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 clause about spending her whole livelihood on physicians is omitted by some influential early witnesses and by certain critical editions, but retained by the received text and by other modern Greek editions.
Variant class
Omission / addition
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
The woman “had spent all her living upon physicians” and could be healed by none.
Authorized Version
“A woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians.” — Luke 8:43
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 woman had suffered twelve years and could be healed by no one, without the expenditure clause.
Translation or explanation
The woman had suffered twelve years and could be healed by no one, without the expenditure clause.
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 balance of external and internal evidence described in the entry; the printed confidence rating represented here is {D}. 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 Luke 8:43
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 Luke, 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
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 Luke 8:43, 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. Some influential early manuscripts omit the financial clause, and modern editions have not all handled it alike. An omission with an editorial split The clause is absent from the Westcott–Hort line and from some modern translations, while the Nestle-Aland tradition and other editions have retained it.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Luke 8:43 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
Some influential early manuscripts omit the financial clause, and modern editions have not all handled it alike.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
An omission with an editorial split The clause is absent from the Westcott–Hort line and from some modern translations, while the Nestle-Aland tradition and other editions have retained it. A responsible record must name editions or describe the split. Assimilation to Mark can explain addition: the woman’s exhausted resources are memorable in the parallel.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The traditional observation that Luke softens Mark out of professional courtesy depends upon the debated claim that Luke was a physician, but the textual clause itself does not mock medicine. An omission with an editorial split The clause is absent from the Westcott–Hort line and from some modern translations, while the Nestle-Aland tradition and other editions have retained it.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Luke 8:43. 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. Some influential early manuscripts omit the financial clause, and modern editions have not all handled it alike. An omission with an editorial split The clause is absent from the Westcott–Hort line and from some modern translations, while the Nestle-Aland tradition and other editions have retained it.
Conclusion
The healing does not teach that every sick person who remains ill lacks faith. Jesus interprets this woman’s act and publicly calls her “Daughter.” The delay draws a hidden sufferer into peace and restores her socially as well as physically. Jairus must wait while this long affliction receives attention, even as news arrives that his own daughter has died.
“All her living” makes the rescue economically concrete. Chronic illness consumes years and resources, and the Gospel does not romanticize that burden. The woman reaches Christ with nothing to offer as payment. Power goes out from him freely, and the one whom no physician could heal departs whole.
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 Luke 8:43, the received text reads “The woman “had spent all her living upon physicians” and could be healed by none.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “A woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians.” — Luke 8:43”. The assessed critical reading is “The woman had suffered twelve years and could be healed by no one, without the expenditure clause.”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The immediate local effect is exegetical or interpretive; this argument does not claim that a distinct Christian doctrine disappears from the verse.
Necessary reasoning chain
- At Luke 8:43, the received Hebrew/Greek form is “The woman “had spent all her living upon physicians” and could be healed by none.”; the Authorized Version represents it as “A woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians.” — Luke 8:43”. The assessed critical form is “The woman had suffered twelve years and could be healed by no one, without the expenditure clause.”.
- 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 Luke 8:43, the received text reads “The woman “had spent all her living upon physicians” and could be healed by none.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “A woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians.” — Luke 8:43”. The assessed critical reading is “The woman had suffered twelve years and could be healed by no one, without the expenditure clause.”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The immediate local effect is exegetical or interpretive; this argument does not claim that a distinct Christian doctrine disappears from the verse.
- 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: Luke 8:43
Received reading: The woman “had spent all her living upon physicians” and could be healed by none.
Principal competing reading: The woman had suffered twelve years and could be healed by no one, without the expenditure clause.
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“A woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians.” — Luke 8:43
For twelve years the woman has suffered a flow of blood. The received Luke adds that she “had spent all her living upon physicians” and could not be healed by any. Some influential early manuscripts omit the financial clause, and modern editions have not all handled it alike.
Mark’s parallel is even more severe: she suffered many things from many physicians, spent all she had, and became worse. Luke’s wording is restrained. He records the expenditure and failure without saying that doctors harmed her. The traditional observation that Luke softens Mark out of professional courtesy depends upon the debated claim that Luke was a physician, but the textual clause itself does not mock medicine.
An omission with an editorial split
The clause is absent from the Westcott–Hort line and from some modern translations, while the Nestle-Aland tradition and other editions have retained it. That history makes “the critical text omits” too blunt. A responsible record must name editions or describe the split.
Assimilation to Mark can explain addition: the woman’s exhausted resources are memorable in the parallel. Yet the wording is not a slavish copy, and omission also has motives. A scribe could shorten a sentence that appeared unflattering to physicians or lose a phrase between related participial constructions. The story moves smoothly either way.
The received clause belongs. It deepens the woman’s helplessness without treating medical care as faithlessness. She has spent her means and exhausted ordinary remedies; touching Christ is not one more purchased treatment but an appeal born of confidence in his power.
The healing does not teach that every sick person who remains ill lacks faith. Jesus interprets this woman’s act and publicly calls her “Daughter.” The delay draws a hidden sufferer into peace and restores her socially as well as physically. Jairus must wait while this long affliction receives attention, even as news arrives that his own daughter has died.
“All her living” makes the rescue economically concrete. Chronic illness consumes years and resources, and the Gospel does not romanticize that burden. The woman reaches Christ with nothing to offer as payment. Power goes out from him freely, and the one whom no physician could heal departs whole.
Sources and further reading
- Mark 5:25–34; Luke 5:31; 8:40–56; Colossians 4:14.
7Related materials
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- Record
- VAR-2088
- 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 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
- Modern critical editions have differed over the clause; the record should not present all critical texts as one unchanging object.
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, “Luke 8:43 — “Had Spent All Her Living upon Physicians”: Is the Clause Authentic?,” VAR-2088, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas