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 whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.”
Variant class
Omission / addition
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
The Textus Receptus keeps it, and so do the standard modern critical editions.
Authorized Version
“And whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.” — Matthew 5:32
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
No distinct NA28 reading has been entered; the received and NA28 texts may agree at this unit.
Translation or explanation
The received and current critical texts may agree at this unit; consult the full essay for any versional or apparatus-only variation.
Metzger’s report of the UBS committee
No passage-specific Metzger synopsis has yet passed editorial verification for this record.
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 rests on the final clause alone.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Matthew 5:32, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. The Textus Receptus keeps it, and so do the standard modern critical editions. Critics who defend omission can point to the parallel teachings and to a desire for fuller moral symmetry. The broad and early support for the clause, its meaningful place in the argument, and the ease of smooth omission justify the agreement of received and critical editions.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Matthew 5:32 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 rests on the final clause alone.
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 5:32 A small ancient stream omits this final warning. The chief dispute is therefore inside the apparatus, not between the Authorized Version and every modern Bible. A shorter witness may be old and still preserve an accidental loss.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
Remove it and the sentence still closes with correct grammar. That kind of variation suggests that the substance was present early even where copyists adjusted its shape. Critics who defend omission can point to the parallel teachings and to a desire for fuller moral symmetry.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The Textus Receptus keeps it, and so do the standard modern critical editions. The participial form in Vaticanus is important because it does not read like a simple late copy of the Textus Receptus. The agreement of current critical editions with the received text is therefore not reluctant traditionalism.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Matthew 5:32. 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 keeps it, and so do the standard modern critical editions. Critics who defend omission can point to the parallel teachings and to a desire for fuller moral symmetry. The broad and early support for the clause, its meaningful place in the argument, and the ease of smooth omission justify the agreement of received and critical editions.
Conclusion
The omission’s limited spread also cautions against making brevity a rule. A shorter witness may be old and still preserve an accidental loss. Textual judgment asks whether the loss is mechanically plausible, whether the surviving longer forms are diverse, and whether the sentence performs real work in the author’s argument.
Here all three answers support inclusion. The clause can vanish cleanly; it survives through more than one construction; and it names the responsibility of the new husband. The agreement of current critical editions with the received text is therefore not reluctant traditionalism. It is a sound judgment upon the evidence.
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 5:32 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 whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.” — Matthew 5:32
A small ancient stream omits this final warning. The Textus Receptus keeps it, and so do the standard modern critical editions. The chief dispute is therefore inside the apparatus, not between the Authorized Version and every modern Bible.
The first half of the verse ends with the woman being caused to commit adultery. The final clause then names the man who marries her. Remove it and the sentence still closes with correct grammar. A public reader would hear a severe teaching on divorce and might never know a line was missing.
The received clause also survives in more than one Greek form. Vaticanus uses a participial construction while keeping the same meaning. That kind of variation suggests that the substance was present early even where copyists adjusted its shape.
Critics who defend omission can point to the parallel teachings and to a desire for fuller moral symmetry. But the clause is no decorative balance. It assigns responsibility to the second man and matches Christ’s later teaching in Matthew 19:9.
Marriage is not private paperwork
Jesus rejects the notion that a certificate can make treachery righteous. Wrongful divorce exposes the put-away spouse to adultery, and a person who enters the resulting unlawful union shares the guilt.
The exception “saving for the cause of fornication” must be read with the creation bond and the rest of Scripture. This verse is not a complete treatment of abandonment, discipline, repentance, or every hard pastoral case. It is a direct blow against the casual dismissal of a wife.
No doctrine rests on the final clause alone. Mark, Luke, and Matthew 19 speak to remarriage. That stability lets us weigh the text without panic. The broad and early support for the clause, its meaningful place in the argument, and the ease of smooth omission justify the agreement of received and critical editions.
The words belong. Christ closes the loophole from both sides of the new union, and no copyist’s shortened ending should open it again.
The participial form in Vaticanus is important because it does not read like a simple late copy of the Textus Receptus. It preserves the same moral clause in a distinct grammatical dress. That makes an early common substance more likely than a single late expansion spreading in one fixed wording.
The omission’s limited spread also cautions against making brevity a rule. A shorter witness may be old and still preserve an accidental loss. Textual judgment asks whether the loss is mechanically plausible, whether the surviving longer forms are diverse, and whether the sentence performs real work in the author’s argument.
Here all three answers support inclusion. The clause can vanish cleanly; it survives through more than one construction; and it names the responsibility of the new husband. The agreement of current critical editions with the received text is therefore not reluctant traditionalism. It is a sound judgment upon the evidence.
Sources and further reading
- Matthew 5:31–32; 19:3–12; Mark 10:2–12; Luke 16:18.
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, note on Matthew 5:32.
- Westminster Confession of Faith 24.
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-1019
- 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 5:32 — The Omitted Adultery Clause in Christ’s Teaching on Divorce,” VAR-1019, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas
- — Chris Thomas