Jesus: Man, Messenger, Messiah · 1. God in Christianity
Is the Trinity in the Bible? The texts that are not there
In short
- 1.1 John 5:7-8 (the Comma Johanneum) — the one explicit Trinitarian verse — is absent from every Greek manuscript before the 14th century and is dropped from modern critical editions.
- 2.Matthew 28:19 names three, but naming three is not defining one substance in three persons — the verse says nothing about co-equality or co-eternity.
- 3.The word '' appears nowhere in the Bible, and no biblical writer sets out the doctrine.
- 4.Jesus (PBUH) never says 'I am God, worship me' in any of the four Gospels.
The claim being examined
Christians point to a set of proof-texts — 1 John 5:7, Matthew 28:19, John 1:1 — as biblical warrant for the .
The Islamic position
Islam maintains that the clearest 'Trinitarian' verse in the Bible is a later insertion, and the rest are read into the text rather than out of it.
Analysis
A doctrine held to be the central mystery of the faith ought to be statable from the text of scripture. The Comma Johanneum is the textbook case: it entered the Latin tradition, was pushed into Erasmus's third edition under pressure, went from there into the King James Version, and has now been removed from serious modern translations because the manuscript evidence against it is overwhelming. Once it is set aside, the passages that remain only yield the doctrine if you bring the doctrine to them first.
From the Qur'an
لَّقَدْ كَفَرَ ٱلَّذِينَ قَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ ثَالِثُ ثَلَـٰثَةٍۢ ۘ وَمَا مِنْ إِلَـٰهٍ إِلَّآ إِلَـٰهٌۭ وَٰحِدٌۭ ۚ
laqad kafara alladhīna qālū inna l-laha thālithu thalāthatin wamā min ilāhin illā ilāhun wāḥidun
They have certainly disbelieved who say that God is the third of three, when there is no god except one God.
From the Bible
ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατήρ, ὁ λόγος, καὶ τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα
For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one — absent from all early Greek manuscripts.
Read it in their Bibleεἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος
Baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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