Complete textual-variant dossier
Adverse entailment established
Sections distinguish readings, edition history, evidence, theological consequences, and the Research Center's evaluation. CBGM is an analytical tool; editorial committees—not the software—make textual decisions.
1Passage and issue
Passage
Issue
The list of inherited washings ends with “tables” or “couches” in the received text. Some witnesses omit the item because washing dining couches sounded incongruous.
Variant class
Punctuation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
“Washings of cups, pots, brasen vessels, and tables/couches” (καὶ κλινῶν).
Authorized Version
“The washing of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables.” — Mark 7:4
Edition note
The Research Center uses the received Greek text underlying the Authorized Version as its baseline; edition-specific differences are recorded when the variation unit requires them.
Historical annotation witness
Erasmus’s Annotationes
Erasmus’s printed Greek text, his Latin annotation, and the Research Center’s evaluation are distinct evidence. Each edition remains separately identified because Erasmus revised the Annotationes across his five editions.
Not yet assessed. No inference about Erasmus’s silence has been made. A Latin annotation and translation will appear here only after an edition and exact locus have been verified.
The Erasmus annotation audit has not yet been completed for this locus. Do not infer from this status that Erasmus was silent.
Westminster and Dutch annotation witnesses
Westminster Annotations
Not yet assessed. No inference from silence is made.
Dutch Annotations
Not yet assessed. No inference from silence is made.
3NA28 baseline and critical-text rationale
NA28 baseline reading
The list ends with brasen vessels, omitting “and couches”; the surrounding verbs also vary between washing and sprinkling.
Translation or explanation
The list ends with brasen vessels, omitting “and couches”; the surrounding verbs also vary between washing and sprinkling.
Metzger’s report of the UBS committee
Metzger reports the UBS4 committee's treatment of 3 variation units within this record's range. The notes ground the relevant decisions in the weight and distribution of external attestation, a proposed mechanism of accidental omission, the likelihood of scribal or liturgical expansion, the comparative difficulty of the readings; the printed confidence ratings represented here are {A}, {B}, {C}. This is a controlled synopsis rather than a quotation.
Locator: Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed., notes on Mark 7:4, 7:4, 7:4
ECM / CBGM evidence and editors
No passage-specific ECM/CBGM editorial explanation is attached to this record. Official method sources describe the CBGM as a set of coherence procedures, not a decision-maker: editors define variation units and local stemmata and evaluate pre-genealogical, genealogical, and stemmatic coherence together with transcriptional, intrinsic, and other philological evidence.
4UBS6 and intended NA29 revision
No UBS6 / intended NA29 main-text change is recorded for this passage in the controlled 169-change ledger.
No change row is attached to this passage.
UBS6 is published, and the German Bible Society identifies its Greek main text as identical to the intended NA29 main text. The complete NA29 volume and its apparatus remain forthcoming. Project-ledger rows retain their source and verification statements until they are checked against the published UBS6 text and, when available, the NA29 apparatus.
5Doctrinal and four-point analysis
Effect class
Exegetical or interpretive consequence
Exact proposition affected
No single doctrinal proposition is directly changed; the principal consequence is exegetical, historical, or cumulative.
Doctrinal analysis
Exegetical or interpretive consequence. The record does not establish that the variant by itself removes an entire Christian doctrine; explicit wording, exegesis, and cumulative testimony must be distinguished.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Mark 7:4, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. Some interpreters therefore prefer “beds,” “couches,” or even vessels with a similar name.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Mark 7:4 must be applied to comparable readings as well. A principle such as age, difficulty, brevity, or coherence cannot be decisive here and quietly reversed elsewhere merely to escape a historical, grammatical, or theological difficulty.
Consequences
Exegetical or interpretive consequence: No single doctrinal proposition is directly changed; the principal consequence is exegetical, historical, or cumulative.
Preconditions of intelligibility
The argument presupposes stable authorship, meaningful language, objective logical norms, transmissible evidence, and a coherent account of how Scripture can be received and identified by the church. The analysis tests whether the method can make those conditions intelligible without reducing the text to an indefinitely revisable editorial construct.
This framework examines an argument and its conditions; it does not claim to read an editor's private motives.
6Argument for the received reading
External and historical evidence
The Authorized Version renders the last item “tables.” Some important witnesses omit the final item. That lexical point does not settle the manuscript question, but it explains why “tables” became important in later debate.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
Context must tell whether a washing involves dipping, pouring, rinsing, or another ritual action. Omission has a credible cause. A copyist may also delete the object as incongruous or harmonize the list with known purification rules.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The text is describing tradition, not prescribing Christian practice. Its breadth prepares for Jesus’ accusation that tradition has displaced God’s command. He is confronting a system in which multiplying traditions can conceal neglect of weightier divine obligations.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Mark 7:4. It supplies the confessional context in which manuscript transmission, broad reception, and the church's actual possession of Scripture are evaluated together.
Canonical coherence with the rest of Scripture
Canonical coherence remains an explicit test: a proposed reading must make grammatical and theological sense within the immediate context and the rest of Scripture. No conflict is asserted merely because two editions differ; the claimed incoherence must be demonstrated at this passage.
Canonical-coherence verdict
The Authorized Version is retained where its representation of the TR forms a coherent reading within the immediate context and the rest of Scripture. Any competing form must demonstrate an equal or better canonical fit rather than merely invoke an edition or method label.
Response to the principal critical argument
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. Some interpreters therefore prefer “beds,” “couches,” or even vessels with a similar name.
Conclusion
Levitical rules distinguish objects, materials, and kinds of uncleanness with care; Mark’s phrase “many other things” describes inherited practice more broadly than a direct quotation of one statute. That difference matters. Jesus is not attacking Moses for commanding washings. He is confronting a system in which multiplying traditions can conceal neglect of weightier divine obligations.
“Couches” should remain, with a modern translation allowed to clarify the furniture. The unusual last object is more likely to have invited removal than invention, and its presence makes Mark’s explanatory aside concrete. Readers can picture how far the washings extended—and why the Lord redirected attention from vessels to the moral source within a person.
Logical entailment
The Authorized Version serves as the faithful English representation. The preservation claim applies immediately to the authentic Hebrew and Greek texts—not to an English translation as though it were the inspired source.
Canonical-status rule: Physical printing is not canonical inclusion. If an edition prints a passage in double brackets while judging it secondary or non-original, it disagrees with the received text concerning the identity and extent of inspired Scripture.
Status: Established
Immediate textual or doctrinal consequence
At Mark 7:4, the received text reads “Washings of cups, pots, brasen vessels, and tables/couches” (καὶ κλινῶν).” and its Authorized Version representation reads “The washing of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables.” — Mark 7:4”. The assessed critical reading is “The list ends with brasen vessels, omitting “and couches”; the surrounding verbs also vary between washing and sprinkling.”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The immediate local effect is exegetical or interpretive; this argument does not claim that a distinct Christian doctrine disappears from the verse.
Necessary reasoning chain
- At Mark 7:4, the received Hebrew/Greek form is “Washings of cups, pots, brasen vessels, and tables/couches” (καὶ κλινῶν).”; the Authorized Version represents it as “The washing of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables.” — Mark 7:4”. The assessed critical form is “The list ends with brasen vessels, omitting “and couches”; the surrounding verbs also vary between washing and sprinkling.”.
- The received and critical forms are not the same at this locus. Therefore, if the competing critical form is original, the received form is secondary rather than the authentic wording at this place. The immediate consequence is: At Mark 7:4, the received text reads “Washings of cups, pots, brasen vessels, and tables/couches” (καὶ κλινῶν).” and its Authorized Version representation reads “The washing of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables.” — Mark 7:4”. The assessed critical reading is “The list ends with brasen vessels, omitting “and couches”; the surrounding verbs also vary between washing and sprinkling.”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The immediate local effect is exegetical or interpretive; this argument does not claim that a distinct Christian doctrine disappears from the verse.
- If the received form at this place is secondary rather than original, then the authentic Hebrew/Greek text was not kept pure at this place in the received textual tradition; therefore the unqualified confessional preservation claim must be denied or redefined.
Ultimate preservation consequence
If the competing reading is original and the received reading is secondary, then God did not preserve and keep pure the authentic text at this place in the received textual tradition. The unqualified confessional claim that Scripture was kept pure in all ages must therefore be denied or redefined.
