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 20:21
Issue
Scrivener includes Χριστόν along with two articles that make the repentance-and-faith balance more explicit.
Variant class
Spelling / name
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ
Authorized Version
“Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” — Acts 20:21
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
faith in our Lord Jesus
Translation or explanation
faith in our Lord Jesus
Metzger / UBS committee
Metzger reports the UBS4 committee's treatment of the variation unit. The note grounds the relevant decision in the likelihood of scribal or liturgical expansion; the printed confidence rating represented here is {B}. 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 20:21
ECM / CBGM evidence and editors
The controlled ledger records an ECM-derived change now present in the published UBS6 text and intended NA29 main text. A passage-specific reason must come from an identified editorial commentary or the local ECM evidence; none is inferred here. In the CBGM workflow, editors define the variation units and local stemmata, while the tools calculate pre-genealogical, genealogical, and stemmatic coherence. Editors then make the textual and philological judgment.
4UBS6 and intended NA29 revision
1 ECM-derived main-text change is recorded for this passage in the controlled 169-change ledger. The published UBS6 Greek text is the intended NA29 main text.
| Unit | NA28 baseline | Published UBS6 / intended NA29 main text | Source and verification |
|---|---|---|---|
| NA29-021 | Ἰησοῦν | Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν | A1 A1 §3 — Workbook-transcribed; printed NA29 collation pending |
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 20:21, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Passage: Acts 20:21 Received reading: faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ Principal competing reading: faith in our Lord Jesus Issue class: Textual Variant Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Acts 20:21 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 20:21. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894), Acts 20:21.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
A source-level internal and transcriptional synopsis remains open; consult the full essay.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
— Acts 20:21 Scrivener’s received text underlies the reading “faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Acts 20:21. 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 20:21 Received reading: faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ Principal competing reading: faith in our Lord Jesus Issue class: Textual Variant Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
Conclusion
The immediate sequence gives Acts 20:21 a concrete setting: Acts 20:20 says, “And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house,.” Acts 20:22 says, “And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there.”
Keep the full received name in Paul’s summary of his ministry.
Read the full research essay and its sources
Passage: Acts 20:21
Received reading: faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ
Principal competing reading: faith in our Lord Jesus
Issue class: Textual Variant
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
Scrivener includes Χριστόν along with two articles that make the
repentance-and-faith balance more explicit. SBLGNT and NA28 omit
‘Christ’; the SBL apparatus also shows that printed editions divide,
with Tregelles retaining the title. Paul pairs this faith with
repentance toward God as the twofold substance of his public and
house-to-house testimony.
“Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance
toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” — Acts 20:21
Scrivener’s received text underlies the reading “faith toward our
Lord Jesus Christ.” The principal competing form is “faith in our Lord
Jesus.”
The variation at Acts 20:21 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.
The immediate sequence gives Acts 20:21 a concrete setting: Acts
20:20 says, “And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you,
but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to
house,.” Acts 20:22 says, “And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit
unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there.”
Keep the full received name in Paul’s summary of his ministry.
Sources and further reading
- The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Acts 20:21.
- F. H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek
according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894),
Acts 20:21. - Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Greek New Testament: SBL
Edition, Acts 20:21 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-2281
- 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 20:21 — “Faith toward Our Lord Jesus Christ”: Does “Christ” Belong?,” VAR-2281, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas