Comparative Theology · Additions & Interpolations

The Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7-8)

Handle with care. Do not claim Christians hid this. Their own translation committees removed it and their footnotes explain why — that honesty is part of your argument, not against it.

In short

• 1.No Greek manuscript before the 14th century contains it
• 2.It entered the printed Greek text through Erasmus in 1522, under pressure
• 3.Modern Bibles including the NIV, ESV and NRSV omit it entirely

The claim being examined

The only verse in the entire Bible that states the Trinity in explicit terms is a later addition, absent from every early Greek manuscript.

The Islamic position

Islam holds that the doctrine of the Trinity was not taught by Jesus but developed afterwards (Q 4:171). The textual history of this verse illustrates that development in a single, documentable case.

Analysis

The words 'the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one' appear first in Latin, in fourth-century North African writings, then migrate into Latin manuscripts of 1 John. Erasmus omitted them from his first two Greek editions because he found no Greek witness, and included them in the third only after one late manuscript surfaced. From there the reading entered the Textus Receptus and the King James Version. No Greek Church Father cites it in the Trinitarian controversies of the fourth century — an unthinkable silence if it had been in their text. Modern critical editions and mainstream translations drop it without dispute.

Side by side

From the Qur'an

From the Bible

Sources

Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus · Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament

More in Additions & Interpolations

• 1 Corinthians 14:34-35: The Silence of Women
• Fairness Check: What This Argument Does and Does Not Prove
• John 5:4 and the Angel at the Pool
• The Bloody Sweat and 'Father, Forgive Them'
• The Long Ending of Mark (16:9-20)
• The Missing Verses of Modern Bibles