Detective Garfield

This post will heavily rely on Martin Chemnitz's comments on Augustine in his first volume of Examination of the Council of Trent. It is possible that Chemnitz is misrepresenting Augustine here and is only quoting from parts of Augustine that suit his view. If that is the case, then please correct me! Consider here the following quotations from Chemnitz All of this can be found in section V of Chemnitz's First Topic in his first volume. To add onto these citations, we can note Augustine's letter to Jerome where he states unequivocally that he yields uncritical assent to the Scriptures alone. Taken together, these quotations suggest that Augustine held onto the canonical Scriptures as uniquely authoritative for faith and morals. He constantly emphasizes that we ought to turn to the Scriptures as opposed to other sources in order to settle religious disputes. He also affirms that the Scriptures clearly contain all things necessary for faith and morals. Chemni...

In Cyprian's 38th letter, we read the following (Cyprian): To me, this is a very obvious citation of 1 John 5:7. In the KJV we read: "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." This is omitted in most modern english translations. Since these words only appear in a select few late greek manuscripts (and many of them only within the margins of the text), many conclude that Cyprian cannot be referring to 1 John 5:7 here. Instead, they propose that Cyprian is providing an allegorical interpretation of the words in 1 John 5:8 concerning the spirit, the water, and the blood. The logic is that, in many early Latin translations of the New Testament, 'the spirit, the water, and the blood' is rendered 'the water, the blood, and the spirit'. This lends itself fairly easily to an allegorical interpretation of the three as referring to the Trinity. As a consequence, Cyprian quite naturally all...

There are a variety of theories offered for why the Longer Ending of Mark is omitted in certain manuscripts (that being Codex Vaticanus, Siniaticus, miniscule 304, certain early versional witnesses, as well as Eusebius). The most popular theory is that of James Snapp Jr's. He argues that the Longer Ending of Mark was not originally written to serve as an ending to the Gospel of Mark. Instead, it was an earlier work that served to document Christ's post-resurrection appearances. Since Mark was disrupted by persecution from completing the gospel after verse 8, he (or maybe the Church that was with him) simply attached this earlier composition to end the work. Someone in Egypt noticed the discrepancy and removed this earlier work. They did not want another Markan work attached to the ending of a Gospel that the composition was not intended for (Snapp 2019). Some others have repeated this theory (Bamba 2023, 15-16). I do not agree with this theory. As Snapp himself acknowledges, th...