"The Bible's teaching about Christ", by Viktor Rydberg (1862) (Part 20)
We have now given the reader an overview of the historical evidence, which has been invoked for and against the disputed words. To these external testimonials comes one of internal nature. The reasoning of the Johannine scriptures and its context demands namely the removal of the false verse. The statement about the three witnesses, the spirit, the water and the blood is through the previous verses clearly and distinctly justified. Not so the three witnesses the father, the son and the holy spirit. This trinity appears completely unprepared and obscures also the sense of the following 9th verse, where special mention is made of "God's testimony".[1]
The fullness with which we, in relation to the plan of this dissertation, in other respects have dealt with the question of 1 Joh. 5 : 7-8, has two reasons: we have wanted to convince the reader, that science's condemnation of this support for the doctrine of the Trinity is irrefutable; and we have wanted to reveal, how indefensible those men acted, who knew the true situation but concealed, even denied it before the congregation.[2]
[1] See about this the »Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament von Dr. H. A. W. Meyer, Göttingen 1855». Meyer also points out the unjohanneicness in the diction itself; truly John juxtaposes God and the word, or the father and the son, but never the father and the word. How the thought through the insmuggling has been obscured, this Bunsen deals with in detail in the preface to his »Bibelverk.«
[2] Unfortunately, this is not the only violence against the New Testament text, to which Lutheran theologians have allowed themselves to be seduced. The Catholic church, which allowed itself so much in this respect, has however nothing to exhibit compared with the rude arbitrariness, which was carried out in the new editions of the New Testament overseen by Hutter (Nuremberg 1599 and 1604), in which marginal notes, additions from the Latin Vulgate and by Hutter himself fabricated orthodox Lutheran power statements have been inserted into the text.
(End of second chapter)
