Johannine Comma

From Textus Receptus

Current revision

Textus Receptus reading of 1 John 5:7-8

1 John 5.7-8 with the Textus Receptus reading omitted

See Also Index of Johannine Comma articles, 1 John 5:7 & 1 John 5:8.

The Johannine Comma (Latin:Comma Johanneum) is the name of a short clause in Ancient Greek rhetoric, from comma (κόμμα komma, plural κόμματα kommata) and written by John, making it "Johannine" or "Johanneum", which is contained in the Textus Receptus readings of the First Epistle of John.

This text is variously referred to as the Comma Johanneum, the Johannine Comma, the Heavenly Witnesses, three Heavenly Witnesses, 1 John 5:7, 1 John v. 7, or one John five verse seven, although technically it involves verse 8 also.

The question of the authenticity of the comma has been a major subject of debate from the early 1500s to today. The debate on 1 John 5:7-8 has also been a primary focus of discussions on the integrity of the New Testament documents and scribal fealty to the Bible text. The varying doctrinal and Christological interpetations of the verse have been a major part of these debates. Some claim that the verse is an Interpolation as the comma dropped out of most manuscripts copies of the Greek Byzantine tradition, while others defending the verse due to Latin versional evidence, early church writings, and grammatical consistency.

A multitude of books have been devoted to the comma, including: A Vindication of I John V, 7 from the Objections of M. Griesbach by Thomas Burgess (1821, London); Das Comma Ioanneum: Auf Seine Hewrkunft Untersucht The Johannine Comma, an examination of its origin by Karl Künstle (1905, Frieburg, Switz.); Letters to Mr. Archdeacon George Travis in answer to his Defence of the Three Heavenly Witnesses by Richard Porson (1790, London); A New Plea for the Authenticity of the Text of the Three Heavenly Witnesses or Porson's Letters to Travis Eclectically Examined by Rev. Charles Forster (1867, London), Memoir of The Controversy respecting the Three Heavenly Witnesses, I John V.7 ˈ by 'Criticus' [Rev. William Orme] (1830, London), reprinted (1872, Boston, "a new edition, with notes and an appendix by Ezra Abbot" ); and The Three Witnesses – the disputed text in St. John, considerations new and old by Henry T. Armfield (1893, London); and many more.^[2]

Comma Johanneum displayed in Greek, Latin, and English

The bold print is the Johannine Comma.

Greek (1598 Greek of Beza):

7.ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες εν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατήρ, ὁ λόγος, καὶ τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα· καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι·

8.καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἕν τῇ γῇ, τὸ πνεῦμα, καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ, καὶ τὸ αἷμα· καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσὶν.

Latin (Clementine Edition of the Vulgate):

7. quoniam tres sunt qui testimonium dant in caelo pater verbum et spiritus sanctus et hi tres unum sunt

8. et tres sunt qui testimonium dant in terra spiritus et aqua et sanguis et tres unum sunt

English (Authorized King James Version):

7. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

8. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

Bible version without the Johannine Comma. (New American Standard):

7. For there are three that testify:

8. the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

Although technically the Comma refers to text that overlaps verses 7 and 8, it is common to refer to the text as verse seven, or 1 John 5:7. In versions without the Comma the verse ordering depends on the version. Most common is the method used by the NASB, which has the phrase "For...testify" as verse 7 and the rest "the Spirit...in agreement" as verse 8. The ASV and the ERV bring part of the traditional verse 6 down as verse 7. Weymouth splits the verses in another fashion.

Papyrus 9

The oldest Greek manuscript we have of 1 John is 2nd-3rd century A.D.. ⁹ which is an Oxyrhynchus Papyrus fragment 402 (P. Oxy. 402; Inv. 3736). It only contains 1 John 4:11-12, 14-17 and thus does not contain the section containing 1 John 5:7-8.

Bibles that include or omit the comma

Traditional Textus Receptus based Bible translations, most notably the Authorized King James Version (KJV), contain the Comma, but most modern Bible translations from the Critical Text, since 1881, such as the New International Version (NIV), the New American Standard Bible (NASB), the English Standard Version (ESV), the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) tend to either omit the Comma entirely, or relegate it to the footnotes.

Those who support the King James Version or advocate for a Textus Receptus position, frequently cite this omission as conclusive proof that modern Bibles are removing doctrinally significant verses which teach the Trinity from the Bible and such practices should be rejected on the grounds of Revelation 22:18-19. Modern TR / KJV update versions tend to reflect the underlying Greek Textus Receptus such as the King James Version 2016 Edition, Revised Webster Update 1995, or the New King James Version of 1982, Young's Literal Translation etc. No other modern English Bibles include this passage in the main text.

The justification for the comma being omitted from most modern translations of the Bible is that most Greek manuscripts do not have them. But this verse is very well attested by hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Latin manuscripts, and multiple early church quotations. Approximately 95% of Latin manuscripts of 1 John include the Comma. The main reason the lack of Greek manuscripts is often overlooked by those supporting the inclusion of the comma, is because the section without the comma creates a Greek solecism, which is a severe grammatical error. Such internal inconsistencies of Greek grammar, when the comma is omitted, are rarely mentioned by those who support its omission, and when grammatical issues are mentioned,^[1] they are usually shallow, or misrepresent the arguments.

In the Roman Catholic tradition, the Latin Nova Vulgata (New Vulgate), published in 1979 following the Second Vatican Council, based on the Critical Text and approved for liturgical use, does not include the Comma. Nor does the English-language New American Bible. Today there are Bible translations with a Roman Catholic church imprimatur both with and without the verse, as the traditional Rheims New Testament and the Ronald Knox translation of the Vulgate include the verse.

In the Greek Orthodox tradition, earlier translations into Modern Greek by Maximus Callipolites, printed in 1638 for Cyrillus Lucaris, and by Neophytus Vamvas completed in 1850, include the Comma in the text. The editions of the ZWH Brotherhood and Antoniades have the Comma in the main text in a smaller font.

The Cambridge Paragraph Bible of the authorized English version, an edition of the King James Version published in 1873, and edited by noted textual scholar F.H.A. Scrivener, one of the translators of the English Revised Version, set the Comma in italics to reflect its disputed authenticity. Few later Authorized Version editions retained this formatting. The AV-1611 page and almost all AV editions use a normal font.

Owing to the widespread use of the Textus Receptus (TR) as the principal source-language text for Bible editions, with the widespread use of the Geneva and then the Authorized Version, the Comma is contained in most Bible editions and printings published from 1522 until the latter part of the nineteenth century.

Origins

See Also Trinity of the Church Fathers

Excerpt from Codex Sinaiticus including 1 John 5:7–9. It lacks the Comma Johanneum. The purple-coloured text says: "There are three witness bearers, the Spirit and the water and the blood".

Omission Theories (verse authentic)

Those who believe the Johannine Comma is authentic attribute authorship to the apostle John. They have diverse theories as to why the Comma dropped out of the Greek manuscript line and why most of the evidence is in Latin manuscripts and church writings. Often these proposed textual histories include homeoteleuton as the initial cause of the early variant. In 1699 Louis Ellies Dupin discussed the possibility:

"...that those two verses beginning with the same words, it was easy for the copiers to omit one by negligence, nothing being more usual than when the same word is in two periods that follow one another, for the copier to pass from the word of the first period to that which follows in the second."

The commentary of Puritan scholar Matthew Henry added the difficulty and unlikelihood that a deliberate addition could be inserted into the text-line:

"It was far more easy for a transcriber, by turning away his eye, or by the obscurity of the copy, it being obliterated or defaced on the top or bottom of a page, or worn away in such materials as the ancients had to write upon, to lose and omit the passage, than for an interpolator to devise and insert it; he must be very bold and impudent, that could hope to escape detection and shame, and profane too, that durst venture to make an addition to a supposed sacred book."

Anthony Kohlmann asked and answered the question, "what reason can you assign for so notable an omission in some old manuscripts?" Kohlmann pointed to homoeoteleuton and doctrinal motivations and included an analogy to another verse which some attempted to excise.

An article on the KJV_Today website looks at the Johannine first epistle text and asserts out that corruption in 1 John occurs in a number of doctrinally charged Christological verses, including full phrases. "1 John has its fair share of early textual corruptions to demonstrate that passages were indeed altered for reasons of carelessness or infidelity ... One thing is certain: the text of 1 John underwent corruption long before the alleged 'fabrication' of the Comma. With there being these other demonstrable examples of early textual corruptions, it is reasonable to suppose that the omission of the Comma was also an early textual corruption."

Also those asserting authenticity of the Comma, followed by omission, often assert that the early church writers and internal evidences are undervalued by today's textual theories. Franz Pieper is an example from 20th-century scholarship. For Pieper the Cyprian citation is a key element leading to his acceptance of authenticity. Pieper disagrees with the Karl Ströbel claim,^[] that the old codices must be the judge in textual criticism (given in Ströbel's review of the Sander book). Pieper says "a quotation from the Fathers is often of decisive importance".

Another point raised in favor of authenticity is the difficulty of additions changing the Bible text-line, since additions are usually a conscious change or tampering, "First, to omit implies only excusable oversight, while to insert implies designed deceit and direct invention of a human statement as God's word." and likely to be noted, caught and corrected, sounding foreign and unusual to the reader. While text dropped, by fatigue or homoeoteleuton, is a process that is common. And such changes require no conscious attempt at textual tampering, they are often accidental. Whether accidental or deliberate tampering, such an omission is less visible than an addition. The text is no longer there to jar the mind of the proof-reader, the scriptorium or the church in the next town. And thus the new variant can escape early detection and correction and be accepted into a stream of manuscripts.

Another issue raised is the difficulty of positing a multi-stage (scribal commentary -> ms margin -> ms text) textual entrance, without any direct evidential support. This scenario is seen as having Ockham-style difficulties, being the more complex alternative. And proponents of authenticity see these difficulties as compounded by a combination of additional factors. The sanctity of the scripture text meant that the scriptoriums and churches watched carefully for scribal additions. Also the proposed late textual entry (as theorized by Ehrman and others) and the widespread early use of the Comma throughout the Latin church even in the 400s mitigate against the multi-stage theory. The 400s is when we have the Council of Carthage and the Twelve Books on the Trinity and additional references.

In addition, some Comma defenders offer a fideistic apologetic, that the preservation of the word of God mandates that there would not be any significant Bible addition, textual charlatanism, that would be transmitted to the large body of the church for 1000 years and more.

Addition Theories (verse spurious)

Those who believe the Johannine Comma is inauthentic view the text as either an accidental intrusion, which could be a margin commentary note that a later scribe mistakenly considered to be the original text. Or as a deliberate insertion or forgery. The deliberate theory usually considers the motives to be doctrinal, to support Trinitarian doctrines.

Erasmus

Erasmus, looking at the Vulgate Prologue, which evidence had been emphasized by Stunica, implied that Jerome had been the source of the verse about which the Prologue speaks: "For who would have called him a forger and a falsifier, unless he changed the common reading of the place?" Erasmus "spoke of Jerome's violence, unscrupulousness, and frequent inconsistency, as the probable origin of this supposed interpolation in the Sacred text." Drummond quoted Erasmus more moderately than Armfield.

Pierre Olivetan

Olivetan was the first translator of the French reformed Bible. He kept the Comma:

• Car il en y a troys qui donnent tesmoingnage au ciel: le pere, la parolle, et

le sainct esperit, et ces troys sont ung. Aussi en y a trois …

In the margin he wrote:

• Ceste sentence commenceant à Car, jusque à Aussi, ne se trouve point

en plusieurs exemplaires anciens, tant Grecz que Latins.

Hugo Grotius

Hugo Grotius contended that the verse had been added in to the Johannine text by the Arians About the Grotius view, Richard Simon wrote "... all this is only founded on conjectures: and seeing every one does reason according to his prejudices, some will have the Arians to be the authors of that addition, and others do attribute the same to the Catholicks." Luther's pastor, John Bugenhagen, like Grotius, wrote of a conjectured Arian origin .

Elzevir

1 John 5:7-8 in the 1633 Greek New Testament of the Elzevir family

Johann Albrecht Bengel

1 John 5:7. ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες, because there are three bearing witness) The participle, bearing witness, used instead of the noun, witnesses, implies that the act of bearing witness, and the effect of the testimony, are always present. Before also he had spoken of the spirit, in the neuter gender, τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστι το ΄αρτυρουν: now he speaks in the masculine gender, there are three who bear witness, of the spirit also; at the same saying, that the water and the blood bear witness, also in the masculine gender. Those feminines, faith, hope, charity, are said to be three (tria), in the neuter gender, 1 Corinthians 13:13; but here πνεῦμα, ὕδωρ, αἷμα, all of the neuter gender in Greek, that is, the spirit, the water, and the blood, are τρεῖς μαρτυροῦντες, in the masculine gender. To be bearing witness is properly applied to persons only: and the fact that three are described, by personification, as bearing witness on earth, just as though they were persons, is admirably adapted (subservient) to the personality of the three who bear witness in heaven; but yet neither the spirit (that is the truth of the Gospel), nor the water, nor the blood, are persons. Therefore the apostle, advancing from the preceding verse to the one now present, employs a trope, adapted to the brevity of the discourse, so as to say this: There are three classes of men (1 John 5:9, compared with John 5:34), who discharge the office of bearing witness on earth; (1st) that class of witnesses in general which is employed in preaching the Gospel; and, in particular, (2d) that class of witnesses, which administers baptism, as John the Baptist and the others; and also (3d) that class of witnesses, which beheld and puts on record the passion and death of the Lord. There is therefore a METALEPSIS,(20) and that of a most weighty kind: viz. one wherein (a) by a Synecdoche of number, instead of the whole class of witnesses, there is put one who witnesses; as though it were said, a prophet, baptist, apostle: for although these three functions might often meet in one man, yet of themselves they were divided: comp. Ephesians 4:11 : and on that account the Metonymy is the more suitable, on which presently. The degrees of these three functions are found, Matthew 11:9; Matthew 11:11, where however the word prophet is used in a more restricted sense. (b) By Metonymy of the abstract term, instead of those who bear witness, as αὐτόπται καὶ ὑπηρέται (eye-witnesses and ministers), the spirit itself, the water, and the blood, are mentioned.— ἐν τῇ γῇ, on earth) See below.— τὸ πνεῦμα, καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ, καὶ τὸ αἷμα, the spirit, and the water, and the blood) The apostle changes the order: for whereas before he had put the spirit in the third place, he now puts it in the first place, according to the natural order. The spirit, as was before said, bore witness before the water and the blood; and the spirit bears witness even without the testimony of the water and the blood, but the water and the blood never bear witness without the spirit.— καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἓν εἰσιν, and these three agree in one [concur towards one end]) The Prophet, the Baptist, and the Apostle are equally of the same earthly nature of themselves (comp. are one, 1 Corinthians 3:8), and are ordained altogether to one end, to testify of Jesus Christ, as of Him who is come into the world. Comp. εἶναι εἰς τὶ, Luke 5:17. τὸ ἓν, with the article, denotes not so much one, as the same thing.

Does this interpretation of the 7th verse seem somewhat weak? This complaint will presently be of service to our argument.

Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton took a similar approach as Erasmus, looking to Jerome as the principle figure in placing the Comma in the Bible. Newton also thought that the Athanasius Disputation with Arius (Ps-Athanasius) "had been deeply influential on the subsequent attitude to the authenticity of the passage." Newton's comment that from Matthew 28:19 "they tried at first to derive the Trinity" implies that for the conjectured interpolation, "the Trinity" was the motive.

Richard Simon

Richard Simon believed the verse began in a Greek scholium, while Herbert Marsh posited the origin as a Latin scholium. Simon conjectured that the Athanasius exposition at Nicea was the catalyst for the Greek scholium which brought forth the text.

Richard Porson

Richard Porson was a major figure in the opposition to the authenticity of the verse. His theory of spurious origin involved Tertullian and Cyprian, and also the interpretation by Augustine which led to a marginal note. And, in the Porson theory, that marginal note was in the Bible text used by the author of the Confession of Faith at the Council of Carthage of 484 AD. Porson also considered the Vulgate Prologue as spurious, a forgery not written by Jerome, and this Prologue was responsible for the entrance into the Vulgate. "..Latin copies had this verse in the eighth century. It is then that we suppose it to have crawled into notice on the strength of Pseudo-Jerome's recommendation."

Johann Jakob Griesbach

Johann Jakob Griesbach wrote his Diatribe in Locum 1 Joann V. 7, 8 in 1806, as an Appendix to his Critical Edition of the New Testament. In the Diatribe, Griesbach "expresses his conviction that the seventh verse rests upon the authority of Vigilius Tapsensis."

The 1808 Improved Version, with Thomas Belsham contributing, followed Griesbach on the idea of Tapsensis authority, combined with enhancing the forgery intimations of Gibbon. Thus came the theory that the verse was a forgery by Virgilius Tapsensis. This emphasis on Tapsensis (Thapsus) was echoed by Unitarians of the 1800s, including Theophilus Lindsey, Abner Kneeland, and John Wilson.

John Oxlee

John Oxlee, in his journal debate with Frederick Nolan, accused the African Prelates Vigilius Tapensis and Fulgentius Ruspensis of thrusting the verse into the Latin manuscripts.

William Orme

William Orme, in the Monthly Review, 1825, conjectured Augustine as the source. "it is probable that the verse originated in the interpretation of St. Augustine. It seems to have existed for some time on the margins of the Latin copies, in a kind of intermediate state, as something better than a mere dictum of Augustine, and yet not absolutely Scripture itself. By degrees it was received into the text, where it appears in by far the greater number of Latin manuscripts now in our hands."

Benjamin Wilson

Benjamin Wilson gives the following explanation for this action in his "Emphatic Diaglott":

"This text concerning the heavenly witness is not contained in any Greek manuscript which was written earlier than the fifteenth century. It is not cited by any of the ecclesiastical writers; not by any of early Latin fathers even when the subjects upon which they treated would naturally have lead them to appeal to it's authority. It is therefore evidently spurious."

Scrivener

Scrivener allowed for the authenticity of the Cyprian citation as a reference to the verse being in Cyprian's Bible. ^[] To allow for this, Scrivener's theory of the source and timing of an interpolation can not be late, and his scenario did not give estimated dates or any names responsible. "the disputed words...were originally brought into Latin copies in Africa from the margin, where they had been placed as a pious and orthodox gloss on v. 8: that from the Latin they crept into two or three late Greek codices, and thence into the printed Greek text, a place to which they had no rightful claim."

Joseph Barbour Lightfoot

Joseph Barbour Lightfoot, who similarly worked on the Revision, included Origen as part of the origin. "not in the first instance a deliberate forgery, but a comparatively innocent gloss .... the spirit and the water and the blood—a gloss which is given substantially by S. Augustine and was indicated before by Origen and Cyprian, and which first thrust itself into the text in some Latin MSS .."

Brooke Foss Westcott had a theory of verse origin and development which said of the Augustine reference in the City of God - "Augustine supplies the word 'Verbum' which is required to 'complete the gloss'". Even in 1892, in the third edition of The epistles of St John: the Greek text, with notes and essays, when Westcott acknowledged the newly discovered Liber Apologeticus Priscillian reference with verbum, the Augustine Verbum/gloss assertion remained in his book. And the assertion "there is no evidence that it was found in the text of St John before the latter part of the 5th century" also remained, alongside "The gloss which had thus become an established interpretation of St John's words is first quoted as part of the Epistle in a tract of Priscillian (c 385)".

Joseph Pohle

Joseph Pohle, after asking "how did the text of the three heavenly Witnesses find its way into the Vulgate? All explanations that have been advanced so far are pure guesswork." concludes "the Comma Ioanneum was perhaps found in copies of the Latin Bible current in Africa as early as the third century", and then considered Cassiodorus as responsible for inserting the verse into the Vulgate. Pohle, like Scrivener, allows that the Cyprian citation may well indicate that the verse was in his Bible.

Karl Künstle

In the early 20th century Karl Künstle helped to popularize a theory that Priscillian of Ávila (ca. 350-385) was the author of the Comma. The theory held that "Priscillian interpolated ... in the first epistle of John so as to justify in this way his unitarian theories. The text was then retouched in order to appear orthodox, and in this shape found its way into several Spanish documents." This idea of a Priscillian origin for the Comma had a brief scholarship flourish and then quickly lost support in textual circles. The Priscillian citation had been recently published in 1889 by Georg Schepps.

Alan England Brooke

Alan England Brooke, while theorizing that "the growth of that gloss can be traced back at least as early as Cyprian" also placed the Theodulfian recension of the Vulgate, after 800 AD, as a prime point whereby the verse first gained traction into the Latin text-lines. "It is through the Theodulfian Recension of the Vulgate that the gloss first gained anything like wide acceptance".

Adolf Harnack

Adolf Harnack in Zur Textkritik und Christologie der Schriften des Johannes "argues that the comma johanneum is the post-augustinian revision of an old addition to the text".

Raymond Brown

Raymond Brown expresses a theory of verse development in which the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian (the sections that proponents consider Comma allusions) represented the "thought process" involved, that gave rise to the Comma. The words of the Comma "appear among Latin writers in North Africa and Spain in the third century as a dogmatic reflection on and expansion of the 'three that testify': 'the Spirit' is the Father [Jn 4:24]; 'the blood' is the Son; 'the water' is the Spirit (Jn 7:38-39)."

Walter Thiele

Walter Thiele allows for a Greek origin of the Comma, before Cyprian. Raymond Brown summarizes: "Thiele, Beobachtungen 64-68, argues that the I John additions may have a Greek basis, for sometimes a plausible early chain can be constructed thus: Cyprian, Pseudo-Cyprian, Augustine, Pseudo-Augustine, Spanish Vulgate (especially Isidore of Seville and Theodolfus)."

Michael Maynard said of Walter Thiele:

“Walter Thiele was my professor at Tubingen. He works at the Vetus Latina Institute in Beuron, Germany. I was delighted to discover his article in 1959 where he argued against the common view of Tischendorf and Griesbach who said that Cyprian, one of the oldest Church Father, quoted it—What did Griesbach and Tischendorf say? They said that Cyprian was just looking at the eighth verse and he just allegorized those witnesses as heavenly ones. But Thiele in 1959 argued, “No, Cyprian did not merely allude to verse 8, he actually had a Latin manuscript in his hand which had 1 John 5:7.” So Thiele is going against the crowd. Yet Thiele is a Hort-Westcott advocate! Further, Thiele is regarded as the foremost scholar of Latin Biblical manuscripts. Yet he is in favour of the [PAGE 37] view that Cyprian actually had 1 John 5:7 in that Latin manuscript he held in his hands, although Thiele still regards the verse as an interpolation. Now I asked Dr Thiele “That was your view 30 years ago. Do you still believe this today?” He replied “Ja, aber ich bin allein” which means “Yes, I am alone.” (with respect to the view that Cyprian quoted verse 7, instead of alluding to verse 8.) Thus, when it comes to issues on Latin manuscripts, all the professors in Germany consult Thiele, but when it comes to his view on the Johannine Comma, they do not want to listen to him! But that is about all the time I have now.”

~ Michael Maynard, "In Defence of the Johannine Comma", in The Burning Bush, Far Easter Bible College vol 3, no. 1, January 1997, p. 36-37

Jaroslav Pelikan

Church historian Jaroslav Pelikan expresses the common scholarly view that the words (apparently) crept into the Latin text of the New Testament during the Early Middle Ages, "[possibly] as one of those medieval glosses but were then written into the text itself by a careless copyist. Erasmus omitted them from his first edition; but when a storm of protest arose because the omission seemed to threaten the doctrine of the Trinity, he put them back in the third and later editions, whence they also came into the Textus Receptus, 'the received text'."

Most New Testament scholars today believe that the Comma was inserted into the Old Latin text based on a gloss to that text, with the original gloss dating to the 3rd or 4th century, as expressed with some qualifications by Bruce Metzger.

These theories generally consider the verse as not in the Bible of Cyprian. The acceptance of the possibility of Cyprian reading the verse in his Bible impels a more difficult conjecture of very early interpolation, essentially before the Arian and Sabellian doctrinal battles. Yet it is those doctrinal battles which are generally given as supplying the motive for the proposed interpolation.

Forgery

Most opponents of the Comma as inauthentic view the verse as having arisen by a sequence of events involving scribal difficulties and error. Often this is a staged understanding, beginning with an interpretation placed as a margin commentary. The margin note is later erroneously brought into the text by a scribe who mistakenly thought the margin note indicated a superior alternate reading or correction. Those types of proposed scenarios are based on the limitations inherent in laborious hand-copying and do not have to impugn motives.

By contrast, the accusations of deliberate textual tampering and forgery for doctrinal purposes are based on scribes making deliberate changes away from the original text. A number of writers have theories of direct forgery as the motive for the insertion of the Comma into the text. Some of these theories were developed after the 1883 Priscillian discovery and fingered Priscillian as the culprit.

Voltaire wrote that the verse was inserted at the time of Constantine. "Lactantius...It was about this time that, among the very violent disputes on the Trinity, this famous verse was inserted in the First Epistle of St. John: “There are three that bear witness in earth—the word or spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three are one.”.

The accusation against the verse by Edward Gibbon in 1781, while stating "the Scriptures themselves were profaned by their rash and sacrilegious hands" stops short of a direct accusation of forgery by also discussing marginal notes and allegorical interpretation. In response to Gibbon, George Travis noted the lack of forgery accusations before the Reformation-era debate.

In 1813, Unitarian Thomas Belsham accused the verse of being an "impious forgery...spurious and fictitious". In Calm Inquiry in 1817, Belsham had the verse as a "palpable forgery" and his student, Unitarian minister Israel Worsley, for more emphasis wrote of "a gross and a palpable forgery".

For the next decades, the forgery accusation was generally made outside the context of textual analysis, usually by Unitarians and freethinkers, such as Robert Taylor. author of the Manifesto of the Christian Evidence Society. Everard Bierer took this approach "This bold interpolation shows conclusively what Trinitarian fanaticism in the Dark Ages would do, and leaves us to imagine what renderings it probably gave to many other texts, and especially somewhat obscure ones on the same subject."

In 1888, Philip Schaff, church historian who worked on the American committee of the Revision, brought the accusation to the mainstream, "Erasmus .. omitted in his Greek Testament the forgery of the three witnesses".

Charles Taze Russell in 1899 made his accusation specific and the forgery late: "the spurious words were no doubt interpolated by some over-zealous monk, who felt sure of the (Trinity) doctrine himself, and thought that the holy spirit had blundered in not stating the matter in the Scriptures: his intention, no doubt, was to help God and the truth out of a difficulty by perpetrating a fraud."

Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare was a textual scholar who wrote in 1910 a section specifically about "famous orthodox corruptions", including "The text of the three witnesses a doctrinal forgery".

Preserved Smith in 1920 called the verse "a Latin forgery of the fourth century, possibly due to Priscillian"

Gordon Campbell, author of Bible: The Story of the King James Version 1611-2011 asserts that the Comma is "a medieval forgery inserted into Bibles to support a trinitarian doctrine that had been erected on a disconcertingly thin biblical base.".

The popularity of the modern "orthodox corruption" view of Bart Ehrman has increased the forgery claims, especially on the Internet. Ehrman calls the Comma "the most obvious instance of a theologically motivated corruption in the entire manuscript tradition of the New Testament. Nonetheless, in my judgment, the comma's appearance in the tradition can scarcely be dated prior to the trinitarian controversies that arose after the period under examination." Ehrman posits his other corruptions as around the 2nd century, so Ehrman is considering the Comma as exceptional and placing the "appearance" of the Comma in the 300s or 400s, close to Priscillian's verse usage and citation as from John.

Opponents of the Comma

Daniel Wallace

See Main Article: Johannine Comma and Daniel Wallace

James White

See Main Article: Johannine Comma and James White

Bart Ehrman

Bart Ehrman calls the Comma:

“the most obvious instance of a theologically motivated corruption in the entire manuscript tradition of the New Testament. Nonetheless, in my judgment, the comma's appearance in the tradition can scarcely be dated prior to the Trinitarian controversies that arose after the period under examination.” Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 52.

Ehrman states that the Trinity is affected without this verse:

“the doctrine of the Trinity must be inferred from a range of passages combined to show that Christ is God, as is the Spirit and the Father, and that there is, nonetheless, only one God. This passage, in contrast states the doctrine directly and succinctly.” Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind who Changed the Bible and Why, SanFrancisco, Harper Collins, 2005, 81.

J. K. Elliott

J. K. Elliott a modern textual critic says:

"By using criteria such as the above the critic may reach a conclusion in discussing textual variants and be able to say which variant is the original reading. However, it is legitimate to ask: can a reading be accepted as genuine if it is supported by only one ms.? There is no reason why an original reading should not have been preserved in only one ms. but obviously a reading can be accepted with greater confidence, when it has stronger support" Even Kurt Aland says: "Theoretically, the original readings can be hidden in a single ms. thus standing alone against the rest of tradition," and Tasker has a similar comment: "The possibility must be left open that in some cases the true reading may have been preserved in only a few witnesses or even in a single relatively late witness." The Effect of Recent Textual Criticism upon New Testament Studies," The Background of the New Testament and its Eschatology, ed. W. D. Davies and D. Daube (Cambridge: The Cambridge University Press, 1956)

NIV Study Bible

The NIV Study Bible states:

1 John 5:7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

Marginal notes:

You will notice that the following phrase (Johannine Comma) is removed from their translation, ‘in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. 8 And there are three that testify on earth:’.

This phrase appears in the marginal notes with this comment,

‘not found in any Greek manuscript before the fourteenth century’.

Footnotes:

In the footnote section of their Bible they have the following comment,

‘…some older English versions add the words found in the NIV text note. But the addition is not found in any Greek manuscript or New Testament translation prior to the fourteenth century.’

Richard Muller

Richard Muller who holds the P. J. Zondervan Chair for Doctoral Studies as professor of historical theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, and has a Ph.D. from Duke University, talks about the Johannine Comma, the text of 1 John 5:5-8. Here are sentences in favor of this trinitarian text:

Of the early sixteenth-century editions of the Greek text of the New Testament, the Complutensian Polyglott (1504-1514) includes the phrase. . . . Later editions [of Erasmus] (1527 and 1536) also include the "comma." Erasmus' third edition was followed on this point by both Stephanus (1546, 1549, 1550) and Beza (1565; with annotations, 1582). . . . Reformed theologians, following out the line of Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza, tended to accept the text as genuine and, indeed, to use it as an integral part of their trinitarian theology. . . . In the theological works of the seventeenth-century orthodox---on the model provided by Calvin and Beza---the Johannine "comma" appears frequently, without question or comment, as one Johannine text among others cited in a catena of texts from the Gospel, the Apocalypse, and the epistles as grounds of the doctrine of the Trinity. Often the phrase is simply cited without comment as a supporting text, while some of the high orthodox writers note that it was cited by Cyprian---thus, by implication, refuting the arguments concerning its extremely late date. . . . Turretin noted that Erasmus had located the passage in a "most ancient British codex" and that "most praiseworthy editions, the Complutensian, the Antwerp, Arias Montanus, R. Stephanus, and Walton, which have all utilized the best codices, have the phrase. Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 2, Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology.

Elijah Hixson

See Main article: Johannine Comma and Elijah Hixson

Doctrinal Issues, Trinitarianism, Unitarianism, Arianism

Theories of both authenticity and spuriousness often interweave doctrinal and Christology concerns as part of their analysis of 'Origins', how the verse developed and was either dropped or added to Bible lines.

John Guyse gave a summary in the Practical Expositor that was a type of model for many of the later doctrinal expositions by those defending authenticity from a Trinitarian perspective.

"the Trinitarians therefore had less occasion to interpolate this verse, than the Antitrinitarians had to take it out of the sacred canon, if any, on either side, can be supposed to be so very wicked as to make such an attempt ; and it is much more likely that (Guyse describes homoeoteleuton or other omission) than that any should be so daring as designedly to add it to the text".

Often those who oppose authenticity take the position that the Comma was included in the Textus Receptus (TR) compiled by Erasmus of Rotterdam because of its doctrinal importance in supporting Trinitarianism. The passage is often viewed as an explicit reference to the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with notable exceptions.

The issue of whether Trinitarian doctrine is supported by, and dependent on, the heavenly witnesses is an ongoing dispute. Theophilus Lindsay, a Unitarian who opposed the authenticity of the verse, wrote:

"passage of scripture ... the only one which can be brought for any shew or semblance of proof of a Trinity in Unity proof of a Trinity in Unity, of three persons being one God, is 1 John v. 7."

And some defenders of authenticity place doctrinal Christology issues as only auxiliary or secondary, considering the primary issue to be the integrity of scripture. Nathaniel Ellsworth Cornwall wrote:

The genuineness of I. John, v. 7, then, is here maintained, not to secure a proof-text of the doctrine of the Trinity, but to preserve the integrity of Holy Scripture. As a proof-text it would be less important than many others if it were wholly unquestioned. But as a part of Holy Scripture it is to be defended with all diligence ... it is rather the integrity of Holy Scripture than the doctrine of the Trinity that is involved in the question of the genuineness of I. John, v. 7 ...

Euthymius Zigabenus

The early 12th cent commentary on the Letters of John by Zigabenus did not read contain the Johannine Comma. [1] [2] [3]

Support for the Comma

Diagram of the Textus Receptus reading of the Johannine Comma

Diagram of the Textus Receptus reading of the Johannine Comma, with red letters indicating the omitted words

Diagram of the Critical Text reading of Johannine Comma

1 John 5:7 appears is the large majority of reformation bibles, but is lacking in most modern versions.

Latin Manuscripts

Over 90% Vulgate mss have the comma. The earliest Vulgate manuscript is about 545 AD, Fuldensis (first published in the 1800s). Codex Fuldensis includes the Prologue to the Canonical Epistles which directly chastises unfaithful translators who have omitted the verse.

Church Fathers

The Council of Carthage in 481 AD included hundreds of Bishops who specifically give the verse, with special emphasis, in the doctrinal battles contra the Arians under Huneric. In their situation they where they faced with persecution and would have been extra careful to stick with accepted scripture. In his Letters to Edward Gibbon (1785) George Travis points says:

"That it may appear more clear than the light, that the divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, is one, see it proved by the Evangelist St. John, who writes thus: " There are three who bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one." [4]

There are a number of other references (Fulgentius .. book on Trinity to Felix Notarius contra Arians .. and the Greek writing on the disputation between Athanasius and Arius attributed to Maximus the Confessor are two. Plus the 400s-Carthage period actually has more than one source.)

550 AD Old Latin ms r has it

1000s AD miniscule 635 has it

Clement of Alexandria

There are two main sections of Clement's work that are discussed concerning the Johanneum Comma, See Main Article: Johannine Comma and Clement of Alexandria.

Tertullian

200 AD Tertullian wrote "which three are one" based on the verse in his Against Praxeas, chapter 25.

Cyprian of Carthage

250 AD Cyprian of Carthage, wrote, "And again, of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost it is written: "And the three are One" in his On The Lapsed, On the Novatians

Priscillian

350 AD Priscillian referred to it [Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Academia Litterarum Vindobonensis, vol. xviii, p. 6.]

Idacius Clarus

350 AD Idacius Clarus referred to it [Patrilogiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina by Migne, vol. 62, col. 359.]

Athanasius

350 AD Athanasius referred to it in his De Incarnatione

Aurelius Augustine

398 AD Aurelius Augustine used it to defend Trinitarianism in De Trinitate against the heresy of Sabellianism

Council of Carthage

415 AD Council of Carthage appealed to 1 John 5:7 when debating the Arian belief (Arians didn't believe in the deity of Jesus Christ)

African writers

450-530 AD Several orthodox African writers quoted the verse when defending the doctrine of the Trinity against the gainsaying of the Vandals. These writers are:

A) Vigilius Tapensis in "Three Witnesses in Heaven"

B) Victor Vitensis in his Historia persecutionis [Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Academia Litterarum Vindobonensis, vol. vii, p. 60.]

C) Fulgentius in "The Three Heavenly Witnesses" [Patrilogiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina by Migne, vol. 65, col. 500.]

Cassiodorus

500 AD Cassiodorus cited it [Patrilogiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina by Migne, vol. 70, col. 1373.]

Speculum

550 AD The "Speculum" has it [The Speculum is a treatise that contains some good Old Latin scriptures.]

Wianburgensis

750 AD Wianburgensis referred to it

Jerome's Vulgate

800 AD Jerome's Vulgate has it [It was not in Jerome's original Vulgate, but was brought in about 800 AD from good Old Latin manuscripts.]

Armenia – Synod of Sis

The Epistle of Gregory, the Bishop of Sis, to Haitho c. 1270 utilized 1 John 5:7 in the context of the use of water in the mass. The Synod of Sis of 1307 expressly cited the verse.

Waldensians

157-1400 AD Waldensian (that is, Vaudois) Bibles have the verse

Gennadius Scholarius

Georgios Gennadius Scholarius (1400-1473) mentions the Comma in his Επιτομή κατά Εθνικων 4. XV ( p. 263 in the printed edition)[5]:

Πατρι δε και Yιωι συναριθμουσι και το Πνευμα το άγιον τα της θείας Γραφης ρητά, ως [εν τωι κατά Ματθαιον, "Βαπτίζοντες αυτούς εις το όνομα του Πατρός και του Υιου και του αγίου Πνεύματος"] και εν τηι Ιωάννου πρώτηι, "Τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες εν τωι ουρανωι, ο Πατηρ, ο Λόγος και το Πνευμα το άγιον."

Translated as:

"The sayings of the divine Scripture count the holy Spirit together with the Father and the Son, as [ in Matthew : " Baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit"], and in John's First (sc. Letter) : "Three are those that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word and the holy Spirit". (An abridgement of (the book) Against the Gentiles 4. XV, (p. 263 in the printed edition))

Gennadius Compared to Scrivener

• 7. ...Τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες εν τωι ουρανωι, ο Πατηρ, ο Λόγος και το Πνευμα το άγιον. (Scholarius)
• 7. ...τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες εν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατήρ, ὁ λόγος, καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα· (Scrivener)

John Calvin

John Calvin on the Comma said:

"However, the passage flows better when this clause is added, and as I see that IT IS FOUND IN THE BEST AND MOST APPROVED COPIES, I am inclined to receive it as the true reading."

Jean Crespin

Crespin's edition in 1553 contains the Comma.

Crespin's edition in 1564 contains the Comma.

Jean Crespin in his 1553 and his 1564 Tês Kainês Diathêkês contains the Comma.

Jodocus Coccius

Jodocus Coccius in 1599 published Thesaurus catholicus in quo controversiae fidei... SS. Scripturarum, conciliorum et SS. ... Patrum testimoniis... explicantur. In it he mentions several early church writers who quote the comma, and other manuscript evidence.

1662 Book of Common Prayer

WHATSOEVER is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. 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. 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. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

[The First Sunday after Easter. The Epistle. 1 St. John 5. 4]

John Gill

John Gill - commenting on 1 John 5:7:

"As to the old Latin interpreter, it is certain it is to be seen in many Latin manuscripts of an early date, and stands in the Vulgate Latin edition of the London Polyglot Bible: and the Latin translation, which bears the name of Jerom[e], has it, and who, in an epistle of his to Eustochium, prefixed to his translation of these canonical epistles, complains of the omission of it by unfaithful interpreters."

"As to the old Latin interpreter, it is certain it is to be seen in many Latin manuscripts of an early date, and stands in the Vulgate Latin edition of the London Polyglot Bible: and the Latin translation, which bears the name of Jerom[e], has it, and who, in an epistle of his to Eustochium, prefixed to his translation of these canonical epistles, complains of the omission of it by unfaithful interpreters."

"And as to its being wanting in some Greek manuscripts, as the Alexandrian, and others, it need only be said, that it is to be found in many others; it is in an old British copy, and in the Complutensian edition, the compilers of which made use of various copies; and out of sixteen ancient copies of Robert Stephen's, nine of them had it."

"And yet, after all, certain it is, that it is cited by many of them; by Fulgentius, in the beginning of the "sixth" century, against the Arians, without any scruple or hesitation; and Jerome, as before observed, has it in his translation made in the latter end of the "fourth" century; and it is cited by Athanasius about the year 350; and before him by Cyprian, in the middle, of the "third" century, about the year 250; and is referred to by Tertullian about, the year 200; and which was within a "hundred" years, or little more, of the writing of the epistle; which may be enough to satisfy anyone of the genuineness of this passage; and besides, there never was any dispute about it till Erasmus left it out in the first edition of his translation of the New Testament; and yet he himself, upon the credit of the old British copy before mentioned, put it into another edition of his translation."

Matthew Henry

"We are stopped in our course by the contest there is about the genuineness of v. 7. It is alleged that many old Greek manuscripts have it not. It should seem that the critics are not agreed what manuscripts have it and what not; nor do they sufficiently inform us of the integrity and value of the manuscripts they peruse...There are some rational surmises that seem to support the present text and reading."

"The seventh verse is very agreeable to the style and the theology of our apostle...Facundus acknowledges that Cyprian says that of his three it is written, Et hi tres unum sunt—and these three are one. NOW THESE ARE THE WORDS, NOT OF V. 8, BUT OF V. 7. They are not used concerning the three on earth, the Spirit, the water, and the blood; but the three in heaven, the Father, and the Word, and the Holy Ghost...If all the Greek manuscripts and ancient versions say concerning the Spirit, the water, and the blood, that in unum sunt—they agree in one, then it was not of them that Cyprian spoke, whatever variety there might be in the copies in his time, when he said it is written, unum sunt—they are one. And therefore Cyprian's words seem still to be a firm testimony to V. 7."

"It was far more easy for a transcriber, by turning away his eye, or by the obscurity of the copy, it being obliterated or defaced on the top or bottom of a page, or worn away in such materials as the ancients had to write upon, to lose and omit the passage, than for an interpolator to devise and insert it. He must be very bold and impudent who could hope to escape detection and shame; and profane too, who durst venture to make an addition to a supposed sacred book."

"I think, in the book of God,... the text is worthy of all acceptation."

John Wesley

" I would insist only on the direct words, unexplained, just as they lie in the text: "There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: And these three are one."

"As they lie in the text :" -- but here arises a question: Is that text genuine? Was it originally written by the Apostle, or inserted in later ages? Many have doubted of this; and, in particular, the great light of the Christian church, lately removed to the Church above, Bengelius, -- the most pious, the most judicious, and the most laborious, of all the modern Commentators on the New Testament. For some time he stood in doubt of its authenticity, because it is wanting in many of the ancient copies. But his doubts were removed by three considerations: (1.) That though it is wanting in many copies, yet it is found in more; and those copies of the greatest authority: -- ( 2.) That it is cited by a whole gain of ancient writers, from the time of St. John to that of Constantine. This argument is conclusive: For they could not have cited it, had it not been in the sacred canon: -- (3.) That we can easily account for its being, after that time, wanting in many copies, when we remember that Constantine's successor was a zealous Arian, who used every means to promote his bad cause, to spread Arianism throughout the empire; in particular the erasing this text out of as many copies as fell into his hands. And he so far prevailed, that the age in which he lived is commonly styled, Seculum Aranium, -- "the Arian age;" there being then only one eminent man who opposed him at the peril of his life. So that it was a proverb, Athanasius contra mundum: "Athanasius against the world."

Eugenios Voulgaris

See main article: Johannine Comma and Eugenios Voulgaris

John Jortin

In 1760 John Jortin wrote The Life of Erasmus, volume 2 in which he mentions the history of the comma.

Frederick von Nolan

"'instead of "the Father, Word, and Spirit,' the remaining passage would have been direct concessions to the Gnostics and Sabellians, who, in denying the personal difference of the Father and the Son, were equally obnoxious to those avowed adversaries, the Catholics and the Arians. Nor did the orthodox require these verses for the support of their cause; they had other passages which would accomplish all that they could effect; and without their aid, they maintained and established their tenents."³

Nolan gives two reasons why 1 John 5:7 is seemingly scanty in reference to quotations from the church fathers: One - The passage in I John 5:7 is among those like 1 Timothy 3:16 and Acts 20:28 that have all been tampered with in the manuscript tradition, all three having to do with the deity of Christ as "God." Two - That the major reason for not quoting 1 John 5:7 was based on its wording, chiefly, purporting Jesus Christ as the "Word" instead of the "Son." Hence, with the Sabellian heresy being debated that Jesus Christ is the Father with no distinction, 1 John 5:7 would further propagate that notion. Therefore it wasn't quoted.

1823 Russian Bible

• 1823 Ибо три свидетельствуют на небе: Отец, Слово и Святый Дух; и Сии три суть едино И три свидетельствуют. Дух, вода и кровь, и сии три об одном.

Edward F. Hills

See main article Johannine Comma and Edward F. Hills

David Cloud

David Cloud said:

The first myth is that Erasmus promised to insert the verse if a Greek manuscript were produced. This is stated as follows by Bruce Metzger: “Erasmus promised that he would insert the Comma Johanneum, as it is called, in future editions if a single Greek manuscript could be found that contained the passage. At length such a copy was found--or made to order” (Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, 1st and 2nd editions).

The second myth is that Erasmus challenged Edward Lee to find a Greek manuscript that included 1 John 5:7. This originated with Erika Rummel in 1986 in her book Erasmus’ Annotations and was repeated by James White in 1995 (The Truth about the KJV-Only Controversy).

In A History of the Debate over 1 John 5:7,8, Michael Maynard records that H.J. de Jonge, the Dean of the Faculty of Theology at Rijksuniversiteit (Leiden, Netherlands), has refuted both myths. de Jonge, a recognized specialist in Erasmian studies, refuted the myth of a promise in 1980, stating that Metzger’s view on Erasmus’ promise “has no foundation in Erasmus’ work. Consequently it is highly improbable that he included the difficult passage because he considered himself bound by any such promise.” He has also refuted the new myth of a challenge (which Rummel devised in reaction to the burial of the promise myth). In a letter of June 13, 1995, to Maynard, de Jonge wrote:

I have checked again Erasmus’ words quoted by Erika Rummel and her comments on them in her book Erasmus’ Annotations. This is what Erasmus writes [on] in his Liber tertius quo respondet ... Ed. Lei: Erasmus first records that Lee had reproached him with neglect of the MSS. of 1 John because Er. (according to Lee) had consulted only one MS. Erasmus replies that he had certainly not used only one ms., but many copies, first in England, then in Brabant, and finally at Basle. He cannot accept, therefore, Lee’s reproach of negligence and impiety.

‘Is it negligence and impiety, if I did not consult manuscripts which were simply not within my reach? I have at least assembled whatever I could assemble. Let Lee produce a Greek MS. which contains what my edition does not contain and let him show that that manuscript was within my reach. Only then can he reproach me with negligence in sacred matters.’

From this passage you can see that Erasmus does not challenge Lee to produce a manuscript etc. What Erasmus argues is that Lee may only reproach Erasmus with negligence of MSS if he demonstrates that Erasmus could have consulted any MS. in which the Comma Johanneum figured. Erasmus does not at all ask for a MS. containing the Comma Johanneum. He denies Lee the right to call him negligent and impious if the latter does not prove that Erasmus neglected a manuscript to which he had access.

In short, Rummel’s interpretation is simply wrong. The passage she quotes has nothing to do with a challenge. Also, she cuts the quotation short, so that the real sense of the passage becomes unrecognizable. She is absolutely not justified in speaking of a challenge in this case or in the case of any other passage on the subject (emphasis in original) (de Jonge, cited from Maynard, p. 383).

Jeffrey Khoo observes further: “Yale professor Roland Bainton, another Erasmian expert, agrees with de Jonge, furnishing proof from Erasmus’ own writing that Erasmus’ inclusion of 1 John 5:7f was not due to a so-called ‘promise’ but the fact that he believed ‘the verse was in the Vulgate and must therefore have been in the Greek text used by Jerome’” (Jeffrey Khoo, Kept Pure in All Ages, 2001, p. 88).

Edward F. Hills, who had a doctorate in textual criticism from Harvard, testifies: “...it was not trickery that was responsible for the inclusion of the Johannine Comma in the Textus Receptus, but the usage of the Latin speaking Church” (Hills, The King James Version Defended).

In the 3rd edition of The Text of the New Testament Bruce Metzger corrected his false assertion about Erasmus as follows: “What is said on p. 101 above about Erasmus’ promise to include the Comma Johanneum if one Greek manuscript were found that contained it, and his subsequent suspicion that MS 61 was written expressly to force him to do so, needs to be corrected in the light of the research of H. J. DeJonge, a specialist in Erasmian studies who finds no explicit evidence that supports this frequently made assertion” (Metzger, The Text of The New Testament, 3rd edition, p. 291, footnote 2). The problem is that this myth continues to be paraded as truth by modern version defenders.

