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 principal Greek texts agree that Christ has a testimony greater than John’s and that the Father-given works bear that testimony.
Variant class
Omission / addition
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
“I have greater witness than that of John: for the works … bear witness of me.”
Authorized Version
“I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given me to finish … bear witness of me.” — John 5:36
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
Some interpretation and translation recast the phrase as though the works themselves were simply called greater.
Translation or explanation
Some interpretation and translation recast the phrase as though the works themselves were simply called greater.
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. 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 5:36
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
Exegetical or interpretive consequence
Exact proposition affected
No single doctrinal proposition is directly changed; the principal consequence is exegetical, historical, or cumulative.
Doctrinal analysis
A paraphrase can be theologically sound while still failing to identify the textual wording.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At John 5:36, 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. Here the received and leading critical forms substantially agree.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at John 5:36 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: A paraphrase can be theologically sound while still failing to identify the textual wording.
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
Passage: John 5:36 Received reading: “I have greater witness than that of John: for the works … bear witness of me.” “I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given me to finish … bear witness of me.” — John 5:36 “Greater witness” and “greater works” are not the adopted readings of two rival Greek editions.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
Other grammatical forms in the manuscript tradition also show that scribes wrestled with agreement and construction. A translation question must not be reported as an omission, and an interpretive gloss must not be promoted to a competing Greek text.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
Other grammatical forms in the manuscript tradition also show that scribes wrestled with agreement and construction.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at John 5:36. 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. Here the received and leading critical forms substantially agree.
Conclusion
This distinction matters for disciplined variant study. A translation question must not be reported as an omission, and an interpretive gloss must not be promoted to a competing Greek text. Here the received and leading critical forms substantially agree. The Authorized Version renders the syntax well and then allows the next clause to explain it.
The correct disposition is therefore not a dramatic verdict between “witness” and “works.” Retain “greater witness,” read the works as the Father’s confirming signs, and record minor grammatical variants in the apparatus at their proper scale.
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 5:36 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 5:36
Received reading: “I have greater witness than that of John: for the works … bear witness of me.”
Principal competing reading: Some interpretation and translation recast the phrase as though the works themselves were simply called greater.
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the
Father hath given me to finish … bear witness of me.” — John 5:36
“Greater witness” and “greater works” are not the adopted readings of
two rival Greek editions. Scrivener and the SBLGNT both place “greater”
with μαρτυρίαν, testimony or witness. The works enter in the
following explanation: they are the deeds the Father gave the Son to
complete, and those deeds testify that the Father sent him.
The confusion grows from the sentence’s logic. Since the works are
the content of the greater testimony, an expositor may paraphrase,
“Christ has greater works.” Other grammatical forms in the manuscript
tradition also show that scribes wrestled with agreement and
construction. A paraphrase can be theologically sound while still
failing to identify the textual wording.
John has arranged a sequence of witnesses: John the Baptist, the
works, the Father, and the Scriptures. Christ does not despise John’s
testimony; he says that his own witness is greater than John’s. The word
testimony keeps the judicial theme intact, while the works
specify one way that superior witness is publicly given.
This distinction matters for disciplined variant study. A translation
question must not be reported as an omission, and an interpretive gloss
must not be promoted to a competing Greek text. Here the received and
leading critical forms substantially agree. The Authorized Version
renders the syntax well and then allows the next clause to explain
it.
The correct disposition is therefore not a dramatic verdict between
“witness” and “works.” Retain “greater witness,” read the works as the
Father’s confirming signs, and record minor grammatical variants in the
apparatus at their proper scale.
Sources and further reading
- John 5:31–47; 10:25, 37–38.
- Scrivener and SBLGNT at John 5:36.
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-2145
- 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 5:36 — “Greater Witness” or “Greater Works”? The Evidence Christ Cites,” VAR-2145, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas