KJV Onlyism?

[OzSpen]

..

 

[now faith]

1 Timothy: 1. 3. As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4. Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.


Ephesians: 4. 11. And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 12. For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: 13. Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: 14. That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; 15. But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: 16. From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

 

[OzSpen]

You do realize that John MacArthur is a Calvinist?
The temple prostitutes issiue is a logical fallacy, why would a translation gather prostitutes that were Homosexuals?
The Textus Receptus has not added to the Critical text ,due to being translated before the Critical text.
The Alexandrian text was the basis of translation in 2nd Century A.D.as well ,where as the Critical text was from Egyptian translation.

Your statement is illogical due to your basis of the assumption the Critical text was not corruptible.
Erasmus translated both exposing error in the Vulgate but not dismissing it's usefulness.

Dynamic equivalence is simply a paraphrase based on opinion.

Yes I do have a beef with today's translations .
They have increased over the past 30 years ,and presume the King James is old fashioned.
Most new translations are by products of Westcott and Hort who were notorious in their theology.

I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO BOW OUT OF THIS DISCUSSION ,so I am done with replying.

John MacArthur being a Calvinist has nothing to do with the content of our discussion. That's a red herring fallacy you gave me.

The temple prostitute is not a logical fallacy. It's a Bible translation that gives meaning-for-meaning (dynamic equivalence) and not word-for-word meaning (formal equivalence). It's based on the meaning of the word.

A dynamic equivalence translation such as NIV, ISV and NLT is NOT a paraphrase. It's a meaning-for-meaning translation. How many chapters of the NT have you ever translated from Greek to English? If you did such translation, you would quickly be shown that a word-for-word translation is impossible to do, no matter what some translators say about formal equivalence. It's impossible to do a word-for-word and cause it to make sense without using some dynamic equivalence. I know from the experience of having translated a number of chapters from Greek to English.

You state, 'The Textus Receptus has not added to the Critical text ,due to being translated before the Critical text'. The fact is that the TR was developed from only 3 texts of the 12th century and they are at least 8 centuries after the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Eight centuries of copying means that variants, words and verses are ADDED to the text by copyists. We know this when we compare Sinaiticus with the TR. There was less copying to arrive at the Sinaiticus than the TR.

Your claim: 'Your statement is illogical due to your basis of the assumption the Critical text was not corruptible.
Erasmus translated both exposing error in the Vulgate but not dismissing it's usefulness'.

What's illogical? I have made NO statement that the Critical Text is not corruptible. That's your invention. It's a straw man fallacy. Erasmus ADDED to the Book of Revelation by translating the last 6 verses from the Latin Vulgate. You refuse to acknowledge what he did in adding to Scripture, which is a serious thing to do (see Rev 22:18-19). You are supporting a translation that violates this Scripture.

You are giving me the line about Westcott and Hort that the Trinitarian Bible Society perpetrates in its misinformation about modern Bible translations. The facts are that about 5,000 partial or near-complete MSS have been found since the TR was developed that are much closer to the original MSS than the TR. They provide a more accurate Greek text as they have not been copied as often as the TR MSS were. All copied MSS have variants, but not as many as the TR because the TR has been copied more often.

You can bow out of the discussion but you seem to have committed a begging the question fallacy, i.e. the position you started with (the superiority of the TR) is the position you finish with (the superiority of the TR). This means you have not dealt with the issues surrounding the textual criticism of the NT that cause the TR to be regarded as based on MSS that are not as well preserved as those of the UBS or Nestle-Aland Critical text.

Oz

 

[DeaconDean]

Now Faith asked: (bolded and underlined) Sir may I ask what you base your knowlage of Christ on?

The preaching of the Gospel.

You can not have but one truth it is absolute.

And...where am I getting around that?

So having many text to study a person will arrive on his ideal of God..

I'm failing to see your point.

The term Holy Bible does not allow for the cumulative efforts of different sources all in one accord.

Again, what's your point?

God is not the author of confusion, and I would be carfull not to make a mistake on assumption.

Where have I done that? Point it out to me.

I'm out of this thanks

Seriously?!? We've had some good discussions in the past. When I correct something you said, you get upset and decide to bow out?

I wish I could count the number of times I've said the KJV is somewhere between 97.8 and 99.8% correct when it comes to core Christian doctrines. I wish I could count the number of times I've said that no major "core Christian doctrine" rest on any disputed texts.

In a thread on this same subject line, somebody tasked me with the question of just how many texts/mss the KJ translators used. I found out it was only about 60-70 at best. Since 1611, there have been some 5200 more mss found. Way back in 1611, this may have been acceptable. However today,...

To say as KJV Onlyists do: "the KJV is the perfectly preserved word of God", is wrong. No matter how you slice it, it is wrong.

I side with old time Fundamentalists here. The perfect inspired word of God belonged to the original autographs of the authors themselves.

God Bless

Till all are one.

 

[OzSpen]

Sir may I ask what you base your knowlage of Christ on?

The preaching of the Gospel.

You can not have but one truth it is absolute.

And...where am I getting around that?

So having many text to study a person will arrive on his ideal of God..

I'm failing to see your point.

The term Holy Bible does not allow for the cumulative efforts of different sources all in one accord.

Again, what's your point?

God is not the author of confusion, and I would be carfull not to make a mistake on assumption.

Where have I done that? Point it out to me.

I'm out of this thanks

Seriously?!? We've had some good discussions in the past. When I correct something you said, you get upset and decide to bow out?

I wish I could count the number of times I've said the KJV is somewhere between 97.8 and 99.8% correct when it comes to core Christian doctrines. I wish I could count the number of times I've said that no major "core Christian doctrine" rest on any disputed texts.

In a thread on this same subject line, somebody tasked me with the question of just how many texts/mss the KJ translators used. I found out it was only about 60-70 at best. Since 1611, there have been some 5200 more mss found. Way back in 1611, this may have been acceptable. However today,...

To say as KJV Onlyists do: "the KJV is the perfectly preserved word of God", is wrong. No matter how you slice it, it is wrong.

I side with old time Fundamentalists here. The perfect inspired word of God belonged to the original autographs of the authors themselves.

God Bless

Till all are one.

Dean,

To whom are you addressing your comments? It would be helpful if you back quoted?

 

[DeaconDean]

Dean,

To whom are you addressing your comments? It would be helpful if you back quoted?

Now Faith sir.

I tried to answer his questions in quote form, but it lumped it in one big quote.

I'll edit it to reflect it.

God Bless

Till all are one.

 

[OzSpen]

Now Faith sir.

I tried to answer his questions in quote form, but it lumped it in one big quote.

I'll edit it to reflect it.

God Bless

Till all are one.

Dean,

Back to your statement that the Textus Receptus used 60-70 MSS. One of the greatest textual critics of the 20th century was the late Bruce Metzger, who died in 2007 at the age of 93. You say that the TR used 60-70 MSS. Metzger's language is 'he utilized several for various parts of the New Testament. For most of the text he relied on two rather inferior manuscripts' (reference below).

Bruce Metzger (1992:99-103) has summarised the situation:

Since Erasmus could not find a manuscript which contained the entire Greek Testament, he utilized several for various parts of the New Testament. For most of the text he relied on two rather inferior manuscripts from a monastic library at Basle, one of the Gospels (see Plate XV) and one of the Acts and Epistles, both dating from about the twelfth century. Erasmus compared them with two or three others of the same books and entered occasional corrections for the printer in the margins or between the lines of the Greek script. For the Book of Revelation he had but one manuscript, dating from the twelfth century, which he had borrowed from his friend Reuchlin. Unfortunately, this manuscript lacked the final leaf, which had contained the last six verses of the book. For these verses, as well as a few other passages throughout the book where the Greek text of the Apocalypse and the adjoining Greek commentary with which the manuscript was supplied are so mixed up as to be almost indistinguishable, Erasmus depended upon the Latin Vulgate, translating this text into Greek. As would be expected from such a procedure, here and there in Erasmus’ self-made Greek text are readings which have never been found in any known Greek manuscript - but which are still perpetuated today in printings of the so-called Textus Receptus of the Greek New Testament.

Even in other parts of the New Testament Erasmus occasionally introduced into his Greek text material taken from the Latin Vulgate. Thus in Acts ix. 6, the question which Paul asks at the time of his conversion on the Damascus road, ‘And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’, was frankly interpolated by Erasmus from the Latin Vulgate. This addition, which is found in no Greek manuscript at this passage (though it appears in the parallel account of Acts xxii. 10), became part of the Textus Receptus, from which the King James version was made in 1611.

The reception accorded Erasmus’ edition, the first published Greek New Testament, was mixed. On the one hand, it found many purchasers throughout Europe. Within three years a second edition was called for, and the total number of copies of the 1516 and 1519 editions amounted to 3,300. The second edition became the basis of Luther’s German translation….

Among the criticisms leveled at Erasmus one of the most serious appeared to be the charge of Stunica, one of the editors of Ximenes’ Complutensian Polyglot, that his text lacked part of the final chapter of I John, namely the Trinitarian statement concerning ‘the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth’ (I John v. 7-8, King James version). Erasmus replied that he had not found any Greek manuscript containing these words, though he had in the meanwhile examined several others besides those on which he relied when first preparing his text. In a guarded moment Erasmus promised that he would insert Comma Johanneum, as it is called, in future editions if a single Greek manuscript could be found – or was made to order! As it now appears, the Greek manuscript had probably been written in Oxford about 1520 by a Franciscan friar named Froy (or Roy), who took the disputed words from the Latin Vulgate. Erasmus stood by his promise and inserted the passage in his third edition (1522), but he indicates in a lengthy footnote his suspicions that the manuscript had been prepared expressly in order to refute him.

Among the thousands of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament examined since the time of Erasmus, only three others are known to contain this spurious passage. They are Greg. 88, a twelfth-century manuscript which has the Comma written in the margin in a seventeenth-century hand; Tisch. w 110, which is, a sixteenth-century manuscript copy of the Complutensian Polyglot Greek text; and Greg. 629, dating from the fourteenth or, as Riggenbach has argued, from the latter half of the sixteenth century. The oldest known citation of the Comma is in a fourth-century Latin treatise entitled Liber apologeticus (ch. 4), attributed either to Priscillian or to his follower, Bishop Instantius of Spain. The Comma probably originated as a piece of allegorical exegesis of the three witnesses and may have been written as a marginal gloss in a Latin manuscript of I John, when it was taken into the text of the Old Latin Bible during the fifth century. The passage does not appear in manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate before about A.D. 800….

Thus the text of Erasmus’ Greek New Testament rests upon a half-dozen miniscule [lower case script] manuscripts. The oldest and best of these manuscripts (codex I, a miniscule of the tenth century, which agrees often with the earlier uncial [upper case script] text) he used least, because he was afraid of its supposedly erratic text! Erasmus’ text is inferior in critical value to the Complutensian, yet because it was the first on the market and was available in a cheaper and more convenient form, it attained a far greater influence than its rival, which had been in preparation from 1502 to 1514….

Subsequent editors, though making a number of alterations in Erasmus’ text, essentially reproduced this debased form of the Greek Testament. Having secured an undeserved pre-eminence, what came to be called the Textus Receptus of the New Testament resisted for 400 years all scholarly efforts to displace it in favour of an earlier and more accurate text.

This is an overview of how Metzger understood the TR came to be compiled and it does not support the superiority of the TR, but shows its weaknesses.

Works consulted
Metzger, B. M. 1992. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption,and Restoration (third ed). New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Oz

 

[DeaconDean]

Dean,

Back to your statement that the Textus Receptus used 60-70 MSS. One of the greatest textual critics of the 20th century was the late Bruce Metzger, who died in 2007 at the age of 93. You say that the TR used 60-70 MSS. Metzger's language is 'he utilized several for various parts of the New Testament. For most of the text he relied on two rather inferior manuscripts' (reference below).

Bruce Metzger (1992:99-103) has summarised the situation:



This is an overview of how Metzger understood the TR came to be compiled and it does not support the superiority of the TR, but shows its weaknesses.

Works consulted
Metzger, B. M. 1992. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption,and Restoration (third ed). New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Oz

I actually downloaded that off the internet 2 years ago.

However, I did not use his writing as a basis for what I said.

This goes back to a thread started back a year or two ago by Jack Koons, and why I have been studying textual criticism.

What information I got as to the mss used by the KJ translators was from a KJV Only site.

Go back and count the number of MSS used prior to the KJV.

Go back and count the number of lectionaries.

Go back and count the number of bibles.

Counting everything, seems to me I came up with a number around 54 MSS used. But I said 60-70 just to give myself some room for error.

And no matter how you slice it, the KJV has its roots in Erasmus' work.

God Bless

Till all are one.

 

[OzSpen]

I actually downloaded that off the internet 2 years ago.

However, I did not use his writing as a basis for what I said.

This goes back to a thread started back a year or two ago by Jack Koons, and why I have been studying textual criticism.

What information I got as to the mss used by the KJ translators was from a KJV Only site.

Go back and count the number of MSS used prior to the KJV.

Go back and count the number of lectionaries.

Go back and count the number of bibles.

Counting everything, seems to me I came up with a number around 54 MSS used. But I said 60-70 just to give myself some room for error.

And no matter how you slice it, the KJV has its roots in Erasmus' work.

God Bless

Till all are one.

Dean,

And Erasmus's work is late with MSS from the 12th century. You have properly noted that since then about 5,000 MSS, partial MSS or pieces of MSS have been found that are earlier by 100s of years than the Textus Receptus.

This doesn't seem to get through to the KJV-Only Trinitarian Bible Society folks who want to provide incorrect information about the superiority of the TR and the inferiority of the Critical Text.

Oz

 

[DeaconDean]

Dean,

And Erasmus's work is late with MSS from the 12th century. You have properly noted that since then about 5,000 MSS, partial MSS or pieces of MSS have been found that are earlier by 100s of years than the Textus Receptus.

This doesn't seem to get through to the KJV-Only Trinitarian Bible Society folks who want to provide incorrect information about the superiority of the TR and the inferiority of the Critical Text.

Oz

My biggest problem is with those who say "God preserved His word in the KJV".

We also know that the only way the word got around was by circulating the epistles to various churches.

How long of that (circulating) did it take before the letters were more than likely damaged?

I read that as early as AD 175, copies were already being made.

In the next 1200 years of copies being made, what is the likelihood of mistakes, misreadings, or errors being introduced?

To say that the KJ translators were "inspired" by God and that they got it absolutely right with only 54 mss screams of...

Prudence dictates that with the now known 5400 MSS in existence, that a more through examination and comparison be attempted.

Quite the task too I might add. I know that some individuals took as long as 20 years doing their research. And that being with far less mss than what we have today.

I also like George Rice's dissertation on the textual variants in the Codex Bezae in Luke.

Interesting read.

God Bless

Till all are one.

 

[DeaconDean]

nm

 

[OzSpen]

My biggest problem is with those who say "God preserved His word in the KJV".

We also know that the only way the word got around was by circulating the epistles to various churches.

How long of that (circulating) did it take before the letters were more than likely damaged?

I read that as early as AD 175, copies were already being made.

In the next 1200 years of copies being made, what is the likelihood of mistakes, misreadings, or errors being introduced?

To say that the KJ translators were "inspired" by God and that they got it absolutely right with only 54 mss screams of...

Prudence dictates that with the now known 5400 MSS in existence, that a more through examination and comparison be attempted.

Quite the task too I might add. I know that some individuals took as long as 20 years doing their research. And that being with far less mss than what we have today.

I also like George Rice's dissertation on the textual variants in the Codex Bezae in Luke.

Interesting read.

God Bless

Till all are one.

Dean,

I agree with you that it is a large problem with those who are fixated on the KJV being the only translation where God preserved His word. We know that there was the Latin Vulgate and the English translations of Wycliffe, Tyndale and Coverdale before the KJV. To insist that the KJV is God's way of preserving his word is only part of the solution. He used many MSS and translations throughout the history of the church.

The first canon of the NT Scriptures, the Muratorian Canon, was circulating in the years AD 170-200. The nature of vellum (calf skin) for writing the early codices was more durable than the later papyrus paper. I expect the papyri to be more expendable than the vellum, but the dry climate of the Middle East helped with preservation.

I think the issue we face is that neither side wants to concede ground. I don't find the KJV-only side rational and I cannot sustain that view. My doctoral studies more than convinced me that the UBS Greek text is the best we have available today. And as you have pointed out, no major doctrine is affected whether one accepts one view or the other.

Sincerely in Christ,
Oz

 

[DeaconDean]

Dean,

I agree with you that it is a large problem with those who are fixated on the KJV being the only translation where God preserved His word. We know that there was the Latin Vulgate and the English translations of Wycliffe, Tyndale and Coverdale before the KJV. To insist that the KJV is God's way of preserving his word is only part of the solution. He used many MSS and translations throughout the history of the church.

The first canon of the NT Scriptures, the Muratorian Canon, was circulating in the years AD 170-200. The nature of vellum (calf skin) for writing the early codices was more durable than the later papyrus paper. I expect the papyri to be more expendable than the vellum, but the dry climate of the Middle East helped with preservation.

I think the issue we face is that neither side wants to concede ground. I don't find the KJV-only side rational and I cannot sustain that view. My doctoral studies more than convinced me that the UBS Greek text is the best we have available today. And as you have pointed out, no major doctrine is affected whether one accepts one view or the other.

Sincerely in Christ,
Oz

I agree too.

And I have found in my research in textual criticism that some vellum were "erased" and written over.

Make no mistake, I do use, teach, preach, and study from my Scofield Reference Bible, first revised in 1917. It was a gift to me from my mother when I was ordained. But I do not limit myself to this one only. I reference the RSV, ESV, ASV, and others in my studying.

However, I have since in going to school, been given "The Interlinear Bible, Hebrew, Greek, English" which I have found very valuable in my studies.

I'm in the process of trying to type a paper on Textual Criticism from the debates you and I, (and PrincetonGuy) went through in 2014.

The more I research, the more some interesting questions come up for the KJV Only crowd.

Well, lets see where this goes.

God Bless

Till all are one.

 

[Job8]

I agree with you that it is a large problem with those who are fixated on the KJV being the only translation where God preserved His word. We know that there was the Latin Vulgate and the English translations of Wycliffe, Tyndale and Coverdale before the KJV. To insist that the KJV is God's way of preserving his word is only part of the solution. He used many MSS and translations throughout the history of the church.

The above is a misunderstanding of the KJV Only position. Leaving aside the Latin Vulgate (which has its own issues), Wycliffe, Tyndale, Coverdale, Matthews, the Bishops' Bible, etc. were all acceptable to the KJV translators. But their goal was to make out of many translations one good one to which none would take exception. And the proof lies in the fact that the Authorized Version was indeed regarded by all non-Catholics are THE Holy Bible for hundreds of years. Even the Geneva Bible did not hold the same position.

As to the preservation of God's Word, those who contend for the KJV contend for THE MAJORITY Hebrew and Greek texts, which demonstrate that God has indeed preserved His Word through the ages. The Textus Receptus for all intents and purposes represents the Majority Text in Greek. The Masoretic Text likewise.

There is no rational basis for rejecting the majority of manuscripts in favor of a minority of corrupted manuscripts. Had it not been the fantasies of Westcott and Hort, we would not even be having this discussion. Unless you have studied what Burgon, Scrivener and others had to say about W&H, you cannot imagine how they attempted to make a delusion into a reality. Unfortunately, almost all the critics bought their untenable theory, so all the critical texts are essentially W&H. And they are clearly a corrupted form of the Bible.

 

[OzSpen]

There is no rational basis for rejecting the majority of manuscripts in favor of a minority of corrupted manuscripts. Had it not been the fantasies of Westcott and Hort, we would not even be having this discussion. Unless you have studied what Burgon, Scrivener and others had to say about W&H, you cannot imagine how they attempted to make a delusion into a reality. Unfortunately, almost all the critics bought their untenable theory, so all the critical texts are essentially W&H. And they are clearly a corrupted form of the Bible.

I agree. The majority of MSS today support the Critical Text of the UBS or Nestle-Aland Greek NT.

The opposition to Westcott and Hort by Burgon, Scrivener and others is a straw man.

I happen to read and teach Greek, so I'm more than aware of the KJV-only strategies to legitimise what the Textus Receptus has done to ADD to Scripture from a handful of late MSS from the 12th century.

It's too late to convince me of the superiority of the Textus Receptus. The droves of evidence from earlier MSS confounds the KJV-only position.

Oz

 

[DeaconDean]

There is no rational basis for rejecting the majority of manuscripts in favor of a minority of corrupted manuscripts. Had it not been the fantasies of Westcott and Hort, we would not even be having this discussion. Unless you have studied what Burgon, Scrivener and others had to say about W&H, you cannot imagine how they attempted to make a delusion into a reality. Unfortunately, almost all the critics bought their untenable theory, so all the critical texts are essentially W&H. And they are clearly a corrupted form of the Bible.

Can you show me any ancient manuscript of any kind, that does not show any form of editing?

God Bless

Till all are one.

 

[OzSpen]

There is no rational basis for rejecting the majority of manuscripts in favor of a minority of corrupted manuscripts. Had it not been the fantasies of Westcott and Hort, we would not even be having this discussion. Unless you have studied what Burgon, Scrivener and others had to say about W&H, you cannot imagine how they attempted to make a delusion into a reality. Unfortunately, almost all the critics bought their untenable theory, so all the critical texts are essentially W&H. And they are clearly a corrupted form of the Bible.

Now tell me how many made up 'the majority of manuscripts' that were uncorrupted that Erasmus used in compiling the Textus Receptus.

I wait with baited breath.

 

[Job8]

Now tell me how many made up 'the majority of manuscripts' that were uncorrupted that Erasmus used in compiling the Textus Receptus.

Erasmus has been made the whipping boy by the anti-KJV crowd, since most Christians are not familiar with the development of the Received Text. Erasmus may have had only a few (five) of the manuscripts representing the Traditional Text, but what he had was sufficient to begin with. And let us never forget that he did have access to other manuscripts and all the libraries of Europe. Erasmus made five editions between 1516 and 1535.

But then Erasmus was followed by Robert Stephens (Stephanus) who made five editions of his Greek text between 1546 and 1551. His third edition of 1550 essentially became the RECEIVED TEXT (Textus Receptus).

Then Theodore Beza made ten editions of his Greek text between 1565 and 1598. BEZA RARELY DEPARTS FROM STEPHENS. After Beza we have the Elzivir Brothers, with three editions of their Greek text between 1624 and 1633. The Latin words Textus Receptus are actually from Elzivirs' 1624 edition, which is practically the same ar that of Stephens 1550 edition, and all of these are practically the same as the Byzantine Text (the Traditional Text) used by the Orthodox churches. This was confirmed by Burgon and Scrivener, and Scrivener's 1894 Greek Text is the actual text of the KJV translators. Thus the Greek text of Erasmus was only one of many others, all carefully compiled by godly men who understood that they could not tamper with the text.

As Burgon said regarding the Received Text (while addressing Bishop Ellicott) in the Revision Revised (1883): "What is more... to the end of time it will probably be the practice of scholars to compare MSS [manuscripts] of the NT with the 'Received Text'... And what standard more reasonable and more convenient than the Text, which by the good Providence of GOD, was UNIVERSALLY EMPLOYED THROUGHOUT EUROPE [my caps] for the first 300 years after the invention of printing? being practically identical with the text which (as you yourself admit) was in popular use... being more than 1500 years old".

When the Authorized Version was being prepared, the translators had access to all of the above Greek texts PLUS all the translations up to that time, including Tyndale's translation (which they used quite frequently).

 

[Job8]

Comparative example (1 Timothy 3:16). Please note that THEOS (GOD) is found in each case.

RP Byzantine Majority Text 2005
Καὶ ὁμολογουμένως μέγα ἐστὶν τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον· θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύματι, ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις, ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔθνεσιν, ἐπιστεύθη ἐν κόσμῳ, ἀνελήφθη ἐν δόξῃ.

Greek Orthodox Church 1904
καὶ ὁμολογουμένως μέγα ἐστὶ τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον· Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, ἐδικαιώθη ἐν Πνεύματι, ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις, ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔθνεσιν, ἐπιστεύθη ἐν κόσμῳ, ἀνελήφθη ἐν δόξῃ.
http://biblehub.com/tr94/1_timothy/3.htm
Scrivener's Textus Receptus 1894
καὶ ὁμολογουμένως μέγα ἐστὶ τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον· Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύματι, ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις, ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔθνεσιν, ἐπιστεύθη ἐν κόσμῳ, ἀνελήφθη ἐν δόξῃ.

Stephanus Textus Receptus 1550
καὶ ὁμολογουμένως μέγα ἐστὶν τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον· Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύματι ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔθνεσιν ἐπιστεύθη ἐν κόσμῳ ἀνελήφθη ἐν δόξῃ.

King James Bible
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

In comparison, you will NOT find *GOD* in the modern Bible versions.

 

[Steve Petersen]

Comparative example (1 Timothy 3:16). Please note that THEOS (GOD) is found in each case.

RP Byzantine Majority Text 2005
Καὶ ὁμολογουμένως μέγα ἐστὶν τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον· θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύματι, ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις, ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔθνεσιν, ἐπιστεύθη ἐν κόσμῳ, ἀνελήφθη ἐν δόξῃ.

Greek Orthodox Church 1904
καὶ ὁμολογουμένως μέγα ἐστὶ τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον· Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, ἐδικαιώθη ἐν Πνεύματι, ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις, ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔθνεσιν, ἐπιστεύθη ἐν κόσμῳ, ἀνελήφθη ἐν δόξῃ.
Scrivener's Textus Receptus 1894
καὶ ὁμολογουμένως μέγα ἐστὶ τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον· Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύματι, ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις, ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔθνεσιν, ἐπιστεύθη ἐν κόσμῳ, ἀνελήφθη ἐν δόξῃ.

Stephanus Textus Receptus 1550
καὶ ὁμολογουμένως μέγα ἐστὶν τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον· Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύματι ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔθνεσιν ἐπιστεύθη ἐν κόσμῳ ἀνελήφθη ἐν δόξῃ.

King James Bible
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

In comparison, you will NOT find *GOD* in the modern Bible versions.

This may be because the Alexandrian Codex does not have it. Wettstein showed that the work 'God' here was incorrect in that it was a misread abbreviation in this verse. Rather than the abbreviation for God (theta sigma) the word was actually an omicron sigma. So instead of reading 'God made manifest in the flesh' it reads 'who was made manifest in the flesh.'