1 Thessalonians 3:2

1 Thessalonians 3:2 kai. sunergo.n tou/ qeou/ evn tw|/ euvaggeli,w| tou/ Cristou/ {B}

Amid the variety of readings, the chief textual questions are whether sunergo,n or dia,konon should be read, and whether tou/ qeou/ should be retained or omitted. Although on the basis of external evidence it may appear that the reading kai. dia,konon tou/ qeou/…(a A P Y 81 629* 1739 it^ar vg syr^h cop^{sa, bo, fay} goth eth) should be adopted, the reading that best accounts for the origin of the others is kai. sunergo.n tou/ qeou/…(D* 33 it^{d, 86*} Ambrosiaster Pelagius Ps-Jerome). In order to remove the objectionable character that the bold designation sunergo.j tou/ qeou/ appeared to have, some copyists deleted the words tou/ qeou/ (B 1962) or transferred them to qualify tou/ euvaggeli,ou (arm), while others substituted dia,konon for sunergo,n (for witnesses see preceding sentence). Still later are the conflate readings that embody both dia,konon and sunergo,n (G it^g), the latter sometimes qualified by h`mw/n rather than by tou/ qeou/ (D^c K 88 104 614 Byz Lect syr^{p, h with *} Textus Receptus). ²

² For a fuller discussion, see Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, pp. 240—42.