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1 John 5:7: Difference between revisions

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In the King James Version of the bible, 1 John 5:7-8 states:
In the King James Version of the bible, 1 John 5:7-8 states:


:''For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.<ref>The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), 1 Jn 5:7–8.</ref>
:''For there are three that bear record [in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 8 And there are three that bear witness in earth], the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.<ref>The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), 1 Jn 5:7–8.</ref>
 
The bracketed words constitute the so-called “Johannine Comma,” a reading which has been the object of considerable controversy in New Testament textual criticism.<ref>Carroll D. Osburn, “Johannine Comma,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 882.</ref>


=The original Greek text=
=The original Greek text=
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:Spiritus et aqua et sanguis, et hi tres unum sunt.
:Spiritus et aqua et sanguis, et hi tres unum sunt.


The Comma Johanneum is absent from almost the whole of the Greek textual tradition, including the quotations in the church fathers. It is transmitted by only eight Greek minuscules, where it probably entered via the Latin textual witnesses. None of these examples can be dated before 1400, and only four of them appear in the text; the others are marginal additions.<ref>Georg Strecker and Harold W. Attridge, The Johannine Letters: A Commentary on 1, 2, and 3 John, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), 188–189.</ref>
The Comma Johanneum is absent from almost the whole of the Greek textual tradition, including the quotations in the church fathers. It is transmitted by only eight Greek minuscules, where it probably entered via the Latin textual witnesses. None of these examples can be dated before 1400, and only four of them appear in the text; the others are marginal additions.
 
The Comma Johanneum is also absent from the manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate before 750AD.  The Comma Johanneum is absent from all Coptic, Ethiopian, Arabic, and Slavic translations up to 1500AD.
 
The Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition issued a decretal on 13 January 1897, forbidding anyone to question the authenticity of the Comma Johanneum: its genuineness could neither be denied nor doubted. Pope Leo XIII confirmed this judgment two days later. On 2 June 1927, however, a new official declaration by the Holy Office, as the successor institution to the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition, made Roman Catholic exegetes again free to discuss the question of the Comma Johanneum. From that time it has been generally recognized in Roman Catholic scholarship also that the Comma Johanneum is neither original nor authentic.<ref>Georg Strecker and Harold W. Attridge, The Johannine Letters: A Commentary on 1, 2, and 3 John, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), 188–189.</ref>
 
=How it got into the King James Version=