Also, I think it is a cheap tactic to say that verses which do not support your view are "added" or "a mistranslation."
Another cheap shot, SwedishChef? What else have I come to expect.
I do not make that statement simply because I disagree with them, but base it upon research and statements from translators and scholars that have discovered proof they were added. What proof, you might ask? Like the first mention of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost to appear at 1 John 5:7 was in the latin form of a marginal note, not Greek, as the Bible was written in.
Try actually seeking information and not just quoting what someone tells you should believe sometime, you just might see a real eye opener one day!
Lew W
Regarding 1 John 5:7,8, Paul S. L. Johnson states: "Assuming that this text were genuine, it would not prove that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God; for the Greek word for 'one' here is 'hen,' and is neuter; and the masculine word Theos (Greek God) cannot be supplied after it; for the Greek word for one in that case would have to be heis (masculine for one). Nor can the Greek word for being (ousia) be supplied after it, because ousia is feminine, which would require the feminine of one, mia. If the passage were genuine we would have to supply a neuter noun, e.g., like pneuma (disposition), after hen in this text even as we have to do so in John 10:30: 'My Father and I are one' (hen) disposition. It could not be theos (God) or ousia (Being), which would respectively require the masculine heis and the feminine mia." -- Ephiphany Studies in the Scriptures, Vol. I - God, page 477.
"JOHANNINE COMMA (also known as the 'Three Witnesses'). An interpolation in the text of 1 John 5.7 f.,viz. The words in italics in the following passage from the AV: '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'. They occur only in MSS (almost exclusively Latin) of a late date, are omitted in the RV, and are certainly not part of the original text of the Epistle. The origin of the interpolation is obscure. Traces of a mystical interpretation of the phrase about the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood, applying it to the Trinity, are to be found in Cyprian and Augustine; but the earliest evidence for the insertion of a gloss in the text of the Epistle comes from a MS. of Priscillianist provenance discovered by G. Schepss at Wurzburg 1885. Later the insertion is found in African authors. It would thus seem to have originated in N. Africa or Spain and to have found its way into the Latin Bibles used in those districts (both Old Latin and Vulgate), possibly under the stress of Arian persecution. It is absent from St. Jerome's original text of the Vulgate."
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Edited by F.L.Cross, Oxford University Press, reprint of 1963.
"8. The famous interpolation after 'three witnesses' is not printed even in RSVn, and rightly. It cites the heavenly testimony of the Father, the logos, and the Holy Spirit, but is never used in the early trinitarian controversies. No repectable Greek MS contians it. Appearing first in a late 4th cent. Latin text, it entered the Vulgate and finally the NT of Erasmus."
Peake's Commentary on the Bible, edtors M.Black and H.H.Rowley, reprint of 1964, p.1038
"[1 John]5:7; This verse has not been found in Greek in any manuscript in or out of the New Testament earlier than the thirteenth century. It does not appear in any Greek manuscript of I John before the fifteenth century, when one cursive has it; one from the sixteenth also contains the reading. These are the only Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in which it has ever been found. But it occurs in no ancient Greek manuscript of Greek Christian writers or any of the oriental versions. its chief support is in two Old Latin manuscripts of the sixth and eighth centuries and in some manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate, but not the oldest ones. Erasmus did not include it in his first edition to the New Testament in Greek (1516) nor in his second (1519). When criticized for the omission, he rashly said that if anyone could show him a Greek manuscript containing the passage he would insert it, and the sixteenth century Codex Mantifortianus containing it was brought to his attention. He felt obliged to include the reading in his third edition (1525). From Tyndale the verse found its way into the King James Version. It is universally discredited by Greek scholars and editors of the Greek text of the New Testament."-Edgar J. Goodspeed, The Goodspeed Parallel New Testament, p. 557.
"We need not hesitate to declare our conviction that the disputed words were not written by St. John: that they were originally brought into Latin copies in Africa from the margin, where they had been placed as a pious and orthodox gloss on ver. 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." F.H.A.Scrivener -A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament 1883 third ed., p. 654.
"But a special omission[in the Revised Version of 1881]was 1 John 5 : 7, as it appears in the A.V.-"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." in the R.V. these words are not found; what does appear there as verse 7 of 1 John 5 is the sentence which the A.V. gives as the second part of verse 6: "And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth' (R.V., "the truth"). Then the R.V. goes on with verse 8: "For there are three who bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and the three agree in one." The words omitted in the R.V. were no part of the original Greek text, nor yet of the Latin Vulgate in its earliest form. They first appear in the writings of a Spanish Christian leader named Priscillian, who was executed for heresy in A.D.385. Later they made their way into copies of the Latin text of the Bible. When Erasmus prepared his printed edition of the Greek Testament, he rightly left those words out, but was attacked for this by people who felt that the passage was a valuable proof-text for the doctrine of the Trinity. He replied (rather 'incautiously) that if he could be shown any Greek manuscript which contained the words, he would include them in his next edition. Unfortunately, a Greek manuscript not more than some twenty years old was produced in which the words appeared: they had been translated into Greek from Latin. Of course, the fact that the only Greek manuscript exhibiting the words belonged to the sixteenth century was in itself an argument against their authenticity, but Erasmus had given his promise, and so in his 1522 edition he included the passage. (To-day one or two other very late Greek manuscripts are known to contain the passage; all others ornit it.)
