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 text is stable: “have faith of God.” The issue is how the genitive functions. In context it is an objective genitive, idiomatically rendered “have faith in God.”
Variant class
Punctuation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
“Have faith in God” (ἔχετε πίστιν θεοῦ), taking “God” as the object of faith.
Authorized Version
“And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.” — Mark 11:22
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
Interpretations such as “have God’s faith” or “have the faithfulness of God”; a conditional textual variant also occurs in a limited stream.
Translation or explanation
Interpretations such as “have God’s faith” or “have the faithfulness of God”; a conditional textual variant also occurs in a limited stream.
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 {B}. 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 11:22
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 controversy is grammatical and theological: does the genitive identify the object of faith, or does it mean that disciples possess God’s own faith?
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Mark 11:22, 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. — Mark 11:22 The Greek words behind “Have faith in God” are not divided between the Textus Receptus and modern critical editions.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Mark 11:22 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 controversy is grammatical and theological: does the genitive identify the object of faith, or does it mean that disciples possess God’s own faith?
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
The Authorized Version gives the right English sense. , The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (Cambridge, 1894).
Internal and transcriptional evidence
Calling the phrase an objective genitive is not an evasion invented to suppress a more powerful translation; it is ordinary syntax confirmed by the context.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
— Mark 11:22 The Greek words behind “Have faith in God” are not divided between the Textus Receptus and modern critical editions. That form does not overturn the main reading and is absent from both principal printed traditions.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Mark 11:22. 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. — Mark 11:22 The Greek words behind “Have faith in God” are not divided between the Textus Receptus and modern critical editions.
Conclusion
Some teachers render the phrase “have the God-kind of faith,” making divine faith a substance that believers wield. That expression has no grammatical necessity and sits poorly with monotheistic dependence. God speaks with sovereign efficacy because he is God; disciples pray as creatures. The genitive does not collapse that distinction. Faith’s power lies in its object, not in a quality that turns the believer into a smaller creator.
The Authorized Version gives the right English sense. Calling the phrase an objective genitive is not an evasion invented to suppress a more powerful translation; it is ordinary syntax confirmed by the context. The text summons believers away from confidence in visible conditions and toward the God whose will, power, and covenant promise make faithful prayer possible.
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 Mark 11:22 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
- Digital ECM — Mark 11:22Current 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 11:22
Received reading: “Have faith in God” (ἔχετε πίστιν θεοῦ), taking “God” as the object of faith.
Principal competing reading: Interpretations such as “have God’s faith” or “have the faithfulness of God”; a conditional textual variant also occurs in a limited stream.
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.” — Mark 11:22
The Greek words behind “Have faith in God” are not divided between the Textus Receptus and modern critical editions. Both read echete pistin theou, literally, “have faith of God.” The controversy is grammatical and theological: does the genitive identify the object of faith, or does it mean that disciples possess God’s own faith?
Greek regularly uses a genitive after nouns of action to name their object. “Love of God” can mean love directed toward God; “fear of the Lord” means fear whose object is the Lord. “Faith of God” can therefore be idiomatic Greek for faith in God.
The fig tree does not supply divine faith
Peter has noticed the withered tree. Jesus redirects attention from the disciples’ amazement at power to trust in God. The following promise speaks of praying, believing, and forgiving. God is the one trusted and addressed, not a reservoir of metaphysical force transferred into speech.
The command “have” also resists the claim that the phrase must denote God’s subjective faithfulness. Disciples can rely on divine fidelity, but they are told to exercise faith. Scripture does not ordinarily present God as believing in an object beyond himself. His faithfulness is perfect; faith as creaturely reliance belongs to those who depend on him.
A limited variant introduces the sentence with “if,” possibly under influence from Luke 17:6. That form does not overturn the main reading and is absent from both principal printed traditions.
“Have faith in God” must not be converted into a guarantee that spoken desires alter creation at will. Jesus’ mountain language is prophetic and prayerful. Verse 24 locates receiving within petitions, and verse 25 immediately binds prayer to forgiveness. Faith does not make the disciple sovereign.
Some teachers render the phrase “have the God-kind of faith,” making divine faith a substance that believers wield. That expression has no grammatical necessity and sits poorly with monotheistic dependence. God speaks with sovereign efficacy because he is God; disciples pray as creatures. The genitive does not collapse that distinction. Faith’s power lies in its object, not in a quality that turns the believer into a smaller creator.
The Authorized Version gives the right English sense. Calling the phrase an objective genitive is not an evasion invented to suppress a more powerful translation; it is ordinary syntax confirmed by the context. The text summons believers away from confidence in visible conditions and toward the God whose will, power, and covenant promise make faithful prayer possible.
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.
- Mark 11:12–26; Luke 17:5–6; Romans 3:22; Galatians 2:16.
7Related materials
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- Record
- VAR-2039
- 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 record chiefly concerns syntax and translation. The principal Greek wording is shared by the received and critical texts.
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, “Mark 11:22 — “Have Faith in God”: Objective Genitive, Subjective Genitive, or a False Dilemma?,” VAR-2039, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas