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Other Categories => Controversial Issues => Topic started by: shepherdsword on May 24, 2025, 09:14:31 AM
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This is an excellent and very controversial question. It is the only verse that gives an explicit statement concerning the Trinity. I am going to say that it is absolutely a true quotation of John and is authoritative. Here are my reasons:
1) Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage (200 A.D. - 258 A.D.), quotes this as being written by John (vol. V, 418,423 , Ante-Nicene Fathers).
2) Vigilius of Thapsus quotes it in the 5th century.
3) The Codex Montfortii contains it.
What say ye?
DISCUSS!
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No.
- I don't find arguments that Cyprian was quoting it in the Comma Johanneum in De unitate ecclesiae, convincing.
- Vigilius of Thapsus writing in the 5th century is too late to establish originality. Contra Varimadum Arianum is also Latin, not Greek.
- Codex Montfortii is a 16th century manuscript that appeared only after Erasmus refused initially to include the Comma Johanneum. I find this suspect.
- Per Metzger, the Comma Jahanneum is missing from every single Greek manuscript prior to the 14th century.
- My namesake never cites it. Athanasius did not write Disputatio Contra Arium (pseudo-Athanasius).
- It's unnecessary. The doctrine of the Trinity does not depend on 1 John 5:7 as a one-verse proof text.
- If authentic, 1 John 5:7 is the only explicit Trinitarian statement. I find that exceptionally suspect.
- All those manuscript margins.
The doctrine this verse challenges most isn't the doctrine of the Trinity, but formulations of Inerrency held by some. We have Athanasius and the Cappadocian fathers arriving at the doctrine of the Trinity without appeal to 1 John 5:7, so I think likely it's a case of a marginal note making its way into the main text. If one has to rely on 1 John 5:7 to argue for the doctrine of the Trinity, they should just not bother to begin with.
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No.
- I don't find arguments that Cyprian was quoting it in the Comma Johanneum in De unitate ecclesiae, convincing.
- Vigilius of Thapsus writing in the 5th century is too late to establish originality. Contra Varimadum Arianum is also Latin, not Greek.
- Codex Montfortii is a 16th century manuscript that appeared only after Erasmus refused initially to include the Comma Johanneum. I find this suspect.
- Per Metzger, the Comma Jahanneum is missing from every single Greek manuscript prior to the 14th century.
- My namesake never cites it. Athanasius did not write Disputatio Contra Arium (pseudo-Athanasius).
- It's unnecessary. The doctrine of the Trinity does not depend on 1 John 5:7 as a one-verse proof text.
- If authentic, 1 John 5:7 is the only explicit Trinitarian statement. I find that exceptionally suspect.
- All those manuscript margins.
The doctrine this verse challenges most isn't the doctrine of the Trinity, but formulations of Inerrency held by some. We have Athanasius and the Cappadocian fathers arriving at the doctrine of the Trinity without appeal to 1 John 5:7, so I think likely it's a case of a marginal note making its way into the main text. If one has to rely on 1 John 5:7 to argue for the doctrine of the Trinity, they should just not bother to begin with.
I guess I am clutching at straws here. However, like you said, the Trinity can be found throughout the entire bible. The fact is, AT Robertson, Vincent, Weiss and every other scholar I have researched agrees that it is a spurious addiction. One goes so far as to say this:
"Porson, in the conclusion of his letters to Travis, says: "In short, if this verse be really genuine, notwithstanding its absence from all the visible Greek manuscripts except two (that of Dublin and the forged one found at Berlin), one of which awkwardly translates the verse from the Latin, and the other transcribes it from a printed book; notwithstanding its absence from all the versions except the Vulgate, even from many of the best and oldest manuscripts of the Vulgate; notwithstanding the deep and dead silence of all the Greek writers down to the thirteenth, and of most of the Latins down to the middle of the eighth century; if, in spite of all these objections, it be still genuine, no part of Scripture whatsoever can be proved either spurious or genuine; and Satan has been permitted for many centuries miraculously to banish the 'finest passage in the New Testament,' as Martin calls it, from the eyes and memories of almost all"
(from Vincent's Word Studies in the New Testament, Electronic Database. Copyright © 1997, 2003, 2005, 2006 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)
At Robertson:
1 John 5:7
The spurious addition is:
en too ouranoo ho pateer ho logos kai to hagion pneuma kai houtoi hoi treis hen eisin kai treis eisin hoi
marturountes en tee gee (in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth). The last clause belongs to 1 Jn 5:8. The fact and the doctrine of the Trinity do not depend on this spurious addition. Some Latin scribe caught up Cyprian's exegesis and wrote it on the margin of his text, and so it got into the Vulgate and finally into the Textus Receptus by the stupidity of Erasmus.
(from Robertson's Word Pictures in the New Testament, Electronic Database. Copyright © 1997, 2003, 2005, 2006 by Biblesoft, Inc. Robertson's Word Pictures in the New Testament. Copyright © 1985 by Broadman Press.)
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Robertson is being quite unfair to Rasmus there. If there's anyone to blame for him including it, it's everyone else around him at the time pressuring him to do so.
This is a good read https://bibletranslation.ws/down/DeJonge-Comma-Johanneum.pdf
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I do not believe it is in the original
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I also voted no, at some point you have to trust the guys with knowledge.
We don't the comma anyway, the Trinity is all over the Scripture, even in the OT.
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John's point was that the witnesses of verse 6 comprise one united testimony to the veracity of the Gospel. That insight paves the way for verse 9.
So the added text actually breaks up the original narrative.