Complete textual-variant dossier
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
Acts 11:20
Issue
Scrivener and NA28 read Ἑλληνιστάς, Greek-speaking Jews or Hellenists.
Variant class
Omission / addition
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus
Authorized Version
“And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the LORD Jesus.” — Acts 11:20
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.
3NA28 baseline and critical-text rationale
NA28 baseline reading
spoke to the Hellenists, proclaiming the Lord Jesus
Translation or explanation
spoke to the Hellenists, proclaiming the Lord Jesus
Metzger / UBS committee
Metzger reports the UBS4 committee's treatment of the variation unit. The note grounds the relevant decision in the balance of external and internal evidence described in the entry; 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 11:20
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 11:20, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Passage: Acts 11:20 Received reading: spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus Principal competing reading: spoke to the Hellenists, proclaiming the Lord Jesus Issue class: Edition Split / Translation Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. Keep ‘Grecians’ and use the record to identify an edition split, not a simple received-versus-critical opposition.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Acts 11:20 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’s ‘Grecians’ follows the former and should not be cited as though NA28 had replaced it with Gentiles. For Acts 11:20, a textual conclusion cannot by itself settle every English or syntactical choice: the Greek form and its possible constructions must first be identified, and the eventual rendering must be defended from grammar and context rather than counted as a manuscript omission. Sources and further reading The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Acts 11:20.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
For Acts 11:20, a textual conclusion cannot by itself settle every English or syntactical choice: the Greek form and its possible constructions must first be identified, and the eventual rendering must be defended from grammar and context rather than counted as a manuscript omission.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
Scrivener’s received text underlies the reading “spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus.”
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Acts 11:20. It supplies the confessional context in which manuscript transmission, broad reception, and the church's actual possession of Scripture are evaluated together.
Response to the principal critical argument
Passage: Acts 11:20 Received reading: spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus Principal competing reading: spoke to the Hellenists, proclaiming the Lord Jesus Issue class: Edition Split / Translation Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. Keep ‘Grecians’ and use the record to identify an edition split, not a simple received-versus-critical opposition.
Conclusion
Luke does not leave Acts 11:20 isolated from its setting. Just outside the selected unit, Acts 11:19 says, “Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.” Acts 11:21 says, “And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord.”
Keep ‘Grecians’ and use the record to identify an edition split, not a simple received-versus-critical opposition.
Read the full research essay and its sources
Passage: Acts 11:20
Received reading: spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus
Principal competing reading: spoke to the Hellenists, proclaiming the Lord Jesus
Issue class: Edition Split / Translation
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
Scrivener’s received text underlies the reading “spake unto the
Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus.” The principal competing form is
“spoke to the Hellenists, proclaiming the Lord Jesus.”
“And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they
were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the LORD
Jesus.” — Acts 11:20
Scrivener and NA28 read Ἑλληνιστάς, Greek-speaking Jews or
Hellenists. Tregelles and some translations read Ἕλληνας, Greeks or
Gentiles. The Authorized Version’s ‘Grecians’ follows the former and
should not be cited as though NA28 had replaced it with Gentiles.
For Acts 11:20, a textual conclusion cannot by itself settle every
English or syntactical choice: the Greek form and its possible
constructions must first be identified, and the eventual rendering must
be defended from grammar and context rather than counted as a manuscript
omission.
Luke does not leave Acts 11:20 isolated from its setting. Just
outside the selected unit, Acts 11:19 says, “Now they which were
scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled
as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none
but unto the Jews only.” Acts 11:21 says, “And the hand of the Lord was
with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord.”
Keep ‘Grecians’ and use the record to identify an edition split, not
a simple received-versus-critical opposition.
Sources and further reading
- The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Acts 11:20.
- F. H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek
according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894),
Acts 11:20. - Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Greek New Testament: SBL
Edition, Acts 11:20 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-2246
- 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 11:20 — Greeks or Grecians? Who First Heard the Gospel at Antioch?,” VAR-2246, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas