Complete textual-variant dossier
No adverse entailment · agrees with the received text
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 text and principal critical editions read “about the sixth hour” at Pilate’s judgment seat; “the third hour” is a minority harmonizing reading.
Variant class
Substitution or composite variation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
“It was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour.”
Authorized Version
The Authorized Version rendering has not yet been entered in the structured field.
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
A minority form reads “about the third hour,” aligning the notice more closely with Mark 15:25.
Translation or explanation
A minority form reads “about the third hour,” aligning the notice more closely with Mark 15:25.
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 the weight and distribution of external attestation, scribal harmonization to a parallel passage. 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 John 19:14
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 John, 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
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 John 19:14, 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. “Third” is an attested minority reading, but it is not the standard modern critical alternative. Textual criticism should resist becoming a device for removing any apparent tension.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at John 19:14 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
Ancient and modern readers have tried to relate those notices through different time-reckoning systems, approximate hours, stages of the proceedings, or textual alteration. “Third” is an attested minority reading, but it is not the standard modern critical alternative. Greek manuscripts wrote numerals in forms vulnerable to confusion, and the relationship between Roman civil reckoning, Jewish daylight hours, and an evangelist’s approximate about must be investigated.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
Its agreement with Mark makes harmonization an obvious explanation. A copyist concerned about chronology could replace John’s numeral with the Synoptic one. Defenders need not accuse critical editors of changing it, while critical readers should not cite the minority third hour as though it were an independent solution rather than a likely harmonization.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The received reading and its ecclesiastical use require passage-specific documentation; the age of a witness and the age of a reading must not be confused.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at John 19:14. 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. “Third” is an attested minority reading, but it is not the standard modern critical alternative. Textual criticism should resist becoming a device for removing any apparent tension.
Conclusion
Textual criticism should resist becoming a device for removing any apparent tension. John deliberately says “about,” and Mark’s notice occurs at another narrative point. The interpreter should first preserve what each Gospel actually says, then consider responsible chronological models.
The sixth hour is consequently both the received and the current principal reading. Defenders need not accuse critical editors of changing it, while critical readers should not cite the minority third hour as though it were an independent solution rather than a likely harmonization. John’s wording remains: near the sixth hour, Pilate said, “Behold your King.”
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.
No adverse entailment: agrees with the received text.
Necessary reasoning chain
- The current critical main-text reading assessed at John 19:14 agrees with the received Hebrew/Greek reading at the variation unit governed by this card.
- An adverse preservation entailment at this locus would require the current critical form to displace a different received reading.
- Because no such displacement occurs at the assessed locus, no adverse preservation consequence follows here.
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: John 19:14
Received reading: “It was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour.”
Principal competing reading: A minority form reads “about the third hour,” aligning the notice more closely with Mark 15:25.
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
John places Pilate’s presentation of Jesus at “about the sixth hour.”
Mark 15:25 says it was the third hour when they crucified him. Ancient
and modern readers have tried to relate those notices through different
time-reckoning systems, approximate hours, stages of the proceedings, or
textual alteration.
At the textual level, the first fact is simple: Scrivener, the
SBLGNT, and NA28 all read “sixth” in John 19:14. “Third” is an attested
minority reading, but it is not the standard modern critical
alternative. Its agreement with Mark makes harmonization an obvious
explanation. A copyist concerned about chronology could replace John’s
numeral with the Synoptic one.
That does not solve every historical question. Greek manuscripts
wrote numerals in forms vulnerable to confusion, and the relationship
between Roman civil reckoning, Jewish daylight hours, and an
evangelist’s approximate about must be investigated. The trial,
sentence, procession, and fastening to the cross also need not be
collapsed into a single minute.
Textual criticism should resist becoming a device for removing any
apparent tension. John deliberately says “about,” and Mark’s notice
occurs at another narrative point. The interpreter should first preserve
what each Gospel actually says, then consider responsible chronological
models.
The sixth hour is consequently both the received and the current
principal reading. Defenders need not accuse critical editors of
changing it, while critical readers should not cite the minority third
hour as though it were an independent solution rather than a likely
harmonization. John’s wording remains: near the sixth hour, Pilate said,
“Behold your King.”
Sources and further reading
- Mark 15:21–33; John 18:28–19:18.
- Scrivener, John 19:14.
- SBLGNT text and apparatus at John 19:14.
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-2196
- 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 current 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, “John 19:14 — The Sixth Hour or the Third Hour? The Chronology of the Crucifixion,” VAR-2196, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas