| 1 John 5:7-8 |
Additional Forgery. These verses are not in any ancient Bible. This
interpolation was a bold stroke to strengthen the Trinity.[2,p.54]
—in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the
Holy Spirit; and these three are one. And there are three that
boar record on earth”—. The evidence in favour of the genuineness
of these words is so inferior to that on the opposite side,
that the majority of persons who have gone through the whole
case, (which is no trifling labour,) are satisfied of their
spuriousness. The probability is, that the passage was originally a
marginal comment on “the Spirit, the water, and the blood;”
and was introduced, by the ignorance or the predilection of
transcribers, into the text of the Vulgate Latin Version. There
is no authority for it whatsoever in any manuscripts of the Greek
original, except one, which is too modern to be of much value.
This and the two following compose the three passages to which
the author of the Introduction to the Improved Version attributes
“great importance.” But it should be recollected, that critical
disquisition upon the authenticity of any document ought to be
carried on with the most rigorous impartiality, and without either
favour or disfavour to particular doctrines which the document
might affect: that many who have denied the doctrines of the
Trinity and the Divine Nature of the Saviour, have admitted
the common reading of these three texts; and that many other
persons who reject the passage in 1 John v. and approve of the
proposed emendations of the other two, are fully convinced of
the truth of those doctrines, because they believe the general
tenor of Scripture and the declaration of particular passages,
both numerous and forcible, to be decidedly in their favour.
—John Pye Smith, An Answer To A Printed Paper Entitled MANIFESTO of the CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE SOCIETY (by Robert Taylor)(1827).
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