The Three that Bear Witness 1 John 5:7-9
What do they bear witness to?
1 Jn 5:7
The fact is that John did not write the words found at 1 Jn 5:7 in the
KJV! And we must consider
why trinitarian scholars and copyists felt compelled to
add it to the Holy Scriptures.
The only other Bibles which include this passage that I am aware of are the Catholic
Douay Version (A. D. 1609), the
New Life Version (1993), the
New King James Version (1982)
, and the
King James II Version (1982). These last two are modern translations which have as their stated purpose the preservation of the text and traditions of the
King James Version and which, therefore, translate from the thoroughly discredited Received Text.
Of these four Bibles the
KJIIV at least indicates the unscriptural addition of 1 John 5:7 by writing it in all italics. And buried in the Preface is the admission that 1 Jn 5:7 (among others) is
not to be accepted as true Scripture.
The
New Life Version, however, claims to put an asterisk (*) to mark words or passages which are “missing in some of the early writings.” And it does so in such passages as Mark 16:9-20 and John 8:1-11, but it does
not do so at 1 Jn 5:7.
Since Greek was the “universal language” at the time the New Testament writers wrote and for many years thereafter, the earliest copies of the manuscripts of the New Testament were most often written in Koine Greek. Therefore the very best manuscripts (and the oldest) of New Testament writings in existence today are the most ancient (4th and 5th century)
Greek manuscripts. These early Greek manuscripts were later translated into various other languages, including Latin. Although Bible translators often compare these ancient Greek manuscripts with NT manuscripts of other languages, they nearly always translate from a text that was composed from the oldest and best
Greek manuscripts.
Respected
trinitarian scholar, minister (Trinity Church), Professor (University of Glasgow and Marburg University), author (
The Daily Study Bible Series, etc.), and Bible translator, Dr. William Barclay, states the following about this passage:
Note on 1 John 5:7
“In the Authorized Version [
KJV] there is a verse which we have altogether omitted [in Barclay’s NT translation]. It reads, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one.”
“The Revised Version omits this verse, and does not even mention it in the margin, and none of the newer translations includes it.
It is quite certain that it does not belong to the original text.
“The facts are as follows. First, it does not occur in any Greek manuscript earlier than the 14th century. The great manuscripts belong to the 3rd and 4th centuries [most scholars date them to the 4th and 5th centuries], and it occurs in none of them. None of the great early fathers of the Church knew it. Jerome’s original version of the [Latin]Vulgate does not include it. The first person to quote it is a Spanish heretic called Priscillian who died in A. D. 385. Thereafter it crept gradually into the Latin texts of the New Testament although, as we have seen, it did not gain an entry to the Greek manuscripts.
“How then did it get into the text? Originally it must have been a scribal gloss or comment in the margin.
Since it seemed to offer good scriptural evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity [and since there was no good scriptural evidence for this new doctrine introduced by the Roman church in 325 A. D.], through time it came to be accepted by theologians as part of the text, especially in those early days of scholarship before the great manuscripts were discovered. [More likely it was written in the margin of an existing manuscript with the
intention that future trinitarian copyists actually add it to all new copies.]
“But how did it last, and how did it come to be in the Authorized [King James] Version? The first Greek testament to be published was that of Erasmus in 1516. Erasmus was a great scholar and, knowing that this verse
was not in the original text, he did not include it in his first edition. By this time, however, theologians [trinitarians, of course] were using the verse. It had, for instance, been printed in the Latin Vulgate of 1514. Erasmus was therefore criticized for omitting it. His answer was that if anyone could show him a Greek manuscript which had the words in it, he would print them in his next edition. Someone did produce a
very late and
very bad text in which the verse did occur in Greek; and Erasmus, true to his word but very much against his judgment and his will, printed the verse in his 1522 edition.
“The next step was that in 1550 Stephanus printed his great edition of the Greek New Testament. This 1550 edition of Stephanus was called - he gave it that name himself -
The Received Text, and it was the basis of the Authorized Version [
KJV] and of the Greek text for centuries to come. That is how this verse got into the Authorized Version. There is, of course, nothing wrong with it [
if the trinity were really true as trinitarians like Barclay himself want!]; but modern scholarship has made it
quite certain that John did not write it and that it is a
much later commentary on, and addition to, his words; and that is why all modern translations omit it.” - pp. 110-111,
The Letters of John and Jude, The Daily Study Bible Series, Revised Edition, The Westminster Press, 1976. [Material in brackets and emphasis added by me.]
And respected (and highly
trinitarian) New Testament Bible scholar Dr. A. T. Robertson writes:
“For there are three who bear witness (hoti treis eisin hoi marturountes). At this point the Latin Vulgate gives the words in the Textus Receptus [Received Text], found in no Greek MS. [Manuscript] save two late cursives (162 in the Vatican Library of the fifteenth century, 34 of the
sixteenth century in Trinity College, Dublin). Jerome [famed trinitarian, 342-420 A. D.] did not have it.
Cyprian applies the language of the Trinity [ ? - - see UBS Commentary below] and
Priscillian [excommunicated 380 A. D., executed 385 A. D.] has it. Erasmus did not have it in his first edition, but rashly offered to insert it if a single Greek MS. had it and [ms.] 34 was produced with the insertion,
as if made to order. The spurious addition is:
en toi ouranoi ho pater, ho logos kai to hagion pneuma kai houtoi hoi treis hen eisin kai treis eisin hoi marturountes en tei gei (in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and the three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth). The last clause belongs to verse 8. The fact and the doctrine of the Trinity do not depend on this
spurious addition.” - p. 240, Vol. VI,
Word Pictures in the New Testament, Broadman Press, 1960.