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
> “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.”
Variant class
Punctuation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
The exact TR reading has not yet been entered in the structured field.
Authorized Version
“Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.” — Matthew 10:8
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 received text places “raise the dead” after “cleanse the lepers”; the critical text places it before.
Translation or explanation
The received text places “raise the dead” after “cleanse the lepers”; the critical text places it before.
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 of scribal or liturgical expansion, possible theological pressure in transmission. 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 10:8
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
Weakening of explicit biblical testimony
Exact proposition affected
The triune identity of the Father, the Son/Word, and the Holy Ghost.
Doctrinal analysis
The Twelve did not acquire healing power as a craft, and resurrection could never become a marketable technique.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Matthew 10:8, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Yet the Textus Receptus and the leading modern critical editions agree on the chief question: Christ did give this command. The received text places “raise the dead” after “cleanse the lepers”; the critical text places it before. The United Bible Societies committee therefore judged the omission accidental and printed the words.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Matthew 10:8 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: The Twelve did not acquire healing power as a craft, and resurrection could never become a marketable technique.
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
— Matthew 10:8 The words “raise the dead” have an unsettled place in the manuscript record. Many witnesses omit them. English readers who compare only the Authorized Version with a recent translation may never see the dispute.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
The United Bible Societies committee therefore judged the omission accidental and printed the words. But a scribe intent on making a neat triad would be more likely to remove a clause than invent the most startling command in the list. If a scribe loses a short imperative among imperatives and another reader writes it beside the line, the next copyist must decide where to return it.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
Yet the Textus Receptus and the leading modern critical editions agree on the chief question: Christ did give this command. The received text places “raise the dead” after “cleanse the lepers”; the critical text places it before. The continuous ecclesiastical reading and its place in Scrivener’s Greek text support the order behind the Authorized Version.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Matthew 10:8. 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
Yet the Textus Receptus and the leading modern critical editions agree on the chief question: Christ did give this command. The received text places “raise the dead” after “cleanse the lepers”; the critical text places it before. The United Bible Societies committee therefore judged the omission accidental and printed the words.
Conclusion
The varying positions are exactly what a marginal restoration can produce. If a scribe loses a short imperative among imperatives and another reader writes it beside the line, the next copyist must decide where to return it. Different decisions preserve the clause at different points. That pattern does not prove restoration, but it answers the claim that movement must mean invention.
Matthew’s love of triads should likewise be used with care. Authors have habits, not cages. A critic may notice threefold patterns; he may not delete a fourth command merely to make the Evangelist more regular than the surviving text.
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.
Status: Established
Immediate textual or doctrinal consequence
At Matthew 10:8, the received text reads and its Authorized Version representation reads “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.” — Matthew 10:8”. The assessed critical reading is “The received text places “raise the dead” after “cleanse the lepers”; the critical text places it before.”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The card classifies the change as a weakening of explicit biblical testimony, not by itself as a formal denial of the larger doctrine.
Necessary reasoning chain
- At Matthew 10:8, the received Hebrew/Greek form is ; the Authorized Version represents it as “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.” — Matthew 10:8”. The assessed critical form is “The received text places “raise the dead” after “cleanse the lepers”; the critical text places it before.”.
- 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 Matthew 10:8, the received text reads and its Authorized Version representation reads “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.” — Matthew 10:8”. The assessed critical reading is “The received text places “raise the dead” after “cleanse the lepers”; the critical text places it before.”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The card classifies the change as a weakening of explicit biblical testimony, not by itself as a formal denial of the larger doctrine.
- 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
- 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
“Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.” — Matthew 10:8
The words “raise the dead” have an unsettled place in the manuscript record. Many witnesses omit them. Others set them at different points in the four commands. Yet the Textus Receptus and the leading modern critical editions agree on the chief question: Christ did give this command.
The difference between them is order. The received text places “raise the dead” after “cleanse the lepers”; the critical text places it before. English readers who compare only the Authorized Version with a recent translation may never see the dispute.
Four commands, several orders
The moving pieces share similar endings in Greek. That makes a skipped line or a shifted phrase easy to imagine. Some copies put “raise the dead” after the lepers, some after the casting out of devils, and one Latin line sets it before the sick. A large later group drops it.
Variation in position can mark an added gloss, but it can also arise when a short clause is lost and then restored from the margin. Here the clause has early and varied support. It appears in witnesses usually placed in the Alexandrian, Western, and Caesarean streams. The United Bible Societies committee therefore judged the omission accidental and printed the words.
That judgment matters. “The oldest manuscripts remove ‘raise the dead’” would be false. Some old copies contain it, and modern editors retain it.
Why the command fits
Matthew has already recorded Jesus raising the ruler’s daughter. The Twelve are now sent as his heralds and servants, with authority that displays the nearness of the kingdom. Healing, cleansing, raising, and casting out are not four independent techniques. They are signs of the King’s mercy and dominion.
Some critics have noted Matthew’s liking for groups of three and suggested that a fourth command is secondary. But a scribe intent on making a neat triad would be more likely to remove a clause than invent the most startling command in the list. Nor is “raise the dead” an easy devotional gloss. It raises practical questions about when and upon whom such authority was to be exercised.
The received order also has a natural rise: ordinary sickness, the social and ceremonial ruin of leprosy, death itself, and then the hostile spiritual powers behind much misery. The critical order can also be read coherently, so cadence alone cannot decide the text. The continuous ecclesiastical reading and its place in Scrivener’s Greek text support the order behind the Authorized Version.
Christ said “raise the dead.” The main modern text agrees. The narrower issue is where Matthew placed the phrase, and the received order remains a sound and well-attested form of the commission.
The command also belongs under the sentence that follows: “freely ye have received, freely give.” The Twelve did not acquire healing power as a craft, and resurrection could never become a marketable technique. Every sign was a received gift serving the announcement that the kingdom had drawn near.
The varying positions are exactly what a marginal restoration can produce. If a scribe loses a short imperative among imperatives and another reader writes it beside the line, the next copyist must decide where to return it. Different decisions preserve the clause at different points. That pattern does not prove restoration, but it answers the claim that movement must mean invention.
Matthew’s love of triads should likewise be used with care. Authors have habits, not cages. A critic may notice threefold patterns; he may not delete a fourth command merely to make the Evangelist more regular than the surviving text.
Sources and further reading
- Matthew 9:18–26; 10:1–15.
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, note on Matthew 10:8.
- Frederick H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version.
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-1043
- 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 10:8 — “Raise the Dead”: Does the Commission Include This Command?,” VAR-1043, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas
- — Chris Thomas