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 13:42–48
Issue
The received text specifies both the departing Jews and the requesting Gentiles; the critical form uses pronouns and leaves the requesters unnamed.
Variant class
Substitution or composite variation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
when the Jews were gone out … the Gentiles besought … the word of God
Authorized Version
“And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath. … Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. … And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” — Acts 13:42–48
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
as they went out, people begged … the word of the Lord
Translation or explanation
as they went out, people begged … the word of the Lord
Metzger / UBS committee
Metzger reports the UBS4 committee's treatment of 5 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, the likelihood of scribal or liturgical expansion, the comparative difficulty of the readings; the printed confidence ratings represented here are {A}, {C}, {B}. 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 13:42, 13:42, 13:44, 13:45, 13:48
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 13:42–48, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Passage: Acts 13:42–48 Received reading: when the Jews were gone out … the Gentiles besought … the word of God Principal competing reading: as they went out, people begged … the word of the Lord Issue class: Clustered Variant Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. — Acts 13:42–48 The received text specifies both the departing Jews and the requesting Gentiles; the critical form uses pronouns and leaves the requesters unnamed.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Acts 13:42–48 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 13:42–48. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894), Acts 13:42–48.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
A source-level internal and transcriptional synopsis remains open; consult the full essay.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
— Acts 13:42–48 The received text specifies both the departing Jews and the requesting Gentiles; the critical form uses pronouns and leaves the requesters unnamed.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Acts 13:42–48. 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 13:42–48 Received reading: when the Jews were gone out … the Gentiles besought … the word of God Principal competing reading: as they went out, people begged … the word of the Lord Issue class: Clustered Variant Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. — Acts 13:42–48 The received text specifies both the departing Jews and the requesting Gentiles; the critical form uses pronouns and leaves the requesters unnamed.
Conclusion
Because Acts 13:42–48 contains more than one subreading, the unit cannot be reduced to a single longer-versus-shorter slogan: each change belongs to its own clause, and a conclusion about one cannot simply be transferred to the whole paragraph.
Retain the received participants and divine title because they make Luke’s sequence concrete without changing the gospel’s Gentile advance.
Read the full research essay and its sources
Passage: Acts 13:42–48
Received reading: when the Jews were gone out … the Gentiles besought … the word of God
Principal competing reading: as they went out, people begged … the word of the Lord
Issue class: Clustered Variant
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles
besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath. …
Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious
proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, persuaded
them to continue in the grace of God. … And when the Gentiles heard
this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as
were ordained to eternal life believed.” — Acts 13:42–48
The received text specifies both the departing Jews and the
requesting Gentiles; the critical form uses pronouns and leaves the
requesters unnamed. At verse 44 Scrivener reads ‘word of God’ while
SBLGNT and NA28 read ‘word of the Lord,’ and further verbal changes
shape Paul’s exchange with the contradicting Jews.
For Acts 13:42–48, the received side may be summarized as “when the
Jews were gone out … the Gentiles besought … the word of God.” Its
principal rival is “as they went out, people begged … the word of the
Lord.”
Because Acts 13:42–48 contains more than one subreading, the unit
cannot be reduced to a single longer-versus-shorter slogan: each change
belongs to its own clause, and a conclusion about one cannot simply be
transferred to the whole paragraph.
Retain the received participants and divine title because they make
Luke’s sequence concrete without changing the gospel’s Gentile
advance.
Sources and further reading
- The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Acts 13:42–48.
- F. H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek
according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894),
Acts 13:42–48. - Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Greek New Testament: SBL
Edition, Acts 13:42–48 and apparatus. - Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New
Testament, discussion at Acts 13:42–48.
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-2255
- 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 13:42–48 — Who Besought Paul to Preach Again, and Was It the Word of God or of the Lord?,” VAR-2255, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas