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 object is κύριον, ‘the Lord,’ in Scrivener and θεόν, ‘God,’ in SBLGNT and NA28.
Variant class
Substitution or composite variation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
that they should seek the Lord
Authorized Version
“That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:” — Acts 17:27
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
that they should seek God
Translation or explanation
that they should seek God
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, the likelihood of scribal or liturgical expansion, the comparative difficulty of the readings; the printed confidence rating represented here is {C}. 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 Acts 17:27
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 Acts 17:27, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Passage: Acts 17:27 Received reading: that they should seek the Lord Principal competing reading: that they should seek God Issue class: Textual Variant Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Acts 17:27 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
Sources and further reading The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Acts 17:27. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894), Acts 17:27.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
A source-level internal and transcriptional synopsis remains open; consult the full essay.
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 Acts 17:27. 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
Passage: Acts 17:27 Received reading: that they should seek the Lord Principal competing reading: that they should seek God Issue class: Textual Variant Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
Conclusion
The immediate sequence gives Acts 17:27 a concrete setting: Acts 17:26 says, “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.” Acts 17:28 says, “For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.”
Preserve ‘seek the Lord’ as the received Areopagus wording.
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 Acts 17:27, the received text reads “that they should seek the Lord” and its Authorized Version representation reads “That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:” — Acts 17:27”. The assessed critical reading is “that they should seek God”. 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 Acts 17:27, the received Hebrew/Greek form is “that they should seek the Lord”; the Authorized Version represents it as “That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:” — Acts 17:27”. The assessed critical form is “that they should seek God”.
- 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 Acts 17:27, the received text reads “that they should seek the Lord” and its Authorized Version representation reads “That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:” — Acts 17:27”. The assessed critical reading is “that they should seek God”. 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 — Acts 17:27Current 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: Acts 17:27
Received reading: that they should seek the Lord
Principal competing reading: that they should seek God
Issue class: Textual Variant
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him,
and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:” — Acts
17:27
The object is κύριον, ‘the Lord,’ in Scrivener and θεόν, ‘God,’ in
SBLGNT and NA28. Paul’s surrounding speech has repeatedly named God as
Creator and ruler, so both readings fit the argument, but only the
received form places the title ‘Lord’ in the summons.
The comparison is concrete: the received reading gives “that they
should seek the Lord”; the alternative gives “that they should seek
God.”
The variation at Acts 17:27 changes emphasis or explicitness within
an otherwise recognizable account; shared words should be acknowledged
before the distinct reading is defended, and the difference should not
be enlarged beyond the clause that carries it.
The immediate sequence gives Acts 17:27 a concrete setting: Acts
17:26 says, “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell
on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before
appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.” Acts 17:28 says, “For in
him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own
poets have said, For we are also his offspring.”
Preserve ‘seek the Lord’ as the received Areopagus wording.
Sources and further reading
- The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Acts 17:27.
- F. H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek
according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894),
Acts 17:27. - Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Greek New Testament: SBL
Edition, Acts 17:27 and apparatus.
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-2273
- 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, received reading, principal SBLGNT reading, and reported NA28 alignment checked against Scrivener’s received Greek text and the official SBLGNT text and comparison 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. Authorized Version Scripture is public domain in the United States; cited editions and digital witnesses retain their stated rights and access conditions.
- Known limitations
- This staging record summarizes the defined variation unit and representative edition evidence. It is not a fresh collation of every extant manuscript, version, lectionary, patristic citation, or ECM coherence relation.
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, “Acts 17:27 — Seek the Lord or Seek God? The Areopagus Call to Repentance,” VAR-2273, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas