Nestle GNT 1904
??? ??? ??? ??? ?? ??? ??? ??? > ??? > ??? ?? ???, ??? ?? ???, ??? ???, ??? ?? ???, ??? ?? ???, ??? ?? ???.
The above is an ancient hymn current during the apostolic period (including obviously apostle Paul). The hymn has no syntactical connection to the rest of the Epistle but is an obvious allusion to ? ??? becoming flesh, from verses like John 1:1, John 1:14 and 1 John 1:1. The variant reading ??? at 1 Timothy 3:16 is certainly false. But what is not commonly appreciated is that the reading ?? is also probably a corruption. The true reading here is IMHO ?, the neuter relative (in keeping with 1 John 1:1, ? ?? ?? ???,..??? ??? ??? ??? ???,). The following is IMHO the true and holy reading of the text:
??? ??? ??? ??? ?? ??? ??? ??? > ? > ??? ?? ???, ??? ?? ???, ??? ???, ??? ?? ???, ??? ?? ???, ??? ?? ???.
Here’s Daniel Wallace NET Bible notes:
24tc The Byzantine text along with a few other witnesses (?c Ac C2 D2 ? [88 pc] 1739 1881 vgms) read ??? (qeos, God) for ?? (Jos, who). Most significant among these witnesses is 1739; the second correctors of some of the other mss tend to conform to the medieval standard, the Byzantine text, and add no independent voice to the discussion. A few mss have ? ??? (so 88 pc), a reading that is a correction on the anarthrous ???. On the other side, the masculine relative pronoun ?? is strongly supported by ?* A* C* F G 33 365 pc Did Epiph. Significantly, D* and virtually the entire Latin tradition read the neuter relative pronoun, ? (Jo, which), a reading that indirectly supports ?? since it could not easily have been generated if ??? had been in the text. Thus, externally, there is no question as to what should be considered original: The Alexandrian and Western traditions are decidedly in favor of ??. Internally, the evidence is even stronger. What scribe would change ??? to ?? intentionally? Who is not only a theologically pale reading by comparison; it also is much harder (since the relative pronoun has no obvious antecedent, probably the reason for the neuter pronoun of the Western tradition). > Intrinsically, the rest of 3:16, beginning with ??, appears to form a six-strophed hymn. As such, it is a text that is seemingly incorporated into the letter without syntactical connection. > Hence, not only should we not look for an antecedent for ?? (as is often done by commentators), but the relative pronoun thus is not too hard a reading (or impossible, as Dean Burgon believed). Once the genre is taken into account, the relative pronoun fits neatly into the authors style (cf. also Col 1:15; Phil 2:6 for other places in which the relative pronoun begins a hymn, as was often the case in poetry of the day). On the other hand, with ??? written as a nomen sacrum, it would have looked very much like the relative pronoun: q-=s vs. os. Thus, it may have been easy to confuse one for the other. This, of course, does not solve which direction the scribes would go, although given their generally high Christology and the bland and ambiguous relative pronoun, it is doubtful that they would have replaced ??? with ??. How then should we account for ??? > It appears that > sometime after the 2nd century the ??? reading came into existence> , either via confusion with ?? or > as an intentional alteration to magnify Christ and clear up the syntax at the same time> . > Once it got in, this theologically rich reading was easily able to influence all the rest of the mss it came in contact with (including mss already written, such as ? A C D). That this reading did not arise until after the 2nd century is evident from the Western reading, ?. The neuter relative pronoun is certainly a correction of ??, conforming the gender to that of the neuter ??? (musthrion, mystery). > What is significant in this reading is (1) since virtually all the Western witnesses have either the masculine or > neuter relative pronoun> , > the ??? reading was apparently unknown to them in the 2nd century (when the Western text seems to have originated, though its place of origination was most likely in the east); they thus supply strong indirect evidence of ?? outside of Egypt in the 2nd century; (2) even 2nd century scribes were liable to misunderstand the genre, feeling compelled to alter the masculine relative pronoun because it appeared to them to be too harsh. The evidence, therefore, for ?? is quite compelling, both externally and internally. As TCGNT 574 notes, no uncial (in the first hand) earlier than the eighth or ninth century (?) supports ???; > all ancient versions presuppose ?? > or ?> ; > and no patristic writer prior to the last third of the fourth century testifies to the reading ???. Thus, the cries of certain groups that ??? has to be original must be seen as special pleading in this case. To argue that heretics tampered with the text here is self-defeating, for most of the Western fathers who quoted the verse with the relative pronoun were quite orthodox, strongly affirming the deity of Christ. They would have dearly loved such a reading as ???. Further, had heretics introduced a variant to ???, a far more natural choice would have been ??? (Cristos, Christ) or ??? (kurios, Lord), since the text is self-evidently about Christ, but it is not self-evidently a proclamation of his deity. (See ExSyn 341-42, for a summary discussion on this issue and additional bibliographic references.)