Angelina, ( and @BarnyFife ) I would be careful with 1 John 5:7 it has a history of either being a forgery or the work of innocent creative overreach biased and eager to see the trinity doctrine in scripture.The again brother- @marks we have 1 John 5:7
For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. The bible doesn't say there were two who bore witness but three...
I John 5: Verses 7 and 8 were deliberately altered to promote the Trinity concept during the 16th century. They added in some side comments for actual scripture. The closest correct English translation of these verses are “For there are three that bear record, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.” The meaning of course was to show that Jesus was born by the Spirit. He was baptized and he shed his blood on the cross. These all three acts establish, validate and authentic Jesus' was truly present while on earth.
What the forgers did was to confuse the reader by adding in the words, “in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth,”
They wanted to reinforce the false model of their three personalities of God: The Father, the Word, as the Son.
No early and genuine Greek manuscript of scripture before the 14th Century had the heavenly three witnesses in them. In fact, the same can be said for the Latin early text. These forgers only served the interests of the Pope, Roman Catholics and King James of England.
Sources: (Wilson 1865) (The Jerusalem Bible, New Testament 1966) (Wheless 1930) (Erasmus c. 1516) (New International Version (NIV) 1967)
Other sources (Dr. Daniel Wallace):
This longer reading is found only in eight late manuscripts, four of which have the words in a marginal note. Most of these manuscripts (2318, 221, and [with minor variations] 61, 88, 429, 629, 636, and 918) originate from the 16th century; the earliest manuscript, codex 221 (10th century), includes the reading in a marginal note which was added sometime after the original composition. Thus, there is no sure evidence of this reading in any Greek manuscript until the 1500s; each such reading was apparently composed after Erasmus’ Greek NT was published in 1516. Indeed, the reading appears in no Greek witness of any kind (either manuscript, patristic, or Greek translation of some other version) until AD 1215 (in a Greek translation of the Acts of the Lateran Council, a work originally written in Latin)…
It began with Desiderius Erasmus and his “Novum Instrumentum omne” which was the first New Testament in Greek to be published. This Greek text is also referred to as the Textus Receptus. Erasmus did not include the infamous Comma Johanneum of 1 John 5:7-8 in either his 1516 or 1519 editions of his Greek New Testament with very good reason. But it made its way into his third edition in 1522 because of pressure from the Catholic Church. After his first edition appeared in 1516, there arose such a furor over the absence of the Comma that Erasmus needed to defend himself. He argued that he did not put in the Comma Trinitarian formula because he found no Greek manuscripts that included it. Once one was produced called the Codex 61, that was written by one Roy or Froy at Oxford in c. 1520, he reluctantly agreed to include it in his subsequent editions. Erasmus probably altered the text because of politico-theologico-economic concerns. He did not want his reputation ruined, nor his Novum Instrumentum to go unsold. Thus it passed into the Stephanus Greek New Testament in 1551 (first New Testament in verses), which came to be called the Textus Receptus, and became the basis for the Geneva Bible New Testament in 1557 and the Authorized King James Version in 1611.
In reality, the issue is history, not heresy: How can one argue that the Comma Johanneum must go back to the original text when it did not appear until the 16th century in any Greek manuscripts? (Wallace DB. The Textual Problem in 1 John 5:7-8. | Bible.org)
Catholic scholars realize that the texts that Jerome used to originally put together the Latin Vulgate Bible (the basic Bible for Catholics) did not have the late addition (which, of course, it could not originally have had as that addition came about many centuries after Jerome did his translation).
Basically, what seems to have happened is that a monk put a personal note related to his interpretation of the ‘three’ mentioned in the first part of 1 John 5:7. One or more scribal monks after him, inserted his note actually in the text. It was NOT inspired by God.
Scripture translator Benjamin Wilson gave the following explanation in his “Emphatic Diaglott.” Mr. Wilson says, “This text concerning the heavenly witness is not contained in any Greek manuscript which was written earlier than the fifteenth century. It is not cited by any of the ecclesiastical writers; not by any of early Latin fathers even when the subjects upon which they treated would naturally have led them to appeal to its authority. It is therefore evidently spurious.”
You have been warned and presenting 1 John 5:7 in its current popular form, as being original scripture is now on you.
