Voulgaris Vindicated by Leading Greek Expert

Most critical text proponents don't even engage in the grammatical issues surrounding the Johannine Comma, and those who do, such as Barry Hoffstetter, or James White, only reveal that they are not adequately informed about this issue.

In an email discussion with Professor Georgios Babiniotis a few months ago, I asked him about the validity of the claims of legendary Greek professor Eugenius Voulgaris concerning the Johannine Comma. Those familiar with the grammatical arguments made by Voulgaris will be pleased to know that Babiniotis, who is probably one of the most important Greek linguists alive today, said that not only was Voulgaris correct to say we need to keep the Comma for grammatical reasons, and he also took it a step further by pointing out that verse 7 justifies verse 8 because of the “syntactic parallelism” of these two verses.

Babiniotis is a Greek linguist and philologist who has written several books about Greek grammar, etymology, and other Greek language-related topics. He is the former Minister of Education and Religious Affairs of Greece and previously served as rector of Athens University.

As David Crystal is to English-speaking people, so Georgios Babiniotis is to the Greek speaker. Here are some of the books he has written here: https://babiniotis.gr/ergografia/vivlia.

You may know of Babiniotis from his Greek dictionary which is often simply called the "Babiniotis" dictionary.

In May he wrote the following and attached a word doc:

“...Dear Mr Sayers,

I apologize that only now I can answer your kind letter about the N.T. passage discussed by Ευγένιος Βούλγαρης.

Here is my opinion as a linguist, not as an expert in theology.

Γ. Μπαμπινιώτης...”

(Word Doc):

I will not discuss the opinion of the really great theologist and scholar (yet not a linguist) bishop Ευγένιος Βούλγαρης as I do not know on what conditions it was formulated. However, linguistically —though with another explanation— Ευγένιος Βούλγαρης is right to consider verse 5.7 obligatory for the existence of verse 5.8.

What you are asking has two aspects: a theological and a linguistic one. I can only say my own opinion on the linguistic aspect of the specific text within the frame of what is quite often used in regard to the Greek language and passages of New Testament Greek.

The use of masculine gender and not neuter on 5.8.

«καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ,

τὸ Πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα

καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν»

is linguistically justified on the pattern of “syntactic parallelism”, i.e. on the ground that it makes a pattern completely the same (“parallel”) in structure with that of 5.7.

ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ,

ὁ Πατήρ, ὁ Λόγος καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα

καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν είσι

So for Modern Linguistic analysis what is important is not the mere grammatical “gender agreement rule” (which would lead to the usage of neuter gender : «καὶ τρία εἰσὶ τὰ μαρτυροῦντα ἐν τῇ γῇ…»), but the overruling schema of “syntactic parallelism” which is much more stronger than a simple gender agreement rule.

Conclusion. The issue we refer to has more to do with the linguistic style of the passage; it is the result of a stylistic selection which is far beyond the usage of a grammatical/syntactic rule that would lead to neuter gender and which furthermore would eliminate verse 5.7.

(End of word doc)

George later said in an email:

“...I have given you my own linguistic explanation which is to keep verse 5.7. which justifies verse 5.8. It is grammatical and mainly “syntactic parallelism” of these two verses...”

So I hereby challenge those of the Anglo Sanhedrin who desire to delete the Comma, such as James White, Dan Wallace, Barry Hofstetter, James Snapp Jr, Stephen Boyce, Bill Brown, Bart Ehrman, Elijah Hixson, etc, to refute the claims of this top Greek linguist, who has basically just confirmed that the Greek grammatical argumentation that myself (Nick Sayers), Steven Avery, Will Kinney, Edward Hill, Jack Moorman, and many other TR/KJV people hold to, is not only correct but that the Comma is also linguistically justified on the pattern of “syntactic parallelism”.

Edward F. Hills and the grammar of the Johannine Comma

Edward F. Hills speaks of the grammatical issues the omission of the comma causes:

“… the omission of the Johannine Comma involves a grammatical difficulty. The words spirit, water, and blood are neuter in gender, but in 1 John 5:8 they are treated as masculine. If the Johannine Comma is rejected, it is hard to explain this irregularity. It is usually said that in 1 John 5.8 the spirit, the water, and the blood are personalized and that this is the reason for the adoption of the masculine gender. But it is hard to see how such personalization would involve the change from the neuter to the masculine. For in verse 6 the word Spirit plainly refers to the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity. Surely in this verse the word Spirit is “personalized,” and yet the neuter gender is used. Therefore, since personalization did not bring about a change of gender in verse 6, it cannot fairly be pleaded as the reason for such a change in verse 8. If, however, the Johannine Comma is retained, a reason for placing the neuter nouns spirit, water, and blood in the masculine gender becomes readily apparent. It was due to the influence of the nouns Father and Word, which are masculine. Thus the hypothesis that the Johannine Comma is an interpolation is full of difficulties.

James White clueless about George Vance Smith

It seems James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries thought the "Vance" mentioned in this question was from the 1611 King James Version committee, but the question was actually concerning the 1881 Revised Version Committee's George Vance Smith, who was indeed a Unitarian.

