Complete textual-variant dossier
Adverse entailment established
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
Scrivener’s aorist participle presents the crowd’s conclusion after the stoning, with an infinitive meaning ‘to have died.’ The critical form uses a present participle and perfect infinitive, emphasizing their continuing assumption that Paul was dead.
Variant class
Substitution or composite variation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
supposing he had been dead
Authorized Version
“And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.” — Acts 14:19
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
thinking that he was dead
Translation or explanation
thinking that he was dead
Metzger’s report of the 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, the likelihood that the competing form is a scribal correction or emendation, the likelihood of scribal or liturgical expansion; the printed confidence ratings represented here are {C}, {D}, {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 14:19, 14:19, 14:19, 14:19
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 14:19, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Passage: Acts 14:19 Received reading: supposing he had been dead Principal competing reading: thinking that he was dead Issue class: Grammar / Agreement Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. The critical form uses a present participle and perfect infinitive, emphasizing their continuing assumption that Paul was dead. Agreement at Acts 14:19 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 14:19 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 14:19. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894), Acts 14:19.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
Passage: Acts 14:19 Received reading: supposing he had been dead Principal competing reading: thinking that he was dead Issue class: Grammar / Agreement Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
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 14:19. 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 14:19 Received reading: supposing he had been dead Principal competing reading: thinking that he was dead Issue class: Grammar / Agreement Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. The critical form uses a present participle and perfect infinitive, emphasizing their continuing assumption that Paul was dead. Agreement at Acts 14:19 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
Luke does not leave Acts 14:19 isolated from its setting. Just outside the selected unit, Acts 14:18 says, “And with these sayings scarce restrained they the people, that they had not done sacrifice unto them.” Acts 14:20 says, “Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and came into the city: and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.”
The event is unchanged; retain the received idiom and classify the difference as aspect rather than a rival fate for Paul.
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.
Status: Established
Immediate textual or doctrinal consequence
At Acts 14:19, the received text reads “supposing he had been dead” and its Authorized Version representation reads “And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.” — Acts 14:19”. The assessed critical reading is “thinking that he was dead”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The immediate local effect is exegetical or interpretive; this argument does not claim that a distinct Christian doctrine disappears from the verse.
Necessary reasoning chain
- At Acts 14:19, the received Hebrew/Greek form is “supposing he had been dead”; the Authorized Version represents it as “And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.” — Acts 14:19”. The assessed critical form is “thinking that he was dead”.
- The received and critical forms are not the same at this locus. Therefore, if the competing critical form is original, the received form is secondary rather than the authentic wording at this place. The immediate consequence is: At Acts 14:19, the received text reads “supposing he had been dead” and its Authorized Version representation reads “And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.” — Acts 14:19”. The assessed critical reading is “thinking that he was dead”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The immediate local effect is exegetical or interpretive; this argument does not claim that a distinct Christian doctrine disappears from the verse.
- If the received form at this place is secondary rather than original, then the authentic Hebrew/Greek text was not kept pure at this place in the received textual tradition; therefore the unqualified confessional preservation claim must be denied or redefined.
Ultimate preservation consequence
If the competing reading is original and the received reading is secondary, then God did not preserve and keep pure the authentic text at this place in the received textual tradition. The unqualified confessional claim that Scripture was kept pure in all ages must therefore be denied or redefined.
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 14:19Current 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 14:19
Received reading: supposing he had been dead
Principal competing reading: thinking that he was dead
Issue class: Grammar / Agreement
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
The comparison is concrete: the received reading gives “supposing he
had been dead”; the alternative gives “thinking that he was dead.”
“And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who
persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city,
supposing he had been dead.” — Acts 14:19
Scrivener’s aorist participle presents the crowd’s conclusion after
the stoning, with an infinitive meaning ‘to have died.’ The critical
form uses a present participle and perfect infinitive, emphasizing their
continuing assumption that Paul was dead.
Agreement at Acts 14:19 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.
Luke does not leave Acts 14:19 isolated from its setting. Just
outside the selected unit, Acts 14:18 says, “And with these sayings
scarce restrained they the people, that they had not done sacrifice unto
them.” Acts 14:20 says, “Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about
him, he rose up, and came into the city: and the next day he departed
with Barnabas to Derbe.”
The event is unchanged; retain the received idiom and classify the
difference as aspect rather than a rival fate for Paul.
Sources and further reading
- The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Acts 14:19.
- F. H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek
according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894),
Acts 14:19. - Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Greek New Testament: SBL
Edition, Acts 14:19 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-2258
- 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 14:19 — Persuading the People, Stoning Paul, and Drawing Him from the City,” VAR-2258, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas