Subject: TRINITY |
Bible Note: "the word trinity is not in the bible but the scripture is 1john5:7" Correction: No, the Scripture is not. 1 John 5:7-8 NASB For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 1 John 5: 7-8 NET Bible 5:7 For there are three that testify, 5:8 the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three are in agreement. Notes from the NET Bible: "("in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. 5:8 And there are three that testify on earth"). This reading, the infamous Comma Johanneum, has been known in the English-speaking world through the King James translation. However, the evidence--both external and internal--is decidedly against its authenticity. . . . "Our discussion will briefly address the external evidence. This longer reading is found only in eight late MSS, four of which have the words in a marginal note. Most of these MSS . . . originate from the 16th century; the earliest MS, . . . (10th century), includes the reading in a marginal note, added sometime after the original composition. Thus, there is no sure evidence of this reading in any Greek MS until the 1500's; each such reading was apparently composed after Erasmus' Greek NT was published in 1517. "Indeed, the reading appears in no Greek witness of any kind (either MS, patristic, or Greek translation of some other version) until A.D. 1215 (in a Greek translation of the Acts of the Lateran Council, a work originally written in Latin). This is all the more significant, since many a Greek Father would have loved such a reading, for it so succinctly affirms the doctrine of the Trinity. "The reading seems to have arisen in a 4th century Latin homily in which the text was allegorized to refer to members of the Trinity. From there, it made its way into copies of the Latin Vulgate, the text used by the Roman Catholic Church. The Trinitarian formula (known as the Comma Johanneum) made its way into the third edition of Erasmus' Greek NT because of pressure from the Catholic Church. After his first edition appeared, there arose such a furor over the absence of the Comma that Erasmus needed to defend himself. He argued that he did not put in the Comma because he found no Greek MSS that included it. . . . "Modern advocates of the Textus Receptus and KJV generally argue for the inclusion of the Comma Johanneum on the basis of heretical motivation by scribes who did not include it. . . . In reality, the issue is history, not heresy: How can one argue that the Comma Johanneum did not appear until the 16th century in any Greek MSS and yet goes back to the original text? "Such a stance does not do justice to the gospel: faith must be rooted in history. . . . But the KJV translators, basing their work principally on Theodore Beza's 10th edition of the Greek NT (1598) . . . popularized the Comma for the English-speaking world. Thus, the Comma Johanneum has been a battleground for English-speaking Christians more than for others." |