It is very telling that White doesn't know anything about this but Moorman knew exactly what was asked. The question is valid, and one should be aware of such people tampering with our bibles.

Michael Maynard in 1991

In 1991, at the Dean Burgon Society general meeting, Maynard spoke about the defense of 1 John 5:7-8.

This was abut 4 years before he wrote his book on the topic in 1995 entitled A History of the Debate Over 1 John 5:7-8.

In the last section, it proves that he and the DBS knew that the concept of Erasmus' rash wager was bogus. So the recent book, Myths and Mistakes, by Elijah Hixson and Peter Gurry (and others) has just caught up with what the DBS knew 29 years ago. In fact it has been know for hundreds of years but now they seem to claim it as their own discovery via Henk De Jonge.

Jeff Riddle on 1 John 5:7-8

In Episode 2 of the Confessional Bibliology Roundtable Dr. Jeffrey Riddle discussed the importance and authenticity of 1 John 5:7-8. This is followed by a round table discussion of Pastor McShaffrey, Riddle, & Mehrshahi.

This event was run by the guys at confessionalbibliology.com Tue May 19th 2020. Here is a link to articles by Riddle concerning the comma on his blog jeffriddle.net.

Eugenios Voulgaris, Antoniades, and Gregory Nazianzen.

To begin with, I would firstly like to discuss the Johannine Comma is in the official Greek orthodox text (Antoniades 1904/1912):

ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ Πατήρ, ὁ Λόγος καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα, καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι·καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ, τὸ Πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα, καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν

Maurice A. Robinson said...

That Greek Orthodox "official" text (Antoniades 1904/1912) as originally printed had the Comma in very small and italicized type, indicating its absence from the original text of 1Jn. The Greek preface by Antoniades (p.7) clearly explains the issue (English translation by J. M. Rife in Colwell's Prolegomena to the Study of the Lectionary Text, p.61; emphasis added):

"...the passage on the 'three witnesses' in I John 5:7,8. It did not appear possible to include this, either by the principles of this present [official Orthodox] edition or by way of exception, since it is entirely unattested in church texts, in the fathers and teachers of the Eastern Church, in the ancient versions, in the older MSS of the Slavic version, or even in the Latin, or in any known Greek MS written independently of this addition, which was introduced gradually into the Vulgate. It is retained [solely] upon the opinion of the Holy Synod."

What Robinson does not state is that Eugenios Voulgaris, a noted Greek linguist and grammatical expert of the 1700s, clearly revealed that without the comma, a massive grammatical error appears in the biblical text, and a careful reading of Voulgaris shows why the later Antoniades reading is authentic on grammatical grounds.

So basically, the Textus Receptus reading is grammatically stable while the Critical Text reading is not. Much like at 1 Tim 3:16, there is a solecism in the CT, by having a predicate without a subject, an error that is not in the TR. The CT has many such errors, while the TR does not.

Voulgaris' grammatical concept is the arrow that will pierce the Achilles heel of modern pseudo-scholarship concerning the comma. This is a translation of a letter from Bishop Eugenius Voulgaris regarding 1 John 5:7 (a Latin version was quoted in Knittel). He says in a letter dated Dec 10, 1780:

This, however, I am able to add here, something which, to my knowledge, has not been heretofore observed. Surely if the passage is absent, if it is secreted away through alteration, the result is that not even verse 8, which follows, would stand, unless verse 7 came first. It is this I wish to discuss. In the Latin version this is correctly expressed with the phrase in the masculine gender,(1) but in the original Greek text itself, if the prior verse is not there, it obviously by no means can stand without some violence to the syntax and through a most obvious solecism. Since τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα (the spirit and the water and the blood) are all neuter nouns, how will they agree with the preceding τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες (there are three who give witness) and the following καὶ οὑτοι οἱ τρεῖς κ.τ.λ. (and these three, etc.)? It is very well known, since all have experience with it, and it is clearly a peculiar genius of our language, that masculine and feminine nouns may be construed with nouns, adjectives and pronouns in the neuter, with regard to the actual sense (τὰ πράγματα). On the other hand no one has ever claimed that neuter noun substantives are indicated by masculine or feminine adjectives or pronouns. However, we read as follows in the 8th verse: και τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες εν τη γη το πνευμα και το υδωρ και το αιμα και οι τρεις εις το εν εισι. But, I ask, wouldn’t the natural and appropriate syntax here rather be: και τρια εισιν τα μαρτυρουντα εν τη γη το πνευμα και το υδωρ και το αιμα και τα τρια εις το εν εισιν. But the former is written, not the latter. What reason can therefore be given for this failure to comply with the rule? It can only be the expression of the preceding 7th verse, which through the immediately following 8th verse is set forth symbolically and obviously restated, an allusion made to that which precedes. Therefore the three who give witness in heaven are first placed in the 7th verse, τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες εν τω ουρανω ο πατηρ ο λογος και το αγιον πνευμα και ουτοι οι τρεις εν εισιν. Then immediately the very same three witnesses are brought in, to confirm on earth the same witness, through these three symbols, in vs. 8: και τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες εν τη γη το πνευμα και το υδωρ και το αιμα και οι τρεις εις το εν εισιν. And so our Evangelist might say “They are the same as those giving witness in heaven.” (This is sufficiently indicated through the particle καί, the force of which here is not simply connective but plainly identifying. [At this point, Eugenius shifts to Greek] Concerning what was said in the text [perhaps = manuscript] above, clearly the Father, the Word and the Spirit. These are the ones giving witness also on the earth, and they are made manifest to us through symbols. These symbols are the spirit, through which the Father is revealed, the blood, through which the Son is revealed, and the water, through which the Holy Spirit is revealed. But these three, who above by way of revelation through the divine names themselves are presented as giving witness in heaven, are the same on earth through remembrance in the divine plan presented repeatedly by way of symbols. But alas! I have made a cup, not a jug.(2)_________ Poltaviae, ad d. 10 Decemb. 1780.

1) In the Latin text, spiritus and sanguis are both masculine, aqua feminine. Using the masculine in Latin of such a mixed gender list is common.

2) Urceum institui, non amphoram. Cf. Jerome Letter 107.3, Paene lapsus sum ad aliam materiam et currente rota, dum urceum facere cogito, amphoram finxit manus. This refers to shifting subject matter, so that the contrast is between the type of pottery, and not the size.

Interestingly the same solecism was commented on by Gregory Nazianzen. He noted a grammatical issue occurs in the text when the comma is omitted. This was around 379 AD. He says,

"...after using Three in the masculine gender [Apostle John] adds three words which are neuter, contrary to the definitions and laws which you and your grammarians have laid down" (The Fifth Theological Oration. On the Holy Spirit, XIX). See Pure Bible Forum.

Johannine Comma and Joseph Bryennius

Johannine Comma and Joseph Bryennios 

While reading a post by Elijah Hixson on the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog about 1 John 5:7, I became interested in a comment posted by Steven Avery of Pure Bible Forum claiming that the Comma Johanneum appears in the early 15th century writings of Joseph Bryennios (also spelled Byrennius). 

Looking at this reading has opened up a stimulating investigation into a smorgasbord of Greek Orthodox writers, including the later comma defender Ευγένιος Βούλγαρης (Eugenios Voulgaris) who also printed the work of Joseph Bryennios in 1768 we are examining here. Below is the section containing the comma,100 years before Erasmus:

Joseph Bryennios' book In which he cites the Johannine Comma 

Eugenios Voulgaris' book containing the works of Bryennios became a popular topic for defenders of the heavenly witnesses for the next 150 years. It seems to have been obscured by modern anti-comma rhetoric. Below is the 1881 Cyclopaedia concerning the Epistles of John by William Wright, he also wrote about the comma quotation of Bryennios:

The 1881 Cyclopaedia concerning the Epistles of John
 by William Wright

Καὶ τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστι μαρτυροῦν, ὅτι ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν ἡ ἀλήθεια. ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατὴρ, ὁ λόγος, καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον· καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι· καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ, τὸ πνεῦμα, τὸ ὕδωρ, καὶ τὸ αἷμα·

 

Translated as:

'And it is the Spirit which beareth witness, because Christ is truth. For there are three which bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one; and there are three which bear witness on earth, the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood.

Bryennios Compared to the 1881 Greek of F. H. A. Scrivener

It is of interest to Comma enthusiasts to see how close the reading of Bryennios is to that of the modern-day Textus Receptus edition by F. H. A. Scrivener, seeing Bryennios is merely a quotation and not a biblical manuscript or commentary. 

6. Καὶ τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστι ...μαρτυροῦν, ὅτι ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν ἡ ἀλήθεια. (Bryennios)

6. καὶ τὸ Πνεῦμά ἐστι τὸ μαρτυροῦν, ὅτι τὸ Πνεῦμά ἐστιν ἡ ἀλήθεια. (Scrivener)

7. ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατὴρ, ὁ λόγος, καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον· καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι· (Bryennios)

7. ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες εν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατήρ, ὁ λόγος, καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα· ...καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι. (Scrivener)

8. καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ, τὸ πνεῦμα, ....τὸ ὕδωρ, καὶ τὸ αἷμα· (Bryennios)

8. καὶ τρεῖς εἰσὶν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ, τὸ Πνεῦμα, καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ, καὶ τὸ αἷμα· (Scrivener)

The Greek at the end of verse 8 in Scrivener "καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσὶν" is not on the final section of Bryennios quotation, but it does contain all the words of the disputed section of the comma. 

It seems that modern Critical Text advocates have shifted the conversations about the comma away from evidence like this. It is one of the places where they forget all they have previously claimed about majority readings and they hypocritically reject it, whereas their usual habit is to defend minority readings the last 12 verses of Mark, where only two Greek manuscripts omit the reading, but about 1500 contain it.

Welcome to the Johnannine Comma Blog

Welcome to the Johnannine Comma Blog. 

We hope to create a space for a scholarly discussion concerning 1 John 5:7-8 and specifically the omission of the underlined words below:

7. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

8. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

All are welcome to join me on this examination of this popular topic.