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
> “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Variant class
Transposition
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
The exact TR reading has not yet been entered in the structured field.
Authorized Version
“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” — Matthew 5:4–5
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
Metzger reports the UBS4 committee's treatment of the variation unit. The note grounds the relevant decision in a proposed mechanism of accidental omission. 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 5:4–5
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 5:4–5, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. The received order is also the order of Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, the broad Greek tradition, and current critical editions. The old Western order influenced major nineteenth-century criticism, yet later critical editors returned to the same order as the Textus Receptus. “The critical text” is not one unchanging rival Bible.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Matthew 5:4–5 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
— Matthew 5:4–5 Some ancient witnesses reverse these two Beatitudes. Early citations sometimes group teachings by theme rather than quote a manuscript line for line. A reversed patristic order is evidence, but not always a complete Gospel copy in miniature.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
Short, balanced sayings are easily recited, and neighboring lines can trade places without losing grammar. Meekness and hunger for righteousness describe active dispositions; mourning and persecution share suffering. Mercy, purity, and peacemaking then describe the life that follows.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The received order is also the order of Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, the broad Greek tradition, and current critical editions. Codex Bezae, much of the Old Latin tradition, and several early citations carry the transposition. The old Western order influenced major nineteenth-century criticism, yet later critical editors returned to the same order as the Textus Receptus.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Matthew 5:4–5. 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 received order is also the order of Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, the broad Greek tradition, and current critical editions. The old Western order influenced major nineteenth-century criticism, yet later critical editors returned to the same order as the Textus Receptus. “The critical text” is not one unchanging rival Bible.
Conclusion
The received order, by contrast, moves inward before it moves outward. Poverty owns the need; mourning feels it; meekness yields the self; hunger turns toward the good. Mercy, purity, and peacemaking then describe the life that follows. This reading of the sequence should not be made a secret code—Matthew gives no numbered ladder—but it shows that the traditional arrangement is more than habit.
Because every form preserves both blessings, preaching should not exaggerate the textual consequence. A transposed Beatitude is still the Word of Christ in its sentence. The task is to restore its place, not to suggest that an ancient church lacking the order lacked comfort or the promise of inheritance.
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 5:4–5 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
“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” — Matthew 5:4–5
Some ancient witnesses reverse these two Beatitudes. They put the meek before the mourners. No blessing disappears; the question is their order.
The received order is also the order of Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, the broad Greek tradition, and current critical editions. Codex Bezae, much of the Old Latin tradition, and several early citations carry the transposition. Tischendorf once printed that reversed form.
The Beatitudes are not loose proverbs in a jar. Their movement has shape. Poverty of spirit opens the kingdom; mourning answers the sight of sin and misery; meekness gives the posture of those who no longer defend themselves before God; hunger and thirst turn toward righteousness.
Putting meekness first also makes sense. Psalm 37 promises that the meek inherit the earth, and mourning may follow their experience of wrong. Coherence alone cannot choose between two coherent orders.
Liturgical memory offers a likely path. Short, balanced sayings are easily recited, and neighboring lines can trade places without losing grammar. Early citations sometimes group teachings by theme rather than quote a manuscript line for line. A reversed patristic order is evidence, but not always a complete Gospel copy in miniature.
This case breaks a common story. The old Western order influenced major nineteenth-century criticism, yet later critical editors returned to the same order as the Textus Receptus. “The critical text” is not one unchanging rival Bible. Editors weigh evidence and sometimes revise earlier decisions.
The received sequence has the strongest joined case: the earliest great Greek codices, the continuous Greek reading, Matthew’s moral movement, and the editions now used by both sides. The Western transposition is old enough to show how early order could vary, but not broad enough to displace the text.
Mourners come before the meek. They see what sin has done, receive God’s comfort, and then inherit without grasping. The order is quiet, but it is not random.
The Western order may have gained strength through pastoral grouping. Meekness and hunger for righteousness describe active dispositions; mourning and persecution share suffering. Teachers who quoted the blessings topically could place kindred lines together without intending to recopy the Gospel. When such citation order meets a manuscript tradition already open to transposition, the alternate sequence becomes easier to sustain.
The received order, by contrast, moves inward before it moves outward. Poverty owns the need; mourning feels it; meekness yields the self; hunger turns toward the good. Mercy, purity, and peacemaking then describe the life that follows. This reading of the sequence should not be made a secret code—Matthew gives no numbered ladder—but it shows that the traditional arrangement is more than habit.
Because every form preserves both blessings, preaching should not exaggerate the textual consequence. A transposed Beatitude is still the Word of Christ in its sentence. The task is to restore its place, not to suggest that an ancient church lacking the order lacked comfort or the promise of inheritance.
Sources and further reading
- Psalm 37:9–11; Isaiah 61:1–3; Matthew 5:1–12.
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, note on Matthew 5:4–5.
- Constantin von Tischendorf, Novum Testamentum Graece, Matthew 5.
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-1015
- 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 5:4–5 — Were the Second and Third Beatitudes Transposed?,” VAR-1015, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas
- — Chris Thomas