a gender shift but a number shift too. 4
4. The neuter singular noun
πλῆθοςis followed by the masculine plural participle κράζοντες. It will not do to say that the participle agrees with since that is in the genitive singular. This is constructio ad sensum, pure and simple." (p. 98)

Nope, this is corruptio constructio (my phrase), pure and simple. These verses are not usually mentioned in grammar literature in this context, since it is nothing but an ultra-minority corruption in the modern versions.

LaParola
http://www.laparola.net/greco/index.php?rif1=51&rif2=21:36
κράζοντες] WH
κράζον] Byz ς


This is covered on the Pure Bible Forum, in a separate post, with more links.

Pure Bible Forum - Aug, 2015
Daniel Wallace makes constructio ad sensum theory out of CT corruptions, often ultra-minority
http://www.purebibleforum.com/showpost.php?p=182&postcount=1

Note that Rob Bowman utilized this verse as part of an argument for the personalization of the Holy Spirit.

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

Variant #2

Mark 9:25-26 (AV)
When Jesus saw that the people came running together,
he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him,
Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee,
come out of him, and enter no more into him.

And the spirit cried, and rent him sore,
and came out of him: and he was as one dead;
insomuch that many said, He is dead.

Here the data is similar, and covered in the PureBibleForum url above This one is actually very difficult for the Wallace theory. If, per the CT text Mark actually calls the foul spirit masculine, in one spot, arbtrarily, it is hard to argue that John did not do the same, e.g. at 1 John 5:7-8, the most difficult Johannine text for this thesis using the CT.

Daniel Wallace manages to gloss over the difficulty, even while mentioning the verse in the constructio ad sensum discussion (p. 208). And c
ould Wallace have possibly missed the actual implications? Does he get the benefit of the doubt here? This is a close call. (One possibility was that he missed the analogy, even though the verse has consideration of whether pneuma is personalized, the other possibility is that he bypassed, or hid, the analogy, since it would be hard for the paper.)

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

Variant #3

Galatians 4:19 (AV)
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,

Pure Bible Forum - Aug, 2015
http://www.purebibleforum.com/showpost.php?p=183&postcount=2

Here the data is similar, again. It is also used as a constructio ad sensum example.

Wallace -> In Gal 4:19, Paul speaks of "my children, whom" (τέκνα μου οὕς) using the masculine relative pronoun to refer to the "children." p. 98)

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

Variant #4

Acts 28:25-26

And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed,
after that Paul had spoken one word,

Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers,
Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear,
and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive:

Pure Bible Forum - Aug, 2015
Wallace omits a salient CT corruption that would refute his thesis
http://www.purebibleforum.com/showpost.php?p=185&postcount=3

This is the most difficult one for the Daniel Wallace thesis, and was omitted in the paper. It was referenced a day ago in a CARM discussion. (Note: CARM threads, however, generally do disappear in a year or two.) In the CT text, the Holy Spirit is speaking masculine.

This verse, omitted by Daniel Wallace, appears to refute his thesis, if you are stuck with the ultra-minority Vaticanus variants as your presumed autographic texts.
Since Daniel Wallace is a full-blown CT supporter, it would deep-six his theory that the NT does not support the personhood of the Holy Spirit grammatically. In the sense that he is faced with a contradiction from the CT text.

Here you have the similar question of the benefit of the doubt. Could Wallace have missed this verse? Could he really think that the basic issue is only related to Johannine, not New Testament, writings? Did he see it and come up with some other rationale for omitting the verse from the paper. No easy answers here.

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


Overall, there are three difficult verses for his theory, all CT, two ultra-minority.

Mark 9:25-26, 1 John 5:7-8, Acts 28:25-26

(And let us not forget, another problem, one that can ramifications on dozens of variants, is the way in which constructio ad sensum theory is skewed by having so many ultra-minority corruptions thought to have been constructios.)

1) Mark 9:25-26 - a foul spirit is put masculine in the CT text. If this can be done without any obvious warrant for Mark for
πνεῦμα, then John could do the same in 1 John 5:7-8. Covered by Wallace, but significance missed.

2) earthly witnesses of 1 John - Variant #5

1 John 5:7-8 (Critical Text - NETBible)
For there are three that testify,
the Spirit and the water and the blood,
and these three are in agreement.


The explanation offered by Wallace, an abstract constructio ad sensum by the metaphor of witnessing, looks to be simply an unknown and unparalleled idea in grammar books (with the exception of some modern speculation on another ultra-minority text, 1 Timothy 3:16.) Special pleading, taken to a high art. And given by Wallace very tentatively (understandably.) Ergo, not available for proof of anything. And without analogies in the Greek grammar (and e.g. Winer and Stuart do not support the idea, they emphasize real gender in a constructio, not metaphoric) it barely can be put in the realm of speculative.

To be fair, Wallace does acknowledge this as the most difficult text to consider (the other two here are bypassed from consideration) for his thesis. And he is very tentative and does not come to a conclusion. Overall his proposed alternative solution is simply unsatisfactory. However, that discussion is not the point of this post.

3) Acts 28:25-26 - the Holy Spirit is speaking in a masculine grammar in the CT text. Not discussed by Wallace. Full refutation of his thesis, if stuck with the CT text.

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

Non-translatable variants are not insignificant variants - another aspect of this study. These variants may well be considered "non-translatable". And that is often thought of meaning insignificant. As we see, such variants can be extremely significant, doctrinally, interpretative, what they say about scribal habits and many other ways.

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

Steven Avery
Hyde Park, NY
https://www.facebook.com/groups/PureBible
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Greek grammar and the Personality of the Holy Spirit- thesis and CT text incompatible

Posted on CARM .. with links from various Facebook forums .. the solid explanation of the Wallace textual problem.

(Note that variant #1 and variant #3 in the post right above are not relevant. And the argument in variant #1 was actually not sound. The multitude masculine grammar does have parallel in the NT, especially in Luke. This was pointed out by Maurice Robinson.)

This is an important paper, in terms of the defense of the heavenly witnesses, and the argument based on the solecism in the CT text. The Wallace position has good points, and other points that unravel on the corrupt CT text, while our TR-AV text stays strong.

Greek grammar and the Personality of the Holy Spirit- thesis and CT text incompatible
http://forums.carm.org/vbb/showthre...e-Holy-Spirit-thesis-and-CT-text-incompatible

Greek Grammar and the Personality of the Holy Spirit (2003)
Bulletin for Biblical Research 13.1 - Pages 97-125

Daniel Wallace (b. 1952)
https://www.ibr-bbr.org/files/bbr/BBR_2003a_05_Wallace_HolySpirit.pdf

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

A fine paper in many ways, that works 100% with the Reformation Bible (Received Text) and almost works with the Byzantine Text.
However it fails with the Critical Text supported by Daniel Wallace.

btw, If any readers see any actual errors in the writing below, or feel that something is not logical, please share away. Iron sharpeneth.

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

Variant #1

Mark 9:25-26 (AV)
When Jesus saw that the people came running together,
he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him,
Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee,
come out of him, and enter no more into him.

And the spirit cried, and rent him sore,
and came out of him: and he was as one dead;
insomuch that many said, He is dead.

v. 25
TR-Byz -
ἰδὼν δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς ὅτι ἐπισυντρέχει ὄχλος ἐπετίμησεν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἀκαθάρτῳ λέγων αὐτῷ, Τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἄλαλον καὶ κωφὸν ἐγὼ σοι ἐπιτάσσω ἔξελθε ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ μηκέτι εἰσέλθῃς εἰς αὐτόν
Alex -
ἰδὼν δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς ὅτι ἐπισυντρέχει ὄχλος ἐπετίμησεν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἀκαθάρτῳ λέγων αὐτῷ τὸ ἄλαλον καὶ κωφὸν πνεῦμα ἐγὼ ἐπιτάσσω σοι ἔξελθε ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ μηκέτι εἰσέλθῃς εἰς αὐτόν

v.26
TR-Byz - Καὶ κράξαν, καὶ πολλὰ σπαράξαν αὐτόν, ἐξῆλθεν· καὶ ἐγένετο ὡσεὶ νεκρός, ὥστε πολλοὺς λέγειν ὅτι ἀπέθανεν.
Alex - καὶ κράξας καὶ πολλὰ σπαράξας ἐξῆλθεν· καὶ ἐγένετο ὡσεὶ νεκρὸς ὥστε τοὺς πολλοὺς λέγειν ὅτι ἀπέθανεν.

Wallace, based on CT text
:
... in Mark 9:26 the masculine participles κράξας and σπαράξας refer back to the πνεῦμα of v. 25.
(p. 98)

If, per the CT text Mark actually refers to the foul spirit with masculine personalization, in one spot, arbitrarily, it is hard to argue that John did not do the same, e.g. at 1 John 5:7-8, with the fair spirit. After all, masculinization and personhood would be a type of respect, this is one reason, beyond the grammatical harshness, why the usage seen in the CT text of Mark 9:25-26 is so grating.

1 John 5:7-8 in the short CT text is de facto acknowledged by Daniel Wallace as the most difficult Johannine text for this thesis using the CT, per Wallace, see below in Variant #3.

Daniel Wallace manages to bypass the difficulty in Mark, he does not even directly mention that this is dubious per his theory. Even while mentioning the verse in the constructio ad sensum discussion (p. 98). Note: Wallace also mentions P45 in the analogous Luke verse, where P45 and Codex Bezae go up against the mass of mss. Instead of seeing this properly as an indication that such corruptions did occur (changing neuter grammar to masculine) Wallace tries to link this with the "indisputable" (sic) Mark text. Which is actually only ultra-minority and quite unlikely, ergo highly disputable.

The irony here is that proper consideration of the Mark text goes against the Wallace thesis, if it were scripture.

And c
ould Wallace have possibly missed the actual implications? Does he get the benefit of the doubt here? This is a close call. (One possibility was that he missed the analogy, even though the verse has consideration of whether
πνεῦμα is personalized, the other possibility is that he bypassed, or hid, the analogy, since it would be hard for the paper's thesis.)

The argument that 1 John 5:6 would make 1 John 5:7-8 an impossible personalization would fall. Based on the Mark verse, and the fact that it is oddball, the whole issue would become too loosey-goosey to say what John could or could not have done, once you have the CT text going all over the map.

"Mark never uses any but neuter forms in speaking of demons or evil spirits."
Critical Studies in St. Luke's Gospel: Its Demonology and Ebionitism, Colin Campbell, 1891, p. 97.


Note that the πολλοί / many masculine in 5:9 is thought to be influenced by the masculine Legion.

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

The next one is even more definite.


Variant #2

Acts 28:25-26

And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed,
after that Paul had spoken one word,

Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers,
Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear,
and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive:

28:25-26
TR - ἀσύμφωνοι δὲ ὄντες πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἀπελύοντο εἰπόντος τοῦ Παύλου ῥῆμα ἓν ὅτι Καλῶς τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ἐλάλησεν διὰ Ἠσαΐου τοῦ προφήτου πρὸς τοὺς πατέρας ἡμῶν
λέγον Πορεύθητι πρὸς τὸν λαὸν τοῦτον καὶ εἰπὲ, Ἀκοῇ ἀκούσετε καὶ οὐ μὴ συνῆτε καὶ βλέποντες βλέψετε καὶ οὐ μὴ ἴδητε

CT- ἀσύμφωνοι δὲ ὄντες πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἀπελύοντο εἰπόντος τοῦ Παύλου ῥῆμα ἓν ὅτι καλῶς τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ἐλάλησεν διὰ Ἠσαΐου τοῦ προφήτου πρὸς τοὺς πατέρας ὑμῶν
λέγων πορεύθητι πρὸς τὸν λαὸν τοῦτον καὶ εἰπόν ἀκοῇ ἀκούσετε καὶ οὐ μὴ συνῆτε καὶ βλέποντες βλέψετε καὶ οὐ μὴ ἴδητε

This is the most difficult one for the Daniel Wallace thesis, and was omitted in the paper. It was referenced a day ago in the CARM discussion by Jim. The masculine grammar is in the CT Greek New Testament text, but not the TR/Byz Greek texts. In the CT, the Holy Spirit is speaking with masculine grammar for
πνεῦμα. Rob Bowman even used this CT text (without noting it as ultra-minority) as an argument in his forum discussions with the JW.

This verse, omitted by Daniel Wallace, essentially refutes his thesis, if you are stuck with the ultra-minority Vaticanus variants as your presumed autographic texts.
Since Daniel Wallace is a full-blown CT supporter, it would deep-six his theory that the NT does not support the personhood of the Holy Spirit grammatically. In the sense that he is faced with a contradiction with the CT text and his paper's position.

Here you have the similar question of the benefit of the doubt. Could Wallace have missed this verse? Or could he really think that the basic issue is only related to Johannine, not New Testament, writings? Did he see the verse and come up with some other rationale for omitting the verse from the paper? No easy answers here.

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

Variant #3

earthly witnesses of 1 John - short critical text

1 John 5:7-8 (Critical Text - NETBible)
For there are three that testify,
the Spirit and the water and the blood,
and these three are in agreement.


The explanation offered by Wallace, an abstract constructio ad sensum by the metaphor of witnessing, looks to be simply an unknown and unparalleled idea in grammar books (with the exception of some modern speculation on an ultra-minority text in 1 Timothy 3:16.) Special pleading, taken to a high art. And given by Wallace very tentatively (understandably.) Ergo, not available for proof of anything. Not even for the dismissal of the personalization alternative. And without analogies in the Greek grammar (and e.g. Winer and Stuart do not support the idea, they emphasize real gender in a constructio ad sensum, not metaphoric. Similarly Wallace notes that BDF does not give any masculine for neuter contructio ad sensum, speculating a bit wildly that it is because of a supposed abundance!) The metaphor of witnessing idea of Wallace barely can be put in the realm of speculative.

To be fair, Wallace does de facto acknowledge this as the most difficult text to consider (the other two here are bypassed from consideration) for his thesis.

The question is thus naturally raised, What is to account for the masculine participle? Various interpretations have been put forth for the gender shift here. p. 118 What then is the catalyst for the change? Several suggestions have been made, one of which will be mentioned here. p. 119 Whatever the reason for the masculine participle in v. 7 p. 120 Since this text also involves serious exegetical problems (i.e., a variety of reasons as towhy the masculine participle is used) p. 120


And Wallace is very tentative and does not come to a conclusion. Overall his proposed alternative solution is simply unsatisfactory.

However, all that discussion is not the point of this post
smile.png
. Other discussions are specifically meant to focus in on this question. To be fair, the thesis for most readers will fall more clearly from the Acts verse than the short text of the earthly witnesses, where the discussions have become highly politicized.

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

Summary:


My view: from the Received Text point of view, I believe that
the article by Daniel Wallace here is important, one of the more significant Bible textual-related papers in recent years, and that the thesis is accurate. There is no grammatical reason to make the Holy Spirit a person in the New Testament. If that personhood is your doctrinal perspective, the reasons should be contextual and interpretative, they should not be based on NT grammar (i.e. claiming that the NT has constructio ad sensum where the author is thinking of the Holy Spirit as male, a person.)

And I also believe that Daniel Wallace does an excellent job showing why many of the traditional arguments for the personhood of the Holy Spirit that are based on Greek grammar are flawed. Wallace actually notes (and names, with reference spots given) that dozens of commentaries, and even a few grammarians, have been mistaken here. Let caveat emptor guide your reading of modern writers. Clearly, for many, doctrine was influencing basic grammatical analysis.

However, in the course of the article, frequently variants are discussed as original that are ultra-minority Vaticanus texts. The reader is not told by Daniel Wallace that they are discussing ultra-minority variants as Johannine fact, and questionably building grammar theories around such texts. This is a major methodology flaw.In these variants, generally you will have a word with masculine grammar in the CT, where the Received Text (and with one exception the Byz text) has neuter grammar.

The delicious irony, pointed out here, is that those examples are very difficult for the thesis of Daniel Wallace, and even refute his thesis. i.e If you accept the CT, with an abundance of ultra-minority variants, as the autographic text. Yet the thesis does work with the pure Bible Received Text.

In sum, the ultra-minority text accepted by Daniel Wallace has the potential to skew analysis in two ways:

1) Supporting questionable theories about the frequency and nature of constructio ad sensum.
2) Offering examples that refute the non-personalization thesis propounded by Wallace (the lack of personalization of πνεῦμα / pneuma) if they are in fact scripture.

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

Sidenote:


Non-translatable variants are not insignificant variants - another aspect of this study. These variants may well be considered "non-translatable". And that is often thought of meaning they are insignificant. As we see, such variants can be extremely significant. Doctrinally, interpretative and what they say about scribal habits. And the value, or lack of value, of oddball mss. And in various other ways.

Proverbs 30:5
Every word of God is pure:
he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.


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

Steven Avery
Hyde Park, NY
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
how the Spirit person-by-grammar argument developed

An interesting issue is how the Spirit person-by-grammar argument developed. A lot of it came out of the heavenly witnesses debate, where the contras needed an answer to the heavenly witnesses problem. Some of it came out of the Trinitarian-Unitarian debates around 1800.

Here are some references.
First, straight personalization, before Lange and Hodge, given by Wallace.

(Naselli and Gons give many more, and even their list was not in any sense complete.)

Charles Hodge

1. The first argument for the personality of the Holy Spirit is derived from the use of the personal pronouns in relation to Him. A person is that which, when speaking, says I; when addressed, is called thou ; and when spoken of, is called his, or him. It is indeed admitted that there is such a rhetorical figure as personification ; that inanimate or irrational beings, or sentiments, or attributes, may be introduced as speaking, or addressed as persons. But this creates no difficulty. The cases of personification are such as do not, except in rare instances, admit of any doubt. The fact that men sometimes apostrophize the heavens, or the elements, gives no pretext for explaining as personification all the passages in which God or Christ is introduced as a person. So also with regard to the Holy Spirit. He is introduced as a person so often, not merely in poetic or excited discourse, but in simple narrative, and in didactic instructions ; and his personality is sustained by so many collateral proofs, that to explain the use of the personal pronouns in relation to Him on the principle of personification, is to do violence to all the rules of interpretation. Thus in Acts xiii. 2, “The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them.” Our Lord says (John xv. 26), “When the Comforter (ὁ παράκλητος) is come whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth (τὸπνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας) which (ὅ) proceedeth from the Father, He(ἐκεῖνος) shall testify of me.” The use of the masculine pronoun He instead of it, shows that the Spirit is a person. It may indeed be said that asπαράκλητος is masculine, the pronoun referring to it must of course be in the same gender. But as the explanatory words τὸ πνεῦμα intervene,to which the neuter ὅ refers, the following pronoun would naturally be in the neuter, if the subject spoken of, the πνεῦμα, were not a person. In the following chapter (John xvi. 13, 14) there is no ground for this objection. It is there said, “When He (ἐκεῖνος), the Spirit of truth, is come,He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify me (ἐκεῖνος ἐμὲ δοξάσει): for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.” Here there is no possibility of accounting for the use of the personal pronoun He (ἐκεῖνος) on anyother ground than the personality of the Spirit.
And much of the above is in Naselli and Gons, whose citation is:

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (1887 reprint; Peabody, MA:Hendrickson, 1999), 1:524
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
NETBible use of masculine personal pronouns where this is not grammatically consistent


NETBible use of masculine personal pronouns where this is not grammatically consistent

One point that is not raised in the articles is how the NETBible uses masculine personal pronouns in the very verses where grammar can not be the cause of personalization.


John 15:26 (AV)
But when the Comforter is come,
whom I will send unto you from the Father,
even the Spirit of truth,
which proceedeth from the Father,
he shall testify of me:

NetBible
When the Advocate comes,
whom I will send you from the Father
-- the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father
-- he will testify about me,

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


1 John 5:6 (AV)
This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ;
not by water only, but by water and blood.
And it is the Spirit that beareth witness,
because the Spirit is truth.

NETBible
Jesus Christ is the one who came by water and blood
-- not by the water only, but by the water and the blood.
And the Spirit is the one who testifies,
because the Spirit is the truth.

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

Ephesians 1:13-14
In whom ye also trusted,
after that ye heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation:
in whom also after that ye believed, (missing in CT)
ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
Which is the earnest of our inheritance
until the redemption of the purchased possession,
unto the praise of his glory.


NETBible
And when you heard the word of truth
(the gospel of your salvation)
-- when you believed in Christ
-- you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit,
who is the down payment of our inheritance,
until the redemption of God's own possession,
to the praise of his glory.


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

More can be placed here.

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

The issue here is the lack of consistency between the Wallace paper and the NETBible, where Wallace is the principle NT editor. (Although it is possible that W. Hall Harris contributed to the inconsistency, see the reference above.)

Steven
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
A Section from Wallace:
https://forums.carm.org/vb5/forum/t...rammar-and-the-personality-of-the-holy-spirit

Wallace's article "Greek Grammar and the Personality of the Holy Spirit" ...


____________________

"There is thus a large company of scholars who view the Upper Room Discourse as affording syntactical evidence for the Spirit's personality. This august body has collectively argued that the masculine pronoun is unusual in these verses, and that it can only be explained by natural gender. Thus, if a masculine noun can be found in these texts that can reasonably be considered as the antecedent to the pronoun, then these verses ought to be excised from the standard Trinitarian arsenal.

The first two passages, John 14:26 and 15:26, can be handled together. In both of them, pneuma is appositional to a masculine noun, rather than the subject of the verb. The gender of ekeinos thus has nothing to do with the natural gender of pneuma. The antecedent of ekeinos, in each case, is parakletos, not pneuma.

This can best be seen if the texts are diagrammed. John 14:26 can be diagrammed in one of two ways, depending on whether one regards parakletos as a nominativus pendens (see fig. 1A) or ekeinos as a pleonastic pronoun [23] (see fig. 1B). John 15:26 can also be diagrammed in two different ways (see fig. 2). With either diagram for these two verses, it should be evident that the masculine demonstrative pronoun, ekeinos, stands in relation to o paraletos, not to pneuma. In 14:26, the noun clause — "the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name" — is in apposition to o paraletos. How do we know that to pneoma is the appositive rather than o paraletos? Because it follows o paraletos. Appositives function routinely in a clarifying capacity and thus naturally follow the substantive they are clarifying. The appositional clause here can therefore be regarded as parenthetical: "The Counselor (the Holy Spirit whom [o] the Father will send in my name) will teach you all things...". Furthermore, appositional clauses can normally be removed from a sentence without destroying the structure of the sentence. In this case, the verse makes good sense as follows: "The Counselor will teach you all things and will remind you all that I told you." The rules of concord actually expect ekeinos rather than ekeino, since the true antecedent is parakletos. Thus, this verse should be omitted from the roster of philological proofs of the Spirit's personality.

[23] Mayes, Pronominal Referents, 28, takes the first approach, while the second approach is mine. See D. B. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 329-30 (discussion of pleonastic pronouns), 51-53. There is much overlap between these two classifications; the basic difference I see is that the nominativus pendens is the logical but not grammatical subject of the sentence, for it is picked up by a pronoun in an oblique case. Since ekeinos is also nominative, I would regard the construction to fall under pleonasm. But there is no real objection to seeing nominativus pendens followed by a pronoun or participle in the nominative. Either way, the idiom is most likely semitic. Cf. B. K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 76-77 §4.7), 128-29 (§8.3a); and Gen 3:12, (The Semitic nature of the construction in John 14:26 is disputed by E. C. Colwell, The Greek of the Fourth Gospel: A Study of Its Aramaisms in the Light of Hellenistic Greek [Chicago: University Press, 1931], 37-40.) John uses ekeinos 75 times (more than any other NT book), 52 of which are in the nominative case; 48 of the nominative uses are masculine. Excluding John 14:26 and 15:26 from the discussion, of the 50 remaining verses, the pronoun is pleonastic 11 times (John 1:18, 33; 5:11, 37; 6:57; 9:37; 10:1; 12:48; 14:12, 21; 17:24) — or 22% of the time; in the remaining 39 instances, it is syntactically unnecessary in virtually every instance (with possible exceptions in 7:11; 9:12; 18:15; 21:7, 23). Thus, a known technique of the evangelist's is to employ ekeinos in a resumptive or redundant fashion.
 
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