Jehovah's Witnesses and other Christians, did apostate church leaders add 1 John 5:7 to the Bible?

Edit:

Since the trinity teaching is an apostate teaching. Even the Catholic Church says it isn't found in scripture and doesn't remotely adhere to the Apostolic Father's writings.

The New Catholic Encyclopedia states: “The formulation ‘one God in three Persons’ was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith, prior to the end of the 4th century. But it is precisely this formulation that has first claim to the title the Trinitarian dogma. Among the Apostolic Fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective.”—(1967), Vol. XIV, p. 299.

It must have been an apostate leader / scribe who inserted it.

Apostate: 1. a person who forsakes his religion, cause, party, etc.

(Titus 1:16) 16 They publicly declare that they know God, but they disown him by their works,. . .

(2 Peter 2:1) . . .as there will also be false teachers among you. These will quietly bring in destructive sects, and they will even disown the owner who bought them,. . .

This is simple logic.

=====

Interesting question. Similar to the comment, If you know how drive a car you THEN YOU MUST know who invented every part of the car, and how to fix any broken part of your car. Such ideas are actually illogical.

Thanks for the research. Since it is impossible to know each and every scribe who copied scripture, one can not for a certainty claim to know which scribe / scholar first inserted it into the text.

There are ample ancient manuscripts especially in the latin texts to show that it went from a marginal rendering to a textual reading.

People can insert meanings into the text that are not there.

I had a young man read John 10:30 to me three times inserting the word "person" each time.

"I and the Father are one person". When I asked him to show me the word "person" in the text, he starts to point to the bible and stops. He then looked at me and said 'it's not there'.

True. People got so use to reading in their minds the marginal readings that it was easily inserted into the text and since people wanted it to read as such didn't reject it.

People got so use to quoting the marginal text, it became proof that the text always said it.

.

The Bible Survived Attempts to Alter Its Message

THE THREAT: External threats such as decay and opposition have not destroyed the Bible. Yet, some copyists and translators have attempted to alter the Bible’s message. At times, they have tried to make the Bible conform to their doctrines rather than conform their doctrines to the Bible. Consider some examples:

Place of worship: Between the fourth and second centuries B.C.E., the writers of the Samaritan Pentateuch inserted after Exodus 20:17 the words “in Aargaareezem. And there you shall build an altar.” The Samaritans thus hoped to make the Scriptures support their construction of a temple on “Aargaareezem,” or Mount Gerizim.

Trinity doctrine: Less than 300 years after the Bible was completed, a Trinitarian writer added to 1 John 5:7 the words “in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” That statement did not appear in the original text. “From the sixth century onwards,” notes Bible scholar Bruce Metzger, those words were “found more and more frequently in manuscripts of the Old Latin and of the [Latin] Vulgate.”

Divine name: Citing a Jewish superstition as their authority, many Bible translators decided to remove the divine name from the Scriptures. They replaced that name with titles such as “God” or “Lord,” expressions applied in the Bible not only to the Creator but also to men, objects of false worship, and even the Devil.—John 10:34, 35; 1 Corinthians 8:5, 6; 2 Corinthians 4:4.*

HOW THE BIBLE SURVIVED: First, although some Bible copyists were careless or even deceitful, many others were highly skilled and meticulous. Between the sixth and tenth centuries C.E., the Masoretes copied the Hebrew Scriptures and produced what is known as the Masoretic text. They reportedly counted the words and the letters to verify that no mistakes crept in. Where they suspected errors in the master text they were using, they noted these in the margin. The Masoretes refused to tamper with the Bible text. “Interfering with it purposely,” wrote Professor Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, “would have been for them the worst crime possible.”

Second, the sheer volume of manuscripts today actually helps Bible scholars to spot errors. For example, religious leaders taught for centuries that their Latin versions contained the authentic Bible text. Yet, at 1 John 5:7, they had inserted the spurious words referred to earlier in this article. The error even crept into the influential English King James Version! But when other manuscripts were discovered, what did they reveal? Bruce Metzger wrote: “The passage [at 1 John 5:7] is absent from the manuscripts of all ancient versions (Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Slavonic), except the Latin.” As a result, revised editions of the King James Version and other Bibles have removed the erroneous phrase.

Do older manuscripts prove that the Bible’s message has been preserved? When the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947, scholars could at last compare the Hebrew Masoretic text to what appeared in Bible scrolls that had been written more than a thousand years earlier. A member of the editorial team of the Dead Sea Scrolls concluded that one scroll “provides irrefutable proof that the transmission of the biblical text through a period of more than one thousand years by the hands of Jewish copyists has been extremely faithful and careful.”

The Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland, features a collection of papyri that represents nearly every book of the Christian Greek Scriptures, including manuscripts dating from the second century C.E.—only about 100 years after the Bible was completed. “Although the Papyri supply a wealth of new information on textual detail,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary observes, “they also demonstrate remarkable stability in the transmission history of the biblical text.”

THE RESULT: Rather than corrupting the Bible text, the age and multitude of Bible manuscripts have actually improved it. “No other ancient book has anything like such early and plentiful testimony to its text,” wrote Sir Frederic Kenyon about the Christian Greek Scriptures, “and no unbiased scholar would deny that the text that has come down to us is substantially sound.” And regarding the Hebrew Scriptures, scholar William Henry Green stated: “It may be safely said that no other work of antiquity has been so accurately transmitted.”

No. During the early growth of the Christian church, ministers (whether saved or not) wrote down doctrines that they said were Christian and Biblical. Starting after the death of the apostles (about 100 AD) many people taught the lie that Jesus was not God the Son, or the Son of God, or that Jesus became God at His baptism, or the false doctrine that the Holy Spirit was not God or was not eternal.

The growing religion that became known as Roman Catholic, after many debates eventually agreed on the doctrine of the Trinity. So they had no reason to remove 1 John 5:7 from their Bibles, since it supported what they taught.

Today, there are sects, religions, and cults that claim Jesus was not who He claimed to be. Rather, He was a teacher, religious leader, or prophet. So, the essential question He put to His disciples remains for us, "Who do you say I am?"

What is the difference between apostates 'makes an addition' in 1 John 5: 7 and 'takes anything ' in Acts 21: 21 and Nahum 1: 2?

Could you answer, Jehovah's Witnesses?

There is a nice discussion about this verse here:

http://biblehub.com/commentaries/1_john/5-7.htm

It is most likely the best you'll get if compared to what yahoo commentaries may do for you. If there are better ones available out there - is up to you to find.

Ah the old comma of John question. This answer is lifted from some old Trinitarian bible soc booklet but i haven't got the reference - sorry!

Mention of 1 John 5:7 is found from about 200 AD through the 1500s.

Tertullian wrote "which three are one" based on the verse in his ‘Against Praxeas’, chapter 25, in 250 AD.

Cyprian of Carthage, wrote, "And again, of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost it is written: "And the three are One" [in his ‘On The Lapsed, On the Novatians’].

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." In other words, there is a significant body of historical data showing this verse was indeed found in the manuscripts that were available to these historical figures.

"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 5:7 from the Latin translations. There are at least 8000 extant Latin manuscripts, and many of them contain 1 John 5:7f; the really important ones being the Old Latin, which church fathers such as Tertullian (AD 155-220) and Cyprian (AD 200-258) used.”

Based on those quotes the answer to your question is that no apostate church leaders added 1 john 5:7 to the bible. It has a detailed pedigree but its a bit strange that no jehovah witness seems to know any of the names of the christians involved in that history, seeing as they are so sure the verse WAS added as an evil tactic of satan!

No it was not added by apostate leaders. If you want to know the truth about 1 John 5:7 read the below article. Jw's are lying (yet again). No surprise there.

If it was written by John, as it claimed to be, then the Lord hath spoken it. It was not written by John. Therefore, the Lord hath not spoken it.

your Q makes no sense to me ...

do you know just how powerful God is ?

do you know that the bible is HOLY and is the Word of God .

in this respect, would God allow His WORD to be corrupted and diluted or added to ?

there are bible versions that are corrupted and is man-made ...

tis why only certain versions are credible and reliable.

God cannot allow His WORD, His perpetual covenants to be erased and satanic teachings to enter.

your Q and argument is thrown into the trash bin.

no, that was quoted from the bible in the 3rd century

200 AD

Tertullian wrote "which three are one" based on the verse in his Against Praxeas, chapter 25.

250 AD

Cyprian of Carthage, wrote, "And again, of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost it is written: "And the three are One" in his On The Lapsed, On the Novatians, (see note for Old Latin)

350 AD

Priscillian referred to it [Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Academia Litterarum Vindobonensis, vol. xviii, p. 6.]

350 AD

Idacius Clarus referred to it [Patrilogiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina by Migne, vol. 62, col. 359.]

350 AD

Athanasius referred to it in his De Incarnatione

398 AD

Aurelius Augustine used it to defend Trinitarianism in De Trinitate against the heresy of Sabellianism

415 AD

Council of Carthage appealed to 1 John 5:7 when debating the Arian belief (Arians didn't believe in the deity of Jesus Christ)

450-530 AD

Several orthodox African writers quoted the verse when defending the doctrine of the Trinity against the gainsaying of the Vandals. These writers are:

     A) Vigilius Tapensis in "Three Witnesses in Heaven"

     B) Victor Vitensis in his Historia persecutionis [Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Academia Litterarum Vindobonensis, vol. vii, p. 60.]

     C) Fulgentius in "The Three Heavenly Witnesses" [Patrilogiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina by Migne, vol. 65, col. 500.]

500 AD

Cassiodorus cited it [Patrilogiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina by Migne, vol. 70, col. 1373.]

550 AD

Old Latin ms r has it

550 AD

The "Speculum" has it [The Speculum is a treatise that contains some good Old Latin scriptures.]

750 AD

Wianburgensis referred to it

800 AD

Jerome's Vulgate has it [It was not in Jerome's original Vulgate, but was brought in about 800 AD from good Old Latin manuscripts.]

1000s AD

miniscule 635 has it

1150 AD

minuscule ms 88 in the margin

1300s AD

miniscule 629 has it

157-1400 AD

Waldensian (that is, Vaudois) Bibles have the verse

1500 AD

ms 61 has the verse

Even Nestle's 26th edition Greek New Testament, based upon the corrupt Alexandrian text, admits that these and other important manuscripts have the verse: 221 v.l.; 2318 Vulgate [Claromontanus]; 629; 61; 88; 429 v.l.; 636 v.l.; 918; l; r.

Even if you took away that verse it would be enough evidence in the Bible so it really is irrelevant. Anyway no I don't believe it was. There's enough evidence in the Bible to prove the Trinity and Christs Divinity without that one verse. but it is a nice verse