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
The received preposition pictures the Spirit guiding the apostles into all truth; the critical form describes his guidance within the whole sphere of truth.
Variant class
Omission / addition
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
“He will guide you into all truth.”
Authorized Version
The Authorized Version rendering has not yet been entered in the structured field.
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
“He will guide you in all the truth.”
Translation or explanation
“He will guide you in all the truth.”
Metzger’s report of the 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 the balance of external and internal evidence described in the entry; 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., notes on John 16:13, 16:13
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 bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Doctrinal analysis
After his death, resurrection, and exaltation, the Spirit will bring them into the fuller understanding necessary for their witness.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At John 16:13, 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. A scribe may conform the phrase to familiar verbs of guiding “into” a way; another may prefer the idiom of walking or operating “in” truth. The critical text also varies nearby future and conditional verb forms, reminding us that the sentence has more than one apparatus unit.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at John 16:13 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: After his death, resurrection, and exaltation, the Spirit will bring them into the fuller understanding necessary for their witness.
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
After his death, resurrection, and exaltation, the Spirit will bring them into the fuller understanding necessary for their witness. The church receives the benefit through that inspired witness, but the immediate “you” belongs to the men whom Jesus appointed to remember and declare his words.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
A scribe may conform the phrase to familiar verbs of guiding “into” a way; another may prefer the idiom of walking or operating “in” truth.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The received text uses eis, marking direction into the truth. The church receives the benefit through that inspired witness, but the immediate “you” belongs to the men whom Jesus appointed to remember and declare his words.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at John 16:13. 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. A scribe may conform the phrase to familiar verbs of guiding “into” a way; another may prefer the idiom of walking or operating “in” truth. The critical text also varies nearby future and conditional verb forms, reminding us that the sentence has more than one apparatus unit.
Conclusion
The prepositions are short, common, and easily interchanged. A scribe may conform the phrase to familiar verbs of guiding “into” a way; another may prefer the idiom of walking or operating “in” truth. The critical text also varies nearby future and conditional verb forms, reminding us that the sentence has more than one apparatus unit.
The received reading is vivid, well established, and consonant with the movement from limited present capacity to Spirit-given apostolic testimony. It should remain. The church receives the benefit through that inspired witness, but the immediate “you” belongs to the men whom Jesus appointed to remember and declare his words.
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.
Status: Established
Immediate textual or doctrinal consequence
At John 16:13, the received text reads “He will guide you into all truth.” and its Authorized Version representation reads . The assessed critical reading is “He will guide you in all the truth.”. 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 John 16:13, the received Hebrew/Greek form is “He will guide you into all truth.”; the Authorized Version represents it as . The assessed critical form is “He will guide you in all the truth.”.
- 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 John 16:13, the received text reads “He will guide you into all truth.” and its Authorized Version representation reads . The assessed critical reading is “He will guide you in all the truth.”. 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
- 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 16:13
Received reading: “He will guide you into all truth.”
Principal competing reading: “He will guide you in all the truth.”
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
The promised guide is personal: “when he, the Spirit of truth, is
come, he will guide you into all truth.” The received text uses
eis, marking direction into the truth. The SBLGNT has
en, locating the guidance in or within all the truth.
English can make the difference sound larger than it is. Both
constructions present truth as the realm governed by the Spirit, and
both continue with his hearing, speaking, and announcing of things to
come. The Spirit does not originate a competing message “of himself”; he
glorifies Christ by receiving what belongs to Christ and showing it to
the apostles.
“Into” suits the unfolding situation. The disciples cannot yet bear
everything Jesus has to say. After his death, resurrection, and
exaltation, the Spirit will bring them into the fuller understanding
necessary for their witness. “In” emphasizes guidance that never departs
from truth. Neither form promises omniscience to every individual
Christian or makes every private impression infallible.
The prepositions are short, common, and easily interchanged. A scribe
may conform the phrase to familiar verbs of guiding “into” a way;
another may prefer the idiom of walking or operating “in” truth. The
critical text also varies nearby future and conditional verb forms,
reminding us that the sentence has more than one apparatus unit.
The received reading is vivid, well established, and consonant with
the movement from limited present capacity to Spirit-given apostolic
testimony. It should remain. The church receives the benefit through
that inspired witness, but the immediate “you” belongs to the men whom
Jesus appointed to remember and declare his words.
Sources and further reading
- John 14:16–17, 26; 15:26–27; 16:7–15; 17:17.
- Scrivener, John 16:13.
- SBLGNT text and apparatus at John 16:13.
7Related materials
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- Record
- VAR-2191
- 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 16:13 — “Guide You into All Truth” or “in All Truth”?,” VAR-2191, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas