Mr. Religion and his 'facts'
Mr. Religion and his 'facts'
You are playing fast and loose with the facts. The passage appeared in the bible for the first time in 1522. Nevertheless, it matters not since the trinitarian doctrines were affirmed in 381 AD from proper Scriptures. Scholars for hundreds of years have recognized that the passage did not belong in the text. Please cite the manuscript evidence for your assertions, e.g., 424cvid, 1739txt, Ambrose MSS-according to Jerome , etc.???
Mr. Religion. It is you, my friend, who needs to get his facts straight. You tell us here very plainly that "The passage appeared in the bible for the first time in 1522."
Uh, need it be pointed out that Wycliffe had the whole passage in his Bible and this was in 1380. That is just a tad before 1522. It was also in the Old Latin, and in other Latin copies.
Then you give us the very misleading statement -"Scholars for hundreds of years have recognized that the passage did not belong in the text." Well, there also have been other scholars who vehemently defended the text as being God inspired Scripture. You do know what "fudging the truth" is called, right?
Then you say: "Please cite the manuscript evidence for your assertions." I have to wonder where you have been all this time, and how much you have been paying attention. Were you looking out the window while the lesson was being given?
Did you even bother to read the article I posted about 1 John 5:7, or the commentaries by men like John Gill, John Calvin and Matthew Henry?
May I suggest you go back and read the article I put together that documents the historical evidence for the inclusion of 1 John 5:7. Then when you don't believe what it says, just look up the commentaries of John Calvin, John Gill and Matthew Henry. Then do your homework using a Google search and find the various articles that defend rather than cast doubt on this passage. Dr. Thomas Holland is a good source of scholarly information on textual issues. But of course he is a Bible believing King James man, so you undoubtedly won't like him very much.
You only make yourself look very silly when you come out with statements like: "You are playing fast and loose with the facts. The passage appeared in the bible for the first time in 1522." and "Scholars for hundreds of years have recognized that the passage did not belong in the text."
Here is just a portion of what you will find in my article.
It is also important to note that most of the Greek copies that have existed throughout history are no longer with us today. Several well known Christians mention Greek texts that contained 1 John 5:7 that existed in their days centuries ago. Among these are Theodore Beza, John Calvin and Stephanus. Beza remarks that the reading of 1 John 5:7 is found in many of their manuscripts; Calvin likewise says it is found in "the most approved copies"; and Stephanus, who in 1550 printed the Greek text that bears his name, mentioned that of the 16 copies he had 9 of them contained 1 John 5:7. John Gill, who also believed in the inspiration of this verse, likewise mentions in his commentary that nine of Stephanus' sixteen manuscripts contained this verse. There was a time in history when over 50% of the providentially available Greek manuscripts contained the reading found in the King James Bible.
When Cardinal Ximenes planned to print his Polyglot in 1502 he included 1 John 5:7-8. He stated that he had taken care to secure a number of Greek manuscripts; and he described some of these as very "ancient codices" sent to Spain from Rome. Why haven't the manuscript detectives given us a complete list of these "ancient codices"? They must have contained 1 John 5:7 because Ximenes included the verse.
1 John 5:7 was in the first English Bible by John Wycliffe in 1380, in Tyndale’s New Testament of 1525, the Coverdale Bible of 1535, Matthew’s Bible of 1537, the Taverner Bible of 1539, the Great Bible of 1539, the Geneva New Testament of 1557, the Bishop’s Bible of 1568, and the Authorized Version of 1611. The whole passage was included in the Mace New Testament of 1729, and John Wesley strongly believed it was genuine Scripture and included it in his own translation in 1755. It is still found in the NKJV 1982 Young's, the New Life Bible 1969, Green's 'literal' translation of 2000, the KJV 21st Century Version, and the Third Millenium Bible. It was even included in the Catholic Douay version of 1950, but removed from later Catholic versions. It did not disappear from a standard English Bible until the English Revised Version of 1881, based on the Westcott-Hort Greek texts, omitted it.
It is important to note that the Greek Orthodox Church's New Testament contains 1 John 5:7 both in the ancient and in the Modern Greek versions. The passage is also included in the following foreign language Bibles today: Lamsa's 1936 translation of the Syriac Peshitta, the Afrikaans 1957, the Basque N.T.; Czech Kralicka Bible, Dutch Staten Vertaling, Finnish 1776, the French Ostervald 1996 and La Bible de l'Epée 2005, the Italian Diodati, Hungarian Karoli, Icelandic 1981, Latvian N.T.; Maori, Lithuanian, Romanian Cornilescu, Russian Synodal, Russian Victor Zhuromski, the Spanish Sagradas Escrituras 1569, the Spanish Reina Valera used throughout Mexico, Central and South America 1909, 1960 and 1995, the Thai Bible, Tagalog bible, Ukranian Kulish 1871, the Vietnamese bible, and the Xhosa language Bible.
Either God has been faithful to preserve His pure words with nothing added or He has failed and the scholars of today who do not believe any Bible on this earth is the perfect word of God are right. You decide.
Will K
