There is a question of translation in the latter part of John 5:44, and textual criticism can help to answer it.

The Greek text:

καὶ τὴν δόξαν τὴν παρὰ τοῦ μόνου Θεοῦ οὐ ζητεῖτε;

KAI THN DOXAN THN PARA TOU MONOU QEOU OU ZHTEITE?

and the glory the from the only God not you seek?

The question is, can this be translated "from God alone" as it is in all English Bibles from the 14th to 18th centuries?

Here is how the Latin manuscripts translate it (fine-tuning of the translations by Latin scholars would be welcome):

from God alone | e g1mg 9A f l 11A Vulgate (all 15th-16th century editions)

from God who alone is | ff2 aur q

from him who is God alone | r1

from the only God | a d c Vulgate (all modern editions)

 . . . God . . .  |  j

from the sole (one) | a

from him that is the only (one)| b

Now, interestingly enough, behind some of these Latin variants lie variants in the Greek text.

from the only begotten God | N022, 1071

from God | 1519

from the only (one) | p66 p75 B03 W032 228 355* (also the mss from all Coptic dialects, and some Armenian mss)

Evidence from Syriac should also be examined. It has been translated both ways-- the only God, and God alone.

Apparently the difficulty in deciding the meaning of this phrase, TOU MONOU QEOU, has led to some of the textual diversity. There seems to have been a definite reluctance to understand Jesus as referring to "the only God," resulting in the loss of either MONOU or QEOU. Yet "the only God" fits the context of John 5 very well, in which Jesus is being accused, through referring to God as "My Father," of making himself equal with God--something he never said outright in John, as deity-emphatic as that gospel is.

I don't know if this verse has ever made it onto the list of Orthodox Corruptions, but it's possible that a reluctance to have Jesus minimize his deity could have been behind some of the textual changes we see above.

On the other hand, the tendency only in the last century and a half has been to adamantly insist on a translation of "the only God," even going so far as to putting a reading into the Vulgate never before found in any printed edition. This phenomenon could also bear investigation.

Daniel Buck