Stephen W. Frary, «Who Was Manifested In The Flesh? A Consideration Of Internal Evidence In Support Of A Variant In 1 Tim 3:16A», Vol. 16 (2003) 3-18
1 Tim 3:16 contains a textual variant in the initial line of what is
considered to be a hymn fragment which is difficult if not impossible to
resolve based on external evidence. This verse thus provides an interesting
test case by which we might examine the differing and often contradictory
ways that the leading schools of textual criticism use the agreed canons
of their trade to arrive at the original reading from the internal evidence.
This paper outlines the difficulties in the external evidence, and considers
how answers to three key questions about the internal readings of the text
result in contradictory findings. The author concludes that thoroughgoing
eclecticism (consideration of internal evidence alone) cannot determine the
original text and thus only a reexamination of external evidence or the likely
transmissional history can resolve the question.
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Who Was Manifested in the Flesh? A Consideration of Internal Evidence
ship for the Pastoral Epistles.35 In 1 Tim 3:16, “Because the hymnic struc-
ture is so pronounced, ... almost universally recognized as a fragment of
a hymn,â€36 the question arises, with whose “thought and style†should we
expect the disputed reading to be consonant: with Paul’s who quoted it
(if it is fact a quote) or with the composer’s (if it is fact a hymn)? Janusz
Frankowski disputes that every hymn quoted in the NT preexisted the
work in which it is found. Examining the similarities in the Alexandrian
vocabulary and thought of Heb 1:3, widely thought to be a hymn, to the
rest of Hebrews, and noting the non-formulaic expression of its themes,
Frankowski concludes that “...Heb 1:3 is not a previously existing hymn
merely cited here by the Author of Hebrews but rather it is his own
compositionâ€37 (emphasis in original). However, even if this should be the
case in 1 Tim 3:16 or other hymns, the hymn genre is unique enough and
sufficiently defined in the NT to warrant the assumption for the purposes
of our study that while each author who quotes a hymn may rework the
composition for his own purposes, the very fact that the composition is
recognized as a hymn justifies, for text critical purposes, that we suppose
that the original reading be appropriate to the characteristics of a hymn
even if such a reading is not consonant with the quoting author’s prose
style.
Fortunately, much work has gone into the description of the genre of
Christ hymn in the New Testament, thus simplifying the task of iden-
tifying what characteristics our variant should display to be consistent
with the form. W. Hulitt Gloer goes into the most detail, listing 16 prop-
erties which mark a Christ hymn, a passage needing “more than just
oneâ€38 to qualify. Of special interests for our purposes are stylistic and
Elliott, while assuming independent and identical authorship for the Pastorals, does
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not believe that this is a critical issue in evaluating the internal evidence: “Even if one
argues for Pauline authorship, the language and style are sufficiently different from Paul’s
undisputed writings as to enable us to study the Pastoral Epistles in isolation.†(Elliott, The
Greek Text of the Epistles, 7.) For the purposes of this paper, Pauline authorship of the
Pastorals is assumed.
W.D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles (Nashville, TN, 2000) 215.
36
J. Frankowski, “Early Christian Hymns Recorded in the New Testament: A Reconsid-
37
eration of the Question in the Light of Heb 1,3â€, BZt 27 (1983) 191.
W. H. Gloer, “Homologies and Hymns in the New Testament: Form, Content, and
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Criteria for Identificationâ€, Perspectives in Religious Studies 11 (1984) 130. The complete
list, on pages 124-129 includes:
1) Presence of a quotation particle such as the recitative ὅτι.
2) Use of the double infinitive and the accusative to express indirect discourse.
3) Presence of certain introductory formulae.
4) Syntactical disturbance.
5) Stylistic differences from the main text.
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