overview of pure Bible verses that Granville Sharp sought to "correct"

[Steven Avery]

2 Peter 1:1 (AV)
Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ,
to them that have obtained like precious faith with us
through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:

Titus 2:13
Looking for that blessed hope,
and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

Ephesians 5:5
For this ye know, that no whoremonger,
nor unclean person, nor covetous man,
who is an idolater,
hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

2 Thessalonians 1:12
That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you,
and ye in him,
according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Timothy 5:21
I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the elect angels,
that thou observe these things without preferring one before another,
doing nothing by partiality.

2 Timothy 4:1
I charge thee therefore before God,
and the Lord Jesus Christ,
who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;

On this one, Sharp went to the Byzantine Majority conflation corruption, moving away from the AV because he always put doctrine over consistency. I doubt if any Byzantine editions use his translation mangling.

Acts 20:28
Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock,
over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers,
to feed the church of God,
which he hath purchased with his own blood.

This next one was abandoned in hortian modern version confusion circles because the Critical Text is different. This was clearly a mistranslation from the Received Text when offered by Granville Sharp in his mangle attempt and his retranslation attempt is in the dustbin of translational history.

Jude 1:4
For there are certain men crept in unawares,
who were before of old ordained to this condemnation,
ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness,
and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

The next was just an oddball mistranslation attempt of Sharp, distant from his rule.

Philippians 3:3
For we are the circumcision,
which worship God in the spirit,
and rejoice in Christ Jesus,
and have no confidence in the flesh.

Sharp: - “We are the circumcision, who worship the Spirit God.” - literal
who worship the Spirit of God.”

This next one is another oddball, Christopher Wordsworth, a major supporter of Granville Sharp, attempted his own retranslation.

James 1:1
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

Steven Avery

 

[Steven Avery]

textual elements

This will go down his verses, looking at the textual elements in a bit more depth.

Acts 20:28
Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock,
over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers,
to feed the church of God,
which he hath purchased with his own blood.

This is irrelevant to the pure AV text and requires a Byzantine "Majority" text corruption (Lord and God). It was simply a conflation of the two readings.

Facebook - Pure Bible
https://www.facebook.com/groups/purebible/permalink/781619618596596/?comment_id=785445918213966&offset=0&total_comments=9&comment_tracking={tn:R}
The two main variants .. God, and Lord, God, the pure Bible text, being stronger in the Latin and Syriac and ECW. The limited and minor Alexandrian evidence is itself split, but actually agrees mostly with the pure Bible.

It should be noted that here you have a real rarity, an actual and clear Byzantine conflation, "Lord and God". And thus a major error in the "Majority" text.

Acts 20:28 - Laparola apparatus
http://www.laparola.net/greco/index.php?rif1=51&rif2=20:28

Sharp
https://books.google.com/books?id=J2dLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA27
https://archive.org/stream/remarksonusesofd00sharrich#page/26/mode/2up

 

[Steven Avery]

More details, urls, when put on AFF.
http://www.apostolicfriendsforum.com/showpost.php?p=1593542&postcount=50

There are multiple versions of "his rule".

And let's put aside for a few minutes the two verses in this thread that are in dispute, and the naive modalism words from early church writers that are said by Granville Sharp rule supporters to contradict the rule.

Let's start with the New Testament claims of Granville Sharp, who wanted to retranslate nine verses from the Authorized Version. (One was an oddball outlier.)

Remarks on the uses of the definitive article in the Greek text of the New Testament: containing many new proofs of the divinity of Christ, from passages which are wrongly translated in the common English version - (1803) 3rd ed - 148 pg.
https://books.google.com/books?id=J2dLAAAAIAAJ -
Including these five.

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

Ephesians 5:5 (AV)
For this ye know, that no whoremonger,
nor unclean person,
nor covetous man,
who is an idolater,
hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Granville Sharp error:
"in the kingdom of (Jesus) the Christ and God” or else to be rendered:
"in the kingdom of Christ, (even) of God"
https://books.google.com/books?id=J2dLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA31

=====

2 Thessalonians 1:12 (AV)
That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you,
and ye in him,
according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Granville Sharp error:
"according to the grace of the God and Lord of us, Jesus Christ" or
"according to the grace of Jesus Christ, our God and Lord"
https://books.google.com/books?id=J2dLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA38

FYI: here Sharp rejects the Alexandrian MS., Codex Alexandrinus, because of a period.

=====

1 Timothy 5:21 (AV)
I charge thee before God,
and the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the elect angels,
that thou observe these things without preferring one before another,
doing nothing by partiality.

Granville Sharp error:
"I charge (thee), before Jesus Christ, the GOD and LORD, and (before) the elect angels..." - (for the TR-AV text)
https://books.google.com/books?id=J2dLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA41

There is a mountain of Sharp error and confusion as he goes to the Alexanrian ms. missing a word, and Sharp claims this translational abomination for the TR text.

=====

2 Timothy 4:1 (AV)
I charge thee therefore before God,
and the Lord Jesus Christ,
who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;

Granville Sharp error:
"I charge (thee,) therefore, before the God and Lord, Jesus Christ, &c." or
"I charge (thee,) therefore, before Jesus Christ, the God and Lord, who shall judge the quick and the dead, &c."
https://books.google.com/books?id=J2dLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA48

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

On this next one, Sharp went to the Byzantine Majority conflation corruption, moving away from the AV because he always puts doctrine over consistency. And I doubt if any English translations from the Byzantine editions use his translation mangling.

Acts 20:28 (AV)
Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock,
over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers,
to feed the church of God,
which he hath purchased with his own blood.

Sharp textual blunder is at
https://books.google.com/books?id=J2dLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA27

So Sharp wanted the translation:

"To feed the church of the Lord, even of God, which he hath purchased with bis own blood.”
https://books.google.com/books?id=J2dLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA27

Instead of what is in the Greek Byzantine Majority:

World English Bible
Take heed, therefore, to yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the assembly of the Lord and God which he purchased with his own blood.
https://biblehub.com/kjv/acts/20-28.htm

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

So let us start with these five blunders by Granville Sharp.

(We will skip his Philippians 3:3 blunder.)

 

[Steven Avery]

Summary of Sharp's Eight Verses

Textual Issues (not the floating category issues.)

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

Full TR-AV No question

Titus 2:13
2 Peter 1:1
Ephesians 5:5
2 Thessalonians 1:12

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

Wacky but Brian says it counts

1 Timothy 5:21 - Sharp wants the Alexandrinus text without one word, but claims identity on AV text.
BW- doesn't apply to the critical text because the second noun, "Jesus Christ," can't be a proper name. (SA-nonsense, but it is the CT so I do not care about it anyway)

Brian
"As for 2 Thessalonians 1:12 and 1 Timothy 5:21 and Ephesians 5:5, the single article still has the function of referencing the uniting of Father and Son in their various ways."

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

No-Go

Acts 20:28 - Sharp wants the Byzantine conflation corruption

Jude 4 - ignored by Wallace because he takes CT corruption
(Note: the TR contains a comma in the Greek text between τὸν μόνον δεσπότην Θεόν and καὶ κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν, which breaks up the construction). - which is punctuation if you want to be a purist about the text.
Punctuation was not in the original text, Sharp goes on and on about the point and Alexandrinus, and he is also concerned that the text could be too Sabellian/Swedenborgian. The whole thing is another Sharp disaster, but we can leave it out due to the TR point.

2 Timothy 4:1
BW - the Textus Receptus, and the article is present in two instances, not one (check this, what was the Sharp angle?)
4:1 Διαμαρτύρομαι οὖν ἐγὼ ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ μέλλοντος κρίνειν ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς κατὰ τὴν ἐπιφάνειαν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτοῦ·
I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
Sharp goes all over the map to Alexandrinus, minority editions, blah blah.
BW error - 2 Timothy 4:1 can't be used because it would literally violate the rule of the article. You can't join a proper name to the construction. it would be like saying, "Our administrator and Steven Avery." (which can be one person or two, as I showed Brian, so the whole proper name issue turns out to be another Sharp fiasco)



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

 

[Brianrw]

There's a lot that needs to be cleared up above, when I have time. But I will address a couple points below in that my statements have been misrepresented above.

Wacky but Brian says it counts

...

Brian
"As for 2 Thessalonians 1:12 and 1 Timothy 5:21 and Ephesians 5:5, the single article still has the function of referencing the uniting of Father and Son in their various ways."

I did not say they "count." Under such an understanding, those instances would fall under a different usage of the article.

I checked the actual printed version of Beza. 2 Thessalonians 1:12 and 1 Timothy 5:21 contain commas after "God." This would break up the construction. So from your list you are left with TItus 2:13, 2 Peter 1:1, and Ephesians 5:5. Beza notes that the use of the article in these passages refer to one subject, Jesus.

Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1​

In 2 Peter 1:1 the AV translators moved the position of "our" that would normally be attached to "God" to before "Savior," and this is only appropriate if one subject is is being spoken of. So there is no doubt the AV translators intended to refer to Christ as "God and our Saviour." In Titus 2:13, AV, Jesus is called "the great God and our Saviour." The host of English commentators from 1611 to 1798 (and even before) very clearly support this, though Sharp contends otherwise that the passage was "mistranslated."

I am reviewing Ephesians 5:5, which like Colossians 2:2, is a carryover from the Bishop's Bible and both involve an archaic construction. In the latter, we read "of God, and of the Father," which is intended to refer to one person. This construction again happens in Titus 2:13 GNV, though the footnote indicates in such a place Christ is "most plainly" called the mighty God.

Early modern English cannot be read with all the same rules we use today, and that is especially true the closer you approach the 1500s. So you have to make sure you are understanding the English construction correctly.

BW error - 2 Timothy 4:1 can't be used because it would literally violate the rule of the article. You can't join a proper name to the construction. it would be like saying, "Our administrator and Steven Avery." (which can be one person or two, as I showed Brian, so the whole proper name issue turns out to be another Sharp fiasco)

My example was "Our administrator and researcher Steven Avery," which is one person. Your example above, by omitting "researcher" is strictly two persons. There is no rule in Greek or English that allows "Our administrator and Steven Avery" to speak of a single person. The rule of the definite article in equivalent English construction is virtually the same, with virtually the same exceptions.

