Corruptions befell the text of the New Testament even before the time of the early Christians considered in this Report1, as this section will show. It makes one doubt if it is even possible to know what the original text of the autographs actually was. Fee notes that, “…no [manuscript] or group of [manuscripts] has escaped some degree of corruption”.
Corruption seems, for example, to be very evident in John 1:18. It reads, “No-one has ever seen God; the only-begotten Son/God, who is in the bosom of the Father, has revealed him”. It seems from Irenaeus’ work (180-202), because he quotes John 1:18 with both variants of “only-begotten Son” and “only-begotten God”, that corruptions had taken place in that verse even by that early time, which is much earlier than any of the oldest extant New Testament manuscripts. For this reason, Irenaeus is the last Father who will be considered in this analysis, during (but not before) whose time this corruption had begun to appear.
However, the two readings cannot both be correct, cannot both be what was originally written: so which is it?
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Author: Mark McCabe
Keywords: Monogenes, Only son, God the Son, Only begotten, Only begotten son, Begotten, Begotten son, Eternally begotten, Eternally begotten son, Eternal son, Trinity, Triune, Deity of Christ, Deity of Jesus, Triad, Jesus is God, Christ is God, I and my father are one, textual corruption, Corruption of Bible
Bible reference(s): John 1:18
Source: “On the Early Christians and Bible Quotes,” 2014, pp. 17, 19-21.
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