Strengthen your faith in God's word

1 Timothy 3:16

“God was manifest in the flesh” is the reading of the great majority of Greek manuscripts, and of four of the oldest as they were corrected. Ignatius and Hippolytus echo it, and Didymus and Gregory of Nyssa read it in the fourth century.

The King James Bible

Greek Manuscripts

• Byzantine manuscripts 𝔐
  9th–16th centuries
  Checked against: Scrivener 1894
• Codex Sinaiticus, corrected ℵᶜ
  4th century, corrected later
  Corrected to this reading by a corrector of about the 12th century.
  Checked against: Scrivener 1894
• Codex Alexandrinus A 02
  5th century
  As the manuscript now reads. Scrivener, who examined it at least twenty times, and Burgon held that the scribe wrote ΘΣ, the usual contraction of “God.”
  Checked against: Scrivener 1894
• Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus C 04
  5th century
  Corrected to this reading by a later hand; Hoskier held that it reads “God.”
  Checked against: Scrivener 1894
• Codex Claromontanus, corrected D 06ᶜ
  6th century, corrected later
  Corrected to this reading by its third hand.
  Checked against: Scrivener 1894
• Codex Mosquensis I K 018
  9th century
  Checked against: Scrivener 1894
• Codex Angelicus L 020
  9th century
  Checked against: Scrivener 1894
• Codex Porphyrianus P 025
  9th century
  Checked against: Scrivener 1894

Early Translations

• Old Church Slavonic slav
  translation 9th century
  Checked against: Scrivener 1894

Church Fathers

• Ignatius of Antioch
  Epistle to the Ephesians 19 · c. AD 110
  Alludes to it

  “God Himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life”

  Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 ›
  Checked against: ANF 1
• Hippolytus of Rome
  Against Noetus 17 · c. AD 220
  Alludes to it

  “He now, coming forth into the world, was manifested as God in a body”

  Scrivener calls it a free reference to the verse.
  Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5 ›
  Checked against: ANF 5
• John Chrysostom
  Homilies on 1 Timothy 11 · c. AD 390

  “The Creator was seen incarnate.”

  Chrysostom’s Greek reads “God”; the quotation is his comment on it.
  Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 13 ›
  Checked against: NPNF1 13
• Didymus the Blind
  On the Trinity · c. AD 390
  Scrivener: his evidence for “God” is “beyond all doubt.”
  Checked against: Scrivener 1894

Printed Greek Texts with This Reading

• Textus Receptus · The Greek text the KJV was translated from, as Scrivener printed it (1894)
• Majority Text · The Byzantine text, read by the great majority of Greek manuscripts (Robinson and Pierpont, 2005)

Quotations from the Ante-Nicene and Nicene Fathers translations. Edition data from the Translators Amalgamated Greek NT, STEPBible.org (CC BY). About these texts and witnesses.