... So my advice is to learn about manuscripts. ...
"... THE ARGUMENT FROM ITS PRESERVATION AMONG BIBLE BELIEVERS. The Lord Jesus Christ indicated that His Words would be preserved through the process of the Great Commission, as the Scriptures were received, kept, taught, and transmitted to the next generation by Bible-believing churches (Matt. 28:18-20). This is guaranteed by the Christ’s power and His continual presence among the churches. When we look at church history in this light, the issue of 1 John 5:7 becomes plainer. Consider the versional evidence in favor of this verse:
1 John 5:7 is found in some of the Syriac manuscripts, though not the majority (The New Testament Translated from the Syriac Peshito Version, James Murdock, 1852, note on 1 John 5:7). 1 John 5:7 was printed in Gutbier’s Lexicon Syricum concerdatntiale omnes N.T. Syriaci (1664); it is obvious, therefore, that Gutbier found this important verse in Syriac manuscripts with which he was familiar. It was also printed by E. Hutter in 1599 in the Syriac portion of his polyglot (e-mail from Michael Maynard, May 11, 2005).
1 John 5:7 was in the old Latin that was used by Bible believers in Europe. Dr. Frederick Nolan (1784-1864) spent 28 years tracing the history of the European Italic or Old Latin version and in 1815 published his findings in An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate or Received Text of the New Testament, in which the Greek manuscripts are newly classed, the integrity of the Authorised Text vindicated, and the various readings traced to their origin. Nolan believed that the old Latin got its name Italic from the churches in northern Italy that remained separated from Rome and that this text was maintained by separatist Waldensian believers. He concluded that 1 John 5:7 “was adopted in the version which prevailed in the Latin Church, previously to the introduction of the modern Vulgate” (Nolan, Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, pp. xvii, xviii).
1 John 5:7 was in the Latin “vulgate” that had a wide influence throughout the Dark Ages. The Catholic Church used it, but so did many non-Catholic believers. Bruce Metzger observes that the oldest manuscript of the Jerome vulgate, Codex Fuldensis (A.D. 546), does not include the Johannine Comma; but this fact is overwhelmed by other evidence. For one, we have seen that Jerome himself believed 1 John 5:7 was genuine Scripture and testified that heretics had removed it from some manuscripts. Second, 1 John 5:7 is found in the vast majority of extant Latin manuscripts, 49 out of every 50, according to Scrivener. Third, 1 John 5:7 is found in many of the most ancient Latin manuscripts, such as Ulmensis (c. 850) and Toletanus (988). The Johannine Comma is found “in twenty-nine of the fairest, oldest, and most correct of extant Vulgate manuscripts” (Maynard, A History of the Debate over 1 John 5:7-8, p. 343).
1 John 5:7 was in the Romaunt or Occitan New Testaments used by the Waldenses dating back to the 12th century. This was the language of the troubadours and men of letters in the Dark Ages. It was the predecessor of French and Italian. The Romaunt Bibles were small and plain, designed for missionary work. “This version was widely spread in the south of France, and in the cities of Lombardy. It was in common use among the Waldenses of Piedmont, and it was no small part, doubtless, of the testimony borne to truth by these mountaineers to preserve and circulate it” (J. Wylie, History of Protestantism, vol. 1, chapter 7, “The Waldenses”). I examined the copy of the Romaunt New Testament located at the Cambridge University Library in April 2005, but it does not have the Epistles of John. The following is from Justin Savino , May 11, 2005: “The Zurich codex I have that is similar to the Dublin a Grenoble (or so I am told) does have 1 John 5:7. The direct quote is "Car trey son que donan testimoni al cel lo payre e lo filh e lo sant spirit e aquesti trey son un." Translated, "but three are there that five testimony in heaven the father and the son and the holy spirit and these three are one.”
1 John 5:7 was in the Tepl, which is an old German translation used by Waldenses from the 14th through the 15 centuries. Comba, who wrote a history of the Waldenses, said the Tepl was a Waldensian translation (Comba, Waldenses of Italy, pp. 190-192). Comba sites two authorities, Ludwig Keller and Hermann Haupt, for this information. Comba also states that the Tepl was based on old Latin manuscripts rather than the Jerome vulgate. The Tepl’s size identifies it with the small Bibles carried by the Waldensian evangelists on their dangerous journeys across Europe.
1 John 5:7 was in the old French translations. A translation of the whole Bible in French first appeared in the 13th century, and “a much used version of the whole Bible was published in 1487 by Jean de Rely” (Norlie, The Translated Bible, p. 52).
1 John 5:7 was in the old German translations, which first appeared in the 13th and 14th centuries. A complete German Bible appeared before the invention of printing (Norlie, p. 53). There were at least 12 different editions of the Bible into German before the discovery of America in 1492. The first printed German Bible appeared in 1466 (Price, The Ancestry of Our English Bible, 1934, p. 243). These were Latin-based versions.
1 John 5:7 was in the Spanish Bibles, beginning with the one printed in Valencia in 1478 by Bonifacio Ferrer (M’Crie, History of the Reformation in Spain, p. 191).
It is probable that 1 John 5:7 was in the Bohemian or Czech Bible printed by the Brethren in 1488.
1 John 5:7 stood uncontested in English Bibles for 500 years. The first English New Testament, completed by John Wycliffe and his co-laborers in 1380, contained this verse. The Johannine Comma was in the Tyndale New Testament of 1526, the Coverdale of 1535, the Matthew’s of 1537, the Great Bible of 1539, the Geneva of 1557, the Bishops of 1568, and the King James Bible of 1611. The first English Bible of any importance to remove the verse was the Revised Version of 1881 and the first English Bible which had any chance of superseding the KJV to remove 1 John 5:7 was the New International Version of 1973 and this version has still not taken over the sales of the King James Bible. From the time of the British Empire to the present, English has been a prominent world language. It is the international language in these modern times, the language of commerce, aviation, and science. The witness of the English Bible, therefore, has great significance.
Thus we see that the ... statement of 1 John 5:7 comes down to us by the hands of Bible believers and churches that held the apostolic faith at great cost through the Dark Ages, through the Protestant Reformation, up to our very day. In light of Matthew 28:19-20, this is a strong witness to its apostolic authenticity. ..."
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