the forgery known as 'the johannine comma

8/3/2019 The Forgery Known as 'the Johannine Comma'

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The

JOHANNINECOMMA

Or

How the Unbiblical

DOGMAof the

TRINITYwasQuietly&Dishonestly

Slipped into the Text of

THEHOLY BIBLEAnd how it was Discovered & Removed

by

Modern Bible Scholars& HowIts Removal isApproved by Honest Christians


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The JOHANNINE COMMAFor there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father,

the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. (1John 5:7 )

"An unseen hand forged and inserted the only Trinitarianverse in the whole of the Bible" [The Johannine Comma -1 John 5:7-8]

The so-called Johannine Comma (also called the CommaJohanneum) is a sequence of extra words which appear in 1John 5:7-8 in some early printed editions of the Greek NewTestament. In these editions the verses appear thus (we putbrackets around the extra words):

[ , , ,

. 8 ] ,

The King James Version, which was based upon theseeditions, gives the following translation:

For there are three that bear record[in heaven, theFather, 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.


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These extra words inside square brackets are generallyabsent from the Greek manuscripts. In fact, they onlyappear in the text of four late medieval manuscripts. They

seem to have originated as a marginal note added to certainLatin manuscripts during the middle ages, which waseventually incorporated into the text of most of the laterVulgate manuscripts. In the Clementine edition of theVulgate the verses were printed thus:

Quoniam tres sunt, qui testimonium dant [in caelo:Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus Sanctus: et hi tres unum sunt. 8

Et tres sunt, qui testimonium dant in terra:] spiritus, etaqua, et sanguis: et hi tres unum sunt.

From the Vulgate, then, it seems that the Comma wastranslated into Greek and inserted into some printededitions of the Greek text, and in a handful of late Greekmanuscripts. All scholars consider it to be spurious, and it

is not included in modern critical editions of the Greek text,or in the English versions based upon them. For example,the English Standard Version reads:

For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the

water and the blood; and these three agree.

We give below the comments of Dr. Bruce M. Metzger on1 John 5:7-8, from his book, A Textual Commentary on theGreek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, 1993).


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After the Textus Receptus adds the following: , , , . 8

. That these words are spurious and have no right to stand in the New Testament is certain in the light of the followingconsiderations.

(A) External Evidence.

(1) The passage is absent from every known Greek

manuscript except eight, and these contain the passage inwhat appears to be a translation from a late recension of theLatin Vulgate. Four of the eight manuscripts contain thepassage as a variant reading written in the margin as a lateraddition to the manuscript. The eight manuscripts are asfollows:

* 61: codex Montfortianus, dating from the earlysixteenth century.* 88: a variant reading in a sixteenth century hand, added

to the fourteenth-century codex Regius of Naples.* 221: a variant reading added to a tenth-century

manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.* 429: a variant reading added to a sixteenth-century

manuscript at Wolfenbttel.* 629: a fourteenth or fifteenth century manuscript in the

Vatican.* 636: a variant reading added to a sixteenth-century

manuscript at Naples.


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* 918: a sixteenth-century manuscript at the Escorial,Spain.

* 2318: an eighteenth-century manuscript, influenced by

the Clementine Vulgate, at Bucharest, Rumania.

(2) The passage is quoted by none of the Greek Fathers,who, had they known it, would most certainly haveemployed it in the Trinitarian controversies (Sabellian andArian). Its first appearance in Greek is in a Greek versionof the (Latin) Acts of the Lateran Council in 1215.

(3) The passage is absent from the manuscripts of allancient versions (Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic,Arabic, Slavonic), except the Latin; and it is not found (a)in the Old Latin in its early form (Tertullian CyprianAugustine), or in the Vulgate (b) as issued by Jerome(codex Fuldensis [copied a.d. 541-46] and codex Amiatinus

[copied before a.d. 716]) or (c) as revised by Alcuin (firsthand of codex Vallicellianus [ninth century]).

