On the Epistles of John, Part 13: A Flock Divided
Here we shall present a commentary on the last of these three epistles of John. In my opinion, this presentation also marks a milestone for us, as it is the very last book in a series of commentaries on the New Testament which I had begun in December of 2010. Surely it is not my last New Testament Commentary, but once it is published there will be a Christian Identity commentary on the entire New Testament at Christogenea. This morning I estimated that to amount to 306 of these presentations, but I do not claim that as an exact figure. In the meantime, among many other things we have also done that same thing for the Minor Prophets and for other books of Scripture, such as Ecclesiastes and the Wisdom of Solomon. While I certainly know that at least some of my work these last 11 years can be improved, and some of the earlier presentations may have been more comprehensive, I am generally satisfied with the outcome, and I believe that over the years I have had to capitulate on very little, if anything, as challenges to my Christian profession have arisen. So in the very near future, I do hope to improve the commentary on the Revelation with which I had first begun. But I also hope one day in the near future to produce commentaries on the major prophets and also on the Book of Genesis, if Yahweh God is willing, but I would not want to stop there.
Now, turning our attention to this third epistle of John, in our translation here we have either followed or considered the readings of the 4th century Codices Sinaiticus (א) and Vaticanus (B), the 5th century Codices Alexandrinus (A), Ephraemi Syri (C) and Vaticanus Graecus 2061 (048), and a 6th century codex known only as Uncial 0251, in which only a portion of verses 12 through 15 of this epistle are attested, as well as a part of the epistle of Jude. These manuscripts and their differences with one another and with the Majority Text, as they are presented in the critical apparatus of the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, were all considered in our translation or in the accompanying notes. Once again, there are no ancient papyri which have yet been discovered which predate the 7th century and attest to the text of either the second or third epistles of John. Here we shall add that portions of 1 John chapter 4 were preserved in a papyrus, P9, which is dated to the 3rd century. As we also stated in relation to the second epistle of John, these last two epistles are personal letters written to specific individuals, while 1 John is a general epistle, probably written to the churches at Ephesus.