*Editors Note: This is part 3 in an ongoing series titled “TEXTUAL ODDITIES OF THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS IN 1 JOHN.”

Read part 1 here: https://cbtseminary.org/textual-oddities-of-the-textus-receptus-tradition-in-1-john-part-1-printing-oddities-within-the-tr-tradition-timothy-decker/

Read part 2 here: https://cbtseminary.org/textual-oddities-of-the-textus-receptus-tradition-in-1-john-part-2-printing-oddities-within-the-tr-tradition-continued-timothy-decker/

TEXTUAL ODDITIES OF THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS IN 1 JOHN

Part 3: Strange Textual Readings in the TR

In the first two articles, I pointed out some unique and strange occurrences in the TR tradition, including print/typesetting errors, strange accenting that seemed to increase exponentially with each successive edition,[1] nearly unique readings in Scrivener’s 1881 TR, and the instability of the TR tradition itself at 1 John. And so while comparing the TR tradition to itself, we noted several oddities. However, when we compare the TR tradition to the manuscript (MS) tradition of 1 John, yet again, the TR tradition bears many oddities that are unusual for its typical tendencies. These peculiarities include rare shorter readings in the TR tradition as well as departures from the Byzantine text form. In part 3, we’ll take up the latter, leaving part 4 for the former.

TR Departures from the Byzantine

According to the forthcoming R-PByzT2024 w/ apparatus, the TR departs from the Byzantine Textform a total of 15 places in 1 John.[2] Erasmus and the rest of the TR tradition primarily made use of a few Byzantine minuscules. Therefore, when it departs from the Byzantine Textform, there is cause to pause, ponder, inquire, and discern what they were using in order to reconstruct their text.

1 John 2:23

We start with a major departure from the Byzantine text form, where even the Byzantine uncharacteristically follows the shorter reading. First, John 2:23 can be compared below:

The longer reading is almost certainly original. Though the majority of Byzantine MSS rendered the shorter reading (the Text und Textwert lists 402 that omit the clause), over 100 MSS include it, most of them also being of Byzantine origin.[3] Therefore, roughly 1/5 of the Byzantine witness contains the longer reading. These also agree with the Alexandrian and Western textual clusters, confirmed by most of the ancient translations that also include the longer reading.

Text und Textwert, p. 140

The explanation for the omission is easily explained by homeoteleuton or “similar ending.” More than likely, after the scribe finished writing the phrase of v. 23a, which ended τὸν πατέρα ἔχει /ton patera echei, he went back to dip his reed for more ink and his eyes returned to the parent exemplar manuscript looking for those same words. It seems he returned to the wrong location, skipping to the second occurrence of v. 23b’s identical words: τὸν πατέρα ἔχει /ton patera echei. This would cause him to bypass all of v. 23b, believing he had already copied those words.

Now, while this is an instance where Scrivener’s TR contains the better reading, it nevertheless departs from the Byzantine text form. Additionally, the TR tradition is not so clean-cut. Indeed, only a handful of TR editions read as Scrivener’s 1881 TR: Colinaeus¹⁵³⁴, Beza^{Fol1588, Fol1598}, Beza^{Oct1590, Oct1604}).[4] The vast majority of TR editions in the tradition, including some very notable editions, follow the shorter Byzantine reading: Erasmus^{1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th}, CompPoly^1514/22, Aldine¹⁵¹⁸, Gerbelius¹⁵²¹, Köpfel¹⁵²⁴, Stephanus^{1546, 1549, 1550, 1551}, Beza^Lat1557, Beza^Fol1565, Beza^{Oct1565, Oct1567, Oct1580}, Elzevirs^{1624, 1633}, and Oxford¹⁸⁷³. Therefore, this may or may not be a good example of the TR tradition departing from the Byzantine as most of them indeed follow the Byzantine text. It wholly depends on which TR you use.

Such uncertainty in the received text may indicate why the 1611 KJV rendered the longer clause in a different font:

In a similar way, the Geneva included the longer reading in the margin, but the main text only included the shorter reading.

Note the || sign that indicates a marginal reading. And then over in the margin and down three inches or so:

The later 1599 Geneva Bible edition would no longer include the marginal note but only render the shorter reading.

1 John 3:1

Like the major variant at 2:23, the TR tradition is not consistent here either. However, unlike 2:23, this variant is small by comparison. Occurring in many places throughout 1 John, textual variants concerning the personal pronouns abound, in large part because they look and sound similar. In this case, we have a difference between the NA²⁸ and TR reading ὁ κόσμος οὐ γινώσκει ἡμᾶς “the world does not know us” and the ByzT ὁ κόσμος οὐ γινώσκει ὑμᾶς “the world does not know you.”

The TR tradition, culminating in Scrivener’s 1881 edition, would ultimately follow the ἡμᾶς/ hēmas/“us” reading. However, the tale of the tradition is quite varied early on. Following the standard Byzantine reading was Erasmus^{1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th}, Aldine, Gerbelius, Köpfel, Bebelius, Colinaeus, and Sessa editions (all prior to the first edition of Stephanus¹⁵⁴⁶).

1 John 3:15

The TR and NA²⁸ find agreement of the personal pronoun (ἐν αὐτῷ μένουσαν) over against the Byzantine text of this verse and the reflexive pronoun (ἐν ἑαυτῷ μένουσαν). The only difference here is the addition of one little letter (underlined): an epsilon. Thankfully, the difference in translation amounts to a very minor distinction, hardly noticeable at all: “does not have eternal life abiding in him” versus “does not have eternal life abiding in himself.”

Among the TR tradition, only the Colinaeus edition of 1534 would follow the Byzantine Textform and print the epsilon. The rest of the TR tradition departed.

Colinaeus¹⁵³⁴

Sort of.

As I indicated in footnote #1, Dr. Peter Gurry pointed out to me that the incident of what I believed to be strange breathing marks on the word αυτῳ and αυτου (see article 1) may, in fact, have been contracted forms of the reflexive pronoun ἑαυτος.[5] If that is the case, and the difference between the two is the “smooth breather” (αὐτῷ) versus the “rough breather” (αὑτῷ), then the TR tradition is rather divided among itself. For example, in Stephanus’s first edition (1546), he rendered this with the rough breather, thus indicating the contracted form of ἑαυτῷ. However, in his next edition (1549), he switched back to the smooth breather (αὐτῷ). Then, in his important 1550 and 1551 editions, he reverted to the initial abbreviated form (αὑτῷ).

  Stephanus¹⁵⁴⁶

Stephanus¹⁵⁴⁹

Stephanus¹⁵⁵⁰

In 19th-century editions of the TR, the confusion remained and perhaps even worsened. In Scrivener’s initial 1860 text (claiming to represent the Stephanus¹⁵⁵⁰ text), he includes variant readings from other published texts such as Beza (1565), Elzevirs (1624), Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles. Oddly, at 1 John 3:15, he does not accurately display the Stephanus¹⁵⁵⁰ text with the rough breather that represented the abbreviated longer ἑαυτῷ but instead purposefully printed the text with a smooth breather αὐτῷ.[6] Scrivener did list among the variants the longer ἑαυτῷ of Lachmann and Tischendorf. Nevertheless, he failed to include Beza¹⁵⁶⁵ and Elzevirs^1624, which both have the rough breather rather than the smooth breather, indicating those in the TR tradition also were cases of the contracted form of the longer reflexive pronoun reading. This smooth, breathing printing would continue in the Oxford 1873 TR and Scrivener’s later 1881 edition.

So, to which reading should a TR adherent cling? The personal pronoun or the reflexive pronoun? I’m not entirely sure Scrivener would know. The TR tradition did, after all, switch back and forth.

As it happened, there was even confusion among some Greek MSS over this very matter, as demonstrated by scribal correction. According to the ECM apparatus, there are three minuscules that correct from the shorter αυτω to the longer εαυτω (GA 323 468 720). GA 323 (a 12th-century minuscule) had the shorter reading, but a corrector is believed to have added a clear and dark rough breathing mark to demonstrate the contracted reading of the longer εαυτω:

GA 323

Deciding which variant is no easy task. The MSS data is quite evenly split. Displayed thusly are the NA²⁸ and [CNTTS] apparatuses:

The Alexandrian and Byzantine witnesses are pretty evenly split. There are, in my studies, certain MSS of 1 John that are very reliable: such as A and 1739. When they are combined with many Byzantine MSS as well as important Alexandrian MSS (א C), I’m led to believe that this is the better reading. Therefore, they help tip the scales toward the longer reflexive pronoun reading for me.

1 John 3:18 2x’s

The final example of the TR atypically departing from the Byzantine text contains two instances:

The first case of the TR not following the Byzantine is the article (τῇ) absent in front of γλώσσῃ/tongue. Here, both the ByzT and the NA28 agree over its presence. In his first edition, Erasmus omitted the article, perhaps at the prompting of his use of GA 1 and 2816, which also omitted it. However, Erasmus also used GA 2815 for his first edition which includes the article. For his second edition, he used GA 3, and his third edition he had GA 61. Both 3 and 61 include the article as well. Speculation might suggest that it was omitted on the part of Erasmus because it was reflecting the Latin (which has no articles!) and continued thereafter. This seems to be suggested from Beza’s annotations, though he doesn’t take up the matter of the article at all. He gives no hint of an awareness of the variant but simply repeats the Latin phrasing. Nevertheless, while the TR departs from the Byzantine text form, it is not in bad company, as the ECM includes some 42 MSS (including א/01 and 33!) that also omit it.

A more significant departure from the Byzantine text at 1 John 3:18 is the TR’s omission of the preposition ἐν/“in,” represented in both the NA²⁸ and the R-PByzT. As before, the omission is fairly well attested; the ECM lists some 49 Byzantine MSS. However, there is not the same weight of MSS as in the prior omission. Indeed, of all the MSS Erasmus would consult, only GA 1 omits the preposition. The rest of the MSS that Erasmus would use (GA 3 61 2815 2816) include it. The reading that includes both the article and the preposition (represented in both the NA²⁸ and ByzT!) yet left out of the TR seems to be the original reading.

Summary of Part 3

The TR tradition was not beholden to the Byzantine text. It followed it primarily because the MSS that Erasmus had available to him and utilized were of the Byzantine family. An important goal for any researcher looking into the unique readings of the TR would be to examine those times that the Byzantine text was not followed and why. Typically, when departing from the Byzantine text type, there is a pattern of following Western readings in general and Latin renderings specifically. In part 4, I hope to look at a few uncharacteristic shorter readings in the TR of 1 John.

[1] Since part 1 has been published, Dr. Peter Gurry has pointed out to me that some of the strange accenting matters could be potential alternate spellings for the possessive pronoun (as cited in BDAG and LSJ). This increases the amount of variants among the TR tradition quite a bite.

[2] Not included in this (currently unpublished) apparatus would be the places where the TR cleans up the Greek. Usually, the TR departs from the Byzantine when it is correcting the Greek spelling by adding more proper endings to words (e.g. 1 John 1:5 and the second occurrence of ἐστι in the TR rather than the ByzT’s ἐστίν). For the most recent update on this project, view Dwayne Greene’s YouTube video, “An UPDATE on the PROGRESS of the BYZANTINE TEXT project!” accessed here: https://youtu.be/WV4W8bYXRFY?si=P1JW7JAmeF71Eh3V.

[3] Kurt Aland, ed., Text und Textwert der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments: Die Katholischen Briefe, Text und Textwert (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1987), 139–40.

[4] The Beza^Fol1582 edition also follows the longer reading but with a slightly different word order. Beza comments that there were to his knowledge 4 Greek MSS that contained the longer reading, along with the Latin and Syriac translations.

[5] LSJ said, “Attic contraction αὑτοῦ, etc., which is the usual form in Tragedy, though ἑαυτοῦ, etc., are used (though rarely) when the metre requires, A.Pr.188 (anap.), al.; in Attic Inscription αὑτοῦ prevails after b.c. 300.” BDAG (2000) would say, “Editors variously replace contract forms αὑτοῦ and αὑτῶν of later mss. with uncontracted forms or with αὐτοῦ.” The previous BAGD (1952) put it a bit bolder, “The contract form αὑτοῦ and αὑτῶν are deleted in the new editions and replaced by the uncontracted forms or by αὐτοῦ.” Thayer and Grimm’s Wilke’s lexicon put it this way, “αὑτοῦ, -ῆς, -οῦ, of himself, herself, itself, equivalent to ἑαυτοῦ, It Is [sic.] very common in the editions of the N. T. by the Elzevirs, Griesbach, Knapp, al… ἑαυτοῦ, -ῆς, -οῦ, etc. or (contracted) αὑτοῦ, -ῆς, -οῦ.”

[6] Scrivener did say in the preface that he would replace the rough breathers for smooth breathers of αυτου and αυτῳ.

Timothy Decker

Dr. Timothy Decker is one of the pastors of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Roanoke, VA, having joined them in 2018. He holds a B.A. and M.A. biblical studies from Carolina University (formerly Piedmont International University), a Th.M. in New Testament from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in biblical studies from Capital Seminary and Graduate School. In his dissertation research, he examined the style of biblical Hebrew poetry in the New Testament. He has presented various papers at academic society meetings and authored numerous articles in several different scholarly journals. He is a member of ETS and IBR. When he is not reading or researching, he enjoys spending time with his wife and four children.

 

Courses taught at CBTSeminary: Elementary Greek I, Elementary Greek II