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DIGGING DEEPER |
Subjects
Regarding the text
of 1 John 5:7-8
Gnosticism
Helpful References
Regarding the Text of 1 John 5:7-8 Back To The Letter
The KJV and NKJV give an expanded version of these verses. “ 7For there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 8And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.” (KJV).
Kistemaker (pp. 353, 354) notes that “The translators of the New King James Version, however, state in a footnote that the Greek New Testaments (Nestle-Aland, United Bible Societies, and Majority Text) ‘omit the words from “in heaven” (v.7) through “on earth” (v. 8).’ Only four or five very late Greek Manuscripts contain these words.”
Stott (p. 180) gives this explanation. “The whole of this verse [vs. 7] must be regarded as a gloss, as must the words in earth in verse 8. Plummer calls the reading ‘quite indefensible’ and gives a very thorough survey of the evidence in Appendix (pp. 163-172), and so does Brooke (pp. 154-165). The words do not occur in any Greek MS, version, or quotation before the fifteenth century. They first appear in an obscure fourth-century Latin MS and found their way into the AV because Erasmus reluctantly included them in the third edition of his text. They are rightly absent even from the margin of RV and RSV. Some tidy minded scribe, impressed by the threefold witness of verse 8, must have been made to think of the Trinity and so suggested that there was a threefold witness in heaven also. Actually, his gloss is not a very happy one, as the threefold testimony of verse 8 is to Christ; and the biblical teaching about testimony is not that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit bear witness together to the Son, but that the Father bears witness to the Son through the Spirit.”
Barclay (pp. 110, 111) explains the situation this way. “The Revised Version omits this verse [vs. 7], and does not even mention it in the margin, and none of the newer translations includes it. It is quite certain that it does not belong in the original text. The facts are as follows.
First it does not occur in any Greek manuscript earlier than the 14th century. The great manuscripts belong to the 3rd and 4th centuries, and it occurs in none of them. None of the great early fathers of the Church knew it. Jerome’s original version of the Vulgate does not include it. The first person to quote it is a Spanish heretic called Priscillan who died in AD 385. Thereafter it crept gradually into the Latin texts of the New Testament although, as we have seen, it did not gain entry into the Greek manuscripts.
How then did it get into the text? Originally it must have been a scribal gloss or comment in the margin. Since it seemed to offer good scriptural evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity, through time it came to be accepted by theologians as part of the text, especially in those early days of scholarship before the great manuscripts were discovered.
But how did it last, and how did it come to be in the Authorised version? The first Greek testament to be published was that of Erasmus in 1516. Erasmus was a great scholar and, knowing that this verse was not in the original text, he did not include it in his first edition. By this time however, theologians were using the verse. It had, for instance, been printed in the Latin Vulgate of 1514. Erasmus was therefore criticized for omitting it. His answer was that if anyone could show him a Greek manuscript which had the words in it, he would print them in his next edition. Someone did produce a very late and very bad text in which the verse did occur in Greek; and Erasmus, true to his word but very much against his judgement and his will, printed the verse in his 1522 edition.
The next step was that in 1550 Stephanus printed his great edition of the Greek New Testament. This 1500 edition of Stephanus was called - he gave it that name himself - The Received Text, and it was the basis of the Authorized Version and of the Greek text for centuries to come. That is how the verse got into the Authorized Version. There is, of course, nothing wrong with it; but modern scholarship has made it quite certain that John did not write it and that it is a much later commentary on, and addition to, his words; and that is why all modern translations omit it.
Concerning Gnosticism
The following summary comes with the help of the explanations given by Barclay (pp. 9-12) and in THE ILLUSTRATED BIBLE DICTIONARY. (pp. 565-568)
The word ‘gnosticism’ comes from the Greek word 'γνωσιs' (gnōsis) meaning ‘knowledge, a knowing, understanding’. The following summary will help us to understand something of the nature of this philosophical system which was confronting those first Christians.
Creation did not occur from out of nothing. Matter always existed.
Matter was imperfect, something evil. Only spirit was good.
Because God was good he could not touch this evil matter.
And so, say the Gnostics, God put out an emanation. An emanation is something that proceeds from a source. Referring to God, an emanation is something proceeding from the Divine Essence.
From the first emanation proceeded another, and then another, until there came into being an emanation so distant from God that he could handle matter through the emanations.
Thus it was not God but this final emanation which created the world.
Each successive emanation knew less and less about God until the final emanations were ignorant of God and ultimately hostile to him. And so the god who created the world was at war with the true God. This god, they taught, was the god of the Old Testament, and the true God, the God of the New Testament.
The Gnostics provided each of the emanations with a complete biography and so built up an elaborate mythology of gods and emanations, each with its own story and genealogy.
Gnosticism saw Jesus as the greatest of the emanations, the one closest to God. It classed him as the highest link in the endless chain between God and man, not as the only mediator Paul writes of in this letter. (1 Timothy 2:5).
Salvation for people begins when they are alerted to the existence of the divine spark within and receive the knowledge necessary to at death escape from the material world to the spiritual. In the gnostic context salvation is not understood in terms of deliverance from sin but as a form of existential self realisation. Help towards the receiving of enlightenment came by way of secret knowledge and rituals which were the possession of only true Gnostics. Through knowledge they reached perfection.
To complicate matters for Christians at that time a form of religious syncretism which may be called Jewish Gnosticism also existed. In this system Greek Gnosticism and Judaism had merged. A section of Judaism produced genealogies and biographies that were fictitious although based on historical Jewish families. An example of such genealogies is found in the Jewish book of Jubilees. It may well be that these are included in the references to the myths and endless genealogies of 1 Timothy 1:4, 4:7, 2 Timothy 4:4, and Titus 1:14.
Helpful References
Kistemaker, Simon J. JAMES, EPISTLES OF JOHN, PETER and JUDE. Michigan: Baker Books. 1996.
Alexander, William. EPISTLES OF JOHN. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1889.
Blaiklock, E. M. LETTERS TO CHILDREN OF LIGHT. California: Gospel Light Publications. 1975.
Strass, Leeman. THE EPISTLES OF JOHN. New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers. 1975.
Baxter, J. Sidlow. EXPLORE THE BOOK. Michigan: Zondervan. One Volume Edition. 1966.
Stott, John R. W. EPISTLES OF JOHN. London: Tyndale Press. 1969.
Barclay, William. LETTERS TO JOHN AND JUDE. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press. 1976.
Packer, J. I. KNOWING GOD. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 199
Morris, Leon. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. Michigan: Eerdmans. 1973.
Graham, Billy. DEATH AND THE LIFE AFTER. Melbourne: Word Publishing. 1987.
THE BIBLE KNOWLEDGE COMMENTARY. NT. Walvoord, John F., Zuck, Roy B. Editors. England: Scripture Press. 1983.
THE ILLUSTRATED BIBLE DICTIONARY. Douglas, J. D., Organising Editor. Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers. 1980.
THE NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. General Editor, Douglas, J. D. Exeter: The Paternoster Press. 1974.
Copleston, Frederick. A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. Volume 1. Toronto: Doubleday. 1993.
Morgan, G. Campbell. THE CRISES OF CHRIST. New York: Fleming H. Revell. 1936.
Swindoll1, Charles R. GROWING DEEP IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE - RETURNING TO OUR ROOTS. Oregon: Multnomah Press. 1986.
Tozer, A. W. THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE HOLY. New York: Harper Collins. 1992
Meier, Paul D., Minirth, Frank B., Wichern, Frank B., Ratcliffe, Donald E. INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY AND COUNSELLING - CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVES AND APPLICATIONS, Michigan: Baker Book House. 1993.
Nouwen, Henri J. M. THE WOUNDED HEALER. New York: Image Books. 1979.
Foyle, Dr. Marjory F. HONOURABLY WOUNDED. E. Sussex: Kingsway Publications. 1988.
Swindoll2 Charles R. GOD’S MASTERWORK - 2 Thessalonians to Revelation - Volume 5. USA: Insight For Living. 1998.
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