1 John 5:7, 8

pamphlet

 : „2017 - 500

Years after Luther!“

endtime.net, p.13

Quote: [4.] The Catholic Church believes that the Virgin Mary was taken up to heaven and that our prayers are to come to her first, in order to reach Jesus and the Father. This is something Catholics have fabricated themselves, since Mary has been dead for around 2000 years. She lies in the grave, just like all others who have died and await the resurrection morning. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17). The Bible clearly states that “there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” (1 John 5:7). We find this text in the King James Bible and in the Groundtext Textus Receptus, but not in the Catholic Bibles and their Groundtext Codex Vaticanus. The Catholic Church suggests that there are four special, holy people in heaven, where Mary is the fourth and the one that they pray to. Matthew 4:1-10 Then was Yahshua led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If you be the Son of YAHWEH, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written (Deut. 8:3): Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of YAHWEH. Then the devil took him up into the holy city, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, And said to him, If you are the Son of YAHWEH, cast yourself down: for it is written, YAHWEH shall give his angels charge concerning you: and in their hands they shall uphold, you, lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone. Yahshua said to him, It is written again (Deut. 6:16): You shall not make trial of YAHWEH your Elohim. Again, the devil took him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And said to him, All these things will I give you, if you will fall down and worship me.  Then says Yahshua to him, Get you hence, Satan: For it is written (Deut. 6:13): »You shall worship YAHWEH your God/Elohim, and him only shall you serve.«

Dictionary of Theology and

Church II (cath.), p. 1272,

Herder Publisher (excerpt):

“COMMA Johanneum (CJ.) is a secondary (in the view of textual criticism), inconsistently transmitted addendum to 1 John 5:7: “there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” The Fathers of the Eastern Church were not familiar with the CJ until the Middle Ages; it has evolved from a Trinitarian interpretation (also detectable in the works of Tertullian and Cyprian) and could be found in the relation of the latter tradition in the print editions of the Greek New Testament including the edition of Erasmus, its 3rd edition and in the textus receptus.  The majority of reformers militated against 'Comma Johanneum'."

The Sacred Scriptures,

Editor, Vol. III:

For more than a hundred years it is well known that the so-called “Comma Johanneum” in 1st John 5:7 to 8 has been an addendum in different translations of the Bible. In the fourth and the fifth centuries AD at the latest, changes were made in the word of God due to some additions. However, in which way did some traditions - including the “Comma Johanneum” and other Trinitarian texts – reach the copies of the original text and then even the Holy Scripture? In the early copies comments were written at the margin. Later copyists inserted some marginal notes into the biblical text. Also translators (and later even the printers) sometimes brought their own views influenced by the tradition, into the translation. Once, only a few wealthy could afford buying a copy of the Scriptures. For the common people the word of God was hidden out of reach behind monastery walls. Just rcently it has been found out from documents, what happened in that time. The so-called “Comma Johanneum”, the verse in 1st John 5:7-8 has secretly been inserted into the biblical text. This text inserted in 1 John 5:7-8 “in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth: “cannot be found in any of the known Greek manuscripts before the 11th century after Christ.” In 1920, Albrecht Ludwig published his translation of the New Testament. There we read the the following notice concerning 1 John 5:7 and 8: “These words cannot be found  with any of the ancient church fathers, who treated  the doctrine of the Trinity from the third to the fifth century. They are also not present in any Greek manuscript before the 15th Century. Only around 400 AD, the words appear in the Western Church. This then inserted the words into the Latin Vulgate in the Middle Age and from then on into the Greek text. Moreover, the words are missing in all the old translations, even in the manuscripts of the Vulgate before the 10th Century. “ “Erasmus kept his promise having added the passage to [1 John 5:7, 8],  its third edition (of 1522), however  expressing his suspicion in an extensive footnote that the handwriting [the found Greek manuscript containing this addendum]  was made specially to refute him. Among the thousands of Greek manuscripts that have been checked since the time of Erasmus, there are only three further ones which contain this spurious passage... The earliest known quotation from the “Comma” is a treatise dating from the 4th Century that can either be attributed to the student or his Priscillian, the Spanish bishop Instantius. The “Comma” was probably originally part of an allegorical interpretation of the “three witnesses” in the text and may have stood as a side note in a Latin manuscript of the first Letter of John, from where it came into the Old Latin Bible yet in the 5th Century. “ (Quotes from: “The text of the New Testament/ New Testament Introduction to the Textual Criticism ‘; III The pre-critical period: Textus Receptus” - BM Metzger, 1966) The more astonishing is the fact that this dubious text in the revised edition of the popular “Schlachter 2000” suddenly reappears. At least it is admitted on page 1354 in the appendix of the new “Schlachter Version 2000”: “1 John 5:7-8 (the so-called “Comma Johanneum”): (7) Because there are three to bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one, (8) and three are the ones who bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water and the blood, and these three are the same. The words printed in italics are missing in the majority text.” It has been unfortunately forgotten to be added that the “Comma Johanneum” was neither included in the Schlachter’s own translation. A text review of Schlachter’s Bible translation dated 1905 (at least sixteen editions had been published until 1922) regarding the “Comma Johanneum” has shown that the spurious text cannot be found in 1 John 5:7, 8. Like Dr. Martin Luther, Franz Eugen Schlachter would certainly neither allow that later generations ever dare adding fake text in his translation.

Biblical and Theological

Encyclopedia, Vandenhoek

& Ruprecht 1959:

"In the late fourth century the doctrine of the Trinity of God was formulated by the Church.  The Bible itself does not contain an explicit statement of the Trinity of God at any point.” The only apparent exception is the so-called <Comma Johanneum>, one Western addendum of the fourth century to 1 John 5:7: “For there are three who bear record in heaven: the Father, the Word and the holy Ghost. And these three are one”. It is apparent that this formulation, which found entrance into some late Greek manuscripts and was admitted in its translation after Luther, should replace the missing literal script basis” (p. 607).