​

There are multiple versions of "his rule".

No. There are not multiple versions. There is one:

The rule applies to Singular, personal epithets​

By this very statement of the rule, we know that proper names, things, ordinals, plurals, al do not fall under the construction. The ony reason anyone has to list those explicitly as exemptions is because of the misapplication of the rule both by Sharp's detractors and supporters.

This is the same as it was explained by Glassius well before Sharp. In at least Titus 2:13, 2 Peter 1:1, and Ephesians 5:5 are commented on by Beza, mentioning this usage of the article--and this was the primary Greek edition utilized by the translators (Stephen's 1550 being the other).

Proper Names vs. Epithets​

Proper names are considered definite nouns that refer to a specific person (e.g. Jesus, Peter, Paul, etc.). Essentially in this construction they are treated as though the article were already present, and the regular rules of the article often do not apply to proper names.​

​

Epithets are not considered definite in and of themselves, as they utilize common nouns and adjectives. They are, "a characterizing word or phrase accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a person or thing" ("Epithet," m-w.com). E.g., titles, descriptive characteristics (e.g. God, Lord, Savior, etc.)​

 

[Steven Avery]

I checked the actual printed version of Beza. 2 Thessalonians 1:12 and 1 Timothy 5:21 contain commas after "God." This would break up the construction. So from your list you are left with TItus 2:13, 2 Peter 1:1, and Ephesians 5:5. Beza notes that the use of the article in these passages refer to one subject, Jesus.

So you think that Beza used elocutionary commas in English and syntactical commas in Greek?
(Per your theories.)

And the AV learned men could easily use Stephanus 1550. So knowing Beza (all years?) does not mean it formed the AV text.

 

[Steven Avery]

Proper Names vs. Epithets

Proper names are considered definite nouns that refer to a specific person (e.g. Jesus, Peter, Paul, etc.). Essentially in this construction they are treated as though the article were already present, and the regular rules of the article often do not apply to proper names.​

​

Epithets are not considered definite in and of themselves, as they utilize common nouns and adjectives. They are, "a characterizing word or phrase accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a person or thing" ("Epithet," m-w.com). E.g., titles, descriptive characteristics (e.g. God, Lord, Savior, etc.)​

This tells you nothing.

Is Lord Jesus Christ a proper noun?
Is Jesus Christ a proper noun?
Is Lord Jesus a proper noun?
Is Saviour Jesus Christ a proper noun?

etc.

Similar problems with Spirit and with God.

So you have a bunch of nothing, when it comes to New Testament Christology and ontological verses.

Plus, these categories don't really exist in any formalized way for New Testament Greek, so you have to mind-read what the NT writers were thinking.

Each nouveau-Sharpian can simply adjust the categories to end up with changing the specific AV verses where they want identity.

Simply, a bunch of nothing.

 

[Steven Avery]

My example was "Our administrator and researcher Steven Avery," which is one person. Your example above, by omitting "researcher" is strictly two persons. There is no rule in Greek or English that allows "Our administrator and Steven Avery" to speak of a single person. The rule of the definite article in equivalent English construction is virtually the same, with virtually the same exceptions.

This is absurdly dumb. The phrase itself:
"Our administrator and researcher Steven Avery,

could be one person, possibly two. I even have a thread addressed precisely to that point.

Our administrator and researcher Steven Avery - maybe one person, maybe two
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...steven-avery-maybe-one-person-maybe-two.2363/

The construction does NOT tell you whether it is one person or two. You are simply using background context

The Winter Rule attempt fails again.

 

[Brianrw]

The Winter Rule attempt fails again.

You can knock this off. It's called needling, and it's straw man besides. I didn't change any aspect of the rule. It's not my fault that you didn't notice that Sharp himself says that plurals and proper names are excepted. And now you're special pleading because you can't figure out how "Holy Spirit" is a name.

So you think that Beza used elocutionary commas in English and syntactical commas in Greek?

English is English. Greek is Greek. Unless you feel reading Greek as though it were English is an acceptable thing to do.

 

[Steven Avery]

You can knock this off. It's called needling, and it's straw man besides. I didn't change any aspect of the rule. It's not my fault that you didn't notice that Sharp himself says that plurals and proper names are excepted.

I notice that Sharp says various things throughout his book, with blunder after blunder. Thus the key point is his actual formulation of the rule. So he blundered again. How much has to be read to find more exceptions, blunders, errors?

Why did Robert Bowman need a new exception?
"and if the nouns are (d) not normally paired semantically as denoting two persons."

When are you going to tell me how you determine which of these are proper names?
More precisely, proper names in the MIND of Paul and Peter and Jude et al.

Jesus
Christ
Jesus Christ
Lord Jesus
Lord Jesus Christ
Saviour Jesus Christ
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ

If you do not have an ironclad, proven method, indisputable, the Winter Rule fails again.
Oops. - Absolutely nothing left.

Plus your answer about Comforter and the other words there was flawed.