by Scott Jones
2001

"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: GOD was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." 1 Timothy 3:16

The critical apparatuses of NA/UBS are SATURATED with false citations. For example, there are no less than SIX FALSE CITATIONS by NA/UBS in 1 Timothy 3:16 alone. Five uncials are falsely cited in support of OS instead of THEOS in 1 Timothy 3:16. These uncials are Aleph A C F G. 1

Four of these uncials -- A, C, F, G -- read THEOS in the original hand, contrary to the false citations in the NA/UBS critical apparatuses, whereas ultraviolet technology demonstrated that most of the corrections in the fifth manuscript -- Aleph -- ESPECIALLY those with doctrinal significance, were made before Aleph ever left the scriptorium. Tischendorf stated arbitrarily and without foundation that Aleph’s corrector operated on this passage in the 12th century. The ultraviolet technological evidence produced by Milne & Skeat in the mid-twentieth century refuted Tischendorf. In fact, according to ultraviolet technology, the first scribe of Aleph simply copied from his exemplars without deviation. Then, before Aleph ever left the scriptorium, the same scribe or a fellow scribe came back and went over the manuscript, correcting as many obvious errors as he determined to exist. In other words, it is most probable that Aleph’s reading of THEOS is a correction contemporary with the original hand of the manuscript itself, and a correction contemporary with the original hand of the manuscript is more accurate than the original hand.

Either way, the assertion by Tischendorf that the corrector was a 12th century hand is just one of the plethora of ignorant and baseless statements made by him in defense of his idol, Sinaiticus Aleph. Moreover, the ignorance of the likes of Metzger, Wallace, and others, who are nothing but parrots when it comes to citing text critical matters, and who repeat this nonsense one after another like monkeys who try to outdo each other in repeating the other's howl, is palpable, seeing as how there is not a SHRED of evidence for Tischendorf's statement, whereas, as I said, the ultraviolet technology speaks for itself. As does the whole body of the remainder of the evidence, as we will now see.

Without the FALSE citations of these five manuscripts, the evidence for removing THEOS in 1 Timothy 3:16 is literally NONEXISTENT, as we'll shortly discover. And of course, the removal by modern "bibles" of THEOS in this passage is absolutely theologically motivated, the lying protestations of their proponents notwithstanding, as will also be herein demonstrated.

A very brief explanation of how the Greek is displayed in the manuscripts is as follows:

Sacred names, known generally by their Latin terminology as NOMINA SACRA, were abbreviated in manuscripts to conserve space, or as tokens of respect. When a sacred name was abbreviated, a light horizontal stroke was placed above the letters to signify the abbreviation. Thus, the term for God - QEOS - was shortened by omitting the two inner letters and by affixing a horizontal line above the two remaining letters. The abbreviation would thus appear in the manuscripts as QS  (technically, the final sigma looked very much like our capital C, but I will forego that nomenclature here to avoid confusion).

Well, it just so happens that by removing the horizontal line ABOVE the abbreviation and by removing the small horizontal line WITHIN the Theta (the first letter of the word) another legitimate Greek word that looks like this - OS - is produced.

This word by itself - OS (without the horizontal lines above and within), is the masculine relative pronoun for "who" in the Greek language. In other words, if the horizontal lines are present, every reader would recognize that the word was a NOMINA SACRA signifying the word "Theos," which means "God." If the two horizontal lines are absent, every reader would understand that the word simply meant "who."

This, then, is the whole crux of the matter concerning 1 Timothy 3:16, for a scant handful of manuscripts are missing the horizontal lines, thus APPEARING to form the word "who" instead of "Theos." This scant handful of manuscripts missing the horizontal lines are in opposition to WELL OVER THREE HUNDRED MANUSCRIPTS THAT CONTAIN the horizontal lines, and which therefore testify unmistakably to Theos, or "God".

Furthermore, the scant few manuscripts missing the horizontal lines creates a SEVERE grammatical problem, for the Greek word OS (without the horizontal lines, which means "who") is a masculine relative pronoun that ends up modifying a NEUTER noun - in this case the noun "mystery." Significantly, this is not only HORRIBLE GREEK GRAMMAR, but the resulting clause ends up containing A PREDICATE WITHOUT A SUBJECT -- I say, the RESULTING CLAUSE ENDS UP CONTAINING A PREDICATE WITHOUT A SUBJECT -- which is of course ABSURD. Naturally, the only people who don't understand how ABSURD this grammatical error is are Anglo-bible scholars and modern version translators who can't even pronounce Greek properly, let alone speak it, whereas native Greeks who are fluent in English and who can actually speak their own mother tongue of Greek, unlike Anglo-bible scholars and modern version translators who pawn themselves off as experts in a language they can't even pronounce properly, let alone speak, testify just how utterly ABSURD this grammatical solecism is, a solecism that is so severe that not even a fledgling Greek schoolboy would commit it. See Definition Of Monogenes and Indictment Of Ignorance for just two short examples of the linguistic ignorance of Anglo-bible scholars and modern version translators. 

And yet, most modern "bibles" have followed this preposterous error in 1 Timothy 3:16 by rendering the word as WHO instead of GOD. The resulting GRAMMATICAL ABSURDITY forced these modern "bibles" to either fabricate the word "HE" out of thin air, or change the syntax around entirely in order to compensate for the utter ABSURDITY.

In other words, MODERN "BIBLES" HAVE GONE OUT OF THEIR WAY TO OBLITERATE THE STRONGEST STATEMENT IN THE SCRIPTURES TESTIFYING TO THE DEITY OF JESUS CHRIST, in spite of CONCLUSIVE testimony against them, as the following discourse reveals. Make no mistake about it -- modern "bibles", and the TRANSLATORS WHO CRAFTED THEM, have WILLFULLY OBLITERATED THE VERY STRONGEST WORD IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES AFFIRMING THE DEITY OF JESUS CHRIST, and it is NOT POSSIBLE that such men were indwelt by the Holy Ghost when they did so. I say, IT IS NOT POSSIBLE THAT REGENERATE TRANSLATORS -- GENUINELY BORN AGAIN TRANSLATORS -- would have omitted THEOS in this passage. It is IMPOSSIBLE for a GENUINELY BORN AGAIN Christian to deny THEOS in this passage. There are NO exceptions, for the Holy Ghost BEARS UNMISTAKABLE WITNESS to THEOS -- GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH -- in this passage, for GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH is the SOURCE OF ALL REVELATION. There is NO GENUINE REVELATION apart from GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH. None whatsoever. As John Owen so perceptively noted --

"Those who reject the DIVINE PERSON OF CHRIST - who believe it not, who discern not the wisdom, grace, love, and power of God therein - do constantly reject or corrupt all other spiritual truths of divine revelation. Nor can it otherwise be. FOR THEY HAVE A CONSISTENCY ONLY IN THEIR RELATION UNTO THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS - GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH - AND FROM THENCE DERIVE THEIR SENSE AND MEANING. THIS BEING REMOVED - THE TRUTH, IN ALL OTHER ARTICLES OF RELIGION, IMMEDIATELY FALLS TO THE GROUND." John Owen, Christologia

Witness just ONE example out of A HORDE OF EXAMPLES of the WILLFUL DECEIT of modern biblical scholarship --

The original custodians of Codex A all testified that the lines in and above the Theta were visible from the year 1626 (when Codex A was given to the British by Cyril of Lucar) even up until the time of Scrivener, as Scrivener stated that he examined the manuscript 20 times in as many years and that he always maintained the original hand was THEOS, but that the lines had all but disappeared. Of course, the lines in and above the Theta in Codex A are habitually written so faintly that they are barely discernible to begin with, as testified by those who have actually examined Codex A, which is further proof of THEOS in 1 Timothy 3:16. As it stands now, 1 Tim 3:16 in Codex A has been thumbed so many times that it is completely worn and thus any type of examination today would be worthless.

However, we have overwhelming historical evidence to prove that Codex A read THEOS in the original hand. Patrick Young, the first custodian of Codex A after the British were given possession, maintained that the reading was clearly THEOS in the original hand. Huish, who collated Codex A, asserted that THEOS was CLEARLY the reading in 1 Tim 3:16 in the original hand, and he communicated this to Brian Walton prior to Walton’s fifth edition of his Polyglot in 1657. Bishop Pearson examined Codex A in the same time period and testified that THEOS was unmistakable. Bishop Fell in 1675 also maintained that THEOS in the original hand was the unmistakable reading as well.

Mill, who was at work on the Text of the NT from 1677 to 1707, expressly declares that he saw the remains of THEOS in 1 Tim 3:16 in Codex A. Bentley, who had himself in 1716 collated the MS with the utmost accuracy, knew nothing of any other reading. In 1718 Wotton stated, “There can be no doubt that this manuscript always exhibited THEOS.” In the early to mid 18th century both Wetstein and Berriman expressly maintained that Codex A read THEOS in 1 Tim 3:16 in the original hand. Berriman went so far as to note that the lines were light and fading, and that if at any time in the future they should be worn away completely, that everyone should know that they were nevertheless original. Berriman also noted that someone had recently attempted to darken the lines by tracing over them, but that the retrace did not fully extend to the full length of the original line, so that the original line could still be seen.

Bengel testified in 1734 that the reading of 1 Tim 3:16 in Codex A in the original hand was THEOS. Woide declared in 1765 that he examined A and the reading was undoubtedly THEOS in the original hand, and furthermore, that the very same lines 20 years later had almost disappeared.

To quote John Burgon:

“The fact remains for all that, that the original reading of A is attested so amply, that no sincere lover of Truth can ever hereafter pretend to doubt it... it is too late by 150 years to contend on the negative side of the question... The plain fact concerning Cod. A is this - That at 1 Tim. iii. 16, two delicate horizontal strokes in THEOS which were thoroughly patent in 1628, which could be seen plainly down to 1737, and which were discernible by an expert (Dr. Woide) so late as A.D. 1765, have for the last hundred years entirely disappeared, which is precisely what Berriman in 1741 predicted would be the case.” Revision Revised, 432-436

Only recently has Codex A been claimed as blanket support for OS. The early testimony from men who actually EXAMINED Codex A personally with their own hands, and who viewed Codex A many times up close with their OWN EYES -- not just one or two men, but a whole HORDE of men over a period of two hundred years - cited Codex A as DEFINITELY reading THEOS in the original hand. Modern scholars who attempt to overturn such conclusive testimony, especially since there is no possible way to determine the true reading of Codex A today, are being disingenuous, at best.

In fact, these modern scholars are being WILLFULLY DECEITFUL, for these vipers who perpetrated this PROPAGANDA know better.

This is ONE example of a LEGION of examples of false citations in NA/UBS.

A similarly conclusive case can be made for C F G. See Burgon, Revision Revised, same section as above, where the evidence for each of these manuscripts is likewise discussed in detail. For example, notice this prescient statement by George Sayles Bishop regarding Codex C --

"Soon after 1885 I went to Europe where I spent nearly three weeks in studying this text, I Tim. iii:16 on the great uncials "C" and "A". Through the kindness of Mr. Albert Le Faivre, Minister Plenipotentiary from France to the United States, I had the Codex "C" for one week under my hands to study the membrane with lenses and under full sunshine. The parchment was also held up by an attendant in front of the great window so that the light could fall through the palimpsest page. I have compared the THEOS of line 14 on folio 119, the one in dispute, with every other THEOS on the page and, OUT OF THE FIVE, I FIND IT THE PLAINEST ONE THERE. All five are written with two letters - OY, OY, OC, OY, OW Two of the five only have the line, the mark of contraction, above. Only one of the two, THE PLAINEST, is the only one they deny. THREE OF THE FIVE ONLY HAVE THE HAIR MARK IN THE THETA - ONE OF THESE THREE IS THE ONE THEY DENY. To put it more plainly - the question is, Is it OC "who" or is it OC with a line over the two letters and a mark in the O, God? IT IS BEYOND QUESTION THE LATTER. My eyes are as good as any man's." Sheol, The Principle and Tendency

A great deal MORE evidence on Codex C could be presented, which you will find, as before noted, in Burgon's thorough handling of this matter, as well as REAMS more information about the other FALSE CITATIONS in the remaining manuscripts as well.

The fact is, when the actual EVIDENCE is adhered to, the external testimony comes down to ONLY 4 cursives that can accurately be cited for OS in 1 Tim 3:16, and I’m not confident about the testimony of the 4 cursives, for I have not personally collated these four cursives, and it is the epitome of foolhardiness to take the word of NA27 or UBS4, as they are literally INUNDATED with INACCURATE citations.

Of course, the grammatical absurdity that occurs when OS is deployed in 1 Tim 3:16 in the critical text is also fatal in and of itself, which we’ll get to in a moment. Not to mention the Patristic testimony which resoundingly testifies to THEOS in this passage.

The NA/UBS also falsely cites Epiphanius as support for OS, when in fact Epiphanius quotes THEOS.

Pseudo-Dionysius (265 AD) quotes this passage in Greek WORD FOR WORD with the Textus Receptus/Authorized Version, inserting only the copula “gar.” (Concilia i. 858a). So much for the naked assertions that the testimony for this passage is late.

Hippolytus (170 - 236 AD) in Against Noetus paraphrases this passage at least three times. For example, “FOR OUR GOD SOJOURNED WITH US IN THE FLESH.” And again, “Thus, too, they preached the advent of GOD IN THE FLESH to the world.” And again, “He now, coming forth into the world, WAS MANIFESTED AS GOD IN A BODY.”

Only someone who is WILLFULLY blind could fail to see that Hippolytus is CLEARLY referring to 1 Timothy 3:16 here, and that his copy of the Scriptures unquestionably read THEOS.

Chrysostom (350 AD) quotes the passage WORD FOR WORD in Greek with the Textus Receptus/Authorized Version in 1 Timothy 3:16 several times throughout his discourses and homilies.

Gregory of Nyssa (370 AD) quotes this passage in Greek at least 22 times, all as the Textus Receptus/Authorized Version has it.

Ignatius (100 AD) makes clear allusion to this passage several times. In fact, Ignatius' quote is quite interesting. In his letter to the Ephesians he states, "There is one physician, both fleshly and spiritual; made and not made; GOD IN THE FLESH," and then a few paragraphs later adds, "GOD HIMSELF BEING MADE MANIFEST in the form of a man." In these two sentences, Ignatius employs the exact same Greek forms as found in the Textus Receptus.

It couldn't possibly be any clearer -- if Ignatius wasn't quoting 1 Timothy 3:16, then he was feeding on cheese from Mars.

In all, there are upwards of TWENTY church fathers who quote or strongly allude to this passage as found in the TR/AV. These citations are EARLY and geographically diverse.

Further still, THEOS matches the grammar perfectly whereas with the reading of OS as found in NA/UBS, you not only have a gross grammatical solecism whereby a MASCULINE relative pronoun ends up modifying a NEUTER noun, but you also wind up with a sentence that has a predicate but NO SUBJECT. That’s why modern "bibles" had to fabricate the word “HE” out of thin air.

In short, it is both ludicrous and blasphemous to suppose that Paul made such a GROSS GRAMMATICAL ERROR -- a grammatical error that not even a fledgling Greek schoolboy would commit -- particularly since he was writing under the unction of the Holy Ghost - especially a BALD grammatical error in the very verse in which he was describing the loftiest truth in the history of the world! An error that is so juvenile, as just stated, that not even the most remedial fledgling Greek schoolboy would commit. That's how SEVERE this grammatical error is, as any native Greek will tell you, unlike the ignorant translators of modern "bibles" who can't speak Greek and who are therefore functionally ignorant in Greek, but that is another paper. As noted earlier, see Definition Of Monogenes and Indictment Of Ignorance for just two short examples of this.

In order to try to explain away this grammatical ABSURDITY, the Anglo-Sanhedrin of our day attempts to pawn this passage off as an “early Christian hymn.”

There is not a SHRED of evidence that 1 Tim 3:16 was a hymn. As far as I can discover it was Griesbach who first invented this THEORY - and THEORY is ALL it is - no doubt in an effort to try to justify the grammatical absurdity since Griesbach was one of those miserable men who contrived to falsify God’s Word whenever the text inconveniently witnessed to the Godhead of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, mainstream Anglo-scholarship continues to maintain the “hymn” THEORY without a SHRED of evidence. They do this by asserting that the passage appears to be made up of “strophes.” I guess they haven’t read the Sermon on the Mount, for the Sermon on the Mount has more “strophes” than any passage in the NT. Was the Sermon on the Mount a “hymn?”

As Edward F. Hills noted --

"According to the Form-critics, Paul was not teaching the Christian community anything, but merely rehearsing to the community what he had learned from it. BUT WHO WERE THESE UNKNOWN HYMN MAKERS OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY WHO WERE ABLE TO MOLD THE THINKING OF THE APOSTLE PAUL? HOW COULD THESE PROFOUND THEOLOGICAL GENIUSES HAVE REMAINED ANONYMOUS?" The King James Version Defended

The hymn THEORISTS deny inspiration on its very face, as Paul insisted that the gospel of Christ was his own, which he learned, "not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ." [Romans 2:16, Romans 16:25, 2 Timothy 2:8, Galatians 1:1]

Nevertheless, the hymn THEORY proponents attempt to compare this passage to Colossians 1 and Philippians 2 in a very deceitful attempt to justify the bald grammatical error in 1 Timothy 3:16. Only thing is, they always seem to FORGET to mention the fact that neither Colossians 1 nor Philippians 2 contain a SINGLE grammatical error -- NOT A SINGLE GRAMMATICAL ERROR -- and that OS in BOTH passages MODIFIES ITS ANTECEDENT PERFECTLY, unlike the grammatical ABORTION in 1 Timothy 3:16 in the Critical Text. In other words, they tell you that OS occurs in Colossians 1 and Philippians 2, but they DON’T tell you that OS matches the grammar PERFECTLY in these two passages, UNLIKE 1 Tim 3:16. This type of deceit and concealment of evidence is the rule rather than the exception with the Anglo-Sanhedrin of our day.

In other words, the same unbelieving, evolutionist philosophy that produced modern "bibles" asserts that Paul was himself trained by the "church" even though Paul EXPLICITLY denied this. Paul's doctrine was acquired fully by SUPERNATURAL REVELATION, as he testified. But it doesn't surprise me that this generation of professing Christians is so feeble-minded that they can parrot the unbelieving scholars of our day by asserting that these passages written by Paul were hymns, while not knowing the significance of their foolish, unregenerate assertions.

But let’s mollify the critics for a moment. Let’s say Colossians 1 and Philippians 2 and 1 Timothy 3 WERE hymns, just for the sake of argument. Fine. Accordingly, Paul managed to plug this “hymn” into Colossians 1 without making a SINGLE grammatical error. Paul also managed to plug this “hymn” into Philippians 2 without making a SINGLE grammatical error.

How then, we ask, did Paul fail so MISERABLY in 1 Timothy 3:16??? Why could Paul plug these “hymns” into Colossians and Philippians without even the WHISPER of a grammatical blunder, but then suddenly in 1 Timothy 3:16 he falls completely apart and commits one of the MOST EGREGIOUS GRAMMATICAL BLUNDERS IN THE HISTORY OF GREEK LITERATURE?

Let the “hymn” THEORISTS explain that one.

Conclusion: That GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH is beyond any doubt what Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 3:16, as the Holy Ghost Himself testifies to the truly born again believer -- I say, as the HOLY GHOST HIMSELF UNMISTAKABLY BEARS WITNESS TO IN THE SPIRIT OF THE GENUINELY BORN AGAIN BELIEVER -- there are NO exceptions -- and it was no hymn. Rather, it was the word of the Eternal God sent down from Heaven, sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and sealed by the blood of the Living Word to proclaim the loftiest truth in the history of the world.

FOOTNOTES:

1 Up until the mid 1990's, I was the only living human that I know of who had personally collated Sinaiticus Aleph and Vaticanus B and several other manuscripts in the New Testament. More recently, however, noted scholar Reuben Swanson (who does not adhere to the primacy of the KJV), has made and published detailed collations of Aleph, B, and numerous other manuscripts. Here is his assessment about the reliability of the Critical Apparatuses of NA/UBS --

"IT IS DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND HOW SO MANY ERRORS IN THE REPORTING OF THE DATA CAN HAVE OCCURRED. AND THIS NUMBER IS THE SUM TOTAL ONLY FROM THOSE MANUSCRIPTS USED BY THIS EDITOR for this edition of Romans. HOW MANY MORE ERRORS THERE MAY BE IN THE REPORTING OF THE EVIDENCE FROM THE OTHER SOURCES, I.E., THE VERSIONS, THE LECTIONARIES, AND THE PATRISTIC WRITERS, USED FOR THE UBS4 AND THE NESTLE-ALAND27 EDITIONS BUT NOT USED FOR THIS WORK IS THE PROBLEM... It has been the view of some scholars that numerous errors in the reporting of the evidence exist in current editions of the Greek New Testament. BUT THIS WRITER IS JUSTIFIABLY ASTOUNDED AT THE MAGNITUDE OF THE PROBLEM." Reuben Swanson, New Testament Greek Manuscripts--Romans, p xxxiii (emphasis added)

Even though this statement was taken from Swanson's collation of the Book of Romans, he makes the SAME statement in his other collations as well, such as from Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and so on. In short, it is not possible for anyone who has actually studied the evidence, that is, anyone who has collated manuscripts and examined the citations in the critical apparatuses of NA/UBS, to honestly deny that these apparatuses are inundated with error. Swanson also notes --

"The editor of "New Testament Greek Manuscripts" [i.e., Reuben Swanson] has long held the view that the selection of variant readings SHOWN IN THE CURRENT CRITICAL EDITIONS of the New Testament HAS NOT GENERALLY BEEN REPRESENTATIVE OF THE DIVERSITY AND EVEN THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ACTUAL STATE OF THE PHENOMENA. It is true that the most widely used critical editions, UBS4 and Nestle-Aland27, are entitled handbooks, meaning that they are not intended to be exhaustive presentations of the evidence. Nevertheless, the question arises WHETHER OR NOT THE SELECTION OF READINGS CHOSEN FOR THE APPARATUSES represents the most significant and meaningful possible... THE MEANING OF SOME PASSAGES IS DEFINITELY SKEWED IN THE VIEW OF THIS WRITER BECAUSE OF THE PARTIAL REPORTING OF VARIANTS... Through the visual representation of the evidence, as in this appendix, it becomes apparent that a MINIMAL REPRESENTATION of the variant readings IS A SERIOUS DISTORTION of the problem of the text AND CAN BE MOST MISLEADING to those who rely only on handbooks for exegetical hermeneutical studies." Reuben Swanson, New Testament Greek Manuscripts--Romans, p xxiv (emphasis added)