1 John 5:7 – Interpolation

1 John 5:7—”RSV scholars say that this verse is an interpolation, a concoction, a fabrication.”

Among the thousands of careful English translations available, the King James translation is the only one which includes this ending to 1 John 5:7—”For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.”

It is abundantly clear that the King James translation made a serious mistake here, for this passage is found in no original Greek manuscript before the sixteenth century. Its inclusion probably resulted from a scribe inadvertently incorporating a marginal comment (gloss) into the text as he copied the manuscript we find a similar incorporation in the ancient Samarkand Qur’ān :

To include it violates almost every rule of textual criticism, for thousands of Greek manuscripts over fifteen centuries all exclude this passage.

Since this interpolated verse ending seems to support the Trinity, critics insist that this interpolation was a deliberate ploy of the Church to support their Trinity doctrine. This allegation is ridiculous, for the interpolation only appeared a full thousand years after the Council discussing Trinity in Nicaea in 325 CE, when the Trinity was no longer any controversy. At the time when it appeared in medieval Europe there was universal agreement throughout Europe on the doctrine of the Trinity, so it would have served little purpose to this end.

Critics allege that the Bible was maliciously changed by the church to fit its own Trinitarian doctrine. The perplexing question is, then why didn’t they just add a few verses that would indisputably prove the Trinity? Why didn’t the Church just add some verses in the Gospel making Jesus say directly , “I am God,” or “believe ye in the Holy Trinity”? It would have made their theological arguments so much simpler. The fact that we find no direct verses provides powerful evidence that, whatever you believe about the Trinity, the Injīl has not been tampered with .