Sources
- Westminster Confession of Faith (1647)Chapter 1, section 8 — Governing confessional preservation claim
- F. H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text followed in the Authorized VersionReceived Greek reading
- Digital ECM — Mark 7:4Current critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
- German Bible Society — UBS6 publications and relation to NA29Current critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
- German Bible Society — The Sixth Edition of the Greek New TestamentCurrent critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
Read the full research essay and its sources
Passage: Mark 7:4
Received reading: “Washings of cups, pots, brasen vessels, and tables/couches” (καὶ κλινῶν).
Principal competing reading: The list ends with brasen vessels, omitting “and couches”; the surrounding verbs also vary between washing and sprinkling.
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“The washing of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables.” — Mark 7:4
Mark explains practices familiar to his first audience but not to every reader: washings after the marketplace and inherited washings of cups, pots, copper vessels, and klinais. The Authorized Version renders the last item “tables.” The Greek more naturally denotes couches or dining beds, furniture on which people reclined.
Some important witnesses omit the final item. Others retain it but vary the washing verb in the larger sentence. The variation is understandable because readers could find the ritual washing of a couch excessive or physically awkward.
Baptism words outside Christian baptism
Mark calls these practices baptismoi. The noun plainly covers ceremonial washings of objects of different shapes and sizes. Its use warns against deriving one mechanical mode from the word alone. Context must tell whether a washing involves dipping, pouring, rinsing, or another ritual action.
That lexical point does not settle the manuscript question, but it explains why “tables” became important in later debate. A full dining couch is unlikely to be immersed after each market visit. Some interpreters therefore prefer “beds,” “couches,” or even vessels with a similar name. The text is describing tradition, not prescribing Christian practice.
Omission has a credible cause. The words “copper vessels and couches” end alike in Greek, allowing the eye to pass from one genitive plural to the next. A copyist may also delete the object as incongruous or harmonize the list with known purification rules. Addition from Leviticus 15 is possible, yet the exact item fits Mark’s point about proliferating customs.
The received list builds from small drinking vessels to large furnishings. Its breadth prepares for Jesus’ accusation that tradition has displaced God’s command. The problem is not careful cleanliness. It is treating inherited human rules as the measure of spiritual defilement while neglecting obedience from the heart.
Levitical rules distinguish objects, materials, and kinds of uncleanness with care; Mark’s phrase “many other things” describes inherited practice more broadly than a direct quotation of one statute. That difference matters. Jesus is not attacking Moses for commanding washings. He is confronting a system in which multiplying traditions can conceal neglect of weightier divine obligations.
“Couches” should remain, with a modern translation allowed to clarify the furniture. The unusual last object is more likely to have invited removal than invention, and its presence makes Mark’s explanatory aside concrete. Readers can picture how far the washings extended—and why the Lord redirected attention from vessels to the moral source within a person.
Sources and further reading
- F. H. A. Scrivener, ed., The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (Cambridge, 1894).
- Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition (Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010), text and apparatus.
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed., notes on the stated passage.
- Leviticus 11:32; 15:4–12; Mark 7:1–23; Hebrews 9:10.
7Related materials
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- Record
- VAR-2022
- Status
- Preliminary
- Version
- 1.1-dossier
- Review
- Level B — Editorial synthesis
- Editor
- Chris Thomas
- Reviewer
- Independent reviewer pending assignment
- First date
- 1st century · Date Range
- Last revised
- 2026-07-22
Evidence and editorial controls
- Verification
- Passage, principal readings, and stated editorial comparison checked against Scrivener’s received Greek text and the SBLGNT apparatus; exhaustive manuscript collation remains open. Metzger commentary entries were matched by exact passage where present; ECM/CBGM rationale is passage-specific only when an official editorial explanation is cited. Ledger rows are identified as UBS6 / intended NA29 data but retain their row-level verification caveats pending direct collation.
- Rights and access
- Original editorial synthesis. Biblical readings are short scholarly quotations; cited editions and digital witnesses retain their stated rights and access conditions.
- Known limitations
- This staging record summarizes the principal variation unit and representative evidence. It is not a fresh collation of every extant manuscript, version, lectionary, or patristic citation.
Links from this record
No public outgoing links are recorded.
Records that cite or connect here
No public backlinks are recorded.
Corrections and evidence submissions
No correction submission is presently attached to this record. Submit evidence or read the correction policy.
Chris Thomas, “Mark 7:4 — Washings of Cups, Pots, Brasen Vessels, and Tables,” VAR-2022, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas