Comma Johanneum

[teddyv]

11 minutes ago, David1701 said:

Thousands of places is literally true, not hyperbolic.

Yes, I know that many of the discrepancies are minor; but there are also many that are important.

I didn't say that thousands of verses had been dropped/added in their entirety!  I said verses OR PARTS OF VERSES, which is correct.

Of the thousands, how many are important? 5, 10, 20, 100, 500? How many are simple scribal errors?

[Always a Moon]

On 10/14/2020 at 10:31 AM, Speks said:

Hello again. I'm not sure if this is exactly what you had in mind but this page may be of interest:

https://biblereasons.com/trinity-in-the-bible/

Yes, that link was very helpful. Thank you. 

[Always a Moon]

13 hours ago, Speks said:

Rather than responding through the vageries of spin, I'd certainly agree with Wallace's definition of critical biblical scholarship:

"...I believe any good scholar will be a critical scholar — that is, he or she will wrestle with the historical, grammatical, sociological, textual, and lexical data from the perspective of a scientific investigator who is seeking the truth. A non-critical approach simply assumes a position then seeks evidence that will support it."

He has also written: "I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. I confess verbal-plenary inspiration and embrace both infallibility and inerrancy... I believe that the NT is the final revelation of God in terms of a revelation for all his people. That is, whether there is the prophetic gift today is not what I am speaking against (or for): the final revelation for the invisible church is found in the NT. Nothing after the completion of the NT can add to the foundation of our credo" (Bible.org).

Regardless of the textual base or methodology we espouse, we can each use quality translations of Scripture to grow spiritually in the knowledge of Christ. In faith we can be throughly equipped for good works through the fullness of its teaching.
 

Agreed. 

[David1701]

4 hours ago, teddyv said:

Of the thousands, how many are important? 5, 10, 20, 100, 500? How many are simple scribal errors?

That depends upon what you decide is important.  There are over 4,000 translatable differences between the TR used by the KJV translators and various editions of minority text.  Many of these will be relatively minor (things like "you", instead of "us", or "Jesus", instead of "Jesus Christ"); but there is a significant number of places where the difference matters quite a lot and the minority text reading is almost always weaker than the TR reading, or even erroneous.

Some examples of the above would be: 1 Tim. 3:16 (Who was manifest in the flesh?), John 1:18 (God was not begotten but Jesus, as man, was!), John 3:13, John 7:8 (the minority text turns Jesus into a liar, by omitting "yet"), Mark 1:1, Mark 3:15, Matt. 17:21, Matt. 27:35, Acts 8:37 (faith is necessary for baptism), Rom. 8:1 (last clause), Rev. 1:11.  There are many others.

Not every minority text based translation consistently follows the minority text (e.g. some have the important ending to John 3:13, proving Jesus' omnipresence, during his earthly ministry); but they are all weaker than a TR-based translation.

[Dennis1209]

On 10/14/2020 at 2:15 AM, Deborah_ said:

When Erasmus compiled his first edition of the Greek New Testament, he left this text out because he found no Greek manuscript containing it. After complaints, he agreed to put it into the second edition because a single (very late) Greek manuscript was found that did have it. Since then, no other Greek manuscripts containing these words have turned up, so they remain highly disputed.

The KJV was translated from the second edition of Erasmus' NT, so it contains the disputed text. But when Luther made the first German translation of the NT, he used the first edition. And so NO German Bible has ever contained these words! 

Modern English Bibles don't contain it either (it's usually put in a footnote) because it's absent from all early Greek manuscripts. It seems to have crept into the Latin translations quite early (these would have been the ones used by African church leaders) and has persisted because it is so useful. And it doesn't contradict the rest of the Bible, so you could say that it's an 'addition' that does no harm.

It's unwise to use I John 5:7 as a proof-text of the Trinity, though, because it has such dubious provenance. But we don't need it, as there is plenty of evidence elsewhere in Scripture.

I'm sure glad you answered this, that was a very good question she asked, and not a simple one. I started digging around in my text books on the Ante-Nicene Fathers and was about to dig out some other material to search out the answer. I thought, "this is going to get involved and take some time". 

So I thought again, to scroll down and see if anyone responded with the appropriate answer. BINGO! I owe you a few hours 

[David1701]

16 hours ago, Dennis1209 said:

I'm sure glad you answered this, that was a very good question she asked, and not a simple one. I started digging around in my text books on the Ante-Nicene Fathers and was about to dig out some other material to search out the answer. I thought, "this is going to get involved and take some time". 

So I thought again, to scroll down and see if anyone responded with the appropriate answer. BINGO! I owe you a few hours 

That answer that you like was packed solid with factual errors.  See my response to it below.

https://www.worthychristianforums.com/topic/258633-comma-johanneum/?do=findComment&comment=3288864

[Steven Avery]

On 10/14/2020 at 3:15 AM, Deborah_ said:

When Erasmus  ... agreed to put it into the second edition 

Erasmus placed the heavenly witnesses in the 3rd edition of 1522, not the second of 1519.

Erasmus also utilized the verse earlier in a work Ratio vera Theologie in 1518 and in his Paraphrase edition of the Epistles of John in 1521.

Edited June 5, 2021 by Steven Avery

[Steven Avery]

On 10/13/2020 at 7:24 PM, David1701 said:

 The Latin speaking Church complained strongly, when Jerome REMOVED 1 John 5:7 from his Latin Vulgate translation (they knew it from the Old Latin that was used before the Vulgate), accusing him of using corrupt manuscripts.  It was later added back in (in the 800s A.D.).

Jerome strongly supported the verse, see what he wrote in the Vulgate Prologue.
 

Quote

If the letters were also rendered faithfully by translators into Latin just as their authors composed them, they would not cause the reader confusion, nor would the differences between their wording give rise to contradictions, nor would the various phrases contradict each other, especially in that place where we read the clause about the unity of the Trinity in the first letter of John. Indeed, it has come to our notice that in this letter some unfaithful translators have gone far astray from the truth of the faith, for in their edition they provide just the words for three [witnesses]—namely water, blood and spirit—and omit the testimony of the Father, the Word and the Spirit, by which the Catholic faith is especially strengthened, and proof is tendered of the single substance of divinity possessed by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. - Grantley McDonald, Raising the Ghost of Arius.

Modern scholars try to pretend that the Prologue was written by somebody other than Jerome.  This is in the earliest extant Vulgate manuscript, Codex Fuldensis, and the arguments against Jerome's authorship are extremely weak.

[Steven Avery]

On 10/14/2020 at 2:09 PM, David1701 said:

The KJV translators had nine Greek manuscripts containing 1 John 5:7, five in the text and four in marginal notes.

The nine (or ten) Greek manuscripts are what we have extant today, they were not in the hands of the learned men of the AV.

They did know the massive historical Latin manuscript evidence for the verse. And how dozens of Latin commentators discussed the verse in detail over the centuries. And how it fits perfectly in the text as Johannine scripture.

[Guest kingdombrat]

I had studied this long ago and had remembered finding this little nugget.   I am not making a stand either way here but found this information to be of some value.

 

The first work to quote the Comma Johanneum as an actual part of the Epistle's text appears to be the 4th century Latin homily Liber Apologeticus, probably written by Priscillian of Ávila (died 385), or his close follower Bishop Instantius. This part of the homily was in many Old Latin and Vulgate manuscripts.

Edited June 5, 2021 by kingdombrat