1Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Whoever loves the Father also loves the child who is born of him. 2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. 3For this is loving God, that we keep his commandments. His commandments are not grievous. 4For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world: your faith. 5Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
6This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7For there are three who testify: 8the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and the three agree as one. 9If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is God’s testimony which he has testified concerning his Son. 10He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. He who doesn’t believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. 11The testimony is this: that God gave to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12He who has the Son has the life. He who doesn’t have God’s Son doesn’t have the life.
13These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
14This is the boldness which we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he listens to us. 15And if we know that he listens to us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him.
16If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for those who sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I don’t say that he should make a request concerning this. 17All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death.
18We know that whoever is born of God doesn’t sin, but he who was born of God keeps himself, and the evil one doesn’t touch him. 19We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 20We know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.
21Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
New Testament textual criticism is the discipline in which the wording of the original text is determined. It is needed because the originals have turned to dust long ago and no two manuscripts are exactly alike. The word “criticism” in this context is not a subjective term, as if these scholars are personally critical. Rather, it means research.
New Testament textual critics examine two kinds of evidence when making decisions about the authenticity of a given text. External evidence is the hard data—manuscripts, ancient translations (or versions), and writings by church fathers (the bishops, priests, and scholars of the ancient church). All of this is compared to see if it can be determined which variants came from which and especially when each arose. Internal evidence is the soft data—what the author would be likely to have written and how the ancient scribes (or copyists) would be likely to have corrupted the text. The author’s writings are examined for their theology, coherence, style, and context. The scribe’s writings are examined via the manuscripts. No two manuscripts are exactly alike, so it is logical to assume that scribes along the way corrupted the text. Most of the corruptions are unintentional, involving spelling errors, transposition of words and letters, omissions, additions, errors due to hearing or sight or fatigue. But sometimes scribes also made intentional changes, often assuming that the manuscript they were copying had mistakes. So, even though internal evidence is an examination of the soft data, it cannot be ignored.
Textual criticism cannot be done by counting manuscripts. It is the weight of the manuscripts, not their number that is important. One axiom is always kept front and center when looking at external and internal evidence:
Choose the reading that best explains the rise of the other(s).
The more that external and internal evidence point to the same wording as authentic, the greater the certainty scholars can have. Among the hundreds of thousands of textual variants in the manuscripts, less than one percent of them are in any serious doubt. Yet no cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith is jeopardized by any of them.