TEXTUAL ODDITIES OF THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS IN 1 JOHN
Part 4: Strange Textual Readings in the TR
In the previous article, we noted that while the TR typically follows the Byzantine text, there are occasions, especially in 1 John, where it departs from it. This article will do the opposite–it will observe the Byzantine and TR together in 1 John. However, we will note a somewhat unique feature in 1 John—the uncharacteristic shorter readings of the Byzantine and TR readings.
Uncharacteristic Shorter Readings
The Byzantine Textform and the TR tradition are known for having the longer and (sometimes) conflated readings. Some of these are well-known “longer reading” passages such as the longer ending of Mark (Mark 16:9–20), the women caught in adultery (John 7:53–8:11), and the stirring of the water at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:4) just to name a few. In 1 John, the TR (though not the Byzantine text) would include the longer but poorly attested Comma Johanneum of 1 John 5:7–8.[1] However, there are at least 3 occurrences in 1 John where the TR uncharacteristically follows the shorter reading, and each time it seems to be a mistake. What is more, some of these shorter readings can prove to be interpretively devastating.
1 John 2:4
We begin with a rather inconsequential omission at 2:4 that is nevertheless a shorter reading and uncharacteristic for the TR. And here, I don’t mean that it is uncharacteristic only because it is a shorter reading. It is also uncharacteristic because the word missing in the TR at 2:4 (ὅτι; hoti) when introducing a quotation, is present throughout the rest of 1 John when introducing a quotation.
For example, 1 John 1:6, 8, and 10 are all hypothetical scenarios prefaced with the same phrase “if we say that [ὅτι] we…” (ἐὰν εἴπωμεν ὅτι + 1st person plural verb). Notice that each time, the quote is introduced with ὅτι/hoti. It may be argued that the difference between the quotes at 1:6, 8, and 10 versus 2:4 is the difference between indirect quotes in ch. 1 and a direct quote in 2:4. If that is the case, though ὅτι/hoti does not require one or the other necessarily,[2] then one could argue that its omission was intentional to differentiate the kinds of quotations and to indicate a direct quotation at 2:4. On the other hand, 1 John 4:20a (“If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar…” NKJV) is unquestionably a direct quotation just as our disputed text 1 John 2:4. Yet that direct quote is introduced with ὅτι/hoti: ἐάν τις εἴπῃ ὅτι ἀγαπῶ τὸν θεὸν / “if someone says, ‘I love God…’” without any textual variant. Further, if we consider 1 John 4:15 to be a spoken confession (“Jesus is the Son of God”), then it could also be included as a direct quotation introduced with ὅτι/hoti: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” NKJV. Therefore, it is normal for the TR to introduce a quote in 1 John with the inclusion of ὅτι/hoti. Yet at 1 John 2:4, it follows a shorter reading by excluding it.
When comparing the MSS evidence, I would say that the inclusion of the ὅτι/hoti reading has a stronger pedigree and is the better reading. The CNTTS apparatus (along with the NA28 in brackets where not included) provides the following:
The ECM adds more than 50 other minuscules for the inclusion and longer reading not cited in the CNTTS apparatus: 6 33 81 88 94 104 206 254 323 326c 378 424c 429 431 436 442 459 467 614 621 630 642 808 876 915 1067 1127 1292 1359 1409 1490 1501 1523 1524 1563 1611 1718 1799 1831 1822 1842 1844 1845c 1852 2138 2147 2200 2243 2298 2344 2412 2464 2492 2541 2544 2652 2805 l596. Three of these are corrections (all from the tenth or eleventh century), indicating that it would have been very easy to skip the word as it is not grammatically necessary and the ligatures of the surrounding words are very similar to one another.
GA 424 with corrector adding ὅτι
For reasons unknown to me, none of the apparatuses (NA28, CNTTS, ECM) cited for the omission majuscules K/018 and L/020. However, I checked and verified that they indeed followed the shorter reading.[3] Nevertheless, from this evidence, we can see that the inclusion or longer reading has important majuscules and minuscules from various textual clusters, while the exclusion of ὅτι/hoti is localized to the Byzantine text almost exclusively. Therefore, the TR being characteristically Byzantine, would follow this shorter reading. Yet it is the weaker of the two options.
1 John 3:1
We switch now from a small and rather insignificant textual variant (insignificant except for textual scholars) to a textual variant a bit longer and far more important. And this one can be observed in translation and interpretation.
The two words not included in the TR of 1 John 3:1 have significant interpretive value to convey assurance to the believers (arguably the theme of 1 John!). The move from the subjunctive mood of possibility “that we might be called children of God” to the indicative mood of assertion “and we are!” conveys a comfort to the readers knowing that they currently have eternal life and enjoy the adoption as sons. That is not to say that the TR teaches the opposite, but it does leave out a key portion of 1 John in just two simple Greek words—καὶ ἐσμέν, kai esmen, “and we are.”The shorter reading found in the TR, Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform (ByzT), and Hodges & Farstad Majority Text (MajT) is very weak, even weaker than the shorter reading above at 1 John 2:4. To be as extensive as possible, I’ll use the Text und Textwert series, which counts the MSS excluding the two-word expression at 431 (mostly Byzantine minuscules) to 74 MSS that include it in some form.[4] Those MSS that include the longer reading, though in the minority from a numerical standpoint, are nevertheless fairly overwhelming (ECM and [CNTTS] lists the following):
Additionally, the longer reading also has the support of nearly all the Latin witnesses (both the Old Latin and many Vulgate MSS), Syriac, Coptic, and other ancient translations. It also has strong support from church fathers such as Justin, Augustine, Bede, and Theophylact. The point being, this longer reading is geographically diverse, represented in the Byzantine, Western, and Alexandrian textual clusters, and continues a stable transmissional history. Indeed, some of the longer readings overlap in the same minuscules for both 1 John 2:4 and 3:1.[5] On the other hand, the shorter reading is exclusively late and restricted to the Byzantine text. This is why it appears in the Robinson-Pierpont ByzT and the Hodges & Farstad MajT. This is also why the TR follows this shorter reading, as it typically follows the majority Byzantine reading.
The likely creation of this omission is due to homeoteleuton (“like ending”) wherein the same three letters that ended just before the two words in question have the same ending as the 2 words often omitted—κληθῶμεν, καὶ ἐσμέν. Originally, it would have looked like this:
As the scribe was copying the words ἵνα τέκνα θεοῦ κληθῶμεν, lit. “that children of God we might be called,” onto the new manuscript, his eyes returned to the vicinity of his exemplar manuscript that ended with the -μεν. However, as it would happen, he returned to the wrong -μεν location, skipping over the two words και εσμεν “and we are,” and continued on copying as though he had not erred. Instances such as these are very common, especially in 1 John.[6]
On the other hand, it is hard to imagine how or why “and we are” would be inserted. One scenario is that it began as a marginal note of praise that a later scribe, erring on the side of caution, included in the text just in case it was meant to be part of the original. But this is only hypothetical.
The Rare and Illusive Shorter and Non-Byzantine TR readings
1 John 4:16
This last example is another one-word omission found in the TR; however, it is not a Byzantine reading. Therefore, this variant could also be listed in the previous article as the TR departing from the Byzantine or here as being the shorter reading. In that way, this rendering in the TR at 1 John 4:16 is doubly odd as it is both the shorter reading and does not follow the Byzantine text.
The shorter reading here is the omission of the final verb μένει, menei, “remains/abides.” As the difference in translation indicates, the verb can either be stated or implied, but the meaning is the same. And perhaps this is why the less redundant reading of the TR which excludes the verb μένει is the cleaner of the two. And yet, there are times when the TR renders the more redundant and repeated reading, such as 1 John 4:2–3.
Scribal error is very unlikely to be the cause of the one-word exclusion in 1 John 4:16. But the TR would make intrinsic probability inconsistent. That is, if we follow the TR, it seems the author of 1 John (whom I believe is the apostle John) was inconsistent in his repeating redundant words. However, this inconsistency is removed had the TR followed the longer Byzantine reading in both places.
As it happens, I believe the longer and redundant reading in both 1 John 4:3 and 4:16 has the better external support. It also fits with the Johannine style, rife with redundant expressions. Here, we will focus our attention to 4:16 and the longer reading.
The Byzantine text is divided at this point. Therefore, both the ByzT and the MajT would rely upon internal evidence in order to decide upon the longer reading. Leaving off the final verb may have been in keeping with the very similar phrasing at the end of 1 John 4:15, “ὁ θεὸς ἐν αὐτῷ μένει, καὶ αὐτὸς ἐν τῷ θεῷ,” (“God abides in him, and he in God”) when compared to the end of 4:16, “ὁ μένων ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ, ἐν τῷ θεῷ μένει, καὶ ὁ θεὸς ἐν αὐτῷ μένει” (lit. “the one abiding in love, abides in God, and God abides in him”). In that case, just as the final verb is left unstated and implied in v. 15, it could have been omitted either accidentally based on the memory of the verse prior or purposefully as it was not necessarily fitting John’s style just one verse prior. Or it could be just as likely that a scribe would purposefully omit a redundant verb, believing the parent copy was incorrect, due to the fact that the previous verse (v. 15) left the verb unstated and implied. However, for a scribe to insert the verb at the end of v. 16 but not at the end of v. 15 seems highly unlikely. And while there is no MSS evidence for a longer reading at v. 15 (e.g. there is no variant that includes a stated verb), the pedigree of the longer reading at the end of v. 16 is quite strong:
The support for the longer reading has widespread testimony, being represented early and later in both Alexandrian and Byzantine MSS. Interestingly, GA 1 was one of the MSS that Erasmus would use for his initial TR edition. And while it included the longer μένει reading, Erasmus did not. On the other hand, the Complutensian Polyglot was the only edition among the TR tradition to include it.
A rare papyri fragment of 1 John might lend aid. Papyrus 9 (𝔓9), a 4th century papyrus, may or may not include the final verb μένει. However, the horizontal line just at the bottom-right may indicate that an abbreviated version of it was original, as just two lines above another line was used to possibly abbreviate και to κα. The third abbreviated horizontal line (counting from the bottom) is a nomen sacrum for Christ:
GA 𝔓9 of 1 John 4:16
The INTF transcription of this papyrus fragment reads:[7]
The dot under the mu of line 10 indicates uncertainty. The note for the word in question (at the end of line 10) says “Kürzungsstrich für μενει?” which means “Abbreviation stroke for μενει?” The truth is, the very next words of v. 17 could be the start of what is lacking in this fragment, and so we cannot be certain.
To be fair, the manuscripts that support the shorter reading represented in the TR also has some strong witnesses to its credit. The NA28 list the following:
Of these, A, 33, 1735, and 1881 are important MSS for 1 John. However, the original hand of 1881 included the longer reading, only for a corrector to erase it off. We cannot be sure if it was the same copyist or a later editor. But most of these MSS are very Byzantine in their clustering, thus limiting the omission to one specific textual stream. Nevertheless, the Byzantine is not completely unified, as the Robinson-Pierpont ByzT indicates in the margin of their text. Until a full transcription of all the minuscule manuscripts of 1 John are completed, exact numbers are difficult to come by without individually inspecting each one.[8]
There are some notable manuscripts not yet mentioned. Codex Sinaiticus, א/01, was not included in the ECM’s initial list because of its strange spelling of the verb μένει as:
making it impossible to discern if the present tense form μένει was meant over GA 330’s future tense form μενεῖ. This spelling is mostly limited to the three occurrences in 4:15–16 (yes, I checked them all in 1 John).[9] I am not entirely sure what accounts for this strange spelling at vv. 15–16 of א/01. Notably, the first and third occurrences of misspelling split the word in half, with one line ending with: 
and the next line beginning with:
Regardless of this misspelling, this important uncial should be included with those MSS that represent the longer reading. Uncials 04/C and 025/P have a lacunae; that is, they are missing a page that contains this verse. Uncial 048 has damaged portions of this page, including the part of 1 John 4:16 under question.
Regardless, the TR, following the shorter reading, seems to be of weaker support.
Conclusion
The purpose of the third and fourth article in this series is to demonstrate that the TR of 1 John is odd in that it departs from its own standard practice of including the longer readings and following the Byzantine text. Yet, in several cases above, we saw the TR stray from its normal pattern (shorter readings and/or non-Byzantine readings). And in each case, it seems that such TR oddities led to many readings that were unlikely to be original to 1 John. In the next article, we will look at some other peculiar TR readings of 1 John that are of a dubious sort.
[1] For an excellent overview of the MSS that contain the CJ, see Elijah Hixson, “The Greek Manuscripts of the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7–8),” Evangelical Textual Criticism blog, accessed: http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-greek-manuscripts-of-comma.html.
[2] See for example Wallac’s treatment of direct and indirect discourse both being preceded by ὅτι clauses. Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 454–58.
[3] These two were included in the apparatus provided by CrossWire Bible called the SWORD Project VarApp. It can be accessed either at www.laparola.net/greco or www.stepbible.org/version.jsp?version=VarApp. This is not always a reliable source, but it is still very helpful.
[4] Aland, Text und Textwert der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments: Die Katholischen Briefe, 1:144-146.
[5] For those John Gill fans, see his comments on the presence and meaning of these two words.
[6] Comfort offers an explanation that it was intentionally removed due to the clunky and redundant style. However, this is not the norm for the Byzantine textform and not likely a reasonable explanation for its omission. Philip W. Comfort, New Testament Text and Translation Commentary (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2008), 776. Metzger offers either accidental omission as explained above or intentional omission as Comfort as possible solutions. Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition (Stuttgart: German Bible Society, 1994), 642.
[7] Accessed at https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/transcript/get/?docID=10009&indexContent=1John%204:14-17&pageID=20&format=html.
[8] This author is doing this very thing for 1 John 1:4. It is a slow, tedious, and laborious process.
[9] 1 John 2:6 has menin instead of menein; 2:27 has the imperative form (which does not fit) menete instead of the indicative meneite. The spelling is correct at 2:10, 14, 17, 24, 27; 3:9, 14, 17, 24 (2x’s); and 4:12.
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
