The Comma Johanneum in the Earliest English Bibles

Last week I published a list of historic English Bibles to complement Pete Head’s list. Today, I want to illustrate one way to use it. In this case, I am interested in how the earliest printed English Bibles handle the famous variant in 1 John 5:7–8. (My interest was originally sparked by Hixson’s post.)

One thing you learn from studying these Bibles is that their translators often used whatever other major editions or translations they could to produce their Bibles. As one example, Coverdale used five “sundry translations” for his 1535 Bible and these probably included Luther, the Zurich Bible, Pagninus’s Latin, the Vulgate, and Erasmus (per David Norton). It’s worth looking at how these early English Bibles navigated the lack of uniformity on the Comma among their sources. So, here is a whistle-stop tour of the main English Bibles up to the King James.

1. Tyndale (1526)

2. Tyndale (1534)

I can’t find the so-called “GH” edition of Tyndale (1534/35) online but I assume it also had the Comma in brackets since it was the basis for the Matthew Bible (see below).

3. Coverdale (1535)

4. Matthew Bible (1537)

The Greek Manuscripts of the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7–8)

Warning: long post because there’s a lot of detail here.

Although it is one of the easiest text-critical decisions, a lot of attention often goes to the Comma Johanneum (henceforth, CJ), the addition at 1 John 5:7–8 (addition in italics): “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. (1 John 5:7-8 KJV).” A lot of people who take a textus receptus position vigorously defend the CJ because of its theological value. This was actually one of my first tastes of the implications of textual criticism—I was doing evangelism with my John MacArthur NKJV Study Bible back when I was much younger and found this amazing verse that ‘proves’ the Trinity, until my friend told me I couldn’t use it because it wasn’t original to 1 John but not to worry because there was ample proof of the Trinity elsewhere in Scripture. As it turns out, a mere appeal to 1 John 5:7–8 without also having a Trinitarian interpretation of the passage does not automatically ‘prove’ the Trinity, because Oneness Pentecostals (=a branch of Pentecostalism that denies the Trinity) who use the KJV also appeal to this passage as a proof of their anti-Trinitarian doctrine—they claim that the phrase “and these three are one” teaches their “oneness” doctrine (a great example here).

The Tyndale House Greek New Testament gives special treatment to the CJ by breaking its normal pattern of citing very few witnesses, and in the last few days, I decided to examine each of the Greek manuscripts that contain some form of the CJ to learn a bit more about each of them. The following are some of my findings. There are 10 Greek manuscripts that have the CJ, but only three of them have it in the same form as in Stephanus’ 1550 edition and Scrivener’s edition reprinted by the TBS—these three are 221marg, 2318 and 2473. All ten of these manuscripts are indexed for 1 John 5:7–8 at the INTF’s VMR, so you are free to verify them yourself. Regarding scribes and manuscript acquisition histories/provenance, I got all of that information from a combination of catalogues of manuscripts in those libraries (see the short bibliography at the end of this post) and shelfmarks/information given at the online Liste.

Before I get there, I want to mention that sometimes an eleventh Greek manuscript is cited. GA 635 is sometimes cited as having the CJ in the margin, but it does not.

GA 635 

I can’t make out all the words, but I’m seeing το πν(ευμ)α το αγιο(ν) και ο π(ατ)ηρ (και)...the rest is more difficult. αιματος? It’s probably an obvious solution, and I’m happy to update the post if someone has a better image or can make more sense of it. There are a number of notes like this in the margins of 635, and there isn’t room for the whole CJ here anyway, so I didn’t want to spend too much time on it.

More on Erasmus and Codex Montfortianus

Matthew in Montfortianus (per Wikipedia)

Last week I posted about the myth that Codex Montfortianus (GA 61) was made-to-order in response to a challenge by Erasmus to include it if even a single Greek manuscript could be found that had it. However, our excellent ETC commenters noted that, while it is true that Erasmus did not throw down such a gauntlet, it may still be true the Codex Montfortianus was made in response to his omission of the Comma Johanneum in his first two editions. Others, such as Tregelles, have indeed thought so.

In response, I quoted the opinion of Grantley McDonald, whose recent book on the Comma is extremely well executed (see my review).

Given the incomplete evidence, it is impossible to know why the scribe of Montfortianus altered his Greek text in so many places to conform to the Latin Vulgate. At several points throughout the manuscript, this scribe added variant readings from Erasmus’ 1516 New Testament in the margins. These variant readings are written in a slightly different ink and with different pens from that used for the body text, which may suggest that they were added later, perhaps days, perhaps years. It is clear that the scribe had access to Erasmus’ 1516 edition before relinquishing possession of the manuscript. It is less certain whether he copied it in direct reaction to Erasmus’ work. (pp. 32–33)

He goes on to cite Tregelles’s opinion. But McDonald thinks Tregelles is too confident since we might expect more readings in it that support Lee’s criticisms of Erasmus’ edition if it really was made to order.

Yesterday, however, I realized that in the thesis version of McDonald’s work, he seems a little more confident than in the published version that it was made for Erasmus. Here is what he says there, at the beginning of a detailed section on Montfortianius that is not included in the published book:

Further evidence allows us to date the manuscript quite firmly to the early sixteenth century. An examination of the textual variants in Codex Montfortianus has revealed that it was copied largely from manuscripts written in the second half of the fifteenth century, most of which were only gathered in one place after 1502; these data provide a terminus post quem for the copying of Montfortianus. It seems that Montfortianus also contains readings taken from Erasmus’ 1516 New Testament. The notion that Montfortianus was copied specifically to strong-arm Erasmus into including the comma—a suspicion hitherto based on nothing more than circumstantial evidence—thus becomes more plausible. (p. 315)

In the published version, he is less confident, but still open to the suggestion, writing, in a section not in his thesis:

Until the manuscript can be dated more precisely than the current estimate (c. 1500–1520), it is difficult to know for certain whether the scribe intended to influence Erasmus’ editorial choices. But that a recent Greek manuscript containing the comma—one of only two in the world—should have appeared in the homeland of Erasmus’ critic Lee, and should have been presented to Erasmus at the moment when it might make a difference, can certainly be described as a remarkable coincidence. (p. 33)

For my take, it still seems like a bit much to copy an entire NT manuscript just to influence Erasmus on one verse. But I certainly can’t say that this couldn’t have been part of the motivation. We may never know, but I thought I should give a bit more of McDonald’s own view given his expertise.

As a final note, any aspiring PhDs out there should note not only the quality of the content of McDonald’s thesis but also its typography and formatting. Something to aspire to.

Putting to Rest an Old Canard about Erasmus

Among text critics, it’s fairly well known that no Greek manuscript was ever produced to order for Erasmus that included the long form of 1 John 5.7. But given that the story is still found in the standard textbook and that it works as such a great illustration, it continues to be perpetuated among students of the New Testament. Here is the text of Metzger-Ehrman (p. 146):

In an unguarded moment, Erasmus may have promised that he would insert the Comma Johanneum, as it is called, in future editions if a single Greek manuscript could be found that contained the passage. At length, such a copy was found—or was made to order! As it now appears, the Greek manuscript had probably been written in Oxford about 1520 by a Franciscan friar named Froy (or Roy), who took the disputed words from the Latin Vulgate. 

Thankfully, Metzger and Ehrman do cite the work of Henk J. de Jonge who found no such promise from Erasmus but did find a text that seems to have been misread as such. The story of the Comma from the time of the printing press is now told in a remarkably detailed account by one of de Jonge’s students. It’s worth thinking about why this particular canard appeals to us so much. Why are we so easily taken by it? In any case, here is a letter from de Jonge to Michael Maynard on the matter:
From Michael Maynard, A History of the Debate over 1 John 5,7–8: A Tracing of the Longevity of the Comma Johanneum, with Evalutations of Arguments Against Its Authenticity. Tempe, AZ: Comma Publications, 1995.