Who Was Manifested in the Flesh? A Consideration of Internal Evidence 5 “certainty” is unlikely to be granted the findings of any one school of text critics to those of another, the methodologies of the three camps are most congruent when they consider internal evidence, and thus a fresh look from the thoroughgoing perspective, which is the purpose of this paper, may contribute constructively to the deliberations of each. First we will briefly examine the external evidence, stating the reasons that this may not be as conclusive as usually assumed. Next, we will compare the ca- nons of internal evidence by which each of the three groups of text critics evaluate readings. Finally, we will apply the common principles distilled from these methods to the ὅς/Θεός variant of 1 Tim 3:16a. In concluding, we will assess whether or not the internal evidence alone is capable of bearing the burden cast upon it by the thoroughgoing eclectics. 1. “Reasonable Doubt” in the External Evidence Mill, Scrivener, Tregelles, and Westcott and Hort all give extended discussions of the uncials, minuscules, versions, and patristic evidence for this variant. Their positions favoring ὅς can be discerned in Metzger’s own Textual Commentary: The reading which, on the basis of external evidence and transcription- al probability, best explains the rise of the others is ὅς. It is supported by the earliest and best uncials (‫ *א‬A*vid C* Ggr) as well as by 33 365 442 2127 syr hmg, pal goth ethpp Origenlat Epiphanius Jerome Theodore Eutherius acc. to Cyril Cyrilacc to Ps-Oecumenius Liberatus. Furthermore, since neuter relative Theodoret pronoun ὅ must have arisen as a scribal correction of ὅς (to bring the relative into concord with μυστήριον), the witnesses that read ὅ (D* it d, g, 61, 86 vg Ambrosiaster Marius Victorinus Hilary Pelagius Augustine) also indirectly presuppose ὅς as the earlier reading. The Textus Receptus reads Θεός, with ‫ א‬c (this corrector is of the twelfth century) A2 C2 D2 K L P Ψ 81 330 614 1739 Byz Lect Gregory-Nyssa Didymus Chrysostom Theodoret Euthalius and later Fathers. Thus no uncial (in the first hand) earlier than the eighth or ninth century (Ψ) supports Θεός.8 John Burgon, the champion of the Majority Text reading of Θεός, disputed much of this external evidence in his attack on the Revised Ver- sion of the Bible in a prolix discussion in his 1883 work, The Revision B.M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament 2d ed. (Stuttgart 8 1998) 575.