The Comma Johanneum: A Look at the Unique Trinitarian Passage in the Bible
The Comma (short sentence) Johanneum is an addition to the Holy Scripture that is so famous and well-known that it has been given its own name.
The only verse in the entire Bible that can truly be interpreted to suggest that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are a 3-in-1 being is 1 John 5:7-8 in the Luther Bible of 1545. This verse explicitly states:
“For there are three that testify: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.”
This passage is the only one that supports a Trinitarian view without additional assumptions or external interpretations.
This is the clear and decisive type of scripture one would expect in the Bible if the deity were literally a three-in-one God.
Scientific Perspective and Historical Context of the Comma Johanneum
The scientific consensus affirms that the Comma Johanneum, a passage in 1 John 5:7-8, was originally a Latin insertion. This is evident in scholarly literature, such as in the Thomas Nelson and Sons Catholic Commentary of 1951, on page 1186:
“It is now generally accepted that this passage is a gloss that crept into the Old Latin text and the Vulgate at an early stage.”
Interestingly, this passage was not found until 15th and 16th century into the Greek text.
The Comma Johanneum in the Vulgate and its textual-historical development
The Comma Johanneum is absent in the oldest manuscripts of the Vulgate. This Latin Bible translation essentially stems from the work of Jerome, a Christian scholar and translator. Pope Damasus I commissioned him in 382 AD to revise the existing Latin translations of the Bible. Jerome continued this work until his death in 420 AD. In the process, he not only translated the New Testament and the Psalms but also the entire Old Testament (in Bethlehem) directly from Hebrew, instead of using the widely circulated Greek Septuagint at that time.
It was only from the 9th century onwards that the Comma Johanneum appeared in Latin manuscripts of the New Testament and is generally considered a later insertion. In Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, the passage is even rarer and appears only in a few manuscripts from the late Middle Ages. Although it is absent in the oldest manuscripts of the Vulgate, dating from the 5th and 6th century, it was included in the Clementine Vulgate. This edition of the Vulgate was published in 1592 by Pope Clement VIII.
The Comma Johanneum in the Luther Bible of 1545 and its controversies in the Textus Receptus
In the Luther Bible of 1545, it is noteworthy that the Comma Johanneum is included. Interestingly, Desiderius Erasmus, who compiled the Textus Receptus, had concerns about the Comma Johanneum and only included it under ecclesiastical pressure from the 3rd edition in 1522, after being presented with a manuscript (Codex 61) containing the passage, which was created around 1520 as a justification for the inclusion. Luther based his translation significantly on this Textus Receptus, which was a widely circulated collection of Greek New Testament manuscripts at that time. Today, the Textus Receptus is viewed critically, and one reason for this is that the Comma Johanneum is absent in older and considered more reliable manuscripts such as the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus. These manuscripts from the 4th century are essential witnesses to the original text. Therefore, the inclusion of the Comma Johanneum in Luther’s Bible translation may be understood as a product of the limited text-critical resources of his time as well as a reflection of the theological and socio-cultural forces that influenced him.
Erasmus and the controversial inclusion of the Comma Johanneum in the Textus Receptus
Erasmus did not include the infamous Comma Johanneum from 1 John 5:7-8 in either his 1516 or 1519 edition of his Greek New Testament. However, due to pressure from the Catholic Church, it found its way into his third edition in 1522. After the publication of his first edition in 1516, there was such an uproar over the absence of the comma that Erasmus had to defend himself.
He argued that he did not insert the Comma Trinitarian formula because he did not find any Greek manuscripts containing it. At one point, a manuscript called Codex 61 (Codex Montfortianus) was created by a certain Roy or Froy in Oxford around the year 1520. He reluctantly agreed to include it in his subsequent editions. Erasmus likely altered the text for political, theological, and economic reasons. He did not want his reputation to be ruined and his Novum Instrumentum to go unsold.
Thus, it passed into the 1551 Stephanos Greek New Testament (first New Testament in verses), later called the Textus Receptus, and became the basis for the 1557 Geneva Bible of the New Testament and the 1611 authorized King James Version.
Controversy and Consensus in Modern Translations
It is noteworthy that despite the abundance of textual-critical evidence supporting the later addition of this text, some translations such as the King James Version (KJV) and the New King James Version (NKJV) have retained this passage. However, in most modern translations, including the New International Version (NIV), it is absent. There, the verse reads:
“For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three are in agreement.”
There is no doubt that the latter part of 1 John 5:7 and the first part of 1 John 5:8 did not exist in the original and inspired words of God. Textual scholar Bart Ehrman described this forgery as follows:
” …this is the most obvious instance of theologically motivated corruption in the entire manuscript tradition of the New Testament.” “The English King James Bible, translated in 1611 AD, retains this trinitarian forgery, but none of our modern translations except the NKJV includes it.” And since this text did not originate from God.”
All newer versions of the Bible and most others do not contain the underlined text, which also includes verse 8, and for good reason!
