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
The red sky saying in Matthew 16:2–3 is absent from several important early witnesses.
Variant class
Omission / addition
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
The Textus Receptus keeps the full exchange.
Authorized Version
“O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” — Matthew 16:3
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
Modern editions either bracket it, print it with a warning, or move it to a note.
Translation or explanation
Modern editions either bracket it, print it with a warning, or move it to a note.
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; the printed confidence rating represented here is {D}. 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 16:2–3
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 bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Doctrinal analysis
The sign of Jonah then turns the passage toward death and resurrection.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Matthew 16:2–3, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Modern editions either bracket it, print it with a warning, or move it to a note. Critics argue that a reader brought Luke’s weather proverb into Matthew, where Jesus has also rebuked people for reading the sky better than their own hour. We know that weather patterns differ and that early critics discussed the saying’s fitness in Egypt.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Matthew 16:2–3 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 sign of Jonah then turns the passage toward death and 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
The red sky saying in Matthew 16:2–3 is absent from several important early witnesses. The absence from Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, along with several early versions, gives that claim weight. Ancient writers already knew that explanation for its absence.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
The case for omission The saying resembles Luke 12:54–56. A harmonizer usually makes passages more alike than this. Why a scribe might leave it out The weather rule fits the eastern Mediterranean.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The Textus Receptus keeps the full exchange. John William Burgon, The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Matthew 16:2–3. 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
Modern editions either bracket it, print it with a warning, or move it to a note. Critics argue that a reader brought Luke’s weather proverb into Matthew, where Jesus has also rebuked people for reading the sky better than their own hour. We know that weather patterns differ and that early critics discussed the saying’s fitness in Egypt.
Conclusion
The phrase “signs of the times” has often been pulled into schemes that match headlines to prophecy. Jesus’ rebuke points first to his own ministry. The blind see, the dead rise, the poor hear good news, and the leaders ask for another credential. Their skill at weather prediction exposes selective blindness.
The sign of Jonah then turns the passage toward death and resurrection. Red sky may guide tomorrow’s work; the risen Son of man will divide the age. The full weather saying prepares that contrast without borrowing Luke’s exact form.
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 16:2–3, the received text reads “The Textus Receptus keeps the full exchange.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” — Matthew 16:3”. The assessed critical reading is “Modern editions either bracket it, print it with a warning, or move it to a note.”. 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 16:2–3, the received Hebrew/Greek form is “The Textus Receptus keeps the full exchange.”; the Authorized Version represents it as “O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” — Matthew 16:3”. The assessed critical form is “Modern editions either bracket it, print it with a warning, or move it to a note.”.
- 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 16:2–3, the received text reads “The Textus Receptus keeps the full exchange.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” — Matthew 16:3”. The assessed critical reading is “Modern editions either bracket it, print it with a warning, or move it to a note.”. 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
The red sky saying in Matthew 16:2–3 is absent from several important early witnesses. Modern editions either bracket it, print it with a warning, or move it to a note. The Textus Receptus keeps the full exchange.
“O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” — Matthew 16:3
This is a substantial question: two sentences, not a stray article. It also has an unusual history, for climate and geography may have shaped the copying.
The case for omission
The saying resembles Luke 12:54–56. Critics argue that a reader brought Luke’s weather proverb into Matthew, where Jesus has also rebuked people for reading the sky better than their own hour. The absence from Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, along with several early versions, gives that claim weight.
The words also sit between the demand for a sign and Christ’s refusal. Remove them and the dialogue remains tight: the Pharisees ask; Jesus calls them wicked and promises only Jonah’s sign.
Yet the Matthew form is not a copy of Luke. The wording, time of day, signs, and address differ. Matthew speaks of evening red and morning red; Luke speaks of a cloud from the west and a south wind. A harmonizer usually makes passages more alike than this.
Why a scribe might leave it out
The weather rule fits the eastern Mediterranean. In Egypt, however, a red morning did not carry the same ordinary promise of foul weather. Copyists in a dry climate could find the proverb puzzling or locally false. Ancient writers already knew that explanation for its absence.
There is also a jump from “sky” to “sky” and from “discern” to “discern” inside the passage. Repeated terms make loss possible. Once a prominent short text circulated, versions made from it would multiply the absence without creating independent omissions.
The saying fits Matthew’s charge against religious experts. They can read created signs that affect tomorrow’s plans, but they refuse the works of the Messiah standing before them. Their fault is not lack of data. It is hypocrisy.
The received passage has wide and continuous use, a form distinct from Luke, and a credible history of regional omission. It belongs. “The signs of the times” are not newspaper riddles assigned to each generation; in context they are the acts and presence of Christ. Men who asked him for a sign were already standing beneath a sky full of them.
The geographical explanation should be stated modestly. We know that weather patterns differ and that early critics discussed the saying’s fitness in Egypt. We do not possess a note from the first omitting scribe. Climate supplies a plausible pressure, not a documented motive.
The phrase “signs of the times” has often been pulled into schemes that match headlines to prophecy. Jesus’ rebuke points first to his own ministry. The blind see, the dead rise, the poor hear good news, and the leaders ask for another credential. Their skill at weather prediction exposes selective blindness.
The sign of Jonah then turns the passage toward death and resurrection. Red sky may guide tomorrow’s work; the risen Son of man will divide the age. The full weather saying prepares that contrast without borrowing Luke’s exact form.
Sources and further reading
- Matthew 12:38–42; 16:1–4; Luke 12:54–56.
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, note on Matthew 16:2–3.
- John William Burgon, The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels.
7Related materials
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- Record
- VAR-1058
- 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 16:2–3 — “The Signs of the Times”: Is the Weather Saying Authentic?,” VAR-1058, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas
- — Chris Thomas