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 Trinity was invented in the sixteenth century — Nicaea is 325 CE and the doctrine long predates the interpolation. 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 — Codex 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 theologically weighty passage with no early attestation: it is absent from every Greek manuscript before the sixteenth century apart from a handful with the words added in the margin, absent from the Greek Fathers who would have quoted it in the Arian controversy, and present first in Latin. Its disappearance from the NIV, ESV, NRSV and RSV is not controversial among scholars.

From the Qur'an

Q 4:171

وَلَا تَقُولُوا۟ ثَلَٰثَةٌ ۚ ٱنتَهُوا۟ خَيْرًا لَّكُمْ

And do not say, 'Three'; desist — it is better for you.

From the Bible

1 John 5:7-8 (KJV)

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 Bible

1 John 5:7-8 (NRSV)

Greek: 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 Bible

Sources

Bart D. Ehrman · Bruce M. Metzger · Bart D. Ehrman, *Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why* (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005), ch. 3, pp. 80-83

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