Despotism Down Under. Everything I am about to assert in this paragraph is factually true. Normally one would not waste a sentence reinforcing his bona fides, but many readers of this piece in the United States, Canada, Britain and across Europe probably would not otherwise believe what they are about to read. So let me assure them it is true. A sign of a despotic, idiotic and floundering political class? Yes. But also true.
In First John 5:7-8, there is a textual issue. The King James Version reads, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one.” The New American Standard Bible, however, has a shorter text: “For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.” The material that is in this passage in the KJV and its Greek base-text, but not in the NASB and its Greek base-text, is called the Comma Johanneum, which may be roughly translated as “John’s phrase” or “That phrase in John’s writings.”
