Johannine Comma and Gavin McGrath

From Textus Receptus

Revision as of 00:36, 2 July 2020

Gavin McGrath

A Textual Commentary

Gavin McGrath, in his A Textual Commentary of the Received Text of the Greek New Testament spoke concerning the comma in the context of showing the erroneous Majority Text platform methodology to be flawed. He continued:

Comprehensive analysis of this process is beyond the scope of this Preface. But let us consider the NT text with reference to just one more passage, namely, one of those isolated above which shows the difference between neo-Byzantines on the one hand, and both neo-Alexandrians and Burgonites on the other hand, namely, I John 5:7,8. This passage is found in both the Received Text and Authorized Version, but it is not found in the neo-Alexandrians texts e.g., the NU Text, or the Burgonites’ Majority Text.

Translating the Greek Received Text, I John 5:7,8 in the Authorized Version of 1611 says, “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” (AV). By contrast, omitting the words, “bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that” (vss. 7,8), and further omitting the words, “in earth” (vs. 8), the American Standard Version (1901), based on Westcott and Hort’s neo-Alexandrian critical text, renumbers the last part of verse 6 as the new verse 7, and then verse 8 reads, “For there are three who bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and the three agree in one” (ASV). The ASV’s type of reading is followed in other neo-Alexandrian versions based on other neo-Alexandrian critical texts, such as the NASB, RSV, NRSV, ESV, and NIV.

The TR’s reading in I John 5:7,8, i.e., “bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that” (AV), and the words, “in earth” (AV), are not found in the Alexandrian Text’s London Sinaiticus (4th century) and Rome Vaticanus (4th century), or London Alexandrinus (5th century). According to the UBS textual apparatus, support for this shorter reading is found in Clement of Alexandria (before 215); with minor differences in Origen (253) and Cyril of Alexandria (444); Rebaptism (258), Ambrose (397), and Augustine (430). I would question the issue of “support” here, since while e.g., Origen quotes parts of I John 5:8, it does not therefore follow that such writers did not recognize I John 5:7,8 in its entirety.

Origen simply said, “the disciple John speaks in his Epistle of ‘the spirit, and the water, and the blood’ as being ‘one’ [I John 5:8] ¹³⁶.” The UBS NT Committee does not treat the inclusion of the Trinitarian reading (I John 5:7,8) as a serious possibility, giving their highest rating, an “A” to its omission.

Most of the Greek manuscripts containing this reading are not Byzantine and therefore not relevant to we neo-Byzantines for the purposes of determining the Textus Receptus. The later Greek marginal reading of Byzantine Minuscule 221 is of interest for showing the preservation of a Greek form. The Greek Trinitarian marginal reading of Byzantine Minuscule 221 may or may not be a reconstruction from the Latin. If it is an independent Greek line, then this Minuscule’s added marginal reading constitutes the notable preservation of an independent line of Greek manuscripts; the existence of which is e.g., reflected in a similar Latin manuscript of the ancient church writer Pseudo-Athanasius (6th century) whose writings are preserved in Greek and / or Latin works. A Greek form of the verse is also found in a Greek translation of the Latin Acts of the Roman Church’s Fourth Lateran Council (1215)¹³⁷.

But in the final analysis, the major manuscript support for this reading comes from the Latin, not the Greek. These words are found in a series of Latin readings. This includes support from multiple Latin codices (Tischendorf’s 8th edition, 1869-72, Merk’s 9th edition, 1964), and the ancient church Latin writers, Cyprian (d. 258), Priscillian (d. 358), and Eugenius (d. 484) quoting an earlier Council of Carthage. It remains in the Latin tradition with e.g., Fulgentius (d. 533). One also finds a similar Latin reading in old Latin Version m (dated variously between the 4th and 9th centuries). With this type of impressive support in the Latin textual tradition, from the Latin support for this reading, it is then manifested in the Clementine Vulgate (1592).

E.g., while a more detailed study of the Latin is beyond the scope of this Preface, let me give the reader some idea of the Latin support that exists for the Greek marginal reading of Byzantine Minuscule 221. The following Latin reading (omitting some UBS minor variants) is found in UBS’s 4th revised edition as coming from the ancient Latin church writers, Pseudo-Vigilis (d. 4th /5th century), Speculum (5th century), Varimadum (d. 445 / 480), and early medieval Latin church writer Fulgentius (d. 533); together with unidentified Vulgate Manuscripts, as well as old Latin Versions q (6th / 7th century Munich, Germany & 7th century, Munich, Germany) and l (7th century, Leon, France & 8th century, Berlin, Germany); and Wordsworth & White also show this reading in Codex Cavensis (9th century, La Cava, Italy). “Quia (for) tres (three) sunt (they are) qui (who) testimonium (testimony) dicunt (declare) in (in) terra (earth), spiritus (the spirit), et (and) aqua (the water), et (and) sanguis (the blood), … et (and) tres (three) sunt (they are) qui (who) testimonium (testimony) dicunt (declare) in (in) caelo (heaven), Pater (the Father), Verbum (the Word), et (and) Spiritus (the Spirit),” continuing (from Wordsworth & White) in Codex Cavensis (9th century), “et (and) hii (these) tres (three) hunum (one) sunt (they are).

Metzger says, “The earliest instance of the passage being quoted as a part of the actual text of the Epistle is in a fourth century Latin treatise [by Priscillian] entitled Liber Apologeticus (Chap. 4)138.” If this is the earliest preserved quote, it shows I John 5:7 to be ancient, and in the same era as the Alexandrian texts fawned over by neoAlexandrians such as Metzger, i.e., Rome Vaticanus (4th century) and London Sinaiticus (4th century). These neo-Alexandrians sometimes follow a quote from just one of these two Alexandrian texts, so for them to turn around and start talking about slim manuscript

support for I John 5:7,8, is much more than a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The Latin textual support for I John 5:7 dwarfs the manuscript support neo-Alexandrians often use, and so it is really a case of the gross hypocrisy and inconsistencies that characterizes neo-Alexandrian textual critics. The critics love to criticize the Textus Receptus, but they do not like anyone criticizing the critics. Thus they set themselves over the Word of God, rather than humbly setting themselves under the Word of God. But in fact, reference is made to this passage at least one hundred years earlier by Cyprian in the mid third century. Cyprian (c. 200-258) was a bishop of Carthage. He is designated as an “Archbishop and Martyr” in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (1662), and given a black letter day on 26 September. He was the first martyred bishop of Africa. His martyrdom is covered under “the eighth general persecution under the Roman Emperors,” in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs139. St. Cyprian says, “The Lord says, ‘I and the Father are one’ [John 10:30], and again it is written of ‘the Father,’ of the Son, ‘and’ of ‘the Holy Spirit,’ ‘And these three are one’ [I John 5:7]140.” The theological point that Cyprian is here making, i.e., that there is “one” God, but a plurality of Divine Persons, requires that he is contextually referring to the words of I John 5:7, “the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.” This shows a very early Latin attestation of these words.

There are two rules of neo-Byzantine textual analysis, found in two maxims, of relevance here. The master maxim is, The Greek improves the Latin; and the servant maxim is, The Latin improves the Greek. I.e., we neo-Byzantines always start with the representative Byzantine Greek text, which is maintained unless there is a clear and obvious textual problem with it, for The Greek improves the Latin. However, if it is clear that a textual problem in the Byzantine Greek can be remedied by a reconstruction of the Greek from the Latin, then the Latin reading may be adopted, for in such a context, The Latin improves the Greek. But in all this textual analysis, it is the Greek that is our primary focus, and the Latin is only brought in to assist what is an evident textual problem in the Greek, and only adopted if it resolves this Greek textual problem. Thus the lesser maxim, The Latin improves the Greek, is always subject to the overriding greater maxim, The Greek improves the Latin.

Significantly then, as it stands, the representative Byzantine Text presents a textual problem. We are told in the verse before I John 5:7,8, “to (the) Pneuma (Spirit) esti (he is) to (the) marturoun ([one] witnessing),” i.e., “the Spirit beareth witness” (I John 5:6, AV); and then just after I John 5:7,8 reference is made to “e (the) marturia (witness) tou (-) Theou (of God),” i.e., “the witness of God” (I John 5:9, AV) which is Trinitarian in scope to “e (the) marturia (witness) tou (-) Theou (of God),” i.e., “the witness of God” (I John 5:9, AV) which he has testified “Yiou (of Son) autou (of him)” i.e., “of his Son” (I John 5:9, AV). So that the contextual scope is on God “the Spirit” (I John 5:8), “God” the Father (I John 5:11), and God the “Son” (I John 5:9,11). This naturally results in the conclusion that I John 5:7,8 is referring to a Trinitarian witness by the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But where is this expected witness in the representative Byzantine text reading? Furthermore, “the witness of men” (I John 5:9) means “the testimony of two men

