Another charge often levied against this passage of scripture is that the manuscripts which do contain it are old, late, not early. That the earliest manuscripts do not, and therefore the passage should be jettisoned.
This of course presupposes that an early manuscript is superior to a later manuscript, by reason of the date. Is this argument meritorious?
Consider the following facts:
Whereas all but about 20 of the available Greek manuscripts contain the Comma (which in itself would destroy any 'only a few have them' arguments anyway), and the vast majority of these manuscripts are considered 'late' (post 9th century AD), the vast majority of the 20 odd manuscripts which omit the Comma are also late (post 9th century, some 95 percent of them, in fact). And this is according to the 'standard' set by the UBS themselves! (The UBS is the promoter of the Critical Text underlying the newer versions.)
The oldest Greek manuscript which contains the Comma (Dubbed
Wizanburgensis) is older than all but 5 of the manuscripts which omit the Comma, and is contemporary with a 6th.
The bulk of the manuscripts for both sides of the issue are 'late', and both sides have 'early' manuscripts which attest to their respective readings.
But is older always better in regard to Biblical manuscripts? Not necessarily.
The Critical text relies primarily on two old texts (not necessarily manuscripts, by the way), the Vaticanus, and the Sinaiticus. These texts however routinely contradict each other in thousands of places, and the NIV or NASB or other critical text-based versions do not always make the decision of which reading to go with based upon age alone. I wonder why? In any event, these texts date from around the 4th century.
The problem is however that prior to that period, the New Testament text would have been extremely difficult to alter (such as by inserting the Johannine Comma). Many scholars are convinced that all variant readings were established by around the year 200 (Scrivener, Colwell, for example).
Consider the case of Origen for example. Origen in his day was one of the most influential teachers in Christendom. Yet his 'critical examinations' of
Matthew 19:19 found their way into only one obscure manuscript of a local church. Why? Because by his time, the New Testament text had been dispersed too far and too widely to allow for such fiddling with the Scripture to be accepted very widely without leaving a clear witness to objections to the changes.
Furthermore, the Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus texts (usually referred to in the margins of newer Bible versions as 'the oldest and best manuscripts') are vellum texts. Vellum was used by Christians (especially catholics) as 'official copies' of the Scripture for liturgical usage. Unfortunately, vellum is not very durable, and wears out quickly from use.
Quick question then: If Vaticanus and Sinaiticus were designed for common liturgical use, then why do they still exist?
Obviously, the reason we even have them in existence is precisely because
they were not used. I wonder why they weren't used?
It could be that, since they differ so much from the majority of the texts and manuscripts, and from each other as well (just as much, in fact), therefore nobody used them because they were obviously corrupt versions of the known text of Scripture.
Papyrus (the other primary material upon which the Scriptures were recorded) is even less durable than vellum. Usage means wear and tear, and thus replacement. Therefore, ancient manuscripts or texts on vellum or papyrus, which are in good condition after 1500 or so years, are themselves the vest evidence they were not used... and why were they not used? Because they were obviously flawed, and known to be flawed.
When you have readings that come from a MAJORITY of extant manuscripts, and those manuscripts are 'late', that in itself is proof of their usage and copying. (The originals wear out and are replaced due to use.) And when you have the opposite conditions (very old manuscripts with minority readings) you may draw the opposite conclusion - they were NOT used and copied.
Which basically implies that either the oldest pristine manuscripts and texts giving strange and minority readings are the Word of God, hidden from everyone until say the late 19th century, or else they are simply corrupted versions of the New Testament text which were not used and copied precisely because they were known to be full of errors.
Furthermore, Dean Burgon's study of the patristic writers' quotations of the New Testament showed that the patristic writers quoted the Majority (often called the 'Byzantine') family of texts and manuscripts compared to the aberrant or 'Alexandrian' (ie similar to the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus texts) by a ratio of 3 to 2. That is, they largely preferred to quote the 'later' majority manuscripts (even though these writers lived from the 2nd to the 9th centiuries!) rather than any manuscript or text reflecting the 'Alexandrian' or Vaticanus/Sinaiticus type of manuscript or text.
Zuntz (a textual critic and scholar) in his
The Text of the Epistles (p 55) identified the fact that many manuscripts which are classed as 'Alexandrian' contain 'Byzantine' (majority) readings, and concludes that the Byzantine readings are ancient ( a similar situation prevails in Homeric textual criticism, by the way...)
In any event, simply pointing to a manuscript or textual reading as superior 'because it is older' is without merit. While age certianly are to be taken into account, age is by no means the sole, or even the most important, consideration in textual criticism.
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