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 genealogy moves from Amminadab to Aram. The critical text prints the difficult sequence “Admin, Arni,” supported by early witnesses but unattested in the Old Testament genealogies in that form.
Variant class
Spelling / name
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
Amminadab followed by Aram (Admin/Arni absent as separate generations).
Authorized Version
“Which was the son of Aminadab, which was the son of Aram.” — Luke 3:33
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
Admin followed by Arni, creating a different sequence in the ancestry between David and Judah.
Translation or explanation
Admin followed by Arni, creating a different sequence in the ancestry between David and Judah.
Metzger’s report of the UBS committee
No passage-specific Metzger synopsis has yet passed editorial verification for this record.
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
Exegetical or interpretive consequence
Exact proposition affected
The triune identity of the Father, the Son/Word, and the Holy Ghost.
Doctrinal analysis
The genealogy’s theological direction does not depend on solving a transliteration puzzle: Jesus belongs to Israel’s history, descends through David, and is finally traced to Adam and to God.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Luke 3:33, 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 text commonly reads Admin, Arni in the corresponding portion of the list. That makes the critical form difficult, and difficulty is often counted in its favor: a scribe was more likely to correct obscure names toward familiar Scripture than to replace familiar names with puzzling ones.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Luke 3:33 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: The genealogy’s theological direction does not depend on solving a transliteration puzzle: Jesus belongs to Israel’s history, descends through David, and is finally traced to Adam and to God.
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
Manuscripts and editions preserve several combinations involving Amminadab, Admin, Aram, and Arni.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
— Luke 3:33 Genealogies expose copyists to unusual names, repeated formulas, and long sequences in which one unfamiliar syllable can become a new ancestor. That makes the critical form difficult, and difficulty is often counted in its favor: a scribe was more likely to correct obscure names toward familiar Scripture than to replace familiar names with puzzling ones. Such instability often signals that copyists were trying to repair an already disturbed line.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The received text has Amminadab, then Aram. The Old Testament and Matthew’s genealogy provide recognizable anchors: Ram (rendered Aram in Greek tradition) and Amminadab stand in the line leading to Nahshon.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Luke 3:33. 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 text commonly reads Admin, Arni in the corresponding portion of the list. That makes the critical form difficult, and difficulty is often counted in its favor: a scribe was more likely to correct obscure names toward familiar Scripture than to replace familiar names with puzzling ones.
Conclusion
Aram should remain with Amminadab in the text. This is not a claim that every spelling in every genealogy can be reconstructed from English forms alone. It is a judgment that the received sequence better accounts for the confused alternatives and the scriptural ancestry Luke is tracing.
The genealogy’s theological direction does not depend on solving a transliteration puzzle: Jesus belongs to Israel’s history, descends through David, and is finally traced to Adam and to God. Still, names are part of the inspired record. Their very obscurity calls for patient collation rather than automatic preference for whatever looks least familiar.
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 3:33, the received text reads “Amminadab followed by Aram (Admin/Arni absent as separate generations).” and its Authorized Version representation reads “Which was the son of Aminadab, which was the son of Aram.” — Luke 3:33”. The assessed critical reading is “Admin followed by Arni, creating a different sequence in the ancestry between David and Judah.”. 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 Luke 3:33, the received Hebrew/Greek form is “Amminadab followed by Aram (Admin/Arni absent as separate generations).”; the Authorized Version represents it as “Which was the son of Aminadab, which was the son of Aram.” — Luke 3:33”. The assessed critical form is “Admin followed by Arni, creating a different sequence in the ancestry between David and Judah.”.
- 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 3:33, the received text reads “Amminadab followed by Aram (Admin/Arni absent as separate generations).” and its Authorized Version representation reads “Which was the son of Aminadab, which was the son of Aram.” — Luke 3:33”. The assessed critical reading is “Admin followed by Arni, creating a different sequence in the ancestry between David and Judah.”. 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
- 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 3:33
Received reading: Amminadab followed by Aram (Admin/Arni absent as separate generations).
Principal competing reading: Admin followed by Arni, creating a different sequence in the ancestry between David and Judah.
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“Which was the son of Aminadab, which was the son of Aram.” — Luke 3:33
Genealogies expose copyists to unusual names, repeated formulas, and long sequences in which one unfamiliar syllable can become a new ancestor. Luke 3:33 illustrates all three dangers. The received text has Amminadab, then Aram. The critical text commonly reads Admin, Arni in the corresponding portion of the list.
The Old Testament and Matthew’s genealogy provide recognizable anchors: Ram (rendered Aram in Greek tradition) and Amminadab stand in the line leading to Nahshon. “Admin” and “Arni,” as two separate names, do not reproduce that established sequence. That makes the critical form difficult, and difficulty is often counted in its favor: a scribe was more likely to correct obscure names toward familiar Scripture than to replace familiar names with puzzling ones.
How names split and merge
That principle is not a law. Genealogical columns are especially susceptible to accidental division. The final syllables of one name can be attached to the next; repeated “son of” formulas can trigger a skipped or doubled entry; transliteration moves between Hebrew and Greek sound systems without a single fixed spelling. An early malformed sequence can therefore be harder precisely because it is corrupt, not because Luke wrote it.
The surviving evidence is more tangled than a two-reading summary suggests. Manuscripts and editions preserve several combinations involving Amminadab, Admin, Aram, and Arni. Such instability often signals that copyists were trying to repair an already disturbed line. It cautions against making one early codex the sole map of Luke’s ancestry.
The received sequence has two strengths: it is intelligible as a sequence of personal names, and it agrees with the canonical lineage elsewhere. Harmonization could explain that agreement, yet so can faithful preservation. Luke has no evident narrative reason to insert otherwise unknown Admin and Arni at this point.
Aram should remain with Amminadab in the text. This is not a claim that every spelling in every genealogy can be reconstructed from English forms alone. It is a judgment that the received sequence better accounts for the confused alternatives and the scriptural ancestry Luke is tracing.
The genealogy’s theological direction does not depend on solving a transliteration puzzle: Jesus belongs to Israel’s history, descends through David, and is finally traced to Adam and to God. Still, names are part of the inspired record. Their very obscurity calls for patient collation rather than automatic preference for whatever looks least familiar.
Sources and further reading
7Related materials
Open a group to follow connected articles, books, biographies, media, research notes, variants, or downloads. Research Center relationships use permanent record IDs; external items retain their actual link.
- Record
- VAR-2074
- 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 3:33 — Admin, Aram, and Amminadab: The Genealogical Sequence under Review,” VAR-2074, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas