A Brief Rejoinder to Mr. Sheffield on 1 John 5:7

Jonathan Sheffield recently wrote (source):

After reviewing several Francis Turretin points on the subject, his thesis amounts to a poorly constructed postmodern narrative with no basis in history. Appealing to "some scribe" is not evidence for his position, but a deus ex machina to avoid addressing the positive evidence for the passage.

After I asked if he was ok, Sheffield responded: "Francis Turretin, have you ever had the opportunity to Beta Test your thesis?" (source)

The reason for my question was that I have seen Mr. Sheffield present cogent statements in other contexts.  However, in this particular context, what he offered is hard to connect to anything I've said/written.

First: "After reviewing several Francis Turretin points on the subject, his thesis amounts to a poorly constructed postmodern narrative with no basis in history."  

Based on his follow-up message, I gather that he did not have some third party's thesis in mind. He simply misplaced his modifier.  I'm sure I've done the same in informal contexts like Facebook. However, I have no idea which of my "points" JS has in mind.  His comment is too vague for me to guess which points from the many Comma Johanneum articles I've posted he means to reference (link to tagged posts).  

Likewise, the reference to my "thesis" is not entirely clear.  My overall thesis (if one wants to call it that) on the text of 1 John 5 is that John's letter originally said (though in simple uncial without diacritical marks, spaces, and punctuation): "... ὅτι τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν ἡ ἀλήθεια. ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες, τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα, καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν. εἰ τὴν μαρτυρίαν τῶν ἀνθρώπων λαμβάνομεν, ἡ μαρτυρία τοῦ θεοῦ μείζων ἐστίν ... " (see here) and specifically without the additions proposed by Erasmus, the Complutensian editors, and others over the years on the basis (directly or indirectly) of a Latin tradition.

There's a mountain of evidence to support my thesis, especially that the overwhelming majority of Greek manuscripts support this thesis - particularly the non-insertion of "in earth" and of the heavenly witnesses parallel is evidenced in literally hundreds of Greek manuscripts ranging from the fourth century up to the age of printing (and beyond, for whatever little that might be worth).  (a sorted list of manuscripts can be seen here)

Further support comes from all the ancient versions, except for a subset of the Latin. For example, the Coptic versions follow the Greek (Bohairic)(Sahidic).  So does the Old Georgian (source).

Additional support comes from writings of the fathers and other early Christian authors, even amongst the Latin tradition:

• Cassiodorus' (Latin, 485–585) translation of Clement of Alexandria's (Greek 147-215) comments on 1 John (available here);
• A 3rd or 4th century opponent of Cyprian on rebaptism (available here); 
• Ambrose (339-397) in his treatise on the Holy Spirit (available here); and
• Leo the Great (391-461): the Tome of Leo (available here).

So much for "no basis in history."  It's hard to respond to the claim of poor construction or a postmodern narrative, because no specific narrative is identified. In other comments in the thread JS offered some clarification (source):

Hefin Jones, let me give you an example.

In my debate with Ehrman on Gospel Authorship, his response to the evidence I presented in support of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the actual authors was this:

Actual quote: "But once somebody puts a name on them, apparently somebody in Rome, which at this time is becoming the biggest church and the most influential church in the empire, uh, somebody puts a name on these things, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And everybody else afterwards calls them Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So, uh, what, you know, what else are they going to call them? That's what people are starting to call them"

That is a postmodern narrative, not actual objective evidence for his position.

He doesn't produce any documentation to that effect: no letter, where the location was (i.e., Rome, Alexandria, North Africa), - note he dropped the Rome claim when I pressed him on it. Additionally, who the person was that decided, and then which churches copied. It was like a world of make-believe. No one said what he was advocating in the ancient world.

The Critical Text Scholarship uses a similar postmodern narrative in trying to defend the premise that 1 John 5:7 is not original to the epistle of John. While taking the position that 1 John 5:7 is not original is a valid position, instead of advocating a postmodern narrative, present evidence for it in the same way as we have for any other now-credible theory of the world. “Evidence” in that sense must mean facts, which are beyond dispute as they are, whose existence is more likely, more probable, if the proposed theory is true than if any competing theory were true instead. Hope that helps. Pax Christi,

I cannot see the relevance of Ehrman's theory regarding the names of the gospels to the present controversy. JS seems to concede that my overall thesis is "a valid position" and that my approach of offering evidence in support of my position is an appropriate mode of investigating the problem.

JS continued: "Appealing to 'some scribe' is not evidence for his position, but a deus ex machina to avoid addressing the positive evidence for the passage."

What positive evidence?  I've dealt with the very few, inconsistent, and late Greek manuscripts offered in support of any version of the comma (see my post).   Before the life of Erasmus, they amount to a single Greek manuscript (GA 629). The two competing theories about that manuscript are (1) that the scribe producing the manuscript copied from a now lost Greek exemplar and (2) that the scribe producing the manuscript back-translated from his Latin exemplar into Greek to supply what he assumed was an omission in his Greek exemplar. Given the popularity of the comma among Latin readers in the West by the mid-1300s when the manuscript was made, and given the absence of known early Greek exemplars, the second of the two theories is the one more supported by the evidence. However, if an advocate of the TR wanted to go with the former theory, one might reasonably ask (as I did during my recent debate) why the Greek prepositions of the TR are different from those of GA 629. I'm not sure what appeal to "some scribe" JS has in mind. Without some clarification it's basically impossible to provide a helpful response.

As for "have you ever had the opportunity to Beta Test your thesis?" Again, this seems a bit vague. The phrase "beta test" has a meaning in software development, but I'm not sure how JS means to apply that to this topic. If he's asking if I have taken this into debate - yes, I have. There is a link above to my recent debate with CJ Cox and the topic came up in my debate with Nick Sayers (link), though I don't think I offered much (if anything!) on that topic then.