Trinity Debate on Incarnation
February 19, 2024Father texts applied to the Son
April 2, 2024Pre-human Preexistence Corruptions
Genesis 1:1
- As early as the 2nd century AD Irenaeus, a bishop in modern-day Turkey, wrote that the text in Genesis 1.1 said:
“The Son in the beginning: God established then the heaven and the earth.” (On the Apostolic Preaching, 43.)
- Irenaeus mistranslated Genesis 1.1 from a corrupt Hebrew text.
Matthew 1:18
- Some manuscripts changed genesis (oirigin, beginning) to gennesis (birth).
John 1:1
- Translations wrongly capitalize “Word”;
- Tyndale and others before KJV use lower case “word.”
John 1:2-4
- Translations wrongly call the word a “he” or “him”;
- All English translations before the KJV have “it” or “this.”
John 1:13
- Metzger, Textual Commentary on the NT:
“Several ancient witnesses, chiefly Latin (Irenaeus Tertullian Origen Ambrose Augustine Ps-Athanasius), read the singular number, [He] who was born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
John 1:18
- Some manuscripts read “only-begotten God” instead of “Son”;
- Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol 4, p 740:
“monogenes theos can only mean an only-begotten God; to render “an only begotten, one who is God,” is an exegetical invention. It can hardly be credited of Jn., who is distinguished by monumental simplicity of expression. An only-begotten God corresponds to the weakening of monotheism in Gnosticism. It derives from this and came into the Egyptian texts by way of its influence on the theology of Alexandria.”
John 13:3; 16:28; 20:17
- The NIV and others mistranslate the Greek as “returning” or “going back.”
- For more read article on John 3:13; 6:62 by Anthony Buzzard.
John 17:5
- some manuscripts “the glory which was with you”;
- some church fathers “by which I was with you.”
1 John 4:2
- Meyer’s NT Commentary notes that Luther, Calvin and others mistranslated this verse by rednering “in the flesh” as “into the flesh.”
1 John 5:7-8
- Metzger Textual Commentary:
“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. Its first appearance in Greek is in a Greek version of the (Latin) Acts of the Lateran Council in 1215. 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]).”
- For more see Johannine Comma.
Acts 2:30
- “One of his [David’s] descendants” was changed to “of the fruit of his heart [loins],” i.e., like David, to avoid the idea that Jesus had a human descent.
1 Corinthians 15:45 the first man, Adam
- Several mss have omitted the explicit reference to the first Adam as a “man”, because it might suggest that Jesus too was a (created) human.
1 Corinthians 15:47 the second man from heaven
- “the second man is from heaven” some add “the second man, the Lord“;
1 Timothy 3:16
- “He [who]” was changed to “God,” i.e., “God was manifested in the flesh,” instead of “He [Jesus; who] was manifested in the flesh,” which is the correct and recognized reading.
Ephesians 3:9
- “God who created all things” was changed to “God who created all things through Jesus Christ.”
Jude 5
• Some manuscripts read “Jesus delivered” and one “the God Christ” (p72, Theos Christions).