Dr. Floyd Nolen Jones

"As of 1997, the following cursive manuscripts are known to include the passage: 34, 88 (margin) 99, 105, 110, 162, 173, 181, 190, 193, 219, 220, 221, 298, 429, 629 (margin) 635, 636, and 918. Thus the list of Greek mss known to contain the "Comma" is not long, but it is longer (and growing) than many of us would have believed. It was part of the text of a 2nd century Old Latin Bible. It is found in "r", a 5th century Old Latin manuscript, and in a confession of faith drawn up by Eusebius, Bishop of Carthage, in 484."^[3]

Jack Moorman

J.A Moorman, in his When the KJV Departs from the Majority Text, on pages 142–143, writes the following concerning the removal of the Comma, and the internal difficulties which it creates:

1. If the passage is removed from the Greek text, the two Loose Ends will not join up grammatically. A problem arises which has to do with the use of the participle (a kind of verbal adjective). Being an adjective it modifies nouns and must agree with them in gender. With the full passage set out it becomes apparent how this rule of grammar is violated when the words are omitted. The disputed words are enclosed in square brackets. The underlined words form a participle. vs. 6 And it is the Spirit (neuter) that beareth witness (neuter) because the Spirit (neuter) is truth. vs. 7 For there are three (masculine) that bear record (masc) [in heaven, the Father (masc), the Word (masc), and Holy Ghost (neut): and these three (masc) are one (masc). vs. 8 And there are three (masc) that bear witness (masc) in earth] the Spirit (neut) and the water (neut) and the blood (neut): and these three (masc) agree in one. If one wants to remove the words within the brackets, the following problems must be addressed: Why after using a neuter participle in line 1 is a masculine participle used in line 3? Especially so if this second participle must have now modify 3 neuter nouns- Spirit, water, blood?

2. How can the masculine (1) numeral, (2) article (in the Greek), and (3) participle (i.e three masculine adjectives of line 3) be allowed to directly modify the three neuter nouns Spirit, water, blood?

3. What phenomena in Greek syntax would cause these three neuter nouns Spirit, water, blood to be treated as masculine by these three? There is not a good answer! And perhaps this is the reason why such leading Greek Scholars as Metzger, Vincent, Alford, Vine, Wuest, Bruce, Plummer, do not make the barest mention of the problem when dealing with the passage. The International Critical Commentary devotes 12 pages to the passage but says nothing about the mismatched genders

KJV Today

An article on the KJV_Today website looks at the Johannine first epistle text and asserts out that corruption in 1 John occurs in a number of doctrinally charged Christological verses, including full phrases. KJV Today notes that 1 John 2:23b is lacking in the majority Byzantine Greek ms line, yet supported in the Vulgate. (And 1 John 2:23b also has a very similar proposed method of accidental original text dropping in homoeoteleuton.) 1 John 4:3 and 1 John 5:13 have phrase omissions mostly in minority, early Alexandrian mss. They also discuss a corruption in 1 John 5:6, and there are omission/addition questions in 1 John 2:7 with from the beginning and 1 John 1:7 Christ. (The word corruption can apply symmetrically from both positions, whether an omission or addition.) Thus, they say that textual accident and even potential manipulation were relatively frequent in 1 John.."1 John has its fair share of early textual corruptions to demonstrate that passages were indeed altered for reasons of carelessness or infidelity … One thing is certain: the text of 1 John underwent corruption long before the alleged 'fabrication' of the Comma. With there being these other demonstrable examples of early textual corruptions, it is reasonable to suppose that the omission of the Comma was also an early textual corruption."

Grantley McDonald

Grantley McDonald's book Raising the Ghost of Arius - Erasmus, the Johannine Comma and Religious Difference in Early Modern Europe.

Chris Thomas

Chris Thomas is a Reformed Christian who runs the Confessional Bibliology website. He has an informative section concerning the Comma Johanneum.

Chris Pappas

In Defense of the Authenticity of 1 John 5:7

In 2016 C. H. Pappas wrote the book In Defense of the Authenticity of 1 John 5:7. He points out the grammatical solecism in the Critical Text if the words of the Comma are removed:

“If the Trinitarian passage is omitted, how are we to explain the masculine adjective, “trei” (three), the masculine article “o” (the plural), as well as the masculine participle “marturounte” (bear witness) in the eighth verse of this fifth chapter? The adjective, article, and the participle are all masculine. The problem arises when we consider the mixture of the masculine with neuter substantives which immediately follow. The three nouns that follow are “the spirit, and the water, and the blood” which are all neuter. As the reader can readily see, there is no agreement between these nouns with the masculine article, adjective, and participle that precedes them; they stand in opposition to them. Immediately, one should detect that there is a serious grammatical problem if the Comma is omitted. The masculine adjective “three,” and the masculine article “the” with the masculine participle “bear witness” (or record) of verse eight, is only understood by the attraction of the three witnesses of verse seven which are masculine. It is the Father and the Word and the Holy Ghost of the previous verse that explains the masculine adjective, article and participle in verse eight.” C. H. Pappas ThM. In Defense of the Authenticity of 1 John 5:7 (p. 45).

Tyndale House

• 2017 - 7 ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ [a]μαρτυροῦντες, 8 τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα, καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν.

Footnotes:

ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ Α 5:7 μαρτυροῦντες א A B K L P Ψ 69 88*(vid) 221 429 1424; add εν τη γη 61; add εν τω ουρανω ο πατηρ και ο λογος και το αγιον πνευμα και ουτοι οι τρεις εν εισιν και τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες εν τη γη 88marg(and add το πνευμα και το υδωρ) 221marg(add before οτι τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες, and add το πνευμα, και τα λοιπα) 2318; add εν τω ουρανω πατηρ λογος και πνευμα αγιον και ουτοι οι τρεις εν εισιν και τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες εν τη γη 429marg 918; add απο του ουρανου πατηρ λογος και πνευμα αγιον και οι τρεις εις το εν εισιν και τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες απο της γης 629

Manuscript Evidence

1 John 5:7

History of modern study

Hē Kainē Diathēkē 1859, with Griesbach's text of the New Testament. The English note is from the 1859 editor, with reasons for omitting the Comma Johanneum.

List of comma quotations in Armenian

⁷ Որովհետեւ երեք են որ [երկնքումը վկայում են, Հայրը եւ * Բանը եւ Սուրբ Հոգին. Եւ * այս երեքը մի են։ ⁸ Եւ երեք են որ երկրումը] վկայում են. Հոգին, եւ ջուրը, եւ արիւնը. Եւ այս երեքը միաբան են։

List of comma quotations in Greek

Some only have verse 7 so far

• 1437 - ⁷μαρτυροῦν, ὅτι ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν ἡ ἀλήθεια. ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατὴρ, ὁ λόγος, καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον· καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι· ⁸ καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ, τὸ πνεῦμα, τὸ ὕδωρ, καὶ τὸ αἷμα· (Bryennios)
• 1514 - ⁷ ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν/οἱ μαρτυροῦντες εν/τῷ οὐρανῷ,/ὁ πατήρ, καὶ/ὁ λόγος, καὶ/τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα, καὶ/οἱ τρεῖς εῖς/τὸ ἕν εἰσι· (Complutensian Polyglot)
• 1519 - ⁷ ὅτι τρεῖς ἐισιν ὁι μαρτυροῦντες, ⁸ τὸ πνεῦμα, καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ, καὶ τὸ ἇιμα, καὶ ὁι τρεῖς ἐις τὸ ἕν ἐισιν.
• 1522 - ⁷ ὅτι τρεῖς ἐισιν ὁι μαρτυροῦντες ἑν τῷ ὁυρανῷ, πατὴρ, λόγος, καὶ πνεῦμα ἅγιου, καὶ οὗτοι ὁι τρεῖς ἕν ἐισι. ⁸ καὶ τρεῖς ἐισιν ὁι μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ, πνεῦμα, καὶ ὕδωρ, καὶ αἷμα, καὶ ὁι τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν ἐισιν. (Erasmus)
• 1550 - ⁷ ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες εν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατήρ, ὁ λόγος, καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα· ⁸ καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσιν καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἕν τῇ γῇ, τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσὶν (Stephanus)
• 1588 - ⁷ Ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες εν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατήρ, ὁ λόγος, καὶ τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα· καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι· (Beza
• 1598 - ⁷ Ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατήρ, ὁ λόγος, καὶ τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα· καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι· ⁸ καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἕν τῇ γῇ, τὸ πνεῦμα, καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ, καὶ τὸ αἷμα· καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσὶν. (Beza)
• 1894 - ⁷ οηι ηρεις ειζιν οι μαρησροσνηες ⁸ ηο πνεσμα και ηο σδωρ και ηο αιμα και οι ηρεις εις ηο εν ειζιν (Tischendorf 8th Ed)
• 1894 - ⁷ ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες εν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατήρ, ὁ λόγος, καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα· καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσιν. ⁸ καὶ τρεῖς εἰσὶν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ, τὸ Πνεῦμα, καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ, καὶ τὸ αἷμα· καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν. (Scrivener)
• 1904 - ⁷ ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ Πατήρ, ὁ Λόγος καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα, καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι· ⁸ καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ, τὸ Πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα, καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν (Greek Orthodox)
• 1993 - ⁷ ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες, ⁸ τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα, καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν. (NA27)
• 2000 - ⁷ οηι ηρεις ειζιν οι μαρησροσνηες ⁸ ηο πνεσμα και ηο σδωρ και ηο αιμα και οι ηρεις εις ηο εν ειζιν (Byzantine/Majority Text)
• 2017 - ⁷ ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες, ⁸ τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα, καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν. (Tyndale House)

