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 main received and critical texts warn against the leaven of Herod. Some witnesses substitute “the Herodians,” probably recalling the political group named elsewhere in Mark.
Variant class
Substitution or composite variation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
“The leaven of Herod” (τῆς ζύμης Ἡρῴδου).
Authorized Version
“Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod.” — Mark 8:15
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 leaven of the Herodians,” with minor variants that make the warning refer to the party rather than the ruler.
Translation or explanation
“The leaven of the Herodians,” with minor variants that make the warning refer to the party rather than the ruler.
Metzger’s report of the UBS committee
Metzger reports the UBS4 committee's treatment of 2 variation units within this record's range. The notes ground the relevant decisions in scribal harmonization to a parallel passage; the printed confidence ratings represented here are {C}, {A}. This is a controlled synopsis rather than a quotation.
Locator: Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed., notes on Mark 8:15, 8:15
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 disciples need discernment not merely about formal doctrines but about the moral atmosphere in which power protects itself from repentance.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Mark 8:15, 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. The textual agreement also corrects a common habit in popular defenses: treating every Markan issue as Received Text versus modern criticism.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Mark 8:15 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 disciples need discernment not merely about formal doctrines but about the moral atmosphere in which power protects itself from repentance.
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 replace the ruler with “the Herodians,” a party Mark has already named in alliance with the Pharisees. , The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (Cambridge, 1894).
Internal and transcriptional evidence
A copyist meeting “Pharisees” in 8:15 could complete the familiar pair from memory. A scribe would gain little by breaking the well-known pair, while the ruler’s name may appear abrupt beside a religious group.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The Textus Receptus and the principal critical text agree. The textual agreement also corrects a common habit in popular defenses: treating every Markan issue as Received Text versus modern criticism. Both printed traditions preserve the more pointed warning against Herod.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Mark 8:15. 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. The textual agreement also corrects a common habit in popular defenses: treating every Markan issue as Received Text versus modern criticism.
Conclusion
Herod’s leaven also prepares readers to understand political pressure during the passion. A court can hear a righteous man gladly and still kill him to save face. The Pharisees’ demand for a sign and Herod’s appetite for spectacle meet in Luke’s passion narrative, even though Mark keeps the two leavens distinct here. The singular ruler carries a pattern larger than his personal conduct.
Keep the singular name. Jesus directs attention beyond an organized faction to the courtly pattern concentrated in its head. One ruler’s compromise can ferment through counselors, soldiers, clients, and subjects. The disciples need discernment not merely about formal doctrines but about the moral atmosphere in which power protects itself from repentance.
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 8:15 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 8:15Current 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 8:15
Received reading: “The leaven of Herod” (τῆς ζύμης Ἡρῴδου).
Principal competing reading: “The leaven of the Herodians,” with minor variants that make the warning refer to the party rather than the ruler.
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod.” — Mark 8:15
In the boat Jesus warns against two leavens: that of the Pharisees and that of Herod. The Textus Receptus and the principal critical text agree. Some witnesses replace the ruler with “the Herodians,” a party Mark has already named in alliance with the Pharisees.
That substitution is easy to understand. Mark 3:6 says Pharisees and Herodians plotted together; 12:13 brings the same coalition to trap Jesus. A copyist meeting “Pharisees” in 8:15 could complete the familiar pair from memory.
A man who embodies a court
“Herod” is not less meaningful because “Herodians” sounds politically balanced. The ruler himself represents a corrupting influence: fear mixed with superstition, fascination without repentance, sexual lawlessness, and the sacrifice of truth to public honor. Chapter 6 has just shown his leaven at work in a court.
The disciples think Jesus is talking about literal bread. He is warning that teaching and moral disposition spread invisibly through a community. Pharisaic sign-seeking and Herodian worldliness differ, but both resist the revelation already given in Christ.
A change from Herodians to Herod is harder to explain. A scribe would gain little by breaking the well-known pair, while the ruler’s name may appear abrupt beside a religious group. The shorter personal designation is therefore the form that best accounts for expansion into the party name.
The textual agreement also corrects a common habit in popular defenses: treating every Markan issue as Received Text versus modern criticism. Here the decisive alternatives cut across that map. Both printed traditions preserve the more pointed warning against Herod.
Herod’s leaven also prepares readers to understand political pressure during the passion. A court can hear a righteous man gladly and still kill him to save face. The Pharisees’ demand for a sign and Herod’s appetite for spectacle meet in Luke’s passion narrative, even though Mark keeps the two leavens distinct here. The singular ruler carries a pattern larger than his personal conduct.
Keep the singular name. Jesus directs attention beyond an organized faction to the courtly pattern concentrated in its head. One ruler’s compromise can ferment through counselors, soldiers, clients, and subjects. The disciples need discernment not merely about formal doctrines but about the moral atmosphere in which power protects itself from repentance.
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 3:6; 6:14–29; 8:11–21; 12:13.
7Related materials
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- Record
- VAR-2027
- 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 8:15 — The Leaven of Herod or the Leaven of the Herodians?,” VAR-2027, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas