Our administrator and researcher Steven Avery - maybe one person, maybe two

Steven Avery

Administrator
My example was "Our administrator and researcher Steven Avery," which is one person. ... The rule of the definite article in equivalent English construction is virtually the same, with virtually the same exceptions.

And in English this might be one person, maybe two.

"Our administrator and researcher Steven Avery works hard to eliminate fluff and puff from the forum."
One person

"Our administrator (Nick Sayers) and researcher Steven Avery are working to help bring forth the Georgios Babiniotis wonderful grammatical understanding of the heavenly witnesses"
Two people

Brian, context is king, in this English and, thus, as you point out, also in Greek.
The lack of the article does not make for any rule.

You got fooled because you brought your previous understanding to the analysis.
 

Brianrw

Member
Brian, context is king, in this English and, thus, as you point out, also in Greek.
  1. How many individuals are referred to in Titus 2:14?

  2. In 2 Peter 1:1, why did the KJV translators move "our," which is attached to "God" in the Greek, and attach it to "Saviour" in the English? Under what context would such be allowable?

  3. In Romans 9:5, what is the necessity of the note that Christ was an Israelite "according to the flesh," and what context might that involve with what follows? Is not every man born into some nationality "according to the flesh"?

  4. Why does ὁ ὢν εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας mean "who is blessed forever" in 2 Corinthians 11:31, but ὁ ὢν εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας in Romans 9:5 does not mean "who is blessed forever"? And similarly, in Romans 1:25? Why (as you assert) does θεὸς εὐλογητὸς mean "blessed by God" in Romans 9:5, but not in Psalm 67:19 of the Greek Old Testament where it means "God be blessed"?

    Additionally:
    • In what way does the context of a Greek noun and adjective of the same case juxtaposed form a compound meaning "blessed by God"?

    • How does a predicate adjective function together with a predicate nominative in an equative clause? Without modifying the rules of Greek grammar to force an English convention on the language?

    • In what Greek construction, sacred or profane, does ὁ θεὸς εὐλογητὸς mean, "who is blessed by God forever"?
  5. If your understanding of the Romans 9:5 is valid in the Greek, why is it that none of the Socinians/Unitarians for a period of nearly 400 years never figured that out, and why is it the Orthodox who comment at length about the passage in Greek never discuss your third option? Why did they try so hard to force punctuation, or swap or eject words?
You have thrown a lot of loaded language at me, but you have not addressed this simple points.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
  1. If your understanding of the Romans 9:5 is valid in the Greek, why is it that none of the Socinians/Unitarians for a period of nearly 400 years never figured that out, and why is it the Orthodox who comment at length about the passage in Greek never discuss your third option? Why did they try so hard to force punctuation, or swap or eject words?

Addressed in detail days ago.

Fair enough question.

Quite a few of the writers, on all sides, refer to the AV text as ambiguous.
(That is not my view, but it is understandable,)

Thus the Socinians and Unitarians wanted to shut out any high Christology perspective. (Especially once the AV text was connected by some with the Greek ECW of the Christ is God view.) And they came up with the various punctuation alternatives. Then their attitude was "this is my claim, and I will stick with it.". That applies to most of the Unitarians today. They wanted an ironclad dull text that only puts praise to God, not Christ. Even better, they would prefer God over all, rather than Christ over all.

And I am not very impressed with either side of this debate. Many just see it as a dual situation, which I correct in my Trichotomy post. Those who are more savvy put the AV rendering in the middle of three choices, as ambiguous. Some divide the choices into 4, but in that case there will be two Socianian punctuation corruptions, which really are one conceptually. The Murray Harris 10 can be whittled down to 3, but he stumbles a bit on the AV reading.

And thus must do not like the AV text of Christ over all.
 
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Brianrw

Member
Steven Avery said:
Fair enough question.

Quite a few of the writers, on all sides, refer to the AV text as ambiguous.
(That is not my view, but it is understandable,)
This is a broad generalization, if you can't provide specifics there's nothing to address.

Thus the Socinians and Unitarians wanted to shut out any high Christology perspective. (Especially once the AV text was connected by some with the Greek ECW of the Christ is God view.) And they came up with the various punctuation alternatives. Then their attitude was "this is my claim, and I will stick with it.". That applies to most of the Unitarians today. They wanted an ironclad dull text that only puts praise to God, not Christ. Even better, they would prefer God over all, rather than Christ over all.
And that's why they tried to eject "God" from the passage, alleging it was spurious, so that Christ could not be (as you interpret the verse) blessed by God? The forced punctuation was used only when that argument failed, and "a Deity by title" failed.

