For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. (1 John 5:7)
This text concerning the heavenly witness is not contained in any Greek manuscript which was written earlier than the fifteenth century. It is not cited by any of the ecclesiastical writers; not by any of early Latin fathers even when the subjects upon which they treated would naturally have lead them to appeal to its authority. It is therefore evidently spurious.
Edward Gibbon explained the reason for the removal of this verse from the pages of the Bible with the following words: “Of all the manuscripts now extant, above fourscore in number, some of which are more than 1200 years old, the orthodox copies of the Vatican, of the Complutensian editors, of Robert Stephens are becoming invisible; and the two manuscripts of Dublin and Berlin are unworthy to form an exception... The three witnesses have been established in our Greek Testaments by the prudence of Erasmus; the honest bigotry of the Complutensian editors; the typographical fraud, or error, of Robert Stephens in the placing of a crotchet and the deliberate falsehood, or strange misapprehension, of Theodore Beza.1
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Author: George Booker
Keywords: Triplural, Triplurality, Tri-plural, Tri plural, Tri plurality, Three in one, Trinity, Triunity, Tri unity, Jesus is God, Plural of majesty, Majestic plural, Johannine comma, Johanine comma, Johanine coma, Comma Johanneum, Johannine coma, John's coma, John's comma, Spurious verse, Spurious, Forgery, Forged text, Inserted text, Text inserted, Verse inserted, Scriptures corrupt, Corruption, Three gods, Three witnesses, Father Son Holy Spirit, Father Son Holy Ghost, Blood and water, Water and spirit, Bogus passage, Fake passage, Scribal error, Scribal forgery
Bible reference(s): 1 John 5:7-8
Source: “Three in One (1 John 5:8)?”, The Agora.
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