God manifested in the flesh
It likely originated in the 3rd century, either as a scribal error influenced by orthographic conventions or as an intentional theological clarification to emphasize Christ's divinity.
However, since the late 19th century, the variant "who was manifested in the flesh" (ὅς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, hos ephanerōthē en sarki), supported by earlier manuscripts and translations, has been considered authentic.
[6] Church Fathers such as Origen, Epiphanius of Salamis, Jerome, Theodoret, Cyril of Alexandria, and Liberatus of Carthage used this variant.
[6] This reading indirectly supports ὅς as the original variant,[8] as it likely arose from an intentional alteration for grammatical consistency, disregarding the context that points clearly to Christ.
[12] One of the oldest Greek manuscripts using the variant θεός ἐφανερώθη (theos ephanerōthē, "God was manifested") is the Codex Athous Lavrensis, dated to the late 9th or early 10th century.
[4][6] Among the Church Fathers, this variant appears from the 4th century onwards,[8][13] used by figures such as Gregory of Nyssa, Didymus the Blind, John Chrysostom, Theodoret, Euthalius, and later theologians.
[8][13] Bart D. Ehrman argues that the variant likely originated no later than the 3rd century, with anti-adoptionist motivations aimed at emphasizing Christ's divinity.
[16] Isaac Newton wrote An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture, rejecting two Textus Receptus variants: the Johannine Comma and θεός ἐφανερώθη from 1 Timothy 3:16.
[19] Johann Jakob Wettstein, a theologian from Basel, observed during his study of the Codex Alexandrinus that the ligature above the letters theta and sigma was added with different ink and by another hand.
[20] In 1730, Wettstein published Prolegomena ad Novi Testamenti Graeci, supporting the variant ὅς ἐφανερώθη and questioning the authenticity of the Johannine Comma and Acts 20:28.
Carl Gottfried Woide, in his facsimile of the Codex Alexandrinus, used the variant ΘΣ and disputed Wettstein's claim that the original text had ΟΣ.
[27] Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener cautiously favored the θεός variant but hesitated to dismiss it as a scribal error.
