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
Every Greek control reads πάσχα.
Variant class
Spelling / name
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people
Authorized Version
“And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.” — Acts 12:4
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
intending after Passover to bring him out
Translation or explanation
intending after Passover to bring him out
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
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 12:4, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Passage: Acts 12:4 Received reading: intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people Principal competing reading: intending after Passover to bring him out Issue class: Translation History Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Acts 12:4 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
‘Easter’ and ‘Passover’ are English renderings of the same noun, not rival manuscript readings. The Authorized Version uses ‘passover’ elsewhere and here employs the older Christian English festival name in a context that still belongs to the Jewish feast. — Acts 12:4 For Acts 12:4, 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.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
The Authorized Version uses ‘passover’ elsewhere and here employs the older Christian English festival name in a context that still belongs to the Jewish feast. — Acts 12:4 For Acts 12:4, 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
” Acts 12:5 says, “Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.”
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Acts 12:4. 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 12:4 Received reading: intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people Principal competing reading: intending after Passover to bring him out Issue class: Translation History Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
Conclusion
The neighboring verses keep the Acts 12:4 question tied to the episode: Acts 12:3 says, “And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.).” Acts 12:5 says, “Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.”
Classify the issue as translation history. No Greek-text argument can be built from the English word alone.
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 12:4 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 12:4Current 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 12:4
Received reading: intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people
Principal competing reading: intending after Passover to bring him out
Issue class: Translation History
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
Every Greek control reads πάσχα. ‘Easter’ and ‘Passover’ are English
renderings of the same noun, not rival manuscript readings. The
Authorized Version uses ‘passover’ elsewhere and here employs the older
Christian English festival name in a context that still belongs to the
Jewish feast.
The comparison is concrete: the received reading gives “intending
after Easter to bring him forth to the people”; the alternative gives
“intending after Passover to bring him out.”
“And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered
him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter
to bring him forth to the people.” — Acts 12:4
For Acts 12:4, 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.
The neighboring verses keep the Acts 12:4 question tied to the
episode: Acts 12:3 says, “And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he
proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened
bread.).” Acts 12:5 says, “Peter therefore was kept in prison: but
prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.”
Classify the issue as translation history. No Greek-text argument can
be built from the English word alone.
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-2248
- 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 12:4 — Easter or Passover? What the Greek Text Says and What the English Means,” VAR-2248, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas