PART SEVEN: RIDERS OF THE WRECKING MACHINE

I JOHN 5: 7-8  THE TRINITY The Bible does not use the word "Trinity."    The early church father Tertullian (about 160 to 220 AD at Carthage) first used the word. The New Testament states in a few verses that  there is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  But the issue has been over I John 5: 7-8 which is  one of the most disputed pair of verses in the New Testament. I John 5: 7-8: Textus Receptus Greek:   oti treis eisin oi marturountes en to ourano o pater o logo kai to agion pneuma kai outoi oi trei en eisin   8 kai treis eisin oi marturountes en te ge to pneuma kai to udor kai to aima kai oi treis ei to en eisin I John 5: 7-8:  Westcott-Hort Greek:       oti treis eisin oi marturountes 8 to pneuma kai to udor kai to aima kai oi treis ei to en eisin Even if you can't read Greek, you can see that the Westcott-Hort text leaves out many words. I John 5: 7-8:  King James Version:  "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.  And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one." I John 5: 7-8 in the American Standard Version:  "And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the truth.  For there are three who bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and the three agree in one." Its not real clear in the American Standard  Version that I John 5: 7-8 is talking about the Trinity,  which is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the King James Version Christ is called the Word. The Revised Standard version just says "There are three that testify. the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree." The NIV says "For there are three that testify:  the Spirit, the water and the blood: and the three are in agreement." And the Douay-Rheims says:  " And there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one.   And there are three that give testimony on earth: the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three are one." The Catholic Douay-Rheims agrees with the Textus Receptus and King James.  But don't think  that this agreement has any significance for that Church being true to the Lord and his word. Young's Literal Translation and the Green translation both have the full wording of the Textus Receptus and King James. Its interesting that the Douay-Rheims has a clearer statement of the doctrine of the trinity than the modern translations from Westcott-Hort.  But the problem is that the King James wording for I John 5: 7-8 is said by the followers of Westcot-Hort not to exist in early  Greek texts.  The NIV Study Bible says that I John 5:7 "...is not found in any Greek manuscript or New Testament translation prior to the 16th century." This below  is taken from: http://www.fundamentalbiblechurch.org/Foundation/fbcdoesa.htm "It is not true that I John 5:7 is absent in all pre-16th century Greek manuscripts and New Testament translations.  The text is found in eight extant Greek manuscripts, and five of them are dated before the 16th century (Greek miniscules 88, 221, 429, 629, 636). Furthermore, there is abundant support for I John 5:7f from the Latin translations.  There are at least 8000 extant Latin manuscripts, and many of them contain 1 John 5:7; the really important ones being the Old Latin, which church fathers such as Tertullian (AD 155-220) and Cyprian (AD 200-258) used.  Now, out of the very few Old Latin manuscripts with the fifth chapter of First John, at least four of them contain the Comma.  Since these Latin versions were derived from the Greek New Testament, there is reason to believe that I John 5:7 has very early Greek attestation, hitherto lost." Jerome, who created the Catholic Latin Vulgate complains in his work Prologue to the Canonical Epistles  that the complete wording of I John 5:7 was taken out of  Greek manuscripts which he had seen.  He says: "Irresponsible translators left out this testimony in the Greek codices." On  http://www.studytoanswer.net/bibleversions/1john5n7.html#greek it says ", conditions were favourable for the Greek witness to have been altered by Arian heretics in the 4th century who sought to expunge the overt Trinitarian witness of the Comma...It is very well possible that even the Byzantine tradition was corrupted by the Arian heretics of the East in the 4th-5th centuries, and that the Eastern Emperors such as Constantius who came under the Arian heresy consciously sought to remove the Comma from the witness of the Greek scriptures of the East. This could answer the question why the Comma is missing from the bulk of the Greek manuscript tradition, but yet is evidenced in other traditions such as those of the Old Latin and the Syriac." Arianism - from Arius - said that Jesus Christ was a created being and not God, and so the Arians in the early church period were anti-trinitarians. Frederic G. Kenyon in his 1936 book, The Story of the Bible (page 110), says that in creating his Latin Vulgate, Jerome  used both the Alexandarian Greek texts, such as the Vaticanus, and the Old Latin texts.  Probably the full Textus Receptus wording of I John 5: 7-8 got in some versions of the Vulgate from the Old Latin texts, if not at the time Jerome created his Vulgate, then at a somewhat later time. Scholars of the Bible, though generally not those who are  followers of Westcott and Hort, say that the complete Textus Receptus wording of I John 5: 7-8 is found in at least two eighth century Greek texts, the  Wizanburgensis and the Basiliensis. "The existence of Wizanburgensis from the 8th century lends credit to this idea, since it demonstrates in a concrete manner that Comma-containing Greek manuscripts existed at least that far back..." (http://www.studytoanswer.net/bibleversions/1john5n7.html#greek) Basiliensis is now kept at Basel, Switzerland   Codex Basiliensis (E/07). Eighth century according to http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn/UncialScript.html    And Wizanburgensis is in the the Dublin University Library. In his commentary on I John 5: 7 John Gill says  of the  mention of the text by early church fathers that it is cited "... by Fulgentius , in the beginning of the "sixth" century, against the Arians, without any scruple or hesitation; and Jerome, as before observed, has it in his translation made in the latter end of the "fourth" century; and it is cited by Athanasius  about the year 350; and before him by Cyprian , in the middle, of the "third" century, about the year 250; and is referred to by Tertullian  about, the year 200;" Athenagorus - who lived in the second century, about 177AD - says "The Holy Spirit Himself also, which operates in the prophets, we assert to be an effluence of God, flowing from Him, and returning back again like a beam of the sun. Who, then, would not be astonished to hear men who speak of God the Father, and of God the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and who declare both their power in union and their distinction in order, called atheists?" This is in:  Athenagorus, Plea for the Christians. Athenagorus talks about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and says they are three separate persons but are in union, a statement that sounds a lot likje that in I John 5: 7. He also refers to the Son as the Word. Remember that I John 5: 7 calls Christ the Word. Tertullian  in about 215 AD in Adversus Praxeas has a lot to say about the Trinity.  He has many partial quotes of New Testament verses.  In his book, Adversus Praxeas (Against Praxeas ), Chapter Twenty-Five, he says "'And so the connection of the Father, and the Son, and of the Paraclete [Holy Spirit] makes three cohering entities, one cohering from the other, which three are one entity' refers to the unity of their substance, not the oneness of their number." He apparently does not directly quote I John 5: 7-8. See:   http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-03/anf03-43.htm#P10395_2912630 "which three are one entity" sounds like I John 5: 7  Cyprian, another North African bishop, cites the verse in about 250 AD saying: " The Lord says, 'I and the Father are one;' and again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, 'And these three are one.'"55  (55) - Cyprian, De Unit. Eccl., cap. vi On the web site   http://home.carolina.rr.com/theshuecrew/wallace.html  it says  "Since Cyprian wrote the disputed passage in Latin I feel it necessary to list Cyprian's words in Latin. Cyprian wrote, "Dicit dominus, Ego et pater unum sumus (John x. 30), et iterum de Patre, et Filio, et Spiritu Sancto scriptum est, Et tres unum sunt." (The Lord says, "I and the Father are One," and again, of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost it is written: "And the three are One."). This Latin reading is important when you compare it to the Old Latin reading of 1 John 5:7; "Quoniam tres sunt, gui testimonium dant in coelo: Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus sanctus: et hi tres unum sunt." Cyprian clearly says that it is written of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost--"And the three are One." His Latin matches the Old Latin reading identically with the exception of 'hi'...There is no other verse that expressly states that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are 'three in one' outside of 1 John 5:7." The "Old Latin" text is not Jerome's Vulgate, but an earlier Latin Bible used by the Waldenses and others in Europe. This is apparently from the Treatises of Cyprian who lived from about 200 to 258 AD.  He is saying that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one, not meaning that the Godhead is made up only of one person, but that the three persons of the  Godhead are united in agreement.  The statement of the NIV that the Spirit, the water and the blood are in agreement is not nearly as clear that it is referring to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Finally, Augustine (354-430 AD) says "I would not have thee mistake that place in the epistle of John the apostle where he saith, "There are three witnesses: the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and the three are one." Lest haply thou say that the Spirit and the water and the blood are diverse substances, and yet it is said, "the three are one:" ."60  (60) - Augustine, Contra Maximinium, Lib. II, cap. xxii.3; Augustine was more clearly a Catholic than Polycarp, Ignatius, Irenaeus or Tertullian, and I would not recommend  some of Augustine's teachings. But  we can still use his testimony in his time about the existence of the full Textus Receptus wording of I John 5: 7-8. The shortening of I John 5: 7-8 in the Westcott-Hort Greek text of 1881 down to an unclear statement about the Spirit, the water and the blood being  in agreement may be consistent with second and third century AD gnostic doctrines about Jesus Christ.  Many gnostics thought that the Christ was an Aeon created by the Eternal Father, who was a spirit, but  not  the God of the Bible.  Arius specifically taught that Christ was a created being and not God. We don't have proof that gnostics or followers of Arius changed the wording of I John 5: 7-8. But there are many other omissions and changes in the Westcott-Hort Greek text that seem to agree  with gnostic theology. The more verse changes  we find that are  in agreement  with gnosticism the more support there  is for the  idea of gnostic changes in the Bible.  But the followers of Westcott and Hort will probably not accept that as  decisive proof.   Neither would they accept as decisive proof  quotes of Scripture by early Church fathers or very early texts that the wordings of the Textus Receptus go back to the second or first centuries or to the  originals written by the apostles. The most decisive proof that the King James Version and the Greek Textus Receptus  are accepted by God as his word is the fruit these two texts have created since Erasmus published his first edition of the Textus Receptus  in  1516 and the King James Version came out in 1611. I John 5: 7-8 is not the only statement of the Trinity in the New Testament.  There are some verses other than I John 5: 7-8 that say there is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, such as: Matthew 28: 19:   "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." John 15: 26:  "But when the Comforter (the Holy Spirit) is come, whom I (Jesus) will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me." Matthew 3: 16-17:  "and Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: and to a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." It is the Father who is speaking here.

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