List of comma quotations in Latin

• 215 - "Ita connexus Patris in Filio et Filii in Paracleto, tres efficit coharentes, alterum ex altere, qui tres unum sunt, non unus, quomodo dictum est, Ego et Pater unum sumus." (Tertullian)
• 750 - Et spiritus est veritas quia tres sunt qui testimonium dant spiritus et aqua et sanguis. et tres unum sunt. Sicut etiam in caelum tres sunt pater. verbum. et spiritus. et tres unum sunt
• 1514 - Quonium tres sunt qui testimonium dant [in celo: pater: verbum: et spiritus sanctus: & hi tres unum sunt. 8 Et tres sunt qui oooo testimoniuʒ dant in terra:] Spiritus agua & sanguis. (Complutensian Polyglot)

List of comma quotations in Dutch

See also Johannine Comma and Dutch Bibles

• 1531 ^[7] Want drie zijnder die getuych gheuen inden hemel, die vader, twoort, ende die heylige geest, ende dese drie zijn een. ^[8] Ende drie zijnder die getuych geuen inder aerde, die geest, ende twater, ende bloet, ende dese drie zijn een. (Vorsterman Bible)
• 1542 ^[7] Want drie sijnder, die daer inden hemel getuyge geuen, Die vader, dat woort, ende die heylige geest. Ende dese drie sijn een, ^[8] Ende drye sijnder die daer getuyge geuen inder aerden, die geest, dat water ende dat bloet, ende die drie sijn een. (Liesvelt Bible)
• 1548 ^[7] Want drij isser die ghetuyghenis gheuen inden hemel. Die vader, dwoert, ende die heylighe gheest, ende dese drij sijn een. ^[8]Ende drij esser die ghetuyghenis gheuen op deerde. Den gheest, dwater, ende tbloet, ende dese drij sijn een. (Leuven Bible)
• 1560 ^[7] Want drie zijnder die daer getuychenisse geuen op Aerden, ^[8] De Gheest, ende dat Water, ende dat Bloet, ende die drie zijn by malcanderen. (Biestkensbible)
• 1562 ^[7] Want dry zijnder die ghetuygenisse gheuen h+ inden Hemel, de Vader, het Woort, ende de heylighe Gheest, ende die dry zijn een. ^[8] Ende dry zijnder die ghetuyghenisse gheuen op der Aerden: de Gheest, ende het water, ende het bloet: ende die dry zijn tot eenen. (Deux-Aes Bible)
• 1637 ^[7] Want Drie zijn er, Die getuigen in den hemel, de Vader, het Woord en de Heilige Geest; en deze Drie zijn Een. ^[8] En drie zijn er, die getuigen op de aarde, de Geest, en het water, en het bloed; en die drie zijn tot een. (Statenvertaling)
• 1648 ^[7] Want drie zijnder die getuygen in den Hemel, de Vader, het Woort, ende heylige Geest: ende dese drie zijn een. ^[8] Ende drie zijnder die getuygen op Aerden, de Geest, ende het Water, ende het Bloet: ende b die drie zijn by malkanderen. (Visscher Bible)

List of comma quotations in English

Some only have verse 7 so far

• 1380 - ⁷ For thre ben, that yyuen witnessing in heuene, the Fadir, the Sone, and the Hooli Goost; and these thre ben oon. (Wycliffe)
• 1395 - ⁷ For thre ben, that yyuen witnessing in heuene, the Fadir, the Sone, and the Hooli Goost; and these thre ben oon. (Wycliffe)
• 1534 - ⁷ (For ther are thre which beare recorde in heuen the father the worde and the wholy goost. And these thre are one) (Tyndale)
• 1535 - ⁷ (For there are thre which beare recorde in heauen: the father, the worde, and the holy goost, & these thre are one.) (Coverdale)
• 1549 - ⁷ (For there are thre which beare recorde in heauen, the father, the worde, and the holye Ghoste. And these thre are one.) (Matthew's)
• 1557 - ⁷ For there are three, which bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the holy Ghost: and these three are one. (Geneva)
• 1560 - ⁷ For there are three, which bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the holy Ghost: and these three are one. ⁸ And there are three, which beare record in the earth, the spirit, and the water and the blood: and these three agree in one. (Geneva)
• 1568 - ⁷ For there are three which beare recorde in heauen, the father, the worde, and the holy ghost, and these three are one. ⁸ And there are three which beare recorde in earth, the spirite, and water, and blood, and these three agree in one. (The Bishops' Bible)
• 1611 - ⁷ For there are three that beare record in heauen, the Father, the Word, and the holy Ghost: and these three are one. (Authorized Version)
• 1750 - ⁷ And there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one. ⁷ And there are three that give testimony on earth: the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three are one. (Douay-Rheims Bible, Challoner revision)
• 1769 - ⁷ For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. ⁸ And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.(Authorized Version)
• 1833 - ⁷ For there are three that bear testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. (Websters)
• 1855 - ⁷ For there are three who testify in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. (Calvin)
• 1890 - ⁷ For they that bear witness are three: (Darby)
• 1898 - ⁷ because three are who are testifying in the heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these -- the three -- are one; (YLT)
• 1993 - ⁷ For there are three bearing witness in Heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. ⁸ And there are three who bear witness on the earth: The Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and the three are to the one. (LITV)

List of comma quotations in French

• 1644 - ⁷ Car il y en a trois qui tesmoignent au ciel; le Pere, la Parole, & le Saint Esprit: & ces trois sont vne mesme chose. ⁸ Aussi y en at-il trois qui tesmoignent en la terre; l’Esprit, & l’eau, & le sang: & ces trois se rapportent a cette chose vnique-là.

List of comma quotations in German

See also Johannine Comma and German Bibles

1350 ^[8] Wann drei sint di da geziuchnüsse gebent in d' erden d' geist wazz' un bluet, und dis drei sint ainz. ^[7] und drei sint di da geziuchnüsse gebent i dem himel. det vat'. d' sun od' daz wort, un d' hilige geist. und dis drie sint ainez. (Augsburger Bible[6])

1466 ^[8] Wann drey seind die gebent gezeug auf der erde, der geist, wasser, ond blut, ond dise drey seind ein. ^[7] Vnd drey seind die gebent gezeug im himel, der vatter, das wort, ond der heilig geist; ond dise drey seind ein. (Mentelin Bible[7])

1475 ^[8] wan drey seind die da gebent gezeugknub auff der erde, d'geyst, das wasser, on de blut, ond dise drey seind eins. ^[7] Vnd drey seind die da gebent gezeugknub im himel. Der vatter, das wort, ond der heylig gist ond dise drey seind eyns. (Gunther Zainer)

1476 ^[8] wan drey sind die da beget gezugknusb auff der erde,d' geyst, das wasser, ond das blut, und dise dry sind eins. ^[7] Vn dry sind die da gebent gezugknusz im himel. Der vatter, das wort, ond der heylig gist ond dise drey seind eyns. (Gunther Zainer)

1476 ^[8] was dry sind die da gebet gezugknusz off o erde der geyst, das wasser, ond das plut, und dise dry sind eins. ^[7] Un dry sind die da gebent gezugknusz im himel Der vatter, das wort, on der heylig geyst, onnd dise dry sind eins.

1477 ^[8] wan drei seind die do gebent gezeugknub auff d'erd, d'geyst, de wasser on de plut, on dise drei sind eins ^[7] Un drei seind die do gebent zeugknub i himel. Der vater de wort on d'heylig geyst. ond dise drei seind eins. (Gunther Zainer)

1478 ^[7] wente dre sint de dar gheuen ghetuchnisse in dem hemmel. de vadeer. dat word, vnde de hillighe gheyst. vnde desse dre sint een. ^[8] Vnde dre sint de dar gheuen ghetuchnisse vp der erden. de gheyst. dat water. vnde dat bloed. vnde desse dre sint een. (Kolner Bible)

1483 ^[8] wan drey sind, Sy da geben gezewgknub auff der erde, der geyst, de wasser, und daz blut, und dise drey sind eins. ^[7] Und drey sind die da geben gezewgknub im hymel. Der vater, das wort, un der heylig geyst, on dise drey seind eins. (Anton Koberger)

1485 ^[8] Wann drey seind, die da geben gezewgknub auff der ere, d'geist das wasser, ond das Blut, onnd dise drey seind eins. ^[7] Unnd drey sind dye da geben gezewgknub imm hymel. Der vatter das wort, ond der heilig geist, und dyse drey seind eins. (Johann Reinhard de Gruningen)

1490 ^[8] wann drey sind, die da geben gezeugknub auff der erde, der geyst, das wasser, onnd auch de blutt, onnd dise drey sind eyns. ^[7] Und drey sind die da geben gezeugknub im hymmel. Der vater, das wortt, onnd der heylige geyst, on dise drey sind eins. (Johann Schonsperger)

List of comma quotations in Arabic

• 5:6 هذا هو الذي اتى بماء و دم يسوع المسيح لا بالماء فقط بل بالماء و الدم و الروح هو الذي يشهد لان الروح هو الحق
• 5:7 فان الذين يشهدون في السماء هم ثلاثة الاب و الكلمة و الروح القدس و هؤلاء الثلاثة هم واحد
• 5:8 و الذين يشهدون في الارض هم ثلاثة الروح و الماء و الدم و الثلاثة هم في الواحد

List of comma quotations in Italian

• Poiché tre sono quelli che rendono testimonianza nel cielo: il Padre, la Parola e lo Spirito Santo; e questi tre sono uno. Tre ancora sono quelli che rendono testimonianza sulla terra: lo Spirito, l'acqua e il sangue; e questi tre sono d'accordo come uno.