is true,” so that Christ can refer to the witness of himself and the Father (John 8:16-18). And indeed this passage at Deut. 19:15 that Christ refers to in John 8:16-18, further specifies as St. Paul says, “two or three witnesses” (II Cor. 13:1). Therefore, given the emphasis on the “Spirit” in I John 5:8, it is reasonable to include the Holy Ghost, with the consequence that if “the witness of God is greater” than “the witness of men” (I John 5:9), then the expectation must be that this is a Trinitarian witness of all three Divine Persons that is in focus. I.e., the representative Byzantine text has a textual problem in which it appears that something has been omitted that refers to a witness or testimony by the three Divine Persons of the Trinity; and the problem of omission so caused by the loss of this stylistic expectation constitutes a stylistic tension that can only be relieved by adopting the Trinitarian reading of what is largely the Latin textual tradition at I John 5:7,8. Indeed, this factor does not appear to have been lost on the Latin composers of the Clementine Vulgate, who evidently reached a similar conclusion, as well they might given that the textual argument is basically the same from the Greek or the Latin, and the textual remedy for this problem is found in the Latin textual tradition.

I note that the Greek form in this Trinitarian reading found in the marginal reading of Byzantine Minuscule 221, whether understood as a Greek reconstruction through reference to the Latin, or as the preservation of the Greek form which is then further confirmed through reference to the Latin (a matter I shall not now discuss in further detail), is typically Johannine, both in writing style and theological emphasis. E.g., the fact that the Second Person of the Trinity is called “the Word” (Greek o logos) (I John 5:7), bears an obvious similarity with “the Word” (Greek o logos) of this Apostle’s Gospel (John 1:1,14). The statement of the three Divine Persons, “and these three are one” in which “one” is Greek “en” (I John 5:7), is strikingly similar to Christ’s statement about the two Divine Persons of the Father and the Son, “I and my Father are one” in which “one” is also Greek “en” (John 10:30), and shows a singular Supreme Being (God) with a plurality of Divine Persons. So too the idea of “the Father” and “the Word” bearing “record” or witness (I John 5:7) is typically Johannine, for Christ says, “I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me” (John 8:18). And of the Holy Ghost, Christ says, “the Spirit of truth” “shall testify of me” (John 15:26). Indeed just before the Trinitarian reading (I John 5:7,8) we read, “it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth” (I John 5:6).

Moreover, the Apostle John frequently brings out a contrast between heaven and earth, saying, “he that cometh from above is above all; he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all” (John 3:31). “Then came there a voice from heaven,” “Jesus answered and said,” “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth” (John 12:28,30,32). “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father,” “I have glorified thee on the earth” (John 17:1,4). Therefore, the Trinitarian reading which refers to the “three that bear record in heaven,” and the “three that bear witness in earth” (I John 5:7,8) seems typically Johannine. Thus the Greek words, the Greek writing style, and the theological emphasis, all point to the Trinitarian reading (I John 5:7,8) being authentically Johannine.

The longer Trinitarian reading in the First Epistle of the Apostle John (I John 5:7,8), is also to be favoured as the correct reading for both general and specific reasons of immediate context. In general terms, I John 5:1-8 works through a Trinitarian sequence in which “whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ” (Second Divine Person) is “born of God” (vs. 4), with reference to “the Son of God” (Second Divine Person, in connection with his relationship as “Son” to the First Divine Person) (vs. 5). Reference is then made to “the witness” of “the Spirit” (Third Divine Person) to “Jesus Christ” (Second Divine Person) (vs. 6). Thus the general context of I John 5:1-11 indicates a reference to “witness” by the other two Divine Persons, and this is what we then have in I John 5:7 when we read “there are three that bear record” (AV) or “three that bear witness” (NKJV) “in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost” (AV).

In the specific context, we read in I John 5:9, “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.” Since “God” (First Divine Person) “hath testifieth of his Son” (Second Divine Person), this event in the past where “God” the Father “hath” testified of God the “Son,” seems to be an incongruous statement, unless one is first introduced to this notion that God the Father is witness, i.e., “there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one” (I John 5:7). Since the shorter ending reading of I John 5:7,8 makes no reference to God the Father as a witness, the longer Trinitarian reading makes more contextual sense.

Thus the Trinitarian reading is also to be preferred for reasons of both general and specific immediate context in I John 5. The Trinitarian reading (I John 5:7,8) is to be preferred over the shorter reading on the basis that it alleviates a stylistic tension created in the Greek text without it. It is supported by ancient church Latin writers starting with Cyprian (258) and Priscillian (358), and continued in the Latin textual tradition, ultimately manifested in the Clementine Vulgate (1592). The issue then arises as to why, if the Trinitarian reading (I John 5:7,8) is correct, is it absent in so many of the Byzantine Greek texts? The question of this omission’s origins is clearly speculative. On this basis, both advocates of the Burgonites’ Majority Text and neo-Alexandrian Texts e.g., the NU Text, consider they have a fatal argument for its authenticity. E.g., speaking for the NU Text Committee , Metzger claims, “if the passage were original, no good reason can be found to account for its omission, either accidentally or intentionally.141”

Was this a deliberate omission? If so, probably some Trinitarian heretic deliberately expunged it. Was this an accidental omission? If so, in order to consider this matter, it is first necessary to understand what the Greek text may have looked like on a copyist’s page. Here some difficulty arises since the exact nature of the Greek script was subject to some variation, both due to personal factors of handwriting, and trends at certain times. E.g., uncials (4th to 10th centuries) were in capital letters, whereas minuscules (9th to 16th centuries) are in lower case letters. Continuous script was also used at various times (i.e., no spaces between words, although some stylistic paper spaces might sometimes occur to indicate a new verse, or to try and right hand justify the page). When dealing with reconstructions of earlier, no longer existing Greek manuscripts, the exact appearance of the script is open to question. For my purposes, I have used a modern Greek script, which looks something like the original, and is close enough to what is required for the purposes of textual analysis. My script approximates that generally found in Greek NT’s published in modern times such as Scrivener’s Text. Sometimes a different script is required for textual analysis (see e.g., I Tim. 3:16142). Unless otherwise specified, I consider the script I use to be close enough to what is required, to make the basic point of textual analysis for my purposes.

In Greek it would have looked something like the following. The reading below first appears in a Greek script (which we find as a marginal reading in Minuscule 221,) and this would be something more like, though not identical with the unknown early handwritten copies; and then in the second instance this reading appears in the Greek with Anglicized letters. The practice we now use of lower case Greek letters in which the “s” or sigma inside a Greek word is “σ” but at the end of a Greek word is “ς”, does not appear in ancient unical manuscripts such as Codex Freerianus (W 032) where these always appear as a “C.” Therefore, for my purposes below I shall write the “eis” of the last line in the Greek lower case script not as “εις” but as “εισ”, bearing in mind that in the actual manuscript we are talking about this may well have been written as “EIC.” I will underline in the Greek script and highlight in bold in the Anglicized letters scripts, the sections I wish to draw particular attention to. With Greek in the round brackets “(),” and any added words that might go in italics in the square brackets “[],” following the AV’s translation as closely as possible (and only changing the Greek order once to accommodate the English rendering), the section more literally reads, “For (oti) three (treis) there are (eisin) the [ones] (oi) bearing record (marturountes) in (en) the (to) heaven (ourano), the (o) Father (Pater), the (o) Word (Logos), and (kai) the (to) Holy (Agion) Ghost (Pneuma): and (kai) these (outoi) the (oi) three (treis) are (eisi) one (en). And (Kai) three (treis) there are (eisin) the [ones] (oi) bearing witness (marturountes) in (en) the (te) earth (ge), the (to) spirit (Pneuma), and (kai) the (to) water (udor), and (kai) the (to) blood (aima): and (kai) the (oi) three (treis) in (eis) the (to) one (en) are (eisin). If (ei) the (ten) witness (marturian) ... etc. .

ο τ ι τ ρ ε ι ς ε ι σ ι ν ο ι µ α ρ τ υ ρ ο υ ν τ ε ς ε ν τ ω ο υ ρ α ν ω ο π α τ η ρ ο λ ο γ ο ς κ α ι τ ο Α γ ι ο ν π ν ε υ µ α κ α ι ο υ τ ο ι ο ι τ ρ ε ι ς ε ν ε ι σ ι κ α ι τ ρ ε ι ς ε ι σ ι ν ο ι µ α ρ τ υ ρ ο υ ν τ ε ς ε ν τ η γ η τ ο π ν ε υ µ α κ α ι τ ο υ δ ω ρ κ α ι τ ο α ι µ α κ α ι ο ι τ ρ ε ι ς ε ι ς τ ο ε ν ε ι σ ι ν ε ι τ η ν µ α ρ τ υ ρ ι α ν

oti treis eisin oi marturountes en to ourano o pater o logos kai to Agion pneuma kai outoi oi treis en eisi kai treis eisin oi marturountes en te ge to pneuma kai to udor kai to aima kai oi treis eis to en eisin ei ten marturian

If an accidental omission, it seems that a copyist first wrote down, “oti treis eisin oi marturountes en t” (“For there are three that bear witness” with the first “t” of “the” in “the heaven,” I John 5:7), and then stopped for some kind of break. He possibly left a marker on the page pointing to the general area that he was up to. Either he remembered in his own mind, “I’m up to ‘treis eisin oi marturountes en’ with the first ‘t’ of the next word at the end of the line, just above the lines starting with ‘pneuma kai’ and ‘treis eis’ something;” or he said to a second copyist taking over, “I’m up to ‘treis eisin oi marturountes en’ with the first ‘t’ of the next word at the end of the line, just above the lines starting with ‘pneuma kai’ and ‘treis eis’ something.”

Upon resumption of copying out the text, returning to the right general area, the copyist’s eye saw on his original, the second ‘treis eisin oi marturountes en,’ his eye then looked down to see that this was just above the lines where without him realizing it, it was the second time ‘pneuma kai’ started a line, and the second time ‘treis eis’ something started the following line. His eye looked rapidly back to the end of the above line on his copyist’s page containing the words “oti treis eisin oi marturountes en t,” and seeing it ended with the “t” of “to” (from line 1, supra) and as he looked back, then remembering he was up to the end of a line, he then complicated his error as looked to the “to” (from line 4, supra), he copied “to pneuma kai to udor kai to aima kai oi treis eis to en eisin” etc., and so the text was inadvertently changed to, “For there are three that bear witness, the spirit, and the water and the blood: and these three agree in one.” If so, possibly the situation had been aggravated by the fact he was working in flickering candle light, or had a head cold, we simply do not know. Thus it was, that possibly by such an early accident in textual transmission history, in many Greek manuscripts the shorter ending later replaced the longer Trinitarian reading at I John 5:7,8.

On the one hand, textual analysis strongly supports the TR’s reading. It is also well attested to from a number of ancient church Latin writers, and was thus clearly accessible over the ages in Latin texts. But on the other hand, while found in the Greek as a marginal reading of Byzantine Minuscule 221, the textual support is generally from the Latin, and so manifests the lesser maxim, The Latin improves the Greek, being subject to the greater maxim, The Greek improves the Latin. Balancing out these competing considerations, on the system of rating textual readings A to E, supra, I would give the TR’s reading at I John 5:7,8 a low level “B” (in the range of 66% +/- 1%), i.e., the text of the TR is the correct reading and has a middling level of certainty.

This copyist’s error appears to have occurred quite early in the history of the text’s transmission, probably in the second century. That some manuscripts containing the correct and longer Trinitarian reading (I John 5:7,8) survived, is evident in the Latin authorities which support this text. Thus a general witness of this text clearly that had reasonable accessibility was preserved over the centuries with the Latin. Then in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, this matter was brought to the attention of those masters of textual analysis who had been called and gifted by God to be neo-Byzantine textual analysts. It was spotted by them whether they were textual analysts of the NeoByzantine School through God’s common grace by racial gifts to Gentiles, such as the religiously apostate Gentile Christians of the Complutensian Bible; or whether they were textual analysts of the Neo-Byzantine School by special grace as elect vessels called and saved, and then made textual analyst “teachers” in his “body” of “the church” universal (Eph. 4:4,11; 5:31,32), such as Stephanus or Beza.

And so it was, that these gifted and learned men who composed our Received Text in the 16th and 17th centuries, and whose work represents a zenith of textual achievement in terms of producing an entire NT Received Text, not simply this or that verse as in former times, (the like of which shows up the neo-Alexandrian and Burgonite textual “scholars” to be truly second rate,) turned their learned eyes to the matter. And when these neo-Byzantines did so, seeking the guidance of God’s good Spirit, the deficiency in the representative Greek Byzantine manuscripts was thus spotted and remedied. Thus I John 5:7,8 was restored to its rightful place in the Received Text, and came to be translated in the Authorized Version. Praise God! His “word” “endureth for ever” (I Peter 2:25).