Jesus: Man, Messenger, Messiah · 3. Texts of the New Testament
1 John 5:7-8: how the Comma Johanneum got in and out
Handle with care. The Comma's absence does not prove the was invented in the sixteenth century — Nicaea is 325 CE and the doctrine long predates the . Claim only what it shows: the single clearest proof-text is not original.
In short
- 1.Erasmus did not print it in 1516 or 1519 because his Greek manuscripts lacked it.
- 2.Under pressure he agreed to include it if a single Greek manuscript could be produced.
- 3.One duly appeared — 61, apparently written to order around 1520.
- 4.He kept his word and printed it in 1522; from there it entered the King James Version. Modern critical editions omit it.
The claim being examined
The clearest Trinitarian statement in the Bible reads: 'there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one'.
The Islamic position
The verse is absent from the Greek manuscript tradition. Its removal from modern Bibles is a concession made by Christian scholarship itself, not a Muslim claim.
Analysis
Ehrman treats the Comma as the textbook case of a doctrinally weighty passage with nothing early behind it: absent from every Greek manuscript before the sixteenth century apart from a handful where the words sit in the margin, absent from the Greek Fathers who would certainly have quoted it during the Arian controversy over the status of Jesus (PBUH), and appearing first in Latin. Its removal from the NIV, ESV, NRSV and RSV is not controversial among scholars.
From the Qur'an
وَلَا تَقُولُوا۟ ثَلَـٰثَةٌ ۚ ٱنتَهُوا۟ خَيْرًۭا لَّكُمْ ۚ
walā taqūlū thalāthatun intahū khayran lakum
And do not say, 'Three'; desist — it is better for you.
From the Bible
Latin: tres sunt qui testimonium dant in caelo
For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
Read it in their BibleGreek: hoti treis eisin hoi martyrountes
There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree.
Read it in their BibleSources
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