And I am not very impressed with either side of this debate. Many just see it as a dual situation, which I correct in my Trichotomy post. Those who are more savvy put the AV rendering in the middle of three choices, as ambiguous. Some divide the choices into 4, but in that case there will be two Socianian punctuation corruptions, which really are one conceptually. The Murray Harris 10 can be whittled down to 3, but he stumbles a bit on the AV reading.
Harris expounds the AV reading fine. It just doesn't fit your idiosyncratic reading of it, so you say he "stumbles."

Plenty of individuals have come and gone over the years, asserting their unique view of the scripture has been the truth all along, only obscured with time. Usually nothing good follows.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
And that's why they tried to eject "God" from the passage, alleging it was spurious, so that Christ could not be (as you interpret the verse) blessed by God? The forced punctuation was used only when that argument failed, and "a Deity by title" failed.

Nope. Whitby in 1727 is one of the earliest texts in English to which you object, and he keeps God, and discusses Hipolytus in that context.
https://books.google.com/books?id=XGtAAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA56
 

Brianrw

Member
Nope. Whitby in 1727 is one of the earliest texts in English, and he keeps God, and discusses Hipolytus in that context.
There's that "nope" again. What happened to all the texts I provided in the 1600s and Q. 1 1700s?

For one example, off the top of the list, is Bishop John Pearson, Exposition of the Creed (1659), p. 263, after quoting Romans 9:5 AV writes "First, it is evident that Christ is called God," and notes in the footnote that "Though some would leave God out of the text, upon this pretense, because S. Cyprian . . . citing this place, leaves it out" etc. This, he says, of the Socinians who followed the conjecture of Hugo Grotius.

You'll see also in my notes:

Matthew Tindal, a controversial Deist (1695), A Third Collection of Tracts, proving the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only True God; and Jesus Christ the Son of God . . . Disproving the Doctrine of Three Almighty Real Subsisting Persons, etc. p. 29. Tindal rejects the AV rendering of Romans 9:5, stating that "God" is omitted in the Syriac and (incorrectly) by Cyprian and Chrysostom, but "allowing" that the word "God" be rightly read in this place, promotes the reading "the God over all be blessed forever. Amen."​

And then there's another silly attempt in the Racovian Catechisme (1652) of the Socinians: "who was of the Fathers according to the flesh, was over all a God to be blessed forevermore." This reading is also adopted by the Socinian Crellius in 1691.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
There's that "nope" again. What happened to all the texts I provided in the 1600s and Q. 1 1700s?
For one example, off the top of the list, is Bishop John Pearson, Exposition of the Creed (1659), p. 263,

You made a claim that the ones who did not like the Christ is God apposition theory first tried to remove God, and then switched the punctuation instead. So I showed you Whitby. (To be fair, there are earlier ones, but the whole thing got confused by Erasmus and Grotius and some material has to be found in Latin.).

Why are you jumping to a totally different question, the writers who do like the Christ is God apposition theory?

Focus.
 

Brianrw

Member
You made a claim that the ones who did not like the Christ is God apposition theory first tried to remove God, and then switched the punctuation instead. So I showed you Whitby. (To be fair, there are earlier ones, but the whole thing got confused by Erasmus and Grotius and some material has to be found in Latin.).

Why are you jumping to a totally different question, the writers who do like the Christ is God apposition theory?
No, that's not actually the claim I made at all, and you've put several words into my mouth (i.e. "that the ones who did not like the Christ is God apposition theory"). You seem confused over the difference between the predicate nominative construction in the Greek, and the AV translation that renders "God" as an appositive to Christ (both have the same meaning)

Secondly, did you miss that Whitby qualifies "God over all, blessed for ever" as merely Him being "their God in covenant"?

It's not a "theory." They didn't like that the Greek as it stands, testifies of the Deity of Christ. It doesn't matter if you take it into English as "God over all" or "over all, God." That fact doesn't change. They either corrupt the Greek, or corrupt the English translation.

You're reading is simply impossible in the Greek. I feel I could tell you this until Jesus comes and you'll never once recognize I'm actually telling you the truth. Literally, hop onto the b-Greek forum and see what they say. Or ask your native speaking friend. Email a professor. I'm not going to run around with you in circles forever.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
No, that's not actually the claim I made at all, and you've put several words into my mouth (i.e. "that the ones who did not like the Christ is God apposition theory").

Here was your false claim.

