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
> “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet.”
Variant class
Spelling / name
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
“Of the world” has a serious early omission, though both the received text and many modern editions print it, sometimes with brackets.
Authorized Version
“That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet.” — Matthew 13:35
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
“Of the world” has a serious early omission, though both the received text and many modern editions print it, sometimes with brackets.
Translation or explanation
“Of the world” has a serious early omission, though both the received text and many modern editions print it, sometimes with brackets.
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 the weight and distribution of external attestation, the likelihood that the competing form is a scribal correction or emendation, the likelihood of scribal or liturgical expansion, the comparative difficulty of the readings; the printed confidence rating represented here is {C}. 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 Matthew 13:35, 13:35
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
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 Matthew 13:35, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. “Of the world” has a serious early omission, though both the received text and many modern editions print it, sometimes with brackets. Yet that bad name is precisely what makes it attractive to some critics: a scribe would correct Isaiah, they argue, but would not invent him. The final noun is absent from some early witnesses, and critics suggest that it was brought in from Matthew 25:34.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Matthew 13:35 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
A few witnesses name Isaiah, although the words come from Psalm 78:2, a psalm of Asaph. No known Greek manuscript reads Asaph here, despite the psalm’s heading. The final noun is absent from some early witnesses, and critics suggest that it was brought in from Matthew 25:34.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
“Of the world” has a serious early omission, though both the received text and many modern editions print it, sometimes with brackets. Yet that bad name is precisely what makes it attractive to some critics: a scribe would correct Isaiah, they argue, but would not invent him. That very expectation can work in either direction: a scribe may add “world,” or an eye may pass over a familiar closing word because the sense already seems complete.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
— Matthew 13:35 The prophet is unnamed in the received text. “Of the world” has a serious early omission, though both the received text and many modern editions print it, sometimes with brackets. From the foundation of the world The Textus Receptus ends ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Matthew 13:35. 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
“Of the world” has a serious early omission, though both the received text and many modern editions print it, sometimes with brackets. Yet that bad name is precisely what makes it attractive to some critics: a scribe would correct Isaiah, they argue, but would not invent him. The final noun is absent from some early witnesses, and critics suggest that it was brought in from Matthew 25:34.
Conclusion
“From the foundation of the world” widens that claim beyond the psalmist’s lifetime. The kingdom mysteries are old in God’s purpose and newly uttered in the Son’s teaching. Omitting world leaves the temporal idea, but the full phrase gives it a stated horizon.
The absent Asaph reading is also a warning against arguments from imagined documents. A proposed history may be clever—Asaph changed to Isaiah, Isaiah then removed—but no surviving witness carries the first step. The anonymous text explains the attested evidence without building upon an unattested name.
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 Matthew 13:35 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
“That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet.” — Matthew 13:35
The prophet is unnamed in the received text. A few witnesses name Isaiah, although the words come from Psalm 78:2, a psalm of Asaph. The second question comes at the end of the quotation: did Matthew write “from the foundation,” or “from the foundation of the world”?
These two details have different weights. The anonymous formula is secure. “Of the world” has a serious early omission, though both the received text and many modern editions print it, sometimes with brackets.
An unnamed prophet
Matthew writes διὰ τοῦ προφήτου, “through the prophet.” Naming Isaiah creates an obvious historical problem. Yet that bad name is precisely what makes it attractive to some critics: a scribe would correct Isaiah, they argue, but would not invent him.
The simpler account begins with Matthew’s anonymous wording. A reader accustomed to Isaiah’s prominence in the Gospel supplies the famous prophet’s name in a margin. The same habit appears elsewhere, where unnamed prophetic formulas attract names—sometimes correct, sometimes not. No known Greek manuscript reads Asaph here, despite the psalm’s heading. The error “Isaiah” therefore points back to an empty space more readily than to an original named prophet.
Matthew often uses “the prophet” without a name. The received form is both his habit and the only form that states the citation truthfully without assuming that the Evangelist copied an error.
From the foundation of the world
The Textus Receptus ends ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου. The final noun is absent from some early witnesses, and critics suggest that it was brought in from Matthew 25:34. Yet “from the foundation” invites the expected complement. That very expectation can work in either direction: a scribe may add “world,” or an eye may pass over a familiar closing word because the sense already seems complete.
The full phrase is common New Testament speech. Here it gives the parables a long reach. Christ is not inventing riddles for one afternoon by the sea. He utters things hidden from the world’s foundation and brings the ancient purpose of God into the open.
The received text should stand in both places: “by the prophet” and “from the foundation of the world.” The first reading avoids a name that the manuscripts themselves cannot keep straight. The second completes Matthew’s temporal phrase and has the breadth and continuity expected of his text.
Psalm 78 begins by calling the people to hear a law and incline their ears to the words of a mouth. Its “parable” recounts Israel’s stubborn history so that a coming generation will set hope in God. Matthew’s use is therefore more than a prediction that Jesus would tell riddles. The Messiah opens the hidden shape of God’s kingdom within Israel’s story.
“From the foundation of the world” widens that claim beyond the psalmist’s lifetime. The kingdom mysteries are old in God’s purpose and newly uttered in the Son’s teaching. Omitting world leaves the temporal idea, but the full phrase gives it a stated horizon.
The absent Asaph reading is also a warning against arguments from imagined documents. A proposed history may be clever—Asaph changed to Isaiah, Isaiah then removed—but no surviving witness carries the first step. The anonymous text explains the attested evidence without building upon an unattested name.
Sources and further reading
- Matthew 1:22; 2:5; 13:34–35; 25:34; Psalm 78:1–2.
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, notes on Matthew 13:35.
- John William Burgon, The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels.
7Related materials
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- Record
- VAR-1052
- 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 13:35 — “By the Prophet” and “from the Foundation of the World”: The Full Prophetic Formula,” VAR-1052, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas
- — Chris Thomas