4 Stephen W. Frary patron saints Westcott and Hort, whose work was without the benefit of any of the papyri or over four-fifths of the uncials.3 These tribes are united on one front, though: neither has much good to say about the outcast Byzantine priorists. These adherents to the text form which came to predominate within the stream of documents currently extant are accused of not being real text critics, but “a popular move- ment within conservative circles bolstered by an occasional scholar.”4 Yet these alone unabashedly admit their belief in a superior text type –the Byzantine– and alone note, reasonably, that the eclectic methods result in a hodgepodge text which has never existed as an entity in the history of the transmission of the NT, not only as an intact chapter or book, but in some places not even as a single verse.5 God, in His providence, has filled the NT MSS with passages the resolution of whose variants demonstrate not only the differences, but the unwilling similarities in the methodologies of these groups so earnestly engaged in trying to ascertain what He really said, or at least had recorded. 1 Tim 3:16a, is such a verse. While NA27, UBSGNT4, and Wescott-Hort all begin the hymn with καὶ ὁμολογουμένως μέγα ἐστὶν τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον· Ὃς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, all published critical editions based on the Byzantine texts, including the Robinson-Pierpont read καὶ ὁμολογουμένως μέγα ἐστὶν τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον· Θεός ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί.6 Traditionally, this variant has been resolved (ex- cept by the thoroughgoing eclectics) relying mainly on external grounds, with internal evidence relegated to the role of corroboration. However, the testimony of the manuscripts is not beyond dispute at this reading, and while the partisans of the Byzantine and the reasoned eclectics have spent much energy bolstering the reputation of their favorite text types in resolving this variant, this has been done at the expense of an extensive evaluation of the internal data vaunted by the thorough-goers. J. Keith Elliott, speaking of this verse claims, “Stylistic considerations and author’s usage are usually ignored by textual critics, but these crite- ria can help us to decide with certainty the original reading here.”7 While Epp, “Twentieth Century Interlude”, 390. 3 D.B. Wallace, “The Majority Text Theory: History, Methods, and Critique”, in Ehrman 4 and Holmes (eds), Status Quaestionis, 305. M. Robinson, “New Testament Textual Criticism: The Case for Byzantine Priority”, 5 TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism 6 (2001) 4. [http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol06/ Robinson2001.html] accessed May 26, 2005. Unless otherwise noted, all citations of the Greek Byzantine text are from Maurice A. 6 Robinson, William G. Pierpont, The New Testament in the Original Greek According to the Byzantine/Majority Textform, BibleWorks, v. 6.0.011y [CD-ROM] (2003). J.K. Elliott, The Greek Text of the Epistles to Timothy and Titus (Salt Lake City UT 7 1968) 59.