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 received and critical forms use the same preposition with different cases. The received dative yields “with God”; the critical genitive emphasizes that no word from God will fail.
Variant class
Substitution or composite variation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
“With God no word shall be impossible,” with παρά governing the dative “God.”
Authorized Version
“For with God nothing shall be impossible.” — Luke 1:37
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
“No word from God shall be impossible,” with παρά governing the genitive.
Translation or explanation
“No word from God shall be impossible,” with παρά governing the genitive.
Metzger’s report of the UBS committee
Metzger reports the UBS4 committee's treatment of the variation unit. The note grounds the relevant decision in authorial usage, grammar, or immediate context; the printed confidence rating represented here is {B}. This is a controlled synopsis rather than a quotation.
Locator: Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed., note on Luke 1:37
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
UBS6 retains the NA28 / UBS5 Greek main-text wording in Luke, so no main-text change is shown for this passage. The separate project ledger covers Acts, Mark, and Revelation.
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
No meaningful doctrinal effect
Exact proposition affected
No single doctrinal proposition is directly changed; the principal consequence is exegetical, historical, or cumulative.
Doctrinal analysis
Gabriel is not licensing contradictions or human fantasies; he is assuring Mary that age, barrenness, and virginity cannot defeat God’s declared purpose. Because the forms differ only in their endings, ordinary copying and grammatical clarification require no doctrinal plot.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Luke 1:37, 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. The critical form, para tou theou, is naturally heard as “from God.” Power is not detached from promise The critical wording has an attractive echo of the Greek Old Testament’s language about a divine word failing.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Luke 1:37 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
No meaningful doctrinal effect: Gabriel is not licensing contradictions or human fantasies; he is assuring Mary that age, barrenness, and virginity cannot defeat God’s declared purpose. Because the forms differ only in their endings, ordinary copying and grammatical clarification require no doctrinal plot.
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
It gives the Authorized Version its direct and memorable line without severing power from speech.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
In context “nothing” is governed by the announced word. Scribes could move either way.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
In the received text, para tō theō places the saying “with God” or “in God’s presence.”
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Luke 1:37. 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. The critical form, para tou theou, is naturally heard as “from God.” Power is not detached from promise The critical wording has an attractive echo of the Greek Old Testament’s language about a divine word failing.
Conclusion
The received case should be retained. It gives the Authorized Version its direct and memorable line without severing power from speech. Yet the rival is not a denial of omnipotence. It intensifies the reliability of revelation: nothing God says is empty of the power necessary to fulfill it.
Mary answers as faith should answer. She does not calculate a natural mechanism and then permit God to act. She receives the word because the God with whom nothing is impossible has spoken it.
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 Luke 1:37, the received text reads “With God no word shall be impossible,” with παρά governing the dative “God.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “For with God nothing shall be impossible.” — Luke 1:37”. The assessed critical reading is “No word from God shall be impossible,” with παρά governing the genitive.”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. No local Christian doctrine is lost; the immediate effect is confined to this textual difference.
Necessary reasoning chain
- At Luke 1:37, the received Hebrew/Greek form is “With God no word shall be impossible,” with παρά governing the dative “God.”; the Authorized Version represents it as “For with God nothing shall be impossible.” — Luke 1:37”. The assessed critical form is “No word from God shall be impossible,” with παρά governing the genitive.”.
- 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 Luke 1:37, the received text reads “With God no word shall be impossible,” with παρά governing the dative “God.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “For with God nothing shall be impossible.” — Luke 1:37”. The assessed critical reading is “No word from God shall be impossible,” with παρά governing the genitive.”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. No local Christian doctrine is lost; the immediate effect is confined to this textual difference.
- 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
- 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
- INTF — Online Tools for the ECMCurrent critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
Read the full research essay and its sources
Passage: Luke 1:37
Received reading: “With God no word shall be impossible,” with παρά governing the dative “God.”
Principal competing reading: “No word from God shall be impossible,” with παρά governing the genitive.
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“For with God nothing shall be impossible.” — Luke 1:37
The angel’s final assurance to Mary is often memorized as a statement about unlimited divine power: “With God nothing shall be impossible.” The underlying noun is rhēma, a word, saying, or declared matter. The textual variation changes the case of “God” after the preposition para.
In the received text, para tō theō places the saying “with God” or “in God’s presence.” The critical form, para tou theou, is naturally heard as “from God.” On that reading the sentence means that no word proceeding from God will prove powerless or fail. Both constructions fit the episode. Elisabeth’s pregnancy and Mary’s promised conception rest upon what God has spoken and what God alone can accomplish.
Power is not detached from promise
The critical wording has an attractive echo of the Greek Old Testament’s language about a divine word failing. It also connects tightly to Mary’s reply: “Be it unto me according to thy word.” That coherence gives the genitive a serious internal claim.
The received dative is no vague philosophical maxim. In context “nothing” is governed by the announced word. Gabriel is not licensing contradictions or human fantasies; he is assuring Mary that age, barrenness, and virginity cannot defeat God’s declared purpose. The dative keeps the agent and sphere of possibility directly before the reader: what is impossible with man is possible with God.
Scribes could move either way. The familiar biblical idiom “from God” may explain a genitive correction, while the more common Christian saying “with God all things are possible” could encourage a dative. Because the forms differ only in their endings, ordinary copying and grammatical clarification require no doctrinal plot.
The received case should be retained. It gives the Authorized Version its direct and memorable line without severing power from speech. Yet the rival is not a denial of omnipotence. It intensifies the reliability of revelation: nothing God says is empty of the power necessary to fulfill it.
Mary answers as faith should answer. She does not calculate a natural mechanism and then permit God to act. She receives the word because the God with whom nothing is impossible has spoken it.
Sources and further reading
- Genesis 18:14; Jeremiah 32:17, 27; Luke 1:5–38; 18:27.
7Related materials
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- Record
- VAR-2063
- 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 text and 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, “Luke 1:37 — “With God Nothing Shall Be Impossible”: The Preposition and the Promise,” VAR-2063, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas