Up until the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, the only Bibles available in Northern and Western Europe were based upon Jerome's translation of the original languages into Latin. Jerome's work was a boon for its time, Latin was increasingly surpassing Greek as the language of the world.
However, by the 15th century, Latin was pretty much the province of the clergy and the educated elite. There was a hunger for Bibles in the languages that were then common, and not the one from 1,000 years earlier.
When Constantinople fell, bands of refugees made their way into Europe bringing with them their possessions, and their Bibles. Europe was soon filled with excitement over the idea that a new translation could be made from the original languages - much like Jerome had done for his time ten centuries earlier.
The Dutch theologian and linguist Desiderius Erasmus produced a printed edition of the Greek New Testament that is known as the Textus Receptus (or "Received Text"). Erasmus went through scores of manuscripts, redacted the obvious copyist errors and such and compiled his First Edition which was a huge success.
However, there was a problem. The text for a portion of
1 John 5:7-8 was not found by Erasmus. Here's the difference:
5:7 "For there are three that bear record
in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
5:8
And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one."
The underlined and bolded part is not in the first two editions of Erasmus' Textus Receptus because he could not find the words in any Greek manuscript. Some say he was bullied and pressured relentlessly, until finally he promised to include the passage if "a single manuscript" could be found that had the missing words.
And, what do you know? Someone found one, and with surprising ease too, considering that Erasmus and his team had been scouring Europe for the manuscripts the whole time. However the "missing" element was supplied - not within the text itself, but in a margin. Bruce Metzger argues that the writing is rather "clearly" from the 16th Century, Erasmus' own time.
Others debate this hypothesis. A balanced article can be found at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma_Johanneum
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