Distortion of the text of 1 Timothy 3:16 (Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh)

 - A clear, blatant, and flagrant example of the distortion of the Holy Bible... distortion of one of the most dangerous texts that theologians rely on to prove the doctrine of the divinity of Christ as well as the doctrine of the incarnation of God; it is the basic pillar in proving the secret of the mysteries of redemption, as they say.

* This text is found in 1 Timothy 3:16: “ Without controversy, great is the mystery of
godliness: that God was manifest in the flesh, was justified in the Spirit.”


The text in Greek is καὶ ὁμολογουμένως μέγα ἐστὶν τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον· Θεὸς ) ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύματι ) ; This text was used as evidence by Pope Shenouda himself in his book (Theology of Christ) and he decided to give the third chapter a title that indicates the importance of the verses he will cite and wrote for it a title: (Explicit verses that indicate his divinity) .... ; Then Pope Shenouda followed this text by saying: (It is clear from this verse that Christ is God who appeared in the flesh). ; Father Munis Abdel Nour also used it as evidence when he wanted to write an introduction to the book / The Truth of the Incarnation. He did not find a text to rely on to prove the incarnation except this text!! And many others... and many others! - But the shocking surprise for them and for those who believed their illusions is that this text is












a distorted text !!

=== ;
- By reviewing the manuscripts of the Holy Bible, textual criticism scholars found that one of the copyists had distorted the text in some manuscripts such as the Alexandrian from the fifth century; The corrupt copyist tried to put a line inside the letter Ο to make it Θ, but because the pen and the size of the pen are different, he failed to convincingly bring out the distortion process and the text remained in the manuscripts as a witness to the deliberate distortion!!

https://www.bible-researcher.com/alexandrinus4.html


,
and what confirms that the correct text is the one and not God - ΟС and not ΘС - is that other ancient manuscripts wrote it ( ΟС = the one who)

such as the Sinaitic manuscript - the Alexandrian - the Ephrimian - the Ethiopian - and others.


== ؛


* Therefore, it was natural for manuscript scholars and textual criticism to realize this fact; therefore, they preferred to read the one who ΟС instead of God ΘС and confirmed it in their critical copies.


؛ The reading (ΟС = who) is found in the Nestle-Aland version, the Westcott-Hort version, the UBS version, the Samuel Tregelles version, the Tischendorf version, and

other critical versions that relied on the oldest and best manuscripts of the New Testament; and were done by the most knowledgeable people on earth about the text of the New Testament. ...
The text in all of them was as
follows : ===




;

The fact that this text was distorted made the committee that prepared the joint Arabic translation, which was composed of biblical scholars and theologians belonging to various Christian churches, including Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical, delete the text after examining the manuscripts and texts for twenty years, during which they discovered that this text was distorted!

The text in it was as follows:
"And there is no dispute that great is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, and was declared righteous in the Spirit..." ,
-
and it is not only this committee that witnessed the distortion of this text, but the Jesuit fathers also witnessed its distortion when they produced their Catholic version...
The text in it was as follows:
"And there is no dispute that great is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh , and was declared righteous in the Spirit..." , and many others from the translators of the versions of the Bible, whether in Arabic or in English, in most and most of the versions and translations, old and new. But from a theological perspective, the difference is great. If we say, according to Van Dyck’s translation, “God appeared in the flesh,” it could mean that God Almighty was incarnated....; but according to the other text, “Great is the mystery of godliness that appeared in the flesh,” the mystery of godliness is what appeared in the flesh, not God, and of course the difference is very great .

What the copyists did by changing the core of the Holy Book is nothing but an attempt on their part to prove the divinity of Jesus and to delude the common Christians into believing that the one who became incarnate is God!!

..;
- And this is what Dr. James Annis said in his book / Systematic Theology, p. 243:

(And the word (who) replaced the name of God at the beginning of the phrase, as evidenced by its occurrence in the oldest and most accurate Greek versions and the oldest translations of all... And what supports the correctness of the reading of (who) is the fact that the ancient theologians did not mention this verse with the many verses that they cited to prove the divinity of Christ, while they were responding to the error of Arius.

As for the reason for replacing the word (who) with the word (God) in the modern Greek versions .....
that the copyists added that small line to clarify the meaning in some versions, so the word (who) was changed to (God))

,
- And Timothy Paul Jones says in his book / Misquoting the Truth, p. 92:
( The copyist of this text changed the word "who" to the word "God"... The copyist wanted to confirm the divinity of Christ )

..;

If... then in the text there is clear evidence of the deliberate distortion of the Holy Book by the pious copyists; who distorted "who ПС appeared in the flesh" to "God ИС appeared in the flesh."

So that the glory of their god may increase... through lies

!