Johannine Comma and Scrivener
From Textus Receptus
Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener was a 19th century textual critic who believed that the comma was not a genuine reading of scripture.
Scrivener aligned himself with Porson's position: “I would fain call it a success if I could with truth. To rebut much of Porson's insolent sophistry was easy, to maintain the genuineness of this passage is simply impossible.”
- “We need not hesitate to declare our conviction that the disputed words were not written by St. John: that they were originally brought into Latin copies in Africa from the margin, where they had been placed as a pious and orthodox gloss on ver. 8: that from the Latin they crept into two or three late Greek codices, and thence into the printed Greek text, a place to which they had no rightful claim.”
Scrivener estimated that:
- “49 out of 50 [Vulgate] manuscripts testify to this disputed Comma”. (F. H. A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the New Testament Textual Criticism, 4th Ed., Vol. 2, (New York: George Bell & Sons, 1894), p.403).
Scrivener was no friend of the Comma, and said:
- “On the whole, therefore, we need not hesitate to declare our conviction that the disputed words were not written by St. John: that they were originally brought into Latin copies in Africa from the margin, where they had been placed as a pious and orthodox gloss on ver. 8: that from the Latin they crept into two or three late Greek codices, and thence into the printed Greek text, a place to which they had no rightful claim.”
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Cyprian
Scrivener allowed for the authenticity of the Cyprian citation as a reference to the verse being in Cyprian's Bible. To allow for this, Scrivener's theory of the source and timing of an interpolation can not be late, and his scenario did not give estimated dates or any names responsible.
- "the disputed words...were originally brought into Latin copies in Africa from the margin, where they had been placed as a pious and orthodox gloss on v. 8: that from the Latin they crept into two or three late Greek codices, and thence into the printed Greek text, a place to which they had no rightful claim."
Latin Manuscripts
Scrivener estimated that "49 out of 50 [Vulgate] manuscripts testify to this disputed Comma" (F. H. A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the New Testament Textual Criticism, 4th Ed., Vol. 2, (New York: George Bell & Sons, 1894), p. 403).
"In one of the most ancient which contain it, cav., ver. 8 precedes ver. 7 (as appears also in m. tol. demid. and a codex at Wolfenbüttel, Wizanburg. 99 [viii] cited by Lachmann), while in the margin is written ‘audiat hoc Arius et ceteri,’ as if its authenticity was unquestioned." [Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, ed. Edward Miller, Fourth Edition., vol. 2 (London; New York; Cambridge: George Bell & Sons; Deighton Bell & Co., 1894), p. 403.]
The Cambridge Paragraph Bible
The 1873 Cambridge Paragraph Bible, which is found in the New Testament Octapla, and which is the base text of the Zondervan KJV Study Bible and many of their other recent KJVs, throws the words in question into italics. This is reflected in the detail below from the original edition of CPB, 1873; by the New Testament Octapla's reproduction of Scrivener's CPB text, and by Scrivener’s book The Authorized Edition of the English Bible (1611), Its Subsequent Reprints and Modern Representatives [Cambridge, 1884, p. 69] which verifies that this was a deliberate change that Scrivener made on his own authority. The Zondervan reprints, however, silently reverse Scrivener's decision and put the words back into regular type. The prefaces to these reprints give no indication regarding this change, although other changes regarding spelling are acknowledged.
1881 Greek Textus Receptus
- 7 ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες εν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατήρ, ὁ λόγος, καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα· καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι.
- 8 καὶ τρεῖς εἰσὶν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ, τὸ Πνεῦμα, καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ, καὶ τὸ αἷμα· καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν.
