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 received and principal critical texts agree on the passed Sabbath, the three women, and their purchase of spices. A narrow Western stream simplifies the names or timing.
Variant class
Omission / addition
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
“When the sabbath was past,” followed by Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome buying spices.
Authorized Version
“When the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices.” — Mark 16:1
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
Minor shortened forms omitting two names, the passing of the Sabbath, or adjusting the purchase to harmonize the timing with Luke.
Translation or explanation
Minor shortened forms omitting two names, the passing of the Sabbath, or adjusting the purchase to harmonize the timing with Luke.
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 likelihood that the competing form is a scribal correction or emendation, authorial usage, grammar, or immediate context; 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 16:1
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
Weakening of explicit biblical testimony
Exact proposition affected
The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Doctrinal analysis
— Mark 16:1 Mark’s resurrection chapter begins with time, names, and purpose: the Sabbath had passed; Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices to anoint Jesus. The spices show that the women did not approach expecting resurrection.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Mark 16:1, 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 Textus Receptus and the principal critical text agree on that full opening.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Mark 16:1 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
Weakening of explicit biblical testimony: — Mark 16:1 Mark’s resurrection chapter begins with time, names, and purpose: the Sabbath had passed; Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices to anoint Jesus. The spices show that the women did not approach expecting resurrection.
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
Witnesses carried across the chapter break Modern chapter numbers can hide Mark’s continuity. Omitting the names creates a smoother pronoun-based narrative but weakens that witness chain. Shortening verse 1 to previously named women flattens that carefully staggered witness pattern.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
Principal competing reading: Minor shortened forms omitting two names, the passing of the Sabbath, or adjusting the purchase to harmonize the timing with Luke. Salome’s addition to the two Marys also matters for source memory. The minor shortenings are useful evidence about harmonization and narrative economy, but they do not displace the received opening.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The Textus Receptus and the principal critical text agree on that full opening.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Mark 16:1. 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 Textus Receptus and the principal critical text agree on that full opening.
Conclusion
Salome’s addition to the two Marys also matters for source memory. Mark named the same three women near the cross in 15:40, then two at the burial, then all three at the tomb. The changing list follows who remains in view at each stage rather than a mechanical formula. Shortening verse 1 to previously named women flattens that carefully staggered witness pattern.
Keep the full first verse. Its temporal marker respects Sabbath rest; its names link burial to discovery; its spices establish the women’s expectation. The minor shortenings are useful evidence about harmonization and narrative economy, but they do not displace the received opening. Mark reaches the tomb through known witnesses, not through an anonymous legend.
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 16:1 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 16:1Current 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 16:1
Received reading: “When the sabbath was past,” followed by Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome buying spices.
Principal competing reading: Minor shortened forms omitting two names, the passing of the Sabbath, or adjusting the purchase to harmonize the timing with Luke.
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“When the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices.” — Mark 16:1
Mark’s resurrection chapter begins with time, names, and purpose: the Sabbath had passed; Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices to anoint Jesus. The Textus Receptus and the principal critical text agree on that full opening.
A narrow Western line simplifies the women because two were named at 15:47. Related forms omit the Sabbath transition, allowing the spices to be obtained earlier and bringing Mark’s chronology closer to Luke 23:56.
Witnesses carried across the chapter break
Modern chapter numbers can hide Mark’s continuity. The two Marys watch where Joseph lays the body. After the Sabbath, they return with Salome. Repetition of their names is not clumsy; it establishes identity across burial and empty tomb. These women know the place because they saw it.
Omitting the names creates a smoother pronoun-based narrative but weakens that witness chain. Omitting the Sabbath phrase solves a perceived Synoptic timing problem by changing Mark rather than asking how purchases and preparations could occur at more than one point or how each evangelist selects details.
The spices show that the women did not approach expecting resurrection. Their intended act honors a corpse. This makes their later fear and astonishment historically intelligible: the open tomb does not confirm their plan but overturns it.
The broad agreement should also govern discussion of the last twelve verses. Textual uncertainty after verse 8 does not begin with a chaotic chapter. Verses 1–8 have a strongly transmitted narrative, and Mary Magdalene is named here before she is named again in verse 9. Reidentification can mark a new episode rather than prove a foreign author.
Salome’s addition to the two Marys also matters for source memory. Mark named the same three women near the cross in 15:40, then two at the burial, then all three at the tomb. The changing list follows who remains in view at each stage rather than a mechanical formula. Shortening verse 1 to previously named women flattens that carefully staggered witness pattern.
Keep the full first verse. Its temporal marker respects Sabbath rest; its names link burial to discovery; its spices establish the women’s expectation. The minor shortenings are useful evidence about harmonization and narrative economy, but they do not displace the received opening. Mark reaches the tomb through known witnesses, not through an anonymous legend.
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 15:40–47; 16:1–8; Matthew 27:55–28:10; Luke 23:50–24:12; John 19:38–20:18.
7Related materials
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- Record
- VAR-2050
- 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 16:1 — When the Sabbath Was Past: The Women, the Spices, and the Opening of the Resurrection Account,” VAR-2050, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas