1 John 5:7 in Hixson/Gurry

Elijah Hixson and Peter Gurry discuss 1 John 5:7 in more than one place. But in their book, Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism, they make these remarks on pages 207-8. I actually use three different copies of this book: one in PDF, another on Scribd, and I have the paperback version: talk about largesse. At any rate, here's one quote about 1 John 5:7:

Sometimes the impression from the apologetic literature is that variants do not matter at all. Others are more careful to claim only that “no orthodox doctrine or ethical practice of Christianity depends solely on any disputed wording.”⁵⁴ Daniel Wallace is even more precise, admitting that some “noncentral” beliefs or practices seem to be affected by viable variants but that “no viable variant affects any cardinal truth of the New Testament.”⁵⁵ Both qualifications (“viable” and “cardinal”) are important and match what we have here called difficult and important variants. In this sense, Wallace is surely right that no core Christian doctrine (e.g., the resurrection, the deity of Christ, salvation, the Trinity) is based solely on a textually difficult passage. Even Bart Ehrman grants that his own view is not a problem for this conclusion. He has said publicly that his view is not at odds with that of his mentor, Bruce Metzger, which is that “essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.”⁵⁶ That is not to say, however, that no passage that addresses or touches on core doctrines is textually suspect. Some certainly are, such as 1 John 5:7-8, which says in the King James Version, “There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.” That is as explicit a definition of the Trinity as one finds in the Bible. Yet no serious textual critic today accepts this reading as authentic, and neither do evangelical theologians, who are still quite able to make a biblical case for the doctrine of the Trinity.⁵⁷ In other words, the fundamental doctrine of the Trinity in no way depends on this variant reading even though the variant in question certainly addresses that doctrine. As for variants touching on matters of Christian practice, we might mention the text-critical debates over Romans 16:7 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and the bearing they have for some on the question of women’s ordination.⁵⁸ In light of such cases, we cannot claim without qualification that variants never affect texts that touch on Christian doctrine or practice. Sometimes they clearly do. Yet no one would claim that an issue such as the Trinity or the ordination of women is hanging in the balance because of these disputed texts. It would be better to say, then, that no Christian doctrine or practice—major or minor—is determined by a textually difficult passage.