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 26:14
Issue
The proverb is secure in Scrivener, SBLGNT, and NA28 at Acts 26:14.
Variant class
Substitution or composite variation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks
Authorized Version
“And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” — Acts 26:14
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
it is hard for you to kick against the goads
Translation or explanation
it is hard for you to kick against the goads
Metzger / UBS committee
Metzger reports the UBS4 committee's treatment of 2 variation units within this record's range. The notes ground the relevant decisions in scribal harmonization to a parallel passage, possible theological pressure in transmission. 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 26:14, 26:14
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 26:14, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Passage: Acts 26:14 Received reading: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks Principal competing reading: it is hard for you to kick against the goads Issue class: Agreement / Parallel Passage Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. In the competing textual or editorial form, the line is “it is hard for you to kick against the goads.” Agreement at Acts 26:14 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 26:14 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
The Authorized Version presents Acts 26:14 as “it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” Sources and further reading The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Acts 26:14. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894), Acts 26:14.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
A source-level internal and transcriptional synopsis remains open; consult the full essay.
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 26:14. 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 26:14 Received reading: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks Principal competing reading: it is hard for you to kick against the goads Issue class: Agreement / Parallel Passage Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. In the competing textual or editorial form, the line is “it is hard for you to kick against the goads.” Agreement at Acts 26:14 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
The immediate sequence gives Acts 26:14 a concrete setting: Acts 26:13 says, “At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me.” Acts 26:15 says, “And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.”
Use Acts 26 as the agreement anchor while retaining the received parallel in Acts 9.
Read the full research essay and its sources
Passage: Acts 26:14
Received reading: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks
Principal competing reading: it is hard for you to kick against the goads
Issue class: Agreement / Parallel Passage
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking
unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest
thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” — Acts
26:14
The proverb is secure in Scrivener, SBLGNT, and NA28 at Acts 26:14.
Differences concern particles and verbs introducing the voice, not the
hard saying itself. This uncontested occurrence also explains how the
same words could enter or be retained in the fuller Acts 9 account.
The Authorized Version presents Acts 26:14 as “it is hard for thee to
kick against the pricks.” In the competing textual or editorial form,
the line is “it is hard for you to kick against the goads.”
Agreement at Acts 26:14 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.
The immediate sequence gives Acts 26:14 a concrete setting: Acts
26:13 says, “At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven,
above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which
journeyed with me.” Acts 26:15 says, “And I said, Who art thou, Lord?
And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.”
Use Acts 26 as the agreement anchor while retaining the received
parallel in Acts 9.
Sources and further reading
- The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Acts 26:14.
- F. H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek
according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894),
Acts 26:14. - Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Greek New Testament: SBL
Edition, Acts 26:14 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-2297
- 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 26:14 — “It Is Hard for Thee to Kick against the Pricks”: The Saying in Its Undisputed Setting,” VAR-2297, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas