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
Acts 8:37 supplies both Philip’s condition and the eunuch’s confession before baptism.
Variant class
Punctuation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest … I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God
Authorized Version
“And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” — Acts 8:37
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
the verse is absent from the principal modern critical text
Translation or explanation
the verse is absent from the principal modern critical text
Metzger’s report of the UBS committee
Metzger reports the UBS4 committee's treatment of the variation unit. The note grounds the relevant decision in the weight and distribution of external attestation, the likelihood of scribal or liturgical expansion; the printed confidence rating represented here is {A}. 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 8:37
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
Weakening of explicit biblical testimony
Exact proposition affected
The identity and divine sonship of Jesus Christ.
Doctrinal analysis
The omission at Acts 8:37 must be measured by its actual extent: it changes a stated detail in the episode although broader doctrines may remain elsewhere, a distinction that neither minimizes the missing words nor assigns them consequences they cannot carry.
Controlled source-list matches
Doctrinal significance and Westminster use
This passage is listed in one or both controlling research files. Their claims are reported with exact source identity and confessional use; list membership does not by itself establish the original reading or the Research Center’s final entailment.
Doctrinally significant variant listActs 8.37
Doctrinally Significant Variants Itemised
Anonymous compilation — supplied source file pp. 26–28
Doctrine or doctrinal consequence identified by the source
The doctrinal difference resultant from omitting or including these words is self-evident. By these words, a profession of faith is required from any adult believer being baptised. The Ethiopian eunuch in vs 36 requests to be baptised. And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? (Act 8:36 Authorised Version) In vs 37, Philip tells him that, in order to do so, he must profess to believe the Lord Jesus with all his heart. And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. (Act 8:37 Authorised Version). Without the inclusion of these words, any adult who requests to be baptized cannot be required to profess faith with all his heart. With the inclusion of these words, he must profess to believe that Jesus is the Son of God with his whole heart. This verse is cited as a proof text by both the Westminster Confession of Faith, and by Dr White's own London Confession of Faith. If one denies the authenticity of this verse – as Dr White does – one cannot be a serious and/or strict adherent to the London Confession of Faith which Dr White himself professes to believe (as one may note for himself from Dr White's own church website in the last footnote we have provided). In all, we affirm that Erasmus was correct in bringing in this minority reading back into the Byzantine Tradition. We would point out that the State Church of Greece has also re-incorporated the reading into its official Patriarchal Text of 1904 and 1912, on the authority of Lavra B 64, as mentioned above. Also of note is the fact that the State Church of Greece (whose text is very much that of the Byzantine Majority tradition) has also included Acts 8.37 as one of its official lectionary readings in its Apostolos.
Source-reported readings and witness argument
Received reading reported
And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. (Acts 8:37 Authorised Version)
Critical reading reported
[omit]
Manuscript and patristic support reported by the source
This is another variant which presents difficulties. The omission of the verse is supported, of course, by Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and their Egyptian allies. However, the omission of the verse is also supported by the majority of extant Byzantine manuscripts as well. Nonetheless, there are significant early Byzantine manuscripts which contain this reading. Codex E08, a sixth century Greek/Latin diglot contains the passage, as Dr James White notes. Dr White in his book contends that, E08 being a Latin/Greek diglot, Acts 8.37 was brought over from the Latin Vulgate into the Greek. However, White fails to note that there are other Greek manuscripts which are not diglots, which are noted manuscripts at that, with an earlier text than that of E08, which also contain the reading. The Patriarchal Text of 1904 of the State Church of Greece also contains the contested words, because its principal editor, Basil Antoniades, tells us that Lavra B 64, a tenth century Caesarean manuscript, has them. This is significant, because Lavra B 64, which is also called minuscule 1739, was almost certainly copied directly from a 4th or 5th century Greek exemplar, as the noted New Testament textual critic Robert Waltz informs us,, and as the Wikipedia article on this manuscript also apprises us. And the Wikipedia article confirms B. Antoniades's testimony that the manuscript has Acts 8.37 in it, as does also the INTF's collation of minuscule 1739, which can be seen at http://nttranscripts.uni-muenster.de/AnaServer?NTtranscripts+0+start.anv. Both Waltz and the Wikipedia article inform us that, because the marginal notes in Lavra B 64 contain extensive quotes from very early Church Fathers, but none later than Basil of Caesarea, combined with the fact that the colophon for the Epistles of Paul specifically mentions that the exemplar for the Pauline epistles was one that had been personally edited by Origen, most scholars accordingly believe that the exemplar from which Lavra B 64 was copied was itself from 4th or 5th century. Thus, the text of Lavra B 64 is every bit as old as that of Vaticanus, as Robert Waltz notes, and this text has Acts 8.37 in it. This in turn shows us that the Textus Receptus reading for Acts 8.37, even in the Greek, is very old indeed. Accordingly, Dr White's hypothesis that Acts 8.37 was only brought over into the Greek from the Latin in E08, the sixth century Latin/Greek diglot, is not correct. Moreover, in addition to the above manuscript evidence, we find the contested passage cited by very early Church Fathers, including Cyprian and Irenaeus, both of whom were 3rd century Fathers (and thus, who both predated Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, which are of the 4th century). Both of these Fathers were contemporaries of the 3rd century manuscript 𝔓45 which omits Acts 8.37, but which is also an Egyptian manuscript that is very characteristic of the Alexandrian school in its preponderance of omissions. Accordingly, 𝔓45 apart, there are significant 3rd and 4th century witnesses to this verse: Irenaeus, Cyprian, and the text of Codex Lavra B 64 (which was copied from a 4th century exemplar as noted above). Moreover, the majority the manuscripts of the Old Latin text and the Latin Vulgate overwhelmingly include this verse, as Dr Edward Hills notes.
Editorial qualification: The compilation’s doctrinal inferences and witness claims are reported as its argument, not silently adopted as verified fact. Exact entailment is retained: weakening an explicit statement is not automatically a formal denial of the doctrine.
Westminster proof-text listActs 8:37
A List of Omissions and Changes Found in the Critical Text to Verses Used as Proof Texts in the Westminster Standards
Seth Stark — supplied source file pp. 61–62
Textual wording marked in the source
Critical/ESV side: ESV: ENTIRE VERSE IS OMITTED.
Westminster doctrines and propositions supported
WCF 28.4 — Of Baptism
Portion identified in the source as supported by this proof text:
- Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ
WLC 166 — Unto whom is baptism to be administered?
Portion identified in the source as supported by this proof text:
- Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, and so strangers from the covenant of promise, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him,
WSC 95 — To whom is Baptism to be administered?
Portion identified in the source as supported by this proof text:
- Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him;
Editorial qualification: This establishes a confessional proof-text and reception connection. It does not by itself establish the original reading, and its English-version comparison must be checked against the Greek variation unit.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Acts 8:37, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Passage: Acts 8:37 Received reading: If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest … I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God Principal competing reading: the verse is absent from the principal modern critical text Issue class: Whole-Verse Omission Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. The critical or alternative presentation reads “the verse is absent from the principal modern critical text.”
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Acts 8:37 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
Weakening of explicit biblical testimony: The omission at Acts 8:37 must be measured by its actual extent: it changes a stated detail in the episode although broader doctrines may remain elsewhere, a distinction that neither minimizes the missing words nor assigns them consequences they cannot carry.
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 8:37. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894), Acts 8:37.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
Passage: Acts 8:37 Received reading: If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest … I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God Principal competing reading: the verse is absent from the principal modern critical text Issue class: Whole-Verse Omission Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. The omission at Acts 8:37 must be measured by its actual extent: it changes a stated detail in the episode although broader doctrines may remain elsewhere, a distinction that neither minimizes the missing words nor assigns them consequences they cannot carry.
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 8:37. 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 8:37 Received reading: If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest … I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God Principal competing reading: the verse is absent from the principal modern critical text Issue class: Whole-Verse Omission Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. The critical or alternative presentation reads “the verse is absent from the principal modern critical text.”
Passage-specific evidence from consulted works
Core 0.6.3 supplied-source audit complete: 2 passage-specific notes attached. Incidental citations and global-method sources are retained in the audit report rather than presented as local textual evidence.
A List of Omissions and Changes Found in the Critical Text to Verses Used as Proof Texts in the Westminster StandardsWestminster proof-text and translation comparison
Seth Stark — supplied PDF pp. 61–62
At Acts 8:37, it compares the NKJV/TR-oriented wording “Then Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’ And he answered and said, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’”” with the ESV/critical-text wording “ENTIRE VERSE IS OMITTED.” and associates the passage with WCF 28.4, WLC 166, WSC 95.
Editorial use: This establishes a confessional proof-text and reception connection. It does not by itself establish the original reading, and its English-version comparison must be checked against the Greek variation unit.
Doctrinally Significant Variants ItemisedAttributed doctrinal and canonical-coherence argument
Anonymous compilation — supplied PDF pp. 26–28
Acts 8.37: It sets “And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. (Acts 8:37 Authorised Version)” against “[omit].” Its stated doctrinal argument is that The doctrinal difference resultant from omitting or including these words is self-evident. By these words, a profession of faith is required from any adult believer being baptised. The Ethiopian eunuch in vs 36 requests to be baptised. And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? (Act 8:36 Authorised Version) In vs 37, Philip tells him that, in order to do so, he must profess to believe the Lord Jesus with all his heart. And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. (Act 8:37 Authorised Version).… The compilation appeals to This is another variant which presents difficulties. The omission of the verse is supported, of course, by Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and their Egyptian allies. However, the omission of the verse is also supported by the majority of extant Byzantine manuscripts as well. Nonetheless, there are significant early Byzantine manuscripts which contain this reading.…
Editorial use: The compilation’s doctrinal inferences and witness claims are reported as its argument, not silently adopted as verified fact. Exact entailment is retained: weakening an explicit statement is not automatically a formal denial of the doctrine.
Conclusion
Luke does not leave Acts 8:37 isolated from its setting. Just outside the selected unit, Acts 8:36 says, “And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?” Acts 8:38 says, “And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.”
Retain the verse as the received apostolic confession, while keeping its documentary history open to full Research Center collation.
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 8:37, the received text reads “If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest … I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God” and its Authorized Version representation reads “And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” — Acts 8:37”. The assessed critical reading is “the verse is absent from the principal modern critical text”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The card classifies the change as a weakening of explicit biblical testimony, not by itself as a formal denial of the larger doctrine.
Necessary reasoning chain
- At Acts 8:37, the received Hebrew/Greek form is “If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest … I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God”; the Authorized Version represents it as “And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” — Acts 8:37”. The assessed critical form is “the verse is absent from the principal modern critical text”.
- 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 8:37, the received text reads “If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest … I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God” and its Authorized Version representation reads “And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” — Acts 8:37”. The assessed critical reading is “the verse is absent from the principal modern critical text”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The card classifies the change as a weakening of explicit biblical testimony, not by itself as a formal denial of the larger doctrine.
- 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 8:37Current critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
- A List of Omissions and Changes Found in the Critical Text to Verses Used as Proof Texts in the Westminster Standardssupplied PDF pp. 61–62 — Westminster proof-text and translation comparison
- Doctrinally Significant Variants Itemisedsupplied PDF pp. 26–28 — Attributed doctrinal and canonical-coherence argument
Read the full research essay and its sources
Passage: Acts 8:37
Received reading: If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest … I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God
Principal competing reading: the verse is absent from the principal modern critical text
Issue class: Whole-Verse Omission
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
In received form, Luke’s words are represented by “If thou believest
with all thine heart, thou mayest … I believe that Jesus Christ is the
Son of God.” The critical or alternative presentation reads “the verse
is absent from the principal modern critical text.”
“And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou
mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son
of God.” — Acts 8:37
“I Believe That
Jesus Christ Is the Son of God”
Acts 8:37 supplies both Philip’s condition and the eunuch’s
confession before baptism. Its external evidence is mixed and it is
absent from important early Greek copies, yet forms of the confession
are known in early Christian testimony, showing that it is not a
creation of the late printed era.
The omission at Acts 8:37 must be measured by its actual extent: it
changes a stated detail in the episode although broader doctrines may
remain elsewhere, a distinction that neither minimizes the missing words
nor assigns them consequences they cannot carry.
Luke does not leave Acts 8:37 isolated from its setting. Just outside
the selected unit, Acts 8:36 says, “And as they went on their way, they
came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what
doth hinder me to be baptized?” Acts 8:38 says, “And he commanded the
chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both
Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.”
Retain the verse as the received apostolic confession, while keeping
its documentary history open to full Research Center collation.
Sources and further reading
- The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Acts 8:37.
- F. H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek
according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894),
Acts 8:37. - Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Greek New Testament: SBL
Edition, Acts 8:37 and apparatus. - Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New
Testament, discussion at Acts 8:37.
7Related materials
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- Record
- VAR-2234
- 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. Supplied-source audit completed in Core 0.6.3. Accepted local notes were matched by canonical passage and manually bounded; source claims remain attributed where current apparatus verification is pending.
- 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 8:37 — “I Believe That Jesus Christ Is the Son of God”,” VAR-2234, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas