Hello Martin,
Quote:
Originally Posted by puritancovenanter  Pastor Andrew,
The Majority text manuscripts are not as old. They have variations in them. But from some evidence taken from hymns in the early church and writings of the Fathers the missing versus the Majority text contains, over the few older ones, seem to be support the validity of the majority over the older manuscripts. At least that is what I came away with when I studied this back in the mid 90's. Aren't the older few Codex's from Alexandria and not from the Byzantine area? It has been a long time since I studied this. |
Actually, none of the church fathers or hymns of the early church include the comma. In terms of support for it's inclusion, it's about the weakest verse in the Vulgate. As Metzger noted:
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The passage is quoted by none of the Greek Fathers, who, had they known it, would most certainly have employed it in the Trinitarian controversies (Sabellian and Arian). Its first appearance in Greek is in a Greek version of the (Latin) Acts of the Lateran Council in 1215.
(3) The passage is absent from the manuscripts of all ancient versions (Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Slavonic), except the Latin; and it is not found (a) in the Old Latin in its early form (Tertullian Cyprian Augustine), or in the Vulgate (b) as issued by Jerome (codex Fuldensis [copied a.d. 541-46] and codex Amiatinus [copied before a.d. 716]) or (c) as revised by Alcuin (first hand of codex Vallicellianus [ninth century]).
The earliest instance of the passage being quoted as a part of the actual text of the Epistle is in a fourth century Latin treatise entitled Liber Apologeticus (chap. 4)
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If we do choose to include it, we are overturning the most basic principles of lower textual criticism and translational accuracy by making the later translation normative over earlier copies. We might as well simply adopt a "well if its in some of the versions of the Vulgate it must be original" position, and leave it at that because what we have done is made a few of the later versions of the VULGATE translation our autograph. What value do the early Greek Manuscripts or any of the earlier codexes and scrolls have at that point?