The omission of the "three heavenly Witnesses" alarmed many Christian readers of the R[evised]V[ersion], who felt that the doctrine of the Trinity was being undermined by the removal of the text. But they need not have worried: for one thing, the Christian faith is not well served when attempts are made to defend it by weak arguments, and in any case the doctrine of the Trinity is much more securely based throughout the New Testament than on one text of more than doubtful genuineness."
F.F.Bruce, History of the Bible in English, 3rd edition, , pp.141,142.
A.E.Brooke in a "Separate Note, The Text of 1 Jn.v.7,8." - A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Johannine Epistles, Edinburgh, Clark, 1912, pp154-165, writes, in part:
"It is not necessary now to prove at any great length the spurious-ness of this interesting but unfortunate gloss. Its style and want of conformity to the context would be sufficient to condemn it, even if it had considerable support from trustworthy authorities for the text. Without it the passage runs clearly. The threefold witness is first given, which satisfies the requirements of the law; and after the witness which is legally valid among men, is given the " greater witness " of God, which is precisely defined in ver. 9, though the exact meaning of the words is doubtful. The "heavenly witnesses" destroy the natural sequence of the passage. And the personal use of [the logos]is wholly alien to the style of the Epistle, and also of the Gospel, where it is confined to the Prologue. In the earliest form in which the words appear in Greek, the absence of articles and copulae, where Greek would require their presence, betrays at once their derivation from Latin. It is enough to recapitulate the well-known and often stated facts that the words are not found (as part of the johannine text) (1) in any Greek manuscript with the exception of two very late MSS, obviously modified by the text of the Latin Vulgate, and in the margin of a third, the marginal note being in a seventeenth century hand ; (2) in any independent Greek writer; (3) in any Latin writer earlier than Priscillian ; (4) in any ancient version except in the Latin, where it is absent from the older forms of the old Latin as found in Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine; from the Vulgate as issued by Jerome, according to the testimony of the Codices Amiatinus and Fuldensis; and from Alcuin's revision (Codex Vallicellianus). And even when it first appears in the Vulgate, in the " Theodulfiatin" recension, the earthly witnesses are placed before the heavenly.
The history of the gloss has been well told by Wettstein, Tischendorf, and Westcott, from whose work the accounts in most commentaries are obviously derived. New light has been thrown on the subject in the interesting monograph of Kunstle, Das comma Joanneum auf seine Hekunft untersucht,1905, and some interesting suggestions as to the origin of the celebrated Codex Britannicus," on the authority of which Erasmus in fulfilment of his rash promise introduced the clause into the text of his Third Edition, by Dr. Rendel Harris in his Hi'story of the Leicester Codex.
The history of the gloss itself naturally begins much earlier than the history of its introduction into the actual text of the Epistle.
The passage in Tertullian (adv. Praxeam, c.25), which has often been quoted as containing an allusion to the verse, is really proof that he knew no such reading in the Epistle.....
"The gloss was certainly known as part of the text of the Epistle in Africa in the fifth century. Its acceptance as part of the text cannot be proved in any country except Spain in the fourth century. There it was undoubtedly used by Priscillian (? 380). The influence of his work and writings on the Latin text of the Bible, which passed over into orthodox circles through Peregrinus and others, is an undoubted fact. It is through the Theodulfian Recension of the Vulgate that the gloss first gained anything like wide acceptance. A large proportion of the earlier evidence for the gloss can be very plausibly traced to Spanish influences. Thus the importance of the name of Priscillian in the history of the insertion is fully established. But Kunstle has not proved his point that Priscillian was the first who introduced the words into the text of S. Johns Epistle, or even that this first took place in Spain. At least it may be said that the evidence of Spanish manuscripts, of the form in which the gloss is found in Priscillian, and of its use by his opponents, suggest the probability that Priscillian was not responsible for its first introduction. But these reasons are not conclusive. In one point Priscillian has preserved the true reading against (?) all Latin authorities, reading, with regard to the earthly witnesses, in unum sunt. It is a possible explanation of the textual facts that the words in Christo Iesu were first connected with the passage by Priscillian, either as part of the text or an explanation. In the place which lie assigns to them they support his " Panchristismos" admirably. Their first connection with the earthly witnesses may be due to their removal by Peregrinus or some orthodox opponent of Priscillian to a place where they did not give such clear support to Priscillian's views.
At present we cannot say more than that the insertion was certainly known in Africa in the fifth century. The connection between the Spanish and African texts still requires investigation. Though it's acceptance as part of the text of the Epistle cannot be proved for any locality except Spain in the fourth century, it does not necessarily follow that it is of Spainish origin......
"Before the appearance of Erasmus's third edition in 1522 the gloss had already been printed in Greek in the Complutensian Polygott in 1514. The text is obviously derived, if not taken immediately from the Vulgate, though the supply of the necessary articles and copulas to make the sentences Greek has partially concealed its close dependence upon the Latin."
If you actually made any effort to really read the above quotes, you will have seen that even trinitarians faithful to the trinity have admitted it was an added text. You weaken your argument immensely by clinging to a verse that has so obviously been added and proof given by even your supporters of that fact.
Lew W
Edited to add: Your comments to Reborn and others has shown me you have absolutely no concept of the love Jesus spoke of. Jason has as much right and freedom to express his views for or against anything as you do. If you can't handle oppossing views, maybe it is you who doesn't have a purpose on this forum, not Reborn. You have been extremely judgemental and outright insulting to every single poster that does not share your views. If that is an example of your Christian love, thank God I don't share it. You are a prime example of a religious bigot! If you find you cannot take the heat of an open discussion, don't let the door slap you in the ass on the way out!
Edited by - DakotaRed on 1 December 2002 13:44:3
