Trinitarian verse

danbarker53711 · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 9:55 pm Post subject: Trinitarian verse

Exactly when did the trinitarian words of I John 5:7 (in the KJV but absent from the Greek manuscripts) first appear in the Vulgate?

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Dan Barker
Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc.
Madison, Wisconsin

True54Blue · Joined: 21 Jun 2007 Posts: 17 Location: Canada

Hi Dan,

I checked out your website and I assume that you are asking this question to beef up your argument that the Bible advocates polytheism as well as monotheism (http://ffrf.org/books/lfif/?t=contra). I am sorry to hear that you are embarrassed that you ever believed. To quote a great theologian, "biblical faith isn't a crutch, it's a wheelchair and God knows I need one."

To answer your question, it was not in the Vulgate as prepared by Jerome but came into popular usage (i.e. was added) to the Latin Bible in the sixth century (CE/AD). You can read the details in Bruce Metzger's Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. He gives a final suggestion that should also be of help: "For the story of how the spurious words came to be included in the Textus Receptus, see any critical commentary on 1 John, or Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, pp. 101 f.; cf. also Ezra Abbot, “I. John v. 7 and Luther’s German Bible,” in The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel and Other Critical Essays (Boston, 1888), pp. 458–463."

I am co-teaching a course right now dealing with many of the issues that you raise in your autobiographical account. I wish you were there so you could keep us on our toes and ensure that we are scratching where people itch Smile

All the best,
Tom

rgoode

Thanks Dan and Tom for your posts,
It is one of those questions which raises so many issues. For those who haven't come across this before the 1 John 5:7 in the King James reads: "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." It is the only explicit Trinitarian statement in the NT. However, if you look this verse is absent from many of our other English translations (NRSV for example).

One of the reasons behind this discrepancy is that the King James Version based its translation on the Latin Vulgate text (compiled by Jerome in the late 4th Century). However, this text can be rather unreliable and has been open to corruption over the centuries. Following the Reformations and Renaissance, when 'back to the source' become the by-word, it was felt that translations of the Bible into the common tongue should be from the earlier Greek texts.

One of the key names at the time was Erasmus, who was racing to produce the first translation from the Greek. When he produced his finished copy, it was criticised because it omitted the 1 John 5:7 statement. Although he defended this by saying that he had not found this statement in any of his Greek texts, but if a manuscript could be found, he would re-instate it. After a while a manuscript (MS 61, kept at Trinity College, Dublin) was found as Erasmus had to concede to the re-instatement of the verse.

However, to quote Metzger (The Text of the New Testament. p.62), "The manuscript, which is remarkably fresh and clean throughout (except for the two pages containing 1 John V, which are soiled from repeated examination of this passage), gives every appearance of being produced expressly for the purpose of refuting Erasmus."

The ealiest known occurence of the 1 John 5:7 formula is in a fourth century Latin treatise called Liber Apologeticus. Metzger is probably right in suggesting that this wording was then used as a marginal gloss (comporable to the habit writing of notes and explanations in the margins of library textbooks) which later became incorporated into the Latin text.

This is a fascinating area and one which Textual Criticism has recently been focussing on a lot. In April, The Fifth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament was looking exactly at the issue of theological and social tendencies in textual variations - in other words, did scribes deliberatey alter the text for dogmatic reasons?

Richard

danbarker53711 · Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 8:45 pm Post subject:

Tom,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. No, I am not asking because I want to support the NT advocacy of polytheism . . . just the opposite. Since those trinitarian words are NOT part of any ancient Greek document, it makes the NT less polytheistic.

My purpose, as Richard comments in the reply below yours, is to show that the KJV (at least) has been tampered with, and that modern evangelical or fundamentalist believers ought not to be so quick in assuming they are reading the "word of god."

I'm sure you agree with this.

To reply to your comment that "biblical faith is not a crutch, it is a wheelchair," I would agree, quoting the (supposed) words of Jesus that "they who are whole need no physician, but they who are sick." As an atheist, I am not sick, not a sinner. I am whole, thank you, so I don't need the doctor.

If salvation is the cure, then atheism is the prevention.

Those who DO feel like they are sick, or damned, or blind, or whatever, well, maybe they do need some kind of treatment. But we do not all feel that way. It is better not to be infected in the first place.

But this is not the forum for such character examinations . . . and I only include these remarks are a reply to your comments.

Yes, it would be fun to be in your class. We would all learn something.

And thank you, Richard, for the substantive information. I knew most of that, having read Ehrman's _Misquoting Jesus_, but I did not know when or how the Latin words crept into the text. That is very useful.

_________________
Dan Barker
Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc.
Madison, Wisconsin

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