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 text balances the command to forgive with a negative warning. The critical text omits the entire verse, usually treating it as assimilation to Matthew 6:15.
Variant class
Punctuation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
The full verse warning that an unforgiving disciple will not be forgiven by the heavenly Father.
Authorized Version
“But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” — Mark 11:26
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
Omission of Mark 11:26.
Translation or explanation
Omission of Mark 11:26.
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, a proposed mechanism of accidental omission; the printed confidence rating represented here is {A}. 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 11:26
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
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 Mark 11:26, 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. The critical text omits the whole verse. Critics therefore regard Mark 11:26 as a harmonizing addition.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Mark 11:26 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
, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (Cambridge, 1894).
Internal and transcriptional evidence
Principal competing reading: Omission of Mark 11:26. Critics therefore regard Mark 11:26 as a harmonizing addition. A copyist could easily remember the negative half of Matthew’s balanced saying and place it after Mark’s positive half.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The received text adds the negative counterpart: “If ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” Nor does forgiveness erase justice, abolish church discipline, or require immediate restoration of trust.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Mark 11:26. 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. The critical text omits the whole verse. Critics therefore regard Mark 11:26 as a harmonizing addition.
Conclusion
The repeated ending “your trespasses” gives the omission theory a concrete scribal mechanism stronger than a generalized claim that hard warnings were disliked. Continuous-text copying makes identical phrase endings especially hazardous. This does not prove that every repeated clause is original, but it turns the received verse from an unexplained Synoptic expansion into a unit whose absence could arise in a single ordinary glance.
The received verse deserves retention. Its agreement with Matthew can arise because Jesus gave the same warning in more than one setting, and its loss is mechanically credible. Without it, Mark still teaches the substance positively. With it, Christ refuses the loophole by which a hearer might admire forgiveness while quietly reserving the right never to practice it.
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 Mark 11:26, the received text reads “The full verse warning that an unforgiving disciple will not be forgiven by the heavenly Father.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” — Mark 11:26”. The assessed critical reading is “Omission of Mark 11:26.”. 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 11:26, the received Hebrew/Greek form is “The full verse warning that an unforgiving disciple will not be forgiven by the heavenly Father.”; the Authorized Version represents it as “But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” — Mark 11:26”. The assessed critical form is “Omission of Mark 11:26.”.
- 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 11:26, the received text reads “The full verse warning that an unforgiving disciple will not be forgiven by the heavenly Father.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” — Mark 11:26”. The assessed critical reading is “Omission of Mark 11:26.”. 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 11:26Current 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 11:26
Received reading: The full verse warning that an unforgiving disciple will not be forgiven by the heavenly Father.
Principal competing reading: Omission of Mark 11:26.
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” — Mark 11:26
Verse 25 commands disciples to forgive when they stand praying so that the Father may forgive them. The received text adds the negative counterpart: “If ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” The critical text omits the whole verse.
Matthew 6:15 contains nearly the same warning after the Lord’s Prayer. Critics therefore regard Mark 11:26 as a harmonizing addition. A copyist could easily remember the negative half of Matthew’s balanced saying and place it after Mark’s positive half.
The balance is already Mark’s concern
Mark’s verse 25 is conditional: forgive, so that your Father may forgive. Verse 26 does not introduce an unrelated maxim. It states the consequence implicit in that condition. Positive command and negative warning form a natural pair in wisdom and covenant speech.
Omission can happen because verse 25 already reaches a complete conclusion with “your trespasses.” Verse 26 ends with nearly the same words. The repeated reference to the Father in heaven and to trespasses creates a classic eye-skip: the copyist’s attention can move from the first ending to the second and leave out the intervening sentence.
The warning does not teach that human forgiveness earns justification. Jesus addresses disciples who call God their Father. Refusal to forgive exposes a heart at odds with the mercy it claims and brings paternal judgment; it cannot be used as a commercial payment for grace.
Nor does forgiveness erase justice, abolish church discipline, or require immediate restoration of trust. It relinquishes personal vengeance and stands ready for reconciliation under truth. The context is prayer: resentment carried deliberately into God’s presence contradicts dependence on his pardon.
The repeated ending “your trespasses” gives the omission theory a concrete scribal mechanism stronger than a generalized claim that hard warnings were disliked. Continuous-text copying makes identical phrase endings especially hazardous. This does not prove that every repeated clause is original, but it turns the received verse from an unexplained Synoptic expansion into a unit whose absence could arise in a single ordinary glance.
The received verse deserves retention. Its agreement with Matthew can arise because Jesus gave the same warning in more than one setting, and its loss is mechanically credible. Without it, Mark still teaches the substance positively. With it, Christ refuses the loophole by which a hearer might admire forgiveness while quietly reserving the right never to practice it.
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.
- Matthew 6:9–15; 18:21–35; Mark 11:20–26; Ephesians 4:31–32.
7Related materials
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- Record
- VAR-2041
- 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.
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 11:26 — “Neither Will Your Father Which Is in Heaven Forgive Your Trespasses”,” VAR-2041, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas