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
> “And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon.”
Variant class
Omission / addition
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
The exact TR reading has not yet been entered in the structured field.
Authorized Version
“And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon.” — Matthew 1:11
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
The Textus Receptus and the leading modern critical text both omit that line.
Translation or explanation
The Textus Receptus and the leading modern critical text both omit that line.
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, scribal harmonization to a parallel passage, the likelihood of scribal or liturgical expansion; 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 Matthew 1:11
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
UBS6 retains the NA28 / UBS5 Greek main-text wording in Matthew, so no main-text change is shown for this passage. The separate project ledger covers Acts, Mark, and Revelation.
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
No meaningful doctrinal effect
Exact proposition affected
The triune identity of the Father, the Son/Word, and the Holy Ghost.
Doctrinal analysis
No doctrine of inspiration requires every biblical genealogy to contain every name. Inspiration requires us to read the form the author gave.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Matthew 1:11, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. The Textus Receptus and the leading modern critical text both omit that line. Both the received and critical texts are right to resist the expansion. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Matthew 1:11 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
No meaningful doctrinal effect: No doctrine of inspiration requires every biblical genealogy to contain every name. Inspiration requires us to read the form the author gave.
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 manuscripts therefore add a line: Josiah begat Jehoiakim, and Jehoiakim begat Jeconiah. Jehoiakim is omitted from Matthew’s list by Matthew; the longer manuscript reading adds him back. It requires us to hear each book’s true witness within the whole.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
The omission belongs to the Evangelist’s design, while the addition tells us how readily a well-informed reader can improve a text away from its chosen shape. There is also a difference between an omission in transmission and omission by an author. A copyist’s accidental loss deprives a later copy of words its author wrote.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The Textus Receptus and the leading modern critical text both omit that line.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Matthew 1:11. 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
The Textus Receptus and the leading modern critical text both omit that line. Both the received and critical texts are right to resist the expansion. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.
Conclusion
There is also a difference between an omission in transmission and omission by an author. A copyist’s accidental loss deprives a later copy of words its author wrote. Matthew’s deliberate telescoping is part of what he wrote. Calling both acts “omission” without naming the agent creates confusion. Jehoiakim is omitted from Matthew’s list by Matthew; the longer manuscript reading adds him back.
That distinction protects ordinary Bible reading. The Old Testament gives the full royal history. The Gospel gives a shaped legal genealogy. Canonical harmony does not require one inspired book to repeat the form of another. It requires us to hear each book’s true witness within the whole.
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.
No adverse entailment: agrees with the received text.
Necessary reasoning chain
- The current critical main-text reading assessed at Matthew 1:11 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
- 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
- INTF — Online Tools for the ECMCurrent critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
- German Bible Society — Interview with Hugh HoughtonCurrent critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
Read the full research essay and its sources
“And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon.” — Matthew 1:11
Josiah did not directly father Jeconiah. Jehoiakim stands between them in the Old Testament history. Some manuscripts therefore add a line: Josiah begat Jehoiakim, and Jehoiakim begat Jeconiah. The Textus Receptus and the leading modern critical text both omit that line.
The shorter reading is not a damaged genealogy. It is Matthew’s compressed genealogy.
Scripture can use “father” and “begat” for descent that passes over intermediate generations. Matthew has already omitted Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah between Joram and Uzziah. His closing count explains the shape: three ordered groups of fourteen lead from Abraham to David, from David to the captivity, and from the captivity to Christ.
Adding Jehoiakim may repair a modern expectation that every generation must be named, but it disturbs Matthew’s stated arrangement. The Evangelist is tracing legal and royal descent, not reproducing Chronicles line for line.
The phrase “Jechonias and his brethren” also gathers the family around the crisis of exile. The plural need not mean that Jeconiah had literal brothers prominent in the narrative. It can name his royal kin and generation at the turning point, as Matthew’s genealogy moves from kingship in the land to captivity in Babylon.
How the longer line arose
First Chronicles 3:15–16 supplies Jehoiakim between Josiah and Jeconiah. A reader comparing the books could place the missing generation in a margin. From there it could enter a copy. The added wording survives in more than one form, which is what we expect when an explanatory repair develops rather than when a stable line is lost everywhere else.
No doctrine of inspiration requires every biblical genealogy to contain every name. Inspiration requires us to read the form the author gave. Matthew signals his arrangement and then uses the freedom ordinary genealogical speech allowed.
Both the received and critical texts are right to resist the expansion. Jehoiakim lived, reigned, and belonged to the ancestry of Christ; his history is preserved in Kings and Chronicles. Matthew did not have to repeat his name to tell the truth. The omission belongs to the Evangelist’s design, while the addition tells us how readily a well-informed reader can improve a text away from its chosen shape.
Matthew’s arithmetic is literary as well as genealogical. David’s name carries the numerical value fourteen in Hebrew, and three fourteens place the royal promise over the whole opening. The arrangement does not prove every question about how Matthew counted the names, but it tells the reader to expect selection. An inserted generation must therefore answer not only Chronicles but Matthew 1:17.
There is also a difference between an omission in transmission and omission by an author. A copyist’s accidental loss deprives a later copy of words its author wrote. Matthew’s deliberate telescoping is part of what he wrote. Calling both acts “omission” without naming the agent creates confusion. Jehoiakim is omitted from Matthew’s list by Matthew; the longer manuscript reading adds him back.
That distinction protects ordinary Bible reading. The Old Testament gives the full royal history. The Gospel gives a shaped legal genealogy. Canonical harmony does not require one inspired book to repeat the form of another. It requires us to hear each book’s true witness within the whole.
Sources and further reading
- 2 Kings 23:34–24:17; 1 Chronicles 3:15–16; Matthew 1:1–17.
- Ezra Abbot, “On the Reading ‘Asaph’ in Matthew 1:7,” for the wider genealogical discussion.
- Frederick H. A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.
7Related materials
Open a group to follow connected articles, books, biographies, media, research notes, variants, or downloads. Research Center relationships use permanent record IDs; external items retain their actual link.
- Record
- VAR-1003
- Status
- Preliminary
- Version
- 1.1-dossier
- Review
- Level B — Editorial synthesis
- Editor
- Chris Thomas
- Reviewer
- Independent reviewer pending assignment
- First date
- 2026-07-22 · Exact Day
- Last revised
- 2026-07-22
Evidence and editorial controls
- Verification
- Recovered project data; bibliographic and source-level verification remains record-specific. 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; cited sources retain their stated rights.
- Known limitations
- Staging record; independent review remains open.
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, “Matthew 1:11 — Was Jehoiakim Omitted from Matthew’s Genealogy?,” VAR-1003, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas
- — Chris Thomas