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 quotation includes leaving parents and cleaving to a wife before the two become one flesh. Some witnesses omit the cleaving clause, and modern editions may bracket it.
Variant class
Punctuation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
“A man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife.”
Authorized Version
“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife.” — Mark 10:7
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
“A man shall leave his father and mother,” passing directly to “and the two shall be one flesh.”
Translation or explanation
“A man shall leave his father and mother,” passing directly to “and the two shall be one flesh.”
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 likelihood that the competing form is a scribal correction or emendation, the likelihood of scribal or liturgical expansion. 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 Mark 10:7
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
Exegetical or interpretive consequence
Exact proposition affected
No single doctrinal proposition is directly changed; the principal consequence is exegetical, historical, or cumulative.
Doctrinal analysis
The clause is not a doctrinal annotation after the fact; it is part of the scriptural premise that explains “no more twain.”
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Mark 10:7, 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. Critical editions have differed between retaining it, bracketing it, and printing a shorter quotation.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Mark 10:7 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: The clause is not a doctrinal annotation after the fact; it is part of the scriptural premise that explains “no more twain.”
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 witnesses omit the middle action. , The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (Cambridge, 1894).
Internal and transcriptional evidence
That makes harmonization the chief argument for omission: a scribe could fill out Mark’s abbreviated citation from either source. Omission can occur between repeated conjunctions, especially in a familiar quotation that a scribe may remember in a shorter form. “Cleave” describes loyal attachment, not the erasure of personality or the permission of abuse.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
In the received text a man leaves father and mother, cleaves to his wife, and the two become one flesh.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Mark 10:7. 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. Critical editions have differed between retaining it, bracketing it, and printing a shorter quotation.
Conclusion
The quotation also illustrates why harmonization must be evaluated carefully. When Jesus cites Genesis, agreement with Genesis is expected; it is not suspicious in the same way as an incidental narrative phrase imported from another Gospel. A copyist can still expand a quotation to its familiar full form, but the author can quote it fully for the very reason a later reader remembers it. Source agreement is evidence with two possible histories.
The received words belong in Mark. Their agreement with Genesis is expected in a quotation, and their removal weakens the grammatical path to “the two.” Jesus’ argument moves through every part of the verse: leaving, cleaving, one flesh, divine joining, and a human prohibition against tearing apart what God has made.
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 Mark 10:7, the received text reads “A man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife.” — Mark 10:7”. The assessed critical reading is “A man shall leave his father and mother,” passing directly to “and the two shall be one flesh.”. 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 Mark 10:7, the received Hebrew/Greek form is “A man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife.”; the Authorized Version represents it as “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife.” — Mark 10:7”. The assessed critical form is “A man shall leave his father and mother,” passing directly to “and the two shall be one flesh.”.
- 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 Mark 10:7, the received text reads “A man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife.” — Mark 10:7”. The assessed critical reading is “A man shall leave his father and mother,” passing directly to “and the two shall be one flesh.”. 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
- Digital ECM — Mark 10:7Current critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
- 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
Read the full research essay and its sources
Passage: Mark 10:7
Received reading: “A man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife.”
Principal competing reading: “A man shall leave his father and mother,” passing directly to “and the two shall be one flesh.”
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife.” — Mark 10:7
Jesus answers the divorce question by returning to creation. In the received text a man leaves father and mother, cleaves to his wife, and the two become one flesh. Some witnesses omit the middle action. Critical editions have differed between retaining it, bracketing it, and printing a shorter quotation.
Genesis 2:24 and Matthew 19:5 contain the cleaving clause. That makes harmonization the chief argument for omission: a scribe could fill out Mark’s abbreviated citation from either source.
The verb between leaving and becoming
Without the clause, “the two” in verse 8 arrives abruptly. The nearest nouns are father and mother, though no reader is likely to misunderstand the final sense. “Cleave to his wife” supplies the wife as the second person and gives the movement its covenantal center.
The sequence is not merely chronological. Marriage establishes a new primary human bond: departure from one household, committed attachment to a spouse, and bodily union. Jesus grounds his prohibition of casual divorce in that created action of God.
Omission can occur between repeated conjunctions, especially in a familiar quotation that a scribe may remember in a shorter form. Conversely, the full Genesis wording could certainly be restored by memory. Internal evidence is closely balanced because both mechanisms are ordinary.
External support and sense favor retention. The clause is not a doctrinal annotation after the fact; it is part of the scriptural premise that explains “no more twain.” Mark’s quotation may be full because Jesus cited the creation text fully.
“Cleave” describes loyal attachment, not the erasure of personality or the permission of abuse. The following command binds husband and wife under God’s joining; it does not authorize sin by either party. Questions about exceptional cases must be answered from the whole counsel of Scripture, not by deleting the creation norm.
The quotation also illustrates why harmonization must be evaluated carefully. When Jesus cites Genesis, agreement with Genesis is expected; it is not suspicious in the same way as an incidental narrative phrase imported from another Gospel. A copyist can still expand a quotation to its familiar full form, but the author can quote it fully for the very reason a later reader remembers it. Source agreement is evidence with two possible histories.
The received words belong in Mark. Their agreement with Genesis is expected in a quotation, and their removal weakens the grammatical path to “the two.” Jesus’ argument moves through every part of the verse: leaving, cleaving, one flesh, divine joining, and a human prohibition against tearing apart what God has made.
Sources and further reading
- F. H. A. Scrivener, ed., The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (Cambridge, 1894).
- Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition (Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010), text and apparatus.
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed., notes on the stated passage.
- Genesis 2:18–24; Matthew 19:3–9; Mark 10:2–12; Ephesians 5:22–33.
7Related materials
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- Record
- VAR-2036
- 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 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.
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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, “Mark 10:7 — “And Cleave to His Wife”: The Full Marriage Citation,” VAR-2036, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas