1 John 5:7

[Chris]

Tomorrow, I am teaching 1 John 5:1-12. KJV (verse 7): "...three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are One. 8. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, the Water, and The Blood..."

The New King James (NKJV) changes "Holy Ghost" to "Holy Spirit", AND includes a footnote, referring to the words between "in Heaven" and "in Earth", that " only 4 or 5 very late manuscripts contain these words in Greek"

The N.A.S. omits the second half of verse 7.

Charles B. Williams' translation omits all of verse 7

William F. Beck (one of my favorite) translation leaves out the second half of verse 7, and offers this footnote
Early in the 16th century, an editor translated these words from Latin manuscripts and inserted them in his Greek New Testament. Erasmus took them from this Greek NT and inserted them in the third edition (1522) of his Greek NT. Luther used the text prepared by Erasmus. But even though the inserted words taught the Trinity, Luther ruled them out and never had them in his translation. In 1550, Bugenhagen objected to these words "on account of the truth". In 1574 Feyerabend , a printer, added them to Luther's text, and in 1596 they appeared in the Wittenberg copies. They were not in Tyndale's or Coverdale's Bible or in the Great Bible.

The people (and there are one or two in my Sunday School class) who believe that "God wrote every word in the Bible", hate to hear stuff like this. And, I have yet to decide whether or not I'm going to bring it up.

But, what DID the writer (and we aren't sure who that was, either) intend?

Is there correlation between verse 7 and 8? Does "Father" = Spirit; Word = Water; Holy Ghost = Blood?

Comments?

[Hal Eaton]

Chris -- As a new ministerial student, in 1st year college, 16 years old, I remember floating some interpretations of the Trinitarian nature of God. I told my fellow Freshmen (and women) that God was God; his presentation of Himself to the world was as Jesus, and his presentation of Himself to individuals was as the Spirit.

I have not noticeably changed by views, even though my first evaluation was 69 years ago.

Some theological author prided himself, I'm sure, on inventing the application of the word "Trinity" to the God-based processes of communicating his presence to our world. The word caught on, and has been repeated for centuries, causing several kinds of mis-interpretations, rabbit-chasing, theological divisions, etc.

A modern example of the same process is found in the present use of the phrase, "pink slime," for a perfectly harmless addition to ground beef. The resulting up-roar would have been absent, had the media (and/or meat-processers) had a less objectional phrase to describe the innocuous mixture we put into our mouths (and systems) with every bite of a McDonald's, or Burger-King's, or Dairy Queen's, or Hardee's hamburger.

If your class members are bothered by the historical facts concerning the written nature of references to the -- oh, yeah, the Trinity -- remind them of the mysterious nature of much of our knowledge of God's workings . . .

Perhaps it's a good time and place for application of Occam's Razor. (The simplest explanation is usually the right one.)

[Dave Roberts]

That verse and its textual variants certainly are a reminder that we do not have an inerrant text in our manuscripts.

[Mrs Haruo]

Is there a correlation between Communism and Fast Food? e.g. "Pink Slime"

Sounds like a fascinating class. Too bad it would be over long before Amtrak could get me there.