2 John 1 and the Textus Receptus - Room to Improve the King James Version

Nick Sayers (in his 2 John Bible Study video) has identified an interesting difference between Beza's 1598 Greek New Testament, the primary basis of the New Testament of the King James Version, and Scrivener's Textus Receptus, the usual TR edition that TR advocates reference.  This difference highlights an opportunity to improve the King James Version.

Here is the KJV:

2 John 1 (KJV) The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth;

The phrase "in the truth" should be rendered "truly" or "in truth" (for a more word-for-word translation) rather than "in the truth."  Beza identified this issue as early as 1556, and suggested changing the Vulgate translation of "in veritate" ("in truth" or "in the truth" - Latin lacks articles) to "verè" ("truly") to better convey the sense of the Greek.  Beza, in his annotations (discussed in more detail below), recognized the connection between John's Greek phrase ἐν ἀληθείᾳ (en aletheia - in truth) and a corresponding Hebrew word b'emet, which has the sense of "in truth" or really/seriously.  Thus, Beza argued that the text ought to be translated with "verè" to convey the sense rather than "in veritate," though the latter is a word-for-word formal equivalent translation.

An odd thing happened, though, and Beza's main text in 1598 did not align with his Latin text nor with the (much, much later) text of Scrivener.

Beza's 1598 edition has the text of 2 John 1 as follows: 

(source)

The relevant difference is the presence (in Beza) of an article before the word aletheia (truth) the first time it appears in the verse:

2 John 1 (Scrivener) ὁ πρεσβύτεροσ ἐκλεκτῇ κυρίᾳ, καὶ τοῖς τέκνοις αὐτῆς, οὓς ἐγὼ ἀγαπῶ ἐν ἀληθείᾳ, καὶ οὐκ ἐγὼ μόνος, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάντες οἱ ἐγνωκότες τὴν ἀλήθειαν

2 John 1 (Beza) ὁ πρεσβύτεροσ ἐκλεκτῇ κυρίᾳ, καὶ τοῖς τέκνοις αὐτῆς, οὓς ἐγὼ ἀγαπῶ ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ, καὶ οὐκ ἐγὼ μόνος, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάντες οἱ ἐγνωκότες τὴν ἀλήθειαν

One might wonder whether Beza's annotations shed any light.  Beza's Annotation is as follows:

(source)

In the following transcription, I've added modern vowel points to the Hebrew b'emet, meaning "in truth" or "really/seriously" although for reasons unknown to me, Beza used unpointed letters (perhaps it was all his printer had available?).

¶ Verè, ἐν ἀληθείᾳ, Heb. בֶּאֱמֶת [beemeth.] Vulg. & Erasm. ad verbum, In veritate. ¶ Veritatem, τὴν ἀλήθειαν. i. Christum, vel Evangelium. quae phrasis saepe, apud Ioannem praefertim, occurrit. Idem itiam eiusmodi unius verbi geminatione gaudet: sicut singulis penè paginis licet observare, tum in Evangelio, tum in epistola superiore.

My own amateurish translation:

¶ Truly, ἐν ἀληθείᾳ, Heb. בֶּאֱמֶת [beemeth.] Vulg. & Erasm. word for word, In veritate (“In truth”). ¶ “The truth,” τὴν ἀληθείᾳ. that is, Christ, or the Gospel; which manner of speaking occurs often, especially with John. He also indeed delights in such a doubling of one word: just as in almost every single page it can be observed, both in the Gospel and in the former epistle.

Note, however, that Beza's own Latin follows "truly" (verè) not "in the truth" in all his editions, including the 1598.  Moreover, while we may question the Greek and/or Hebrew skills of some of the King James translators, we certainly must believe that they knew how to read Latin, and could tell the difference between the Latin for "Truly" and the Latin for "In [the] truth".  

Moreover, note that while Beza's annotation may be a little confusing in view of the text as printed, Beza's annotation is best understood not as proposing the alternative reading "love in the truth" for "truly love" but rather as referring to the portion of the text about "knowing the truth".  In other words, Beza is saying that John is making a play on words, referring to his sincere love and also knowing about Christ and/or the Gospel.

