1 John 5:7
Here is one of the most famous.
1 John 5:7-8, “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 texts contain
it. Read any book on New Testament textual scholarship
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 A.D. 350) 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 hard 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 16th century contains it in the Biblical text itself. The closest thing you find in the Greek is
one 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.
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.