And that's why they tried to eject "God" from the passage, alleging it was spurious, so that Christ could not be (as you interpret the verse) blessed by God? The forced punctuation was used only when that argument failed, and "a Deity by title" failed.

By using a vague "they" and then running to Pearson in response, you show that you are not even following your own arguments.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
It's not a "theory." They didn't like that the Greek as it stands, testifies of the Deity of Christ. It doesn't matter if you take it into English as "God over all" or "over all, God." That fact doesn't change. They either corrupt the Greek, or corrupt the English translation.

You are cheating in punctuation again.
You put a period after God.

Stick with the AV.

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.

No comma, no period, no apposition in the English text.

Stop trying to correct the AV text.
 

Brianrw

Member
You are cheating in punctuation again.
You put a period after God.
I wrote It doesn't matter if you take it into English as "God over all" or "over all, God." In English sentences, when a sentence ends in the quotation, the period is enclosed in the punctuation.

No comma, no period, no apposition in the English text.

Stop trying to correct the AV text.
The AV translators are literally using "God" in apposition to Christ. A postpositive adjective does not require punctuation after God, so why do you keep insisting I am adding a comma (and now a period)? Just like I don't need to add punctuation in the construction "a house big enough for everyone." This literally is the English construction of the AV:

"Christ (Subject), who is over all (predicate) , (identifier comma) God (appositive-->Christ) blessed (adjective in the postpositive position) for ever."​

I don't know what else to tell you. The Greek construction uses a predicate, and the AV translators brought it into English as an appositive. They both fulfil the same duty, only an appositive does not require a linking verb. I'm not "trying to correct the AV text." How I read it is right there above, and hasn't changed. For some reason, you feel the need to keep pretending I'm changing it.

I'm telling you that you're reading it wrong.

You were just looking at the quotations from Chrysostom in three places, who ends the quotation after "God." In the Greek, "God" is a predicate nominative, the construction doesn't act like an English compound. So it's not improper to leave out the predicate adjective that follows. But because you don't understand the Greek, and think that the rules of English apply to it, you think this is some big deal, or that I'm suddenly corrupting the passage. θεὸς εὐλογητὸς here does "blessed by God," it's literally not how the Greek adjective works.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
I wrote It doesn't matter if you take it into English as "God over all" or "over all, God." In English sentences, when a sentence ends in the quotation, the period is enclosed in the punctuation.

Better to use the exception facility.

======

Commas and Periods with Quotation Marks
http://cmosshoptalk.com/2020/10/20/commas-and-periods-with-quotation-marks/

If the Rule Doesn’t Fit, Break It

But if I were to ask you to type the word “punctuation”, I might want to make it perfectly clear that you are not to type the comma also.

Exceptions like that one are rare in most contexts, but if your text depends on that level of precision, by all means break the rule, as I just did—and point to CMOS 7.79 to defend your choice.

A situation where you are discussing the actual punctuation within the quote marks is one that would call for the precision.

======

Also interesting.

Punctuation Junction: Periods and Parentheses
https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/03/punctuation-junction-periods-and-parentheses.html
 
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Brianrw

Member
Better to use the exception facility.
Please stop being absurd by literally producing for me an argument I wasn't making. And you're using it based upon a blog of someone of the opinion that the rule (as I stated it) in The Chicago Manual of Style is illogical, and therefore it's OK to break it. Since I didn't learn it from Russell Harper, and he was not an individual involved in my education, I will apply the rules as I learned them decades ago.

The rule, as I learned and applied it, is well stated thus:

"Sentence-ending punctuation is a whole different story. In the United States, the rule of thumb is that commas and periods always go inside the quotation marks, and colons and semicolons (dashes as well) go outside" - Grammerly
Their emphasis, not mine. Still, you seem to really want to pretend I am proposing the (utterly nonsensical) construction "Christ . . . who is over all, God. Blessed for ever." I'm sure you will go on more at some length, and you've now wasted my time making me address what I explained to you simply several posts back.

For some reason you seem to not like to address what I'm actually saying, but feel the need to distort it beyond recognition in one straw man argument after another. As much as you say (slanderously) I'm trying to "correct" the AV, I have not proposed a change at all. I said you're reading it wrong. Let me put my words here quite succinctly, and in large bold print so you don't fail to see them for the hundredth time:

"Christ . . . who is over all, God (in apposition to "Christ") blessed (adj., bles-sed) for ever" is how I read it. Because the Greek is an adjective, the English is an adjective. Adjectives simply describe the subject. Participles verbs (-ing, -ed endings), on the other hand, have an adjectival quality but perform a verbal (subject-verb-object) action. Blessed (blest), as you read it, is a verb--more specifically, a past participle which by nature has adjectival properties. This is why you're confused about the passage, by accidentally equivocating over the word "blessed."​

I also don't place a comma after God because it does not need one, this is also something you invented out of your own head. When an adjective is in the postpositive position (by this I only mean it is placed after the noun it modifies) and sets off a new clause, it has the force of a predicate. No commas, no linking verb. For example, "A lamp bright enough to light the room" means "A lamp that is bright enough to light the room." As a purely postpositive adjective, one might view it akin to "God Almighty" = "God who is Almighty" = "the Almighty God."​

 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
For some reason you seem to not like to address what I'm actually saying, but feel the need to distort it beyond recognition in one straw man argument after another. As much as you say (slanderously) I'm trying to "correct" the AV, I have not proposed a change at all. I said you're reading it wrong. Let me put my words here quite succinctly, and in large bold print so you don't fail to see them for the hundredth time:

"Christ . . . who is over all, God (in apposition to "Christ") blessed (adj., bles-sed) for ever" is how I read it. Because the Greek is an adjective, the English is an adjective. Adjectives simply describe the subject. Participles verbs (-ing, -ed endings), on the other hand, have an adjectival quality but perform a verbal (subject-verb-object) action. Blessed (blest), as you read it, is a verb--more specifically, a past participle which by nature has adjectival properties. This is why you're confused about the passage, by accidentally equivocating over the word "blessed."


No confusion. No equivocating.

This theory of yours is refuted here:

Romans 9:5 trichotomy interpretation - identity, high Christology, Unitarian - errors on both sides!
Post # 27
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...an-errors-on-both-sides.2285/page-2#post-9230
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
Please stop being absurd by literally producing for me an argument I wasn't making. And you're using it based upon a blog of someone of the opinion that the rule (as I stated it) in The Chicago Manual of Style is illogical, and therefore it's OK to break it. Since I didn't learn it from Russell Harper, and he was not an individual involved in my education, I will apply the rules as I learned them decades ago.

The rule, as I learned and applied it, is well stated thus:

"Sentence-ending punctuation is a whole different story. In the United States, the rule of thumb is that commas and periods always go inside the quotation marks, and colons and semicolons (dashes as well) go outside" - Grammarly

Added 12/15 - Grammarly (fixed in my Brian quote from Grammerly)

You should have simply learned more excellently. When precision is helpful, break the USA style rule. What you did was not "wrong", but lacked precision. See his other example involving the word punctuation, where the reader can be misinformed by slavish acceptance of the rule.

The Rule is in fact at times illogical. It was instituted largely due to kerning issues and the difference of singular and double quote, at a time when those were handled poorly by typographers.

It does exist, and I reluctantly switched to punctuation inside the quote marks at the end of a sentence many years ago. (It came up in an interesting discussion with a skeptic.) However, a smart writer will break it in special cases. Such as a discussion of whether there is punctuation with the text inside the quote marks.

Again, I was just trying to teach you more excellently.
And I learned a lot of the history and reasoning in this study.
 
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Brianrw

Member
You should have simply learned more excellently. When precision is helpful, break the USA style rule. What you did was not "wrong", but lacked precision. See his other example involving the word punctuation, where the reader can be misinformed by slavish acceptance of the rule.
You literally accused me of trying to add a period to the text of Romans 9:5 for applying the rules of punctuation as I was taught, by ending a sentance with a period inside the quotation marks. If you were trying to teach a more "excellent way," it was a very rude way to start. If you personally feel a rule should be broken, that's your prerogative.

FYI, I used to intentionally break the rules, but periods outside of quotation marks don't make it past the editorial proofing phase before works go out to print. So I'm not going to start breaking rules now and form habits that make more work for myself in the future.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
FYI, I used to intentionally break the rules, but periods outside of quotation marks don't make it past the editorial proofing phase before works go out to print. So I'm not going to start breaking rules now and form habits that make more work for myself in the future.

Your choice. I was surprised to see the period in there. All done.
 

Brianrw

Member
Your choice. I was surprised to see the period in there. All done.
The were more polite ways. I don't keep shifting my positions. Just because I am trying to explain the Greek to you, doesn't mean I'm offering new translations. I'm just breaking apart the text so it's simpler to understand, so you understand how the English actually lines up with the Greek. I don't want to add any punctuation to the verse, or correct it in any way.
 
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