Francis Turretin

(1623-1687)

There is no truth that the Hebrew edition of the Old Testament and the Greek edition of the New Testament are said to be mutilated; nor can the argument used by our opponents prove it.

Not the history of the adulteress (John 8:1-11), for although it is lacking in the Syriac version, it is found in all the Greek manuscripts.

Not 1 John 5:7, for although some formerly called it into question and heretics now do, yet all the Greek copies have it, as Sixtus Senensis acknowledges: “they have been the words of never-doubted truth, and contained in all the Greek copies from the very times of the apostles.” (Bibliotheca sancta, [1575], 2:298).

Not Mark 16 which may have been wanting in several copies in the time of Jerome (as he asserts); but now it occurs in all, even in the Syriac version, and is clearly necessary to complete the history of the resurrection of Christ.

Source: Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Vol. I. Second Topic, Question XI, Paragraph X