Textual witnesses are divided in Colossians 4:15 on whether the personal pronoun in the text should read “Nympha (or, Nymphas) and the church in (1) “her house (αὐτῆς),” (2) “his house (αὐτοῦ),” or (3) “their house (αὐτῶν).” Codexes Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Claramontanus are split with each supporting one of the readings. The difficulty of a decision is reflected in the “C” rating the editors of the UBS(5) gave the level of their confidence in their choice of the first reading (“her house”). Most modern English translations have followed the UBS in adopting the reading, “her house,” although some of the older English translations read, “his house” (e.g. KJV, Geneva, Bishops’, and Tyndale).
It is not possible to determine the answer to this question on the basis of the accusative form of the name, Νυμφαν, because accents were not present in the autograph or in most of the early manuscripts. The acute accent on the first syllable (Νύμφαν) would represent the feminine form of the name and the circumflex on the final syllable (Νυμφᾶν) would represent the masculine form (likely a contracted form of Νυμφοδωρος).
In this paper, I will reevaluate the external and internal evidence of this reading. I will also bring new evidence into the debate by summarizing inscriptions from Asia Minor in which the masculine and feminine forms of the name appear. In the end, I will suggest that a reassessment of the evidence for this textual problem points to the masculine pronoun as having slightly stronger evidence in favor of it being the original reading in this passage. The text of Colossians 4:15 should thus read, “Nymphas and the church that is in his house.”