Comparative Theology · Textual History & Manuscripts
Fabricated Trinitarian Texts (1 John 5:7-8, the Comma Johanneum)
In short
- 1.The only verse explicitly teaching the ("the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one") is a medieval Latin forgery.
- 2.It is absent from every Greek manuscript before the 15th century.
- 3.Modern translations (NIV, ESV, NASB) have removed it as inauthentic.
The claim being examined
The view that 1 John 5:7-8 provides an explicit scriptural statement of the .
The Islamic position
The one explicit Trinitarian verse is a medieval Latin insertion that modern Bibles have removed.
Analysis
Erasmus excluded the Comma Johanneum from his first Greek New Testament (1516) because it was absent in Greek. Under Church pressure he agreed to include it if one Greek manuscript could be produced; Montfortianus (c. 1520) duly appeared, and the Comma entered the the late printed Greek text behind the King James Version and from there the King James Bible.
From the Qur'an
لَّقَدْ كَفَرَ ٱلَّذِينَ قَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ ثَالِثُ ثَلَـٰثَةٍۢ ۘ
laqad kafara alladhīna qālū inna l-laha thālithu thalāthatin
They have certainly disbelieved who say, 'Allah is the third of three.'
From the Bible
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 BibleFor there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood — the heavenly clause is absent.
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