1 John 5:7(-8)

[seebs]

I am totally stumped.

What does 1 John 5:7-8 actually say?

Every Bible I look at has it different. Sometimes substantially so.

Help?

 

[kelco]

Hey Seebs,

I always wondered about these verses too so I did some research and this is what I found out.

This verse is not in any of the Greek Manuscripts until the 16th century.It is found in only two Greek manuscripts of any age - one the Codex Montfortianus, or Britannicus, written in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and the other the Codex Ravianus, which is a mere transcript of the text, taken partly from the third edition of Stephen’s New Testament, and partly from the Complutensian Polyglott. But it is incredible that a genuine passage of the New Testament should be missing in all the early Greek manuscripts.

It is never quoted by any of the early Greek fathers in their debates on the doctrine of the Trinity.

There is a theory that it was what is called a "scribal gloss" or marginal note made by some of the early copyists. Before the printing press was invented the only way to make a book was to copy it by hand. Probably by copyist error the marginal note was copied into the text.
So (IMHO) the correct reading should be:
1 John 5:7 For there are three that testify:

1 John 5:8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. NASB

 

[Reader Nilus]

The passage got into the KJV via Erasmus's Third Edition of the Greek Text. His first two editions did not have it, because there was no Greek witnesses to it, so he said he would put it in if he was shown a Greek Text with it. A monk named Froy did just that produced a Greek Text with the passage. It crept into the Old Latin Version in the 5th Century, a scribal note, that a later scribe thought should be included, and so it was.
Jeff the Finn

 

[PaladinValer]

Jeff's correct. It was probably an explainary footnote that was incerted into the text long after 1 John was originally penned. It was an addition that should have never been.

 

[seebs]

Cool. Thanks.

 

[Reader Nilus]

It should be noted that the scribes were so afraid of leaving something out, that if they saw a note off to the margin, they thought it was text that a prior scribe wrote in the margin because of a mistake.
Jeff the Finn

 

[seebs]

Yeah. I don't think there's any ill intent. It's just curious...

 

[peschitta_enthusiast]

The oldest Greek mss do not have it, neither does the Aramaic original of the Peshitta.

 

[nward2]

The typical observation about 1 John 5:7 is that it is a spurious passage, possibly a gloss, that Erasmus incorporated into his text, against his better judgement, only after a great hue and cry among the faithfull that it be included. It is usually noted that the only manuscript evidence for it dates just prior to the time of Erasmus.

Please note:
1. The text of a manuscript may be older than the manuscript itself. Fopr example, we believe that the Bible we bought at K-Mart contains a text over 3,000 years old!
2. Where did so many of the faithfull great such a strong conviction that it should be included?
3. Since the time of Erasmus, other, and earlier manuscripts have been found that do include the passage
4. Manuscript evidence is not limited to manuscripts alone. It also includes early translations, early versions, writings of the church fathers, and similar materials. This body of evidence has quite a bit to say on the subject. For example the thext is contained in, quoted by, or alluded to by: mss 61 (12th century); mss 629 (11th century); mss 88 (8th centruy); Latin Vulgate (c. 800); Cardinal Ximenes (1502); Fullgentius (1510); Cassiodorus (5th century); Jerome (c.450); Priscillan (4th c.); Idacaus(4th century); Eugennis (c415); Athanasius (c.350); Cyprian (c.250); and Tertullian (c.200).
5. The elimination of verse 7 leaves a gramatically incorrect construction of verses 6 and 8 with respect to change of gender.

This is my first time on this forum. Hi everyone!

 

[Reader Nilus]

The text was in the old Latin Bible 5th CT. So it had been part of the Biblical text that people knew for around a 1000 years when Erasmus left it out of his Greek text. Much like the KJV folks that think the verse was dropped! The verse itself is a commentary on the passage, and that is how it crept into the text, because a scribe thought it was an error of a prior scribe and inserted the marginal note into the text.
Jeff the Finn

 

[JohnJones]

I am totally stumped.

What does 1 John 5:7-8 actually say?

Every Bible I look at has it different. Sometimes substantially so.

Help?

Most modern translations remove verse 7, and some actually have a blank line for verse 7 while others try to cover up the fact that they removed verse 7 by moving part of either verse 6 to versee 7 or part of verse 8 to verse 7.

The true Bible reads:

1 John 5:7-8 "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."

 

[Reader Nilus]

The true bible? Mercy, the New English Bible, the New American Standard, the Revised Standard Version none of them include the verse and they are "true Bibles" as well.
Jeff the Finn

 

[seebs]

I am inclined to accept the "marginal note" theory. That doesn't mean the claim isn't true; merely that it probably wasn't originally written down in that place in that letter.

 

[johnd]

1 John 5:8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

Interesting that these three are precisely what left the body of Jesus on the cross:

Luke 23:46 And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

John 19:34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.