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 Greek words do not require the disciples to deny the Spirit’s existence.
Variant class
Substitution or composite variation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost
Authorized Version
“He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.” — Acts 19:2
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
We have not even heard that the Holy Spirit is given
Translation or explanation
We have not even heard that the Holy Spirit is given
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 comparative difficulty of the readings; 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 Acts 19:2
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 19:2, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Passage: Acts 19:2 Received reading: We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost Principal competing reading: We have not even heard that the Holy Spirit is given Issue class: Translation / Agreement Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. In the competing textual or editorial form, the line is “We have not even heard that the Holy Spirit is given.” Agreement at Acts 19:2 is not filler in a complete survey: it establishes that the focal claim remains available in both governing Greek controls and tests any allegation that modern editions weaken this particular passage; here they do not.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Acts 19:2 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 presents Acts 19:2 as “We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.” Defend the Authorized Version as an older idiom, but explain its sense from context rather than treating ‘there be’ as a different Greek text. Sources and further reading The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Acts 19:2.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
Defend the Authorized Version as an older idiom, but explain its sense from context rather than treating ‘there be’ as a different Greek text.
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 19:2. 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 19:2 Received reading: We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost Principal competing reading: We have not even heard that the Holy Spirit is given Issue class: Translation / Agreement Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. In the competing textual or editorial form, the line is “We have not even heard that the Holy Spirit is given.” Agreement at Acts 19:2 is not filler in a complete survey: it establishes that the focal claim remains available in both governing Greek controls and tests any allegation that modern editions weaken this particular passage; here they do not.
Conclusion
The immediate sequence gives Acts 19:2 a concrete setting: Acts 19:1 says, “And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples,.” Acts 19:3 says, “And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John’s baptism.”
Defend the Authorized Version as an older idiom, but explain its sense from context rather than treating ‘there be’ as a different Greek text.
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 Acts 19:2 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
- Digital ECM — Acts 19:2Current 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 19:2
Received reading: We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost
Principal competing reading: We have not even heard that the Holy Spirit is given
Issue class: Translation / Agreement
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye
believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether
there be any Holy Ghost.” — Acts 19:2
At Acts 19:2, the disputed unit is smaller than the surrounding
episode.
“Whether
There Be Any Holy Ghost”: Text, Translation, and the Ephesian
Disciples
The Greek words do not require the disciples to deny the Spirit’s
existence. Their answer occurs in a discussion of reception after belief
and of John’s baptism; English must therefore express ignorance of the
Spirit’s Pentecostal gift or presence, not metaphysical ignorance of
God’s Spirit.
The Authorized Version presents Acts 19:2 as “We have not so much as
heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.” In the competing textual or
editorial form, the line is “We have not even heard that the Holy Spirit
is given.”
Agreement at Acts 19:2 is not filler in a complete survey: it
establishes that the focal claim remains available in both governing
Greek controls and tests any allegation that modern editions weaken this
particular passage; here they do not.
The immediate sequence gives Acts 19:2 a concrete setting: Acts 19:1
says, “And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul
having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding
certain disciples,.” Acts 19:3 says, “And he said unto them, Unto what
then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John’s baptism.”
Defend the Authorized Version as an older idiom, but explain its
sense from context rather than treating ‘there be’ as a different Greek
text.
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-2277
- 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 19:2 — “Whether There Be Any Holy Ghost”: Text, Translation, and the Ephesian Disciples,” VAR-2277, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas