Complete textual-variant dossier
No adverse entailment · agrees with the received text
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
The received and principal critical texts both use a plural verb referring to believers, while an ancient singular form turns the sentence toward Christ’s birth.
Variant class
Substitution or composite variation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
“Which were born … of God,” with a plural relative pronoun and verb.
Authorized Version
“Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
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
An ancient minority form reads, “who was born … of God,” in the singular.
Translation or explanation
An ancient minority form reads, “who was born … of God,” in the singular.
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, a proposed mechanism of accidental omission, the comparative difficulty of the readings; 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 John 1:13
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
UBS6 retains the NA28 / UBS5 Greek main-text wording in John, so no main-text change is shown for this passage. The separate project ledger covers Acts, Mark, and Revelation.
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 virginal conception and birth of Jesus Christ.
Doctrinal analysis
That form was known in early Christian discussion and has sometimes been understood as a reference to the virgin birth of Christ. The singular is also more readily explained as a christological adaptation.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At John 1:13, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. Scrivener’s text and the principal modern critical editions agree on the plural: οἳ … ἐγεννήθησαν, “who were born.” This is therefore an agreement case between the received text and the leading critical editions.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at John 1:13 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: That form was known in early Christian discussion and has sometimes been understood as a reference to the virgin birth of Christ. The singular is also more readily explained as a christological adaptation.
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
Principal competing reading: An ancient minority form reads, “who was born … of God,” in the singular. An ancient singular reading changes both pronoun and verb: “who was born.” The plural reading should not be surrendered, and the ancient singular should not be advertised as though it were their present alternative.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
Context nevertheless favors the plural decisively. The singular interrupts that grammar and shifts without warning from the new birth of believers to the nativity of the Word, even though the incarnation receives its own explicit statement in verse 14.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
This is therefore an agreement case between the received text and the leading critical editions.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at John 1:13. 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
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. Scrivener’s text and the principal modern critical editions agree on the plural: οἳ … ἐγεννήθησαν, “who were born.” This is therefore an agreement case between the received text and the leading critical editions.
Conclusion
The singular is also more readily explained as a christological adaptation. A reader who heard “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh” could apply the language to Christ’s supernatural conception and alter the number accordingly. The reverse change would erase an attractive proof without any obvious grammatical pressure.
This is therefore an agreement case between the received text and the leading critical editions. The plural reading should not be surrendered, and the ancient singular should not be advertised as though it were their present alternative. Verse 13 teaches regeneration; verse 14 announces the incarnation.
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.
No adverse entailment: agrees with the received text.
Necessary reasoning chain
- The current critical main-text reading assessed at John 1:13 agrees with the received Hebrew/Greek reading at the variation unit governed by this card.
- An adverse preservation entailment at this locus would require the current critical form to displace a different received reading.
- Because no such displacement occurs at the assessed locus, no adverse preservation consequence follows here.
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
- 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
- INTF — Online Tools for the ECMCurrent critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
Read the full research essay and its sources
Passage: John 1:13
Received reading: “Which were born … of God,” with a plural relative pronoun and verb.
Principal competing reading: An ancient minority form reads, “who was born … of God,” in the singular.
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
John has just spoken of those who received the Word and were given
authority to become the sons of God. Verse 13 continues:
“Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of
the will of man, but of God.”
Scrivener’s text and the principal modern critical editions agree on
the plural: οἳ … ἐγεννήθησαν, “who were born.” The antecedent
is the believers of verse 12. Their new birth does not arise from
ancestry, sexual desire, or a husband’s decision. It is from God.
An ancient singular reading changes both pronoun and verb: “who was
born.” That form was known in early Christian discussion and has
sometimes been understood as a reference to the virgin birth of Christ.
Its antiquity matters. It proves that the variation is not merely a
medieval mistake, and it deserves a place in a complete dossier.
Context nevertheless favors the plural decisively. John 1:12
introduces “as many as received him” and “them that believe on his
name.” A plural relative clause explains how these people became God’s
children. The singular interrupts that grammar and shifts without
warning from the new birth of believers to the nativity of the Word,
even though the incarnation receives its own explicit statement in verse
14.
The singular is also more readily explained as a christological
adaptation. A reader who heard “not of blood, nor of the will of the
flesh” could apply the language to Christ’s supernatural conception and
alter the number accordingly. The reverse change would erase an
attractive proof without any obvious grammatical pressure.
This is therefore an agreement case between the received text and the
leading critical editions. The plural reading should not be surrendered,
and the ancient singular should not be advertised as though it were
their present alternative. Verse 13 teaches regeneration; verse 14
announces the incarnation.
Sources and further reading
- John 1:11–14; 3:3–8; 1 John 3:9; 5:1.
- Scrivener, New Testament in the Original Greek, John
1:13. - SBLGNT, John 1:13 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-2132
- 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, principal readings, and stated editorial comparison checked against Scrivener’s received Greek text and the current SBLGNT text and 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. Biblical readings are short scholarly quotations; cited editions and digital witnesses retain their stated rights and access conditions.
- Known limitations
- This staging record summarizes the principal variation unit and representative evidence. It is not a fresh collation of every extant manuscript, version, lectionary, or patristic citation.
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, “John 1:13 — “Which Were Born” or “Who Was Born”? Regeneration and an Ancient Christological Reading,” VAR-2132, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas