1 John 5:7 The Trinity text that never existed

1 John 5:7-8 KJV, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.  And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.”

This text is the closest thing to a statement of a trinity in the Bible.  But it bears no authority because the earliest Greek New Testament to contain it only dates to the 16th century.  Absolutely none of the ancient Greek New Testaments contain it within the main text.  Read any book on textual criticism and you will see that all of the New Testament textual scholars confirm this.  One of the best books on this subject is, “The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration” by Bruce Metzger, who was one of the most influential New Testament scholars of the 20th century. 

You can examine photographs of the oldest complete Greek New Testament (dated to around 350 C.E.) and see with your own eyes that it is not there at http://codexsinaiticus.org/. 

The Greek manuscripts that predate the 1500s read like this.

οτι τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες

For there are three that testify: 

το πνευμα και το υδωρ και το αιμα και οι τρεις εις το εν εισιν

the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.  

1 John 5:7-8 ESV

Those who defend this verse try to find reasons to say it was removed from the manuscripts.  However, there is no evidence that it was ever in the original manuscripts.  The hard evidence we do have is that all of the oldest manuscripts from many different locations do not contain this passage.  This is absolute, verifiable fact. 

It was added by the Catholic theologian Erasmus in his third edition of the Greek New Testament in 1522, due to the Catholic Church’s objections to it not being in the first two editions.  He stated that he did not include it in the first two editions because he could not find a single Greek manuscript that contained it.  This is why I emphasize the fact that there are none that date prior to the 1500s. 

There are a few Greek manuscripts prior to this that contain it as a note in the margin.  However, not a single Greek New Testament manuscript dating to before the 16^th century contains it in the Biblical text itself.  The closest thing you find is Manuscript 629, which is a Latin Bible that has parallel Greek text that has been modified to conform to the Latin text.  So it is not an independent Greek witness to this passage.

In fact, of the thousands of Greek New Testament manuscripts in existence, only eight contain it anywhere on the page.[1]

Manuscript 221 dates to the tenth-century and has it added to the margin.

Manuscript 88 dates to the twelfth-century and has it added to the margin.

Manuscript 629 (Codex Ottobonianus) dates to the fourteenth-century.  It has both the Greek and Latin.  The Greek text (including this verse) has been modified to conform to the Latin.

Manuscript 429 dates to the fifteenth-century and has it added to the margin.

Manuscript 636 dates to the fifteenth-century and has it added to the margin.

Manuscript 61 (Codex Montfortianus) dates to around 1520.  It contains the verse in the text.  However, it is believed to have been copied from a tenth-century manuscript that did not contain the verse.  It is the manuscript the Catholic Church used to convince Erasmus to include the verse in his third printed edition.  It is believed to have been made specifically to convince Erasmus to do this.

Manuscript 918 dates to the sixteenth-century (after Erasmus’s third edition) and contains the verse in the text.

Manuscript 2318 dates to the eighteenth-century and contains the verse in the text.

Some might be tempted to include the Codex Ravianus, which contains the verse.  However, scholars don’t generally include it in the list of New Testament manuscripts because it was copied from a printed New Testament and not a manuscript.  It also dates to the sixteenth-century, after Erasmus.

If you want an ancient Biblical manuscript that contains it in the text, there are a few ancient Latin Vulgates that contain it.  In other words, the origins for this verse lie in the Catholic Church, not in the original Greek manuscripts.

The only reason it shows up in the King James translation is because the Catholic Church insisted Erasmus insert it into his third edition of the printed Greek New Testamennt.  The printed New Testaments that came after Erasmus (known as the Textus Receptus), followed his example and include this verse.

---

[1] Metzger, Bruce Manning., and Bart D. Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print. pp. 146-147