Erasmus and the Johannine Comma (1 John 5.7-8)

Erasmus’s 1516 Latin-Greek New Testament edition differed from the Latin Vulgate in several ways. A small number of textual variants with doctrinal implications involved Erasmus in considerable controversy. Medieval Western theologians had often relied on the “Johannine Comma” (the long reading of 1...

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Bibliographic Details
Subtitles:“Fidelius, apertius, significantius” The New Testament Translated and Edited by Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1516
Main Author: McDonald, Grantley 1974- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sage 2016
In: The Bible translator
Year: 2016, Volume: 67, Issue: 1, Pages: 42-55
Further subjects:B biblical philology
B Trinity
B Inquisition
B Vulgate
B Johannine Comma
B New Testament
B Humanism
B Erasmus
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:Erasmus’s 1516 Latin-Greek New Testament edition differed from the Latin Vulgate in several ways. A small number of textual variants with doctrinal implications involved Erasmus in considerable controversy. Medieval Western theologians had often relied on the “Johannine Comma” (the long reading of 1 John 5.7-8), established in the Latin Vulgate during the late Middle Ages, as an important scriptural foundation for the doctrine of the Trinity. However, when Erasmus showed that this variant was not present in the Greek manuscript tradition, he was accused of promoting Arianism. Erasmus’s debates with the cleric Edward Lee and the textual critic Jacobus Stunica exposed tensions between theologians, jealous of their authority in scriptural interpretation, and humanists, who claimed to understand the Bible better than theologians by virtue of their philological skills. This article concludes by exploring the Inquisition’s failed attempt to find a consensus on this issue in 1527.
ISSN:2051-6789
Contains:Enthalten in: The Bible translator
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/2051677016628244