It does not seem that there is any textual critical basis for adding the article into the text.  For example, 

Stephanus' 1550 (Beza's primary source for textual critical material) does not offer any textual variant information regarding 2 John 1 and does not include the article in the main text:

(source)

Furthermore, Beza's own editions, before and after the 1598 edition, are inconsistent.  

1604. The 1604 "minor" edition (which does not have full annotations) omits the article in the text:

(source, vol. 2)

1594. The 1594 Annotations-only printing contains the same annotation:

(source at [1237])

1590. The 1590 "minor" edition (which does not have full annotations) omits the article in the text:

(source, at [899])

1589. The same text (with the article) and annotation as in the 1598 are present in Beza's 1588/89:

(source)

1582. Likewise in Beza's 1582, the article and the annotations are present:

(source, at [990])

1580. The 1580 "minor" edition (which does not have full annotations) omits the article in the text:

(source)

1575. The Latin-only 1575 edition has the same Latin text as Beza offers consistently throughout:

(source)

1567. In the 1567 "minor" edition (which does not have full annotations), the text omits the article:

(source, at [775])

1565. Likewise, in his 1565 edition, his text omits the article, despite his annotations:

(source, at [1073])

(source, at [1074])

1557. Beza's Latin edition of 1556/57 includes the same annotation:

(source, at vol. 2, [1178])

In summary, all his editions have the Latin for "truly" and all his editions with annotations seem to have essentially the same annotations.  On the other hand, Beza's three final major editions of 1582, 1589, and 1598 all have the article, but the first major Greek edition (1565) and all the other minor editions lack the article.  

The article issue is not listed among the NT Conjectures. Likewise, I could not find any mention of this change in "Beyond What Is Written: Erasmus and Beza as Conjectural Critics of the New Testament," by Jan Krans.  Based on the collation provided via INTF, I was not able to locate any transcribed manuscript with an article in the position that Beza places it here.  So, if a deliberate insertion, it would seem to be a conjectural emendation of the text.

Given the presence of the "truly" reading in Beza's Latin and the presence of the seemingly conflicting annotation in all of the editions that have article present in the text, I think it's most reasonable to assume that the presence of the article in the text in the major editions of 1582, 1588/89, and 1598 was a typographic error in the 1582 that was subsequently copied in the following major editions without being noticed by Beza.

The King James translators, who we believe relied upon Beza's 1598 as their primary text, seem to have followed Beza's main text over his annotation.  They did not translate as "in truth," "truly," "indeed," or the like.  Instead, they translated as "in the truth" without any indication that "the" was being supplied:

(source)

Blaney's 1769 KJV similarly does not italicize the "the" in the verse:

(source)

Matthew Verschuur's "Pure Cambridge Edition" (published in 2006) claims to be scrupulous about italics and likewise does not italicize:

(source)

On the other hand, although Wycliffe's 1398 had "in treuthe" (source), English translations starting with Tyndale had included the English article (I have not extensively researched whether there were any better English translations available at the time).

1568 Bishops' Bible (per BibleHub)

2 John 1: The elder to the elect Lady & her chyldren, whom I loue in the trueth: and not I only, but also all that haue knowen ye trueth:

1560 Geneva Bible (scanned)

2 John 1: The Elder to the elect Ladie, and her children, whome I loue in [a] the trueth: and not I onely, but also all that have knowen ye trueth, [a: According to godliness & not with anie wordlie affection.]

Tyndale New Testament (per WikiSource) 

2 John 1: The elder to the electe lady and her chyldren which I love in the trueth: and not I only but also all that have knowe the trueth

Given that the King James translators were aiming to edit the Bishops' Bible only where the originals demanded it, and given that Beza's 1598 seemed to support for the article present in the Bishops' Bible, it seems that King James translators followed Beza's main text over his Latin translation and his annotations, thereby maintaining Tyndale's improvable translation.

As can be seen from Beza's notes, Tyndale did not have a Greek text with the article in front of him.  He had Erasmus' 1516 text and annotations.  The annotations on 2 John (reproduced below in their entirety) did not mention this issue, and the main text lacked the article:

(source)

(source) 

An interesting collision of a weak (but by 1611 already traditional) translation by Tyndale coupled with either a typographic error or conjectural emendation in Beza's 1598 resulted in the King James Version at 2 John 1 having some room for minor improvement by omitting the definite article.