The earliest instance of the passage being quoted as a partof the actual text of the Epistle is in a fourth century Latintreatise entitled Liber Apologeticus (chap. 4), attributedeither to the Spanish heretic Priscillian (died about 385) orto his follower Bishop Instantius. Apparently the glossarose when the original passage was understood tosymbolize the Trinity (through the mention of threewitnesses: the Spirit, the water, and the blood), aninterpretation that may have been written first as a marginalnote that afterwards found its way into the text. In the fifth


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century the gloss was quoted by Latin Fathers in NorthAfrica and Italy as part of the text of the Epistle, and fromthe sixth century onwards it is found more and more

frequently in manuscripts of the Old Latin and of theVulgate. In these various witnesses the wording of thepassage differs in several particulars. (For examples ofother intrusions into the Latin text of 1 John, see 2.17; 4.3;5.6, and 20.)

(B) Internal Probabilities.

(1) As regards transcriptional probability, if the passagewere original, no good reason can be found to account forits omission, either accidentally or intentionally, bycopyists of hundreds of Greek manuscripts, and bytranslators of ancient versions.

(2) As regards intrinsic probability, the passage makes anawkward break in the sense.

For the story of how the spurious words came to beincluded in the Textus Receptus, see any criticalcommentary on 1 John, or Metzger, The Text of the NewTestament, pp. 101 f.; cf. also Ezra Abbot, "I. John v. 7 andLuther's German Bible," in The Authorship of the FourthGospel and Other Critical Essays (Boston, 1888), pp. 458-463.

---


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Several early sources which one might expect to includethe Comma Johanneum in fact omit it. For example,although Clement of Alexandria (c. 200) places a strong

emphasis on the Trinity, his quotation of 1 John 5:8 doesnot include the Comma.[3] Tertullian, in his AgainstPraxeas (c. 210), supports a Trinitarian view by quotingJohn 10:30, even though the Comma would have providedstronger support. Likewise, Jerome's writings of the fourthcentury give no evidence that he was aware of the Comma'sexistence.[4] (The Codex Fuldensis, a copy of the Vulgatemade around 546, contains a copy of Jerome's Prologue to

the Canonical Gospels which seems to reference theComma, but the Codex's version of 1 John omits it, whichhas led many to believe that the Prologue's reference isspurious.)[5]

The earliest reference to what might be the Comma appearsby the 3rd-century Church father Cyprian (died 258), who

in Treatise I section 6[6] quoted John 10:30 against hereticswho denied the Trinity and added: "Again it is written ofthe Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, 'Andthese three are one.'"[4][7]

Daniel B. Wallace notes that although Cyprian uses 1 Johnto argue for the Trinity, he appeals to this as an allusion viathe three witnesses"written of"rather than by quoting a proof-text-"written that". In noting this, Wallace isfollowing the current standard critical editions of the NewTestament (NA27 and UBS4) which consider Cyprian awitness against the Comma. They would not do this werethey to think him to have quoted it. So even though some


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still think that Cyprian referred to the passage, the fact thatother theologians such as Athanasius of Alexandria andSabellius and Origen never quoted or referred to that

passage is one reason why even many Trinitarians later onalso considered the text spurious, and not to have been partof the original text.

The first work to quote the Comma Johanneum as an actualpart of the Epistle's text appears to be the 4th century Latinhomily Liber Apologeticus, probably written by Priscillian

of vila (died 385), or his close follower Bishop Instantius.Wallace notes:

"Apparently the gloss arose when the original passagewas understood to symbolize the Trinity (through themention of three witnesses: the Spirit, the water, and theblood), an interpretation that may have been written first as

a marginal note that afterwards found its way into thetext."[7]

This part of the homily apparently then became workedinto copies of the Latin Vulgate roughly around the year800. It was subsequently back-translated into the Greek, butonly eight of the thousands of Greek New Testamentmanuscripts currently extant contain it. The oldest knownoccurrence appears to be a later addition to a 10th centurymanuscript now in the Bodleian Library, the exact date ofthe addition not known; in this manuscript, the Comma is avariant reading offered as an alternative to the main text.The other seven sources date to the sixteenth century or


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later, and four of the seven are hand-written in themanuscript margins. In one manuscript, back-translatedinto Greek from the Vulgate, the phrase "and these three

are one" is not present.[8]

No Syriac manuscripts include the Comma, and its presence in some printed Syriac Bibles is due to back-translation from the Latin Vulgate. Coptic manuscripts andthose from Ethiopian churches also do not include it. Of thesurviving "Itala" or "Old Latin" translations, only two

support the Textus Receptus reading, namely the CodexMonacensis (6th or 7th century) and the Speculum, an 8th-or 9th-century collection of New Testament quotations.[4]

In the 6th century, Fulgentius of Ruspe is quoted as awitness in favour of the Comma. Like Cyprian a father ofthe North African Church, he referred to Cyprian's remark

in his "Responsio contra Arianos" ("Reply against theArians"), as do many other African fathers (the Arianheresy, which denied the Trinity, was particularlystrong[citation needed] in North Africa); but the mostnotable[by whom?] and prolific writer of the AfricanChurch, Augustine of Hippo, is completely silent on thematter.

"The silence of the great and voluminous Augustine and thevariation in form of the text in the African Church areadmitted facts that militate against the canonicity of thethree witnesses."[4]


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Erasmus and the Textus Receptus

The central figure in the sixteenth-century history of theComma Johanneum is the Dutch humanist Erasmus.Erasmus had been working for years on two projects: acollation of Greek texts and a fresh Latin New Testament.In 1512, he began his work on a fresh Latin NewTestament. He collected all the Vulgate manuscripts hecould find to create a critical edition. Then he polished theLatin. He declared,

"It is only fair that Paul should address the Romans insomewhat better Latin."[9]

In the earlier phases of the project, he never mentioned aGreek text:

"My mind is so excited at the thought of emendingJeromes text, with notes, that I seem to myself inspired bysome god. I have already almost finished emending him bycollating a large number of ancient manuscripts, and this Iam doing at enormous personal expense."[10]

While his intentions for publishing a fresh Latin translationare clear, it is less clear why he included the Greek text.Though some speculate that he intended on producing acritical Greek text or that he wanted to beat theComplutensian Polyglot into print, there is no evidence tosupport this. Rather his motivations seems to be simpler: he


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included the Greek text to prove the superiority of his Latinversion. He wrote,

"There remains the New Testament translated by me, withthe Greek facing, and notes on it by me."[11] He furtherdemonstrated the reason for the inclusion of the Greek textwhen defending his work:

"But one thing the facts cry out, and it can be clear, asthey say, even to a blind man, that often through thetranslators clumsiness or inattention the Greek has been

wrongly rendered; often the true and genuine reading hasbeen corrupted by ignorant scribes, which we see happenevery day, or altered by scribes who are half-taught andhalf-asleep."[12]

Erasmus's new work was published by Froben of Basel in

1516 and thence became the first published Greek NewTestament, the Novum Instrumentum omne, diligenter abErasmo Rot. Recognitum et Emendatum. The secondedition used the more familiar term Testamentum instead ofInstrumentum, and eventually became a major source forLuther's German translation.

In his haste, Erasmus made a considerable number oftranslation mistakes. He was unable to find a manuscriptcontaining the entire Greek New Testament, so hecompiled several different sources. After comparing whatwritings he could find, Erasmus wrote corrections betweenthe lines and sent the documents to Froben. Erasmus said


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the resulting work was "thrown headlong rather thanedited" ("prcipitatum fuit verius quam editum").[13]

He fixed many but not all of the resulting mistakes in thesecond edition, published in 1519.[8] The Comma does notappear until the third edition, published in 1522.[14]

The Greek New Testament published in 1524 is missing theComma Johanneum

Its absence from the first two editions has traditionally been

explained as the result of the animosity this provokedamong churchmen and scholars, led by Lopez de Ziga,one of the Complutensian editors. Erasmus is said to havereplied to these critics that the Comma did not occur in anyof the Greek manuscripts he could find, but that he wouldadd it to future editions if it appeared in a single Greekmanuscript.[8] Such a manuscript was subsequently

concocted by a Franciscan, and Erasmus, true to his word,added the Comma to his 1522 edition, but with a lengthyfootnote setting out his suspicion that the manuscript hadbeen prepared expressly to confute him. This third editionbecame a chief source for the King James Version, therebyfixing the Comma firmly in the English-language scripturesfor centuries.[8]

The story of Erasmus' promise has been accepted as fact byscholars, repeated by even so eminent an authority as BruceM. Metzger.[15] Nevertheless, it can be traced back nofurther than the first decades of the 19th century, and a1980 paper by Professor H.J. De Jonge concludes that no


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such promise was ever made by Erasmus, and that he neversuspected the fraudulent Codex Britannicus (MM 61, thetext prepared by the Franciscan) of having been written

with the express purpose of forcing him to include theComma. Rather, Erasmus included the Comma because hewished to avoid any suspicion of personal unorthodoxywhich might undermine the acceptance of his translation:

"For the sake of his ideal Erasmus chose to avoid anyoccasion for slander rather than persisting in philologicalaccuracy and thus condemning himself to impotence. That

was the reason why Erasmus included the CommaJohanneum even though he remained convinced that it didnot belong to the original text of l John." [16]

The term Textus Receptus commonly refers to one ofErasmus's later editions or one of the works derived from

them. The Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, a Protestantreference published in 1914, comments:

The textus receptus, slavishly followed, with slightdiversities, in hundreds of editions, and substantiallyrepresented in all the principal modern Protestanttranslations prior to the nineteenth century, thus resolvesitself essentially into that of the last edition of Erasmus,framed from a few modern and inferior manuscripts and theComplutensian Polyglot, in the infancy of Biblicalcriticism. In more than twenty places its reading issupported by the authority of no known Greek manuscript.[13]


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Isaac Newton (16431727), best known today for his many

contributions to mathematics and physics, also wroteextensively on Biblical matters. In a 1690 treatise entitledAn Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions ofScripture, he summed up the history of the comma and hisown belief that it was introduced, intentionally or byaccident, into a Latin text during the fourth or fifth century,a time when he believed the Church to be ripe withcorruption:[17]

In all the vehement universal and lasting controversy

about the Trinity in Jerome's time and both before and long

enough after it, this text of the "three in heaven" was never

once thought of. It is now in everybodys mouth and

accounted the main text for the business and would

assuredly have been so too with them, had it been in their

books. [18]

Comma in Codex Ottobonianus (629 Gregory-Aland)

Nearly all modern major Christian denominations areTrinitarian, with their beliefs reflected in three ancientcreeds: The Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed and theAthanasian Creed. (Very few branches of modernChristianity are non-Trinitarian, but members of TheChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for example,may reject the Comma as an example of how spuriousadditions change the meaning of holy texts). [19]


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Mainstream Christianity therefore accepts the underlyingtheology of the Johannine Comma, whether or not they

hold it to be a part of the First Epistle of John.The history of the comma in the centuries following theTextus Receptus has been one of initial acceptancefollowed by near-total rejection. This history is summed upin the Introduction to the 1808 New Testament in animproved version, upon the basis of Archbishop Newcome's new translation, which did not contain the

Comma Johanneum, where the editors explained theirreasons for rejecting the Textus Receptus as follows:

1. This text concerning the heavenly witnesses is notcontained in any Greek manuscript which was writtenearlier than the fifteenth century.

2. Nor in any Latin manuscript earlier than the ninthcentury.

3. It is not found in any of the ancient versions.

4. It is not cited by any of the Greek ecclesiastical writers,though to prove the doctrine of the Trinity they have citedthe words both before and after this text

5. It is not cited by any of the early Latin fathers, evenwhen the subjects upon which they treat would naturallyhave led them to appeal to its authority.


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6. It is first cited by Vigilius Tapsensis, a Latin writer of nocredit, in the latter end of the fifth century, and by him it issuspected to have been forged.

7. It has been omitted as spurious in many editions of theNew Testament since the Reformation:in the two first ofErasmus, in those of Aldus, Colinaus, Zwinglius, and latelyof Griesbach.

8. It was omitted by Luther in his German version. In theold English Bibles of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and

Elizabeth, it was printed in small types, or included inbrackets: but between the years 1566 and 1580 it began tobe printed as it now stands; by whose authority, is notknown." [20]

The Cambridge Paragraph Bible, an edition of the KingJames Version published in 1873, and edited by noted

textual scholar F.H.A. Scrivener, one of the translators ofthe English Revised Version, set the Comma in italics toreflect its disputed authenticity, though not all later editionsretain this formatting.

Modern Bible translations such as the NIV, NASB, ESV,NRSV and others tend to either omit the Comma entirely,or relegate it to the footnotes. [21]

The Roman Catholic Church was slower to reject thecomma. The Council of Trent in 1546 defined the Biblicalcanon as "the entire books with all their parts, as these have


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been wont to be read in the Catholic Church and arecontained in the old Latin Vulgate," meaning that thecomma was included. Yet although the revised Vulgate

contained the Comma, the earliest known copies did not,leaving the status of the Comma Johanneum unclear.[4]

On 13 January 1897, during a period of reaction in theChurch, the Holy Office decreed that Catholic theologianscould not "with safety"deny or call into doubt the Comma'sauthenticity. Pope Leo XIII approved this decision twodays later, though his approval was not in forma

specifica[4]that is, Leo XIII did not invest his full papalauthority in the matter, leaving the decree with the ordinaryauthority possessed by the Holy Office.

Three decades later, on 2 June 1927, the more liberal PopePius XI decreed that the Comma Johanneum was open todispute. The updated Nova Vulgata (New Vulgate),

published in 1979 following Second Vatican Council, doesnot include the Comma,[22] nor does the English-languageNew American Bible.

In more recent years, the Comma has become relevant tothe King-James-Only Movement, a largely Protestantdevelopment most prevalent within the fundamentalist andIndependent Baptist branch of the Baptist churches.Proponents view the Comma as an important Trinitariantext and assert that those who doubt its authenticity arethreatening the biblical basis for Trinitarian belief. [23]


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Manuscript evidence

Griesbach's critical edition of the New Testament

explaining at the footnote the reasons for the textualrejection of the Comma Johanneum.

Both Novum Testamentum Graece (NA27) and the UnitedBible Societies (UBS4) provide three variants. Thenumbers here follow UBS4, which rates its preference forthe first variant as { A }, meaning "virtually certain" toreflect the original text. The second variant is a longer

Greek version found in only four manuscripts, the marginsof three others and in some minority variant readings oflectionaries. All of the hundreds of other Greekmanuscripts that contain 1 John support the first variant.

The third variant is found only in Latin, in one class ofVulgate manuscripts and three patristic works.

The other two Vulgate traditions omit the Comma, as domore than a dozen major Church Fathers who quote theverses.

The Latin variant is considered a trinitarian gloss,[24]explaining or paralleled by the second Greek variant.

1. No Comma. , . [... witnessing, the spirit and the

water and the blood.] Select evidence: Codex Sinaiticus,Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Vaticanus, and other codices;Uncial 048, 049, 056, 0142; the text of Minuscules 33, 81,


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88, 104, and other minuscules; the Byzantine majority text;the majority of Lectionaries, in particular the menologionof Lectionary 598; the Old Latin (codices Vercellensis IV

and Schlettstadtensis VII/VIII), Vulgate (John Wordsworthand Henry Julian White edition and the Stuttgart), Syriac,Coptic (both Sahidic and Bohairic), and other translations;Irenaeus (died 202), Clement of Alexandria (died 215),Tertullian (died 220), Hippolytus of Rome (died 235),Origen (died 254), Cyprian (died 258), and other quotationsin the Church Fathers.

2. The Comma in Greek. All non-lectionary evidence cited:Minuscules 61 (Codex Montfortianus, c. 1520), 629 (CodexOttobonianus, 14/15th cent.), 918 (16th cent.), 2318 (18thcent.).

3. The Comma at the margins of Greek at the margins ofminuscules 88 (Codex Regis, 11th cent. with marginsadded at the 16th cent.), 221 (10th cent. with marginsadded at the 15/16th cent.), 429 (14th cent. with marginsadded at the 16th cent.), 636 (16th cent.); some minorityvariant readings in lectionaries.

4. The Comma in Latin. testimonium dicunt [or dant] interra, spiritus [or: spiritus et] aqua et sanguis, et hi tresunum sunt in Christo Iesu. 8 et tres sunt, qui testimoniumdicunt in caelo, pater verbum et spiritus. [... givingevidence on earth, spirit, water and blood, and these three


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are one in Christ Jesus. 8 And the three, which giveevidence in heaven, are father word and spirit.] Allevidence from Fathers cited: Clemantine edition of Vulgate

translation; Pseudo Augustine's Speculum Peccatoris (V),also (with some variation) Priscillian (died 385) LiberApologeticus and Fulgentius of Ruspe (died 527)Responsio contra Arianos.

The gradual appearance of the comma in the manuscriptevidence is represented in the following tables:

Latin manuscripts

Date Name Place Other information

7th cent. Palimpsest Leon Cathedral Spanish7th cent. Fragment of Freisling Spanish

9th cent. Codex Cavensis Spanish927 A.D. Codex Complutensis I Spanish10th cent. Codex Toletanus Spanish8th-9th cent. Codex Theodulphianus Paris (BnF) Franco-Spanish8th-9th cent. Some manuscripts of the Sangallense library

Franco-Spanish Greek manuscripts

Date Manuscript No. Name Place Other information

14th-15th cent. 629 Codex Ottobonianus Vatican Original.


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Latin text along the Greek text, revised to conform to the

Latin.The Comma was translated and copied back into the Greekfrom the Latin.

c. 1520 61 Codex Montfortianus Dublin Original. Reads"Holy Spirit" instead of simply "Spirit".

Articles are missing before the "three witnesses" (spirit,water, blood).

16th cent. 918 Escorial (Spain) Original.16th cent. 110 Codex Ravianus (also called Berolinensis)Naples Original.18th cent. 2318 Bucharest Original.

Thought to be influenced by the Clementine Vulgate.

10th cent. 221 Oxford Marginal gloss: 15th 16th cent.11th cent. 88 Codex Regis Naples Marginal gloss: 16thcent.14th cent. 429 Codex Wolfenbttel Wolfenbttel

(Germany) Marginal gloss: 16th cent.

16th cent. 636 Naples Marginal gloss: 16th cent.11th cent. 635 Naples Marginal gloss: 17th cent.


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Grammar argument

In the 19th century Frederick Nolan [25][26] and RobertDabney [27] separately published a grammatical justification for the Comma. They noted that the wordsSpirit, water and Blood" in 1 John 5:8, found outsidethe Comma, though grammatically neuter, are immediately preceded by the masculine phrase the ones bearingwitness," and they suggested that this was the result ofgrammatical gender agreement with the masculine nouns

"Father" and "Word" within the Comma.

The argument has gained little support among scholars,who do not see it as outweighing the textual analysisdescribed above. The argument of Nolan and Dabney thatgrammatical gender agreement with the multiple neuternouns "Spirit" and "water" and "Blood" should occur if

John did not write the Comma and that grammatical genderagreement with the multiple masculine nouns "Father" and"Word" in the Comma does occur, thus proving that Johnwrote the Comma, is not well-based in terms of Greekgrammar, as grammatical gender agreement with multiplenouns never occurs in the New Testament.

Two other grammar-based explanations have beenadvanced. Howard Marshall suggests that although Spirit,water and Blood are all neuter in Greek, John regarded the"Spirit" as a Person and used the masculine gender toacknowledge this, leading to the personification also of"water" and "Blood."[28]


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This explanation, however, makes little sense, given thatthe phrase "the thing bearing witness," used in reference to

the "Spirit" in the immediately preceding verse, has beenallowed to remain neuter.

Alternatively, Daniel B. Wallace suggests that themasculine phrase "the ones bearing witness" may be takingits gender from the men in the phrase the witness of themen in verse 5:9, with whom John is equating the Spiritand the water and the Blood.[29]

References

1. ^ (Jaroslav Pelikan, Whose Bible Is It? A Short Historyof the Scriptures, Penguin Books Ltd, 2005, p. 156)

2. ^ Nova Vulgata

3. ^ "Fragments of Clemens Alexandrius, translated byRev. William Wilson, section 3.4. ^ a b c d e f Catholic Encyclopedia, "Epistles of St

John"5. ^ Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the

Greek New Testament, 2nd ed., Stuttgart, 1993.6. ^ Clontz, T.E. and J., "The Comprehensive New

Testament", Cornerstone Publications (2008), p. 709, ISBN978-0-977873-71-5

7. ^ a b Daniel B. Wallace, "The Comma Johanneum andCyprian".


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8. ^ a b c d Theodore H. Mann, "Textual problems in theKJV New Testament", in: Journal of Biblical Studies 1(JanuaryMarch 2001).

9. ^ "Epistle 695" in Collected Works of Erasmus Vol. 5:Letters 594 to 841, 1517-1518 (tr. R.A.B. Mynors andD.F.S. Thomson; annotated by James K. McConica;Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 172.

10. ^ "Epistle 273" in Collected Works of Erasmus Vol. 2:Letters 142 to 297, 1501-1514 (tr. R.A.B. Mynors andD.F.S. Thomson; annotated Wallace K. Ferguson; Toronto:University of Toronto Press, 1976), 253.

11. ^ "Epistle 305" in Collected Works of Erasmus. Vol.3: Letters 298 to 445, 1514-1516 (tr. R.A.B. Mynors andD.F.S. Thomson; annotated by James K. McConica;Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 32.

12. ^ "Epistle 337" in Collected Works of Erasmus Vol. 3,134.

13. ^ a b "History of the Printed Text", in: New Schaff-

Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. II:Basilica Chambers, p. 106 ff.14. ^ Robert Waltz, Textus Receptus15. ^ Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament:

Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 2d ed.,(Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 101.

16. ^ HJ de Jonge, 'Erasmus and the Comma Johanneum',Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 56 (1980): 381389.

17. ^ Newton Project, Newton's Views on the Corruptionsof Scripture and the Church.

18. ^ A. Zahoor, Sir Isaac Newton on the Bible


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19. ^ Marc A. Schindler, "The Johannine Comma: BadTranslation, Bad Theology" in: Dialogue: A Journal ofMormon Thought 29, 3 (Fall 1996).

20. ^ New Testament in an improved version, upon the basis of Archbishop Newcome's new translation, 1808,London, p. 563.

21. ^ NIV, NASB, ESV, NRSV Translations22. ^ Nova Vulgata, "Epistula I Ioannis"

23. ^ Thomas M. Strouse, "Fundamentalism and theAuthorized Version".

24. ^ John Painter, Daniel J. Harrington. 1, 2, and 3 John

25. ^ Frederick Nolan, An Inquiry into the Integrity of theGreek Vulgate or Received Text of the New Testament,chapter 4, pages 254-261

26. ^ Frederick Nolan, An Inquiry into the Integrity of theGreek Vulgate or Received Text of the New Testament,chapter 6, pages 564-565

27. ^ Robert L. Dabney, Discussions by Robert L.

Dabney, Volume I, Theological and Evangelical, TheDoctrinal Various Readings of the New Testament Greek,pages 377-378

28. ^ I. Howard Marshall, "The Epistles of John", p.237,fn.20

29. ^ Daniel B. Wallace, "Greek Grammar Beyond theBasics", (p.332, fn.44)

Further reference works

* Bible.org: The Textual Problem in 1 John 5:78


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* Latin Manuscript Evidence Concerning 1 John 5:7-8(1998) by Gregory S. Neal

* Ancient Manuscript evidence and Pre Lutheran

examples of 1 John 5:7-8* The Comma Johanneum and Cyprian by Daniel B.Wallace.

the forgery known as 'the johannine comma

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