So once again we have problems with translations. I think knowing everything exactly right is not part of the equation.
Allen,
This is not new, nor is it a "translation problem", nor a problem of any sort. The important thing about the CJ is that it does not contradict any of the Scripture, so it is left in the KJV.
Here is an excerpt you may wish to read:
I refer to the history of the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5, 7b- 8a) in the editions of the New Testament edited by Erasmus. It is generally known that Erasmus omitted this passage from his first edition of 1516 and his second of 1519, and only restored it in his third edition of 1522. The current version of the story is as follows: Erasmus is supposed to have replied to the criticism which was directed against him because of his omission, by proposing to include it if a single Greek manuscript could be brought forward as evidence.
When such a manuscript was produced,he is said to have kept his word, even though from the outset he was suspicious that the manuscript had been written in order to oblige him to include the Comma Johanneum
We cite the version of the story given by Bruce M. Metzger, since his work, thanks to its obvious qualities, has become an influential handbook
and is in many respects representative of the knowledge of New Testament textual history among theologians. “In an unguarded moment Erasmus promised that he would insert the Comma Johanneum, as it is called, in future editions if a single Greek manuscript could be found that contained the passage.
At length such a copy was found -or was made to order!
As it now appears, the Greek manuscript had probably been written in Oxford about 1520 by a Franciscan friar named Froy (or Roy), who took the disputed words from the
Latin Vulgate. Erasmus stood by his promise and inserted the passage in his third edition (1522), but he indicates in a lengthy footnote his suspicions
that the manuscript had been prepared expressly in order to confute himâ€. 2
2 B. M. METZGER, The Text of the New Testament,Oxford, 1968 p.101
Published http://www.verhoevenmarc.be/PDF/Comma-Johanneum-DeJonge.pdf
Therefore, Erasmus was forced against his will to include it in his third edition.
Here is where the wicket gets sticky: It is from his work that the basis for the KJV onlyists get their foundation, because in all the subsequent editions of the Bible translations, until the more modern versions footnoted it as a questionable insertion it was taken as the basis for the original Greek text, and therefore was a copy of the autographa, or original writings of the Apostles and Gospel writers.
The origin of the term
Textus Receptus comes from the publisher's preface to the 1633 edition produced by Bonaventure and Elzivir who included in their preface these words:
Textum ergo habes, nunc ab omnibus receptum: in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum damus, translated as, "so you hold the text, now received by all, in which (is) nothing corrupt."
I will spare you the Latin grammar which changed
receptum to
receptus but the long and short of it is that those same well-meaning folk who are the KJV onliest, are also the ones who, for the most part will be vehement in their support for the testus receptus. I do not find it a problem, and many Evangelicals don't.
Do not be upset if this gets moved to the section that has the "KJV Nazis" (a joke, OK?) posting there, but without going too far astray from the scope of your OP I tried to answer it. Others surely will chime in, and try to take it in a different direction.
The bottom line is that it is a true statement, but its origins to have been first inserted into a Latin manuscript. The first example of that being in a Greek manuscript is in 1520
Citing from the above source:
As it now appears,the Greek manuscript had probably been written in Oxford about 1520 by a
Franciscan friar named Froy (or Roy), who took the disputed words from the Latin Vulgate.
So now you know the facts, you can make up your own mind as to what they mean.
