Where the Older Text Says More

The previous three sessions dealt with familiar passages that appear in the King James but are absent from the earliest recoverable text. That can leave the impression that textual criticism always removes words—or that modern editors systematically weaken Christian doctrine.

This session tests that story against three readings about Christ.

• At John 1:18, early witnesses call the revealer at the Father’s side “God,” while the later majority reads “Son.”
• At 1 Timothy 3:16, the earlier reading is the rougher “who,” while later copyists produce the explicit “God.”
• At Acts 20:28, early evidence divides between “church of God” and “church of the Lord,” while the Byzantine tradition often combines them as “the Lord and God.”

The results do not all move in one theological direction. That is precisely the point. We do not choose a reading because it says more—or less—about Christ. We follow the evidence.

1. Begin with the differences

Compare a King James Bible with a modern translation.

John 1:18 looks stronger in many modern translations. First Timothy 3:16 looks stronger in the King James. Acts 20:28 depends partly on which Greek noun is printed and partly on how its final phrase is translated.

This is already enough to reject a conspiracy theory. Copying history is not a coordinated movement toward one theology. It is a history of ordinary readers, ordinary errors, familiar phrases, difficult grammar, corrections, and attempts to make a text easier.

2. John 1:18: “only God” or “only Son”

The variant is a single word:

• monogenēs theos: “only God,” “unique God,” or “the only one, himself God”;
• monogenēs huios: “only Son” or traditionally “only begotten Son.”

The Greek adjective monogenēs describes uniqueness or being one of a kind. Its traditional English rendering “only begotten” reflects a long history of interpretation and Latin translation. The textual question here concerns the noun that follows it: God or Son.

External evidence

Two corrections matter. Family 1 supports “Son,” not “God.” The Peshitta supports “God,” not “Son.”

The evidence is not one-sided. “Son” is ancient and widely received. But the earliest Greek witnesses and several early writers support “God.” Modern critical editions therefore print a form of “only God,” while their apparatus records variation within that reading as well.

Internal evidence

“Only Son” is the familiar Johannine phrase. It appears at John 3:16, John 3:18, and 1 John 4:9. A copyist encountering the startling “only God” could easily replace it with the familiar “only Son.” The reverse change is harder to explain.

“Only God” also completes the prologue’s architecture. John begins, “the Word was God,” and closes by saying that the one who makes the unseen God known is himself God and is at the Father’s side. The reading distinguishes the Son from the Father while naming him as God.

What the reading contributes

Both readings confess the Son as the unique revealer of the Father. “Only God” says more explicitly that this revealer shares the divine identity. It does not create Johannine Christology; it brings the prologue’s opening claim to a powerful close.

3. First Timothy 3:16: two pen strokes

Ancient Christian scribes often abbreviated sacred names. The Greek word for God, theos, could be written as the two-letter sacred abbreviation ΘC, with a line above it. The relative pronoun “who,” hos, is OC.

Turning OC into ΘC requires only two additions:

1. a horizontal stroke inside the omicron to make it look like theta;
2. a line above the letters to mark the sacred abbreviation.

The manuscripts preserve the correction

The first hand of Codex Sinaiticus wrote the form meaning “who.” A later corrector added strokes that changed its appearance toward “God.” Codex Ephraemi shows a comparable history. These are not hypothetical copyist habits; the alterations remain visible on the manuscript pages.

Codex Alexandrinus is difficult to read at this point and has been disputed. It should not be presented as an uncomplicated witness.

Why “who” is earlier

The phrase begins a six-line confession or hymn:

• revealed in flesh;
• vindicated by the Spirit;
• seen by angels;
• proclaimed among the nations;
• believed on in the world;
• taken up in glory.

“Who” is grammatically rough because the preceding word “mystery” is neuter. “God” makes a smoother, more explicit sentence. Correctors regularly turn rough grammar into clear grammar. It is much harder to picture a scribe replacing “God was revealed in flesh” with an awkward relative pronoun.

Paul also introduces Christological material with “who” elsewhere, notably Philippians 2:6 and Colossians 1:15. The rough reading fits the shape of a quoted hymn.

What the decision means

Here the earlier reading is less explicit. We follow it anyway. The hymn’s subject is Christ, and its entire movement confesses his incarnation, vindication, worldwide proclamation, and exaltation. But the first line does not contain the noun “God.”

Textual criticism serves truth only if it follows the evidence when the result is doctrinally convenient and when it is not.

4. Acts 20:28: God, Lord, or Lord and God

Paul charges the Ephesian elders to shepherd the church purchased with blood. The Greek witnesses divide over the church’s title.

The early evidence is divided between “God” and “Lord.” The third form joins the two, a classic conflation. This is also a place where the Textus Receptus and a Byzantine Majority Text can differ: the Textus Receptus reads “God,” while the Byzantine form represented in majority editions reads “Lord and God.”

The evidence does not justify saying that every oldest witness reads “God.” P74, Alexandrinus, and the Coptic support “Lord.” The critical decision for “God” rests on a judgment among divided early witnesses, not on a simple older-versus-later table.

The harder phrase

“Church of God…with his own blood” is startling because blood belongs to Christ’s humanity. “Lord” makes the phrase easier: the title regularly identifies Christ. A copyist could soften “God” to “Lord.” A later tradition could preserve both by writing “Lord and God.”

The final Greek phrase can also be construed as “through the blood of his own,” with “his own” understood as his own Son. That is the translation followed by the NET. The Greek textual decision and the translation of the last phrase are related but distinct questions.

A Lutheran way of speaking

If the text is rendered “God obtained the church with his own blood,” it exemplifies the communication of attributes. Christ is one person, true God and true man. His blood belongs to his human nature, yet the person who shed it is God the Son. Scripture can therefore say that the Lord of glory was crucified and that God purchased the church with blood.

The Formula of Concord addresses this way of speaking in Article VIII. The doctrine does not confuse Christ’s natures; it refuses to divide his person.

5. Christ’s deity does not depend on these variants

The three cases sharpen Christological reading. They do not carry the doctrine by themselves.

Readers debate punctuation or grammatical construction in some right-column examples, but the textual wording itself is not disputed in the same way as today’s three cases. The New Testament’s confession of Christ is cumulative and broad.

Nicaea and Chalcedon did not invent that confession. Nor do John 1:18 or Acts 20:28 stand alone as secret pillars holding it up. The creeds articulate the pattern found across the apostolic witness.

6. Test the “modern Bibles weaken Christ” claim

There is no consistent theological subtraction. At John 1:18, the critical reading is more explicit. At 1 Timothy 3:16, it is less explicit. At Acts 20:28, the evidence is complex and the critical reading produces a striking Christological statement in common translations.

The method remains the same because the goal remains the same: recover what the author wrote, not what would make the best proof text.

Claims that orthodox copyists sometimes strengthened Christological language deserve examination reading by reading. First Timothy 3:16 provides a visible example of such a change. John 1:18 shows that the oldest recoverable form can already speak of Christ’s deity with exceptional boldness. Neither observation licenses a sweeping theory about every variant.

Practice

Open John 1:18 and 1 Timothy 3:16 in Ad Fontes NT.

1. Which displayed editions print “God,” “Son,” “who,” or “God was manifested”?
2. Read John 1:1–18 as one unit. How does each form of verse 18 close the prologue?
3. Rewrite the six lines of 1 Timothy 3:16 as a poem. Does “who” make better sense as the beginning of quoted material?
4. At Acts 20:28, separate the textual question from the translation question.
5. Build a five-reference case for Christ’s deity without using any disputed reading from this session.

Discussion

1. Why is following the less explicit reading at 1 Timothy 3:16 an important test of method?
2. Does “only God” sound strange to you? How might that strangeness explain “only Son”?
3. How does Christ’s one person allow Scripture to speak of “God’s blood” without confusing the divine and human natures?
4. Why should a doctrine rest on Scripture’s whole witness rather than its most convenient variant?
5. What kind of evidence would genuinely support a claim that copyists changed texts for theological reasons?

Working vocabulary

Monogenēs. Greek for unique or one of a kind; traditionally rendered “only begotten.”

Monogenēs theos / monogenēs huios. “Only God” and “only Son,” the principal readings at John 1:18.

Corrector. A later hand that alters or repairs a manuscript after its original copying.

Nomina sacra. Standard abbreviations used by Christian scribes for sacred names such as God, Lord, Jesus, and Christ.

Conflation. A reading formed by combining two earlier readings, such as “the Lord and God.”

Communicatio idiomatum. The communication of attributes: because Christ is one person, what belongs to either nature may be said of that person.

Christology. Christian teaching about the person and work of Christ.

Before the next session

Read: Chapter 9, “What Did Jesus Actually Say?”

Do one thing: Compare Matthew 6:13, Luke 23:34, and Matthew 5:22 in a KJV and a modern Bible. Record the differences and every footnote.

Bring: Your Bible, your observations, and your vocabulary notes.

Think about: We pray “For thine is the kingdom” every Sunday. What would change—and what would not—if Matthew did not record those words as part of the prayer?

A closing word

Thanks be to God for the Son who makes the Father known, was revealed in our flesh, and purchased the church at the cost of his blood. Thanks be to God for evidence strong enough to correct both exaggerations: that modern editions always remove Christological language, and that later copyists never strengthened it. The church’s confession is safest where the witnesses lead us—to Christ himself.

“No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known.”

— John 1:18 (NET)

Scripture quotations in this session are from the NET Bible, with the KJV quoted where translations are compared. Confessional citations follow the Kolb-Wengert edition of the Book of Concord.