Written criticism – 1 John 7:5 Not found in some manuscripts.

In this lecture, His Holiness Pope Shenouda III explains the issue concerning the verse in 1 John 5:7, which says: “There are three who bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.” He notes that some versions of the Bible include a footnote stating that this phrase does not appear in certain ancient manuscripts, but he assures that this is not a real textual or doctrinal problem.

His Holiness clarifies that the verse’s absence in some copies does not make it inauthentic; it may have been accidentally omitted due to textual similarity or a copying error, since the two consecutive sentences in the passage are almost identical in structure, making it easy for a scribe to skip one.

He gives examples from his own writing experience to show how such oversights can happen, and then points out that the same meaning appears elsewhere in Scripture. He cites Matthew 28:19—“Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”—noting that the use of “name” in the singular expresses the unity of the Trinity.

He also refers to 2 Corinthians 13:14—“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all”—where the three are mentioned together in one verse, affirming their unity in essence. He concludes that this is not a true problem, but a misunderstanding caused by lack of biblical knowledge.

The spiritual message of the lecture is that faith in the Holy Trinity does not rest on a single verse but is a consistent truth throughout Scripture, affirming the oneness of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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