Unauthentic Texts in the New TestamentApart from the problem of canonical books, there is a related problem about the contents of the books themselves. Many texts in the Bible were later insertions into the original (or more correctly, most ancient) texts but were, in many cases, left in there due to "tradition". We will look here at three of the more famous bogus passages in the New Testament.The Johanine CommaWe will start our example with one passage that has today been taken out of the Bible but was once left in the scriptures long after the compilers knew it was not a part of the original text.The eminent printed editions of the Greek New Testament (at least until the end of the nineteenth century) was refered to as the Textus Receptus. The Textus Receptus as we have seen was a faulty text based on late and unreliable Greek manuscripts. However due to the accolade it received, it remained the main Greek New Testament text used by scholars and translators until the end of the nineteenth century. [1] It was only towards the end of the nineteenth century that the evidence accumulated became so overwhelming that Christian scholars has to reluctantly admit that the Textus was inaccurate and based on manuscripts written far later than the period of the original texts. [2] So for a period spanning four centuries the Textus Receptus, faults and all reigned supreme. But it did not go unchallenged. Edward Gibbon(1737-1794) in his most famous work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1788), pointed out that the church fathers defeated heretics by forged testimonies. These fathers went so far as to alter the text of the Holy Scripture itself. He pointed out one passage in particular:(which can still be seen today in the King James Version)
This passage, known as the Johanine Comma, had long been used by Christians to prove the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity. Gibbon pointed out that this text (the italicized portion above) was never quoted by the earliest church fathers, nor does it appear in any Greek manuscript earlier than the fifteenth century. And even among these late manuscripts, there are only three that have this addition. In fact the earliest appearance was in Latin manuscripts around 400 CE and its earliest quotation was from the western theologian Priscillian (late 4th century CE). In short it was a later dishonest insertion into the Bible. Why then did Christian scholars continue to accept it although it was obviously false? Gibbon claimed that Erasmus knew the passage was false but kept it out of prudence and that both the Catholic and Protestant Churches stuck to the spurious text out of "honest bigotry". In other words, the churches were trying to defend the doctrine of the Trinity by fraudulent means! [3]
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