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 13:1
Issue
The names—Barnabas, Simeon Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen associated with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul—are stable.
Variant class
Omission / addition
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
there were in the church … certain prophets and teachers
Authorized Version
“Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.” — Acts 13:1
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
there were in the church prophets and teachers
Translation or explanation
there were in the church prophets and teachers
Metzger / UBS committee
Metzger reports the UBS4 committee's treatment of 4 variation units within this record's range. The notes ground the relevant decisions in the weight and distribution of external attestation, a proposed mechanism of accidental omission, authorial usage, grammar, or immediate context; 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., notes on Acts 13:1, 13:1, 13:1, 13:1
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 13:1, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Passage: Acts 13:1 Received reading: there were in the church … certain prophets and teachers Principal competing reading: there were in the church prophets and teachers Issue class: Textual Variant Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Acts 13:1 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 13:1. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894), Acts 13:1.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
A source-level internal and transcriptional synopsis remains open; consult the full essay.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
Passage: Acts 13:1 Received reading: there were in the church … certain prophets and teachers Principal competing reading: there were in the church prophets and teachers Issue class: Textual Variant Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. “Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.” — Acts 13:1 Scrivener’s received text underlies the reading “there were in the church … certain prophets and teachers.”
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Acts 13:1. 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 13:1 Received reading: there were in the church … certain prophets and teachers Principal competing reading: there were in the church prophets and teachers Issue class: Textual Variant Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
Conclusion
Read in place, Acts 13:1 stands beside stable narrative statements: Acts 13:2 says, “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.”
This is a minor definiteness variation; preserve the received ‘certain’ without portraying the Antioch leaders as textually uncertain.
Read the full research essay and its sources
Passage: Acts 13:1
Received reading: there were in the church … certain prophets and teachers
Principal competing reading: there were in the church prophets and teachers
Issue class: Textual Variant
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
The names—Barnabas, Simeon Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen associated
with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul—are stable. SBLGNT and NA28 omit
τινες, ‘certain,’ but do not remove or rearrange the named ministry
team.
“Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets
and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius
of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the
tetrarch, and Saul.” — Acts 13:1
Scrivener’s received text underlies the reading “there were in the
church … certain prophets and teachers.” The principal competing form is
“there were in the church prophets and teachers.”
The variation at Acts 13:1 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.
Read in place, Acts 13:1 stands beside stable narrative statements:
Acts 13:2 says, “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy
Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have
called them.”
This is a minor definiteness variation; preserve the received
‘certain’ without portraying the Antioch leaders as textually
uncertain.
Sources and further reading
- The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Acts 13:1.
- F. H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek
according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894),
Acts 13:1. - Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Greek New Testament: SBL
Edition, Acts 13:1 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-2251
- 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 13:1 — Manaen, Herod the Tetrarch, and the Names of Antioch’s Prophets,” VAR-2251, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas