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after Unknown artist, line engraving, 1645 NPG D29240 © National Portrait Gallery, CC |
In addition to the manuscripts I described
here, a lot of (especially older or KJV-preferred) works will refer to another manuscript with the
Comma Johanneum: one Codex Ravianus (named for it's former owner,
Christian Ravis). E.F. Hills is honest enough to qualify his mention of Codex Ravianus: "The Johannine comma is also found in
Codex Ravianus, in the margin of 88, and in 629. The evidence of these three manuscripts, however, is not regarded as very weighty, since the first two are thought to have taken this disputed reading from early printed Greek texts and the latter (like 61) from the Vulgate" (
The King James Version Defended [1973 ed.]), pp. 204–205).
Still, it's worth looking into. Given how little Greek manuscript support there is for the Comma Johanneum, we might as well try to track down what we can.
A quick Google of Codex Ravianus reveals that it was once numbered 110 by Wettstein (not to be confused with GA 110), but it was later excluded from the list of Greek NT manuscripts because it is considered to be a copy of the Complutensian Polyglot. A part of me wants to poke at that a bit more, but on this, Tregelles writes:
The Codex Ravianus at Berlin certainly contains this passage; but the MS. itself is nothing whatever but a modern transcript taken almost entirely from the Complutensian Polyglott with a few readings introduced from the text of Erasmus. The very handwriting is an imitation of the Complutensian Greek types. The real character of this MS., which some in the last century were so incautious as to quote as though it possessed authority, was very fully shown by Griesbach and Pappelbaum. This MS. is now preserved at Berlin simply as a literary forgery, and not as the precious monument of the sacred text which it was once described as being. It is uncertain who formed this MS., and whether Rav[is] himself took a part in the fraud, or whether he was himself the dupe of others. A learned man who had not made MSS. his study might be thus misled.
(Horne, Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures [10th ed.], vol. 4: Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament; "the critical part re-written and the remainder revised and edited" by Tregelles, p. 218)
That last sentence is relevant for more than just Codex Ravianus; let the reader understand. Still, Codex Ravianus doesn't turn up easily in a quick search. What can we know about it?
As Wikipedia can be a decent place to start (if never a good place to finish), I checked the Wikipedia page for Codex Ravianus. According to it, the manuscript is (was!) in Berlin (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Gr. fol. 1, 2). It is a 2-volume manuscript.
