Letters to Mr. Archdeacon Travis, in Answer to His Defence of the Three Heavenly Witnesses, 1 John: Volume 7

Richard Porson

ISBN 10: 0461917815 / ISBN 13: 9780461917819

Published by HardPress

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 26403595672

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Letters to Mr. Archdeacon Travis, in Answer to His Defence of the Three Heavenly Witnesses, 1 John: Volume 7
• Publisher: HardPress
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0461917815
• ISBN 13: 9780461917819
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Letters To Mr. Archdeacon Travis, In Answer To His Defence Of The Three Heavenly Witnesses, 1 John V. 7 by Richard Porson is a detailed 18th-century rebuttal of Archdeacon Travis's defense of the Comma Johanneum. Porson surveys Greek MSS, the Latin Vulgate, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, and Slavonic versions, as well as patristic writers and critical editors (Stephens, Beza, Mill, Wetstein, Newton, Gibbon) to show that the so-called heavenly witnesses do not have a secure, ancient witness in early manuscripts and therefore are not a necessary orthodoxy-supporting text. He argues that editors sometimes forged or interpolated readings, and criticizes Travis's method as overly reliant on marginalia and secondhand citations. The preface situates the debate in Erasmus's editions (1520s-1522) and the later revival by Mill, Wetstein, and Gibbon, and documents the long history of controversy. The work, a cornerstone of textual criticism, combines polemic with rigorous apparatus, and offers a snapshot of late Enlightenment scholarship's approach to scripture, manuscript traditions, and the defense of orthodox belief through textual history.