Modern English Versions that omit the Comma

“Because those who testify are three:” (A Conservative Version)

“Because three are the Ones testifying:” (Analytical-Literal Translation)

“For there are three who give their testimony [about Jesus]:” (An Understandable Version-The New Testament)

“And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the truth.” (American Standard Version)

“And the Spirit is the witness, because the Spirit is true.” (Bible Basic English)

“In fact, there are three who tell about it.” (Contemporary English Version)

“There are three witnesses -” (The Complete Jewish Bible)

“And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth.” (Common Edition, New Testament)

“For they that bear witness are three:” (Darby)

“For there are three that bear witness:” (English Majority Text Version)

“For there are three that testify:” (English Standard Version)

“There are three witnesses:” (Good News Bible)

“There are three witnesses:” (God's Word)

“For there are three that testify:” (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

“For there are three who testify:” (The Hebrew Names Version)

“For there are three witnesses-” (International Standard Version)

“And it is the Spirit who testified; because the Spirit is the truth.” (Living Oracles New Testament)

“A triple testimony:” (The Message)

“For there are three that testify:” (New American Standard Bible)

“So there are three witnesses that tell us about Jesus:” (New Century Version)

“For there are three that testify,” (NET Bible)

“There are three that give witness about Jesus.” (New International Reader's Version)

“For there are three that testify:” (New International Version)

“So we have these three witnesses -” (New Living Translation)

“There are three that testify:” (New Revised Standard Version Bible)

“And the Spirit is the witness, because the Spirit is the truth.” (Revised Standard Version)

“And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the truth.” (Revised Version)

“Because there are three who bear witness:” (The Scriptures 1998)

“It is a three-fold testimony--” (Twentieth Century New Testament)

“For there are three who bear witness,” (Updated Bible Version)

“For there are three who testify:” (World English Bible)

See Also

• 1 John 5:7
• 1 John 5:8
• Johanneum Comma and Eugenios Voulgaris
• Response to Daniel Wallace Regarding 1 John 5:7 by Martin A. Shue

References

• 1. Such as Grantly Mcdonald, James White, and Barry Hofstetter.
• 2. A list of 46 "Treatises on the genuineness of the disputed clause in I John V.7,8" appears in "An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures" by Thomas Hartwell Horne (2nd ed. 1836, Philadelphia) vol. 2, Part II, Chap. III, page 80–83.

External Links

• Anonymous Author on 1 John 5:7
• KJV Today: 1 John 5:7 A fuller picture of the corruption of 1 John 5:6-7. (Includes photographs of manuscripts and other visual aids)
• A complete list of New Testament manuscripts that verify 1 John 5:7
• Wikipedia Article on Comma Johanneum
• Johannine Comma Blogspot
• A Treatise on the Trinity; in which it is demonstrated that there are Three Persons, or hypostases, in the Godhead, all co-eternal, co-equal, and co-essential, etc Robert CRAIG (A.M., of Frescati.)

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List of New Testament Papyri

1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 · 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20 · 21 · 22 · 23 · 24 · 25 · 26 · 27 · 28 · 29 · 30 · 31 · 32 · 33 · 34 · 35 · 36 · 37 · 38 · 39 · 40 · 41 · 42 · 43 · 44 · 45 · 46 · 47 · 48 · 49 · 50 · 51 · 52 · 53 · 54 · 55 · 56 · 57 · 58 · 59 · 60 · 61 · 62 · 63 · 64 · 65 · 66 · 67 · 68 · 69 · 70 · 71 · 72 · 73 · 74 · 75 · 76 · 77 · 78 · 79 · 80 · 81 · 82 · 83 · 84 · 85 · 86 · 87 · 88 · 89 · 90 · 91 · 92 · 93 · 94 · 95 · 96 · 97 · 98 · 99 · 100 · 101 · 102 · 103 · 104 · 105 · 106 · 107 · 108 · 109 · 110 · 111 · 112 · 113 · 114 · 115 · 116 · 117 · 118 · 119 · 120 · 121 · 122 · 123 · 124 · 125 · 126 · 127 · 128 · 129 · 130 · 131 · 132 · 133 · 134 · 135 · 136 · 137 · 138 · 139 · 140 ·

List of New Testament minuscules

1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 · 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20 · 21 · 22 · 23 · 24 · 25 · 26 · 27 · 28 · 29 · 30 · 31 · 32 · 33 · 34 · 35 · 36 · 37 · 38 · 39 · 40 · 41 · 42 · 43 · 44 · 45 · 46 · 47 · 48 · 49 · 50 · 51 · 52 · 53 · 54 · 55 · 56 · 57 · 58 · 59 · 60 · 61 · 62 · 63 · 64 · 65 · 66 · 67 · 68 · 69 · 70 · 71 · 72 · 73 · 74 · 75 · 76 · 77 · 78 · 79 · 80 · 81 · 82 · 83 · 84 · 85 · 86 · 87 · 88 · 89 · 90 · 91 · 92 · 93 · 94 · 95 · 96 · 97 · 98 · 99 · 100 · 101 · 102 · 103 · 104 · 105 · 106 · 107 · 108 · 109 · 110 · 111 · 112 · 113 · 114 · 115 · 116 · 117 · 118 · 119 · 120 · 121 · 122 · 123 · 124 · 125 · 126 · 127 · 128 · 129 · 130 · 131 · 132 · 133 · 134 · 135 · 136 · 137 · 138 · 139 · 140 · 141 · 142 · 143 · 144 · 145 · 146 · 147 · 148 · 149 · 150 · 151 · 152 · 153 · 154 · 155 · 156 · 157 · 158 · 159 · 160 · 161 · 162 · 163 · 164 · 165 · 166 · 167 · 168 · 169 · 170 · 171 · 172 · 173 · 174 · 175 · 176 · 177 · 178 · 179 · 180 · 181 · 182 · 183 · 184 · 185 · 186 · 187 · 188 · 189 · 190 · 191 · 192 · 193 · 194 · 195 · 196 · 197 · 198 · 199 · 200 · 201 · 202 · 203 · 204 · 205 · 206 · 207 · 208 · 209 · 210 · 211 · 212 · 213 · 214 · 215 · 216 · 217 · 218 · 219 · 220 · 221 · 222 · 223 · 224 · 225 · 226 · 227 · 228 · 229 · 230 · 231 · 232 · 233 · 234 · 235 · 236 · 237 · 238 · 239 · 240 · 241 · 242 · 243 · 244 · 245 · 246 · 247 · 248 · 249 · 250 · 251 · 252 · 253 · 254 · 255 · 256 · 257 · 258 · 259 · 260 · 261 · 262 · 263 · 264 · 265 · 266 · 267 · 268 · 269 · 270 · 271 · 272 · 273 · 274 · 275 · 276 · 277 · 278 · 279 · 280 · 281 · 282 · 283 · 284 · 285 · 286 · 287 · 288 · 289 · 290 · 291 · 292 · 293 · 294 · 295 · 296 · 297 · 298 · 299 · 300 · 301 · 302 · 303 · 304 · 305 · 306 · 307 · 308 · 309 · 310 · 311 · 312 · 313 · 314 · 315 · 316 · 317 · 318 · 319 · 320 · 321 · 322 · 323 · 324 · 325 · 326 · 327 · 328 · 329 · 330 · 331 · 332 · 333 · 334 · 335 · 336 · 337 · 338 · 339 · 340 · 341 · 342 · 343 · 344 · 345 · 346 · 347 · 348 · 349 · 350 · 351 · 352 · 353 · 354 · 355 · 356 · 357 · 358 · 359 · 360 · 361 · 362 · 363 · 364 · 365 · 366 · 367 · 368 · 369 · 370 · 371 · 372 · 373 · 374 · 375 · 376 · 377 · 378 · 379 · 380 · 381 · 382 · 383 · 384 · 385 · 386 · 387 · 388 · 389 · 390 · 391 · 392 · 393 · 394 · 395 · 396 · 397 · 398 · 399 · 400 · 401 · 402 · 403 · 404 · 405 · 406 · 407 · 408 · 409 · 410 · 411 · 412 · 413 · 414 · 415 · 416 · 417 · 418 · 419 · 420 · 421 · 422 · 423 · 424 · 425 · 426 · 427 · 428 · 429 · 430 · 431 · 432 · 433 · 434 · 435 · 436 · 437 · 438 · 439 · 440 · 441 · 442 · 443 · 444 · 445 · 446 · 447 · 448 · 449 · 450 · 451 · 452 · 453 · 454 · 455 · 456 · 457 · 458 · 459 · 460 · 461 · 462 · 463 · 464 · 465 · 466 · 467 · 468 · 469 · 470 · 471 · 472 · 473 · 474 · 475 · 476 · 477 · 478 · 479 · 480 · 481 · 482 · 483 · 484 · 485 · 486 · 487 · 488 · 489 · 490 · 491 · 492 · 493 · 494 · 495 · 496 · 497 · 498 · 499 · 500 · 501 · 502 · 503 · 504 · 505 · 506 · 507 · 543 · 544 · 565 · 566 · 579 · 585 · 614 · 639 · 653 · 654 · 655 · 656 · 657 · 658 · 659 · 660 · 661 · 669 · 676 · 685 · 700 · 798 · 823 · 824 · 825 · 826 · 827 · 828 · 829 · 830 · 831 · 876 · 891 · 892 · 893 · 1071 · 1143 · 1152 · 1241 · 1253 · 1423 · 1424 · 1432 · 1582 · 1739 · 1780 · 1813 · 1834 · 2050 · 2053 · 2059 · 2060 · 2061 · 2062 · 2174 · 2268 · 2344 · 2423 · 2427 · 2437 · 2444 · 2445 · 2446 · 2460 · 2464 · 2491 · 2495 · 2612 · 2613 · 2614 · 2615 · 2616 · 2641 · 2754 · 2755 · 2756 · 2757 · 2766 · 2767 · 2768 · 2793 · 2802 · 2803 · 2804 · 2805 · 2806 · 2807 · 2808 · 2809 · 2810 · 2811 · 2812 · 2813 · 2814 · 2815 · 2816 · 2817 · 2818 · 2819 · 2820 · 2821 · 2855 · 2856 · 2857 · 2858 · 2859 · 2860 · 2861 · 2862 · 2863 · 2881 · 2882 · 2907 · 2965 ·