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 critical text shortens two elements.
Variant class
Punctuation
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
The received reading is nevertheless better attested across the full tradition and gives the scene its named bond.
Authorized Version
“And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.” — Matthew 8:25
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 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 printed confidence ratings represented here are {C}, {B}. 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 8:25, 8:25
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
“We perish” is not calm theological speech.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Matthew 8:25, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. The critical text shortens two elements. A critic can therefore call “his disciples” a clarifying subject added to the participle “coming.” Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Matthew 8:25 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: “We perish” is not calm theological speech.
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 received reading is nevertheless better attested across the full tradition and gives the scene its named bond.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
A scribe who can supply both from context may pass over them without hearing a gap.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The actors and objects remain clear, but the received text voices both. The received reading is nevertheless better attested across the full tradition and gives the scene its named bond. John William Burgon and Edward Miller, The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Matthew 8:25. 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 critical text shortens two elements. A critic can therefore call “his disciples” a clarifying subject added to the participle “coming.” Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.
Conclusion
The explicit us also prevents “save” from sounding like a command to repair the weather in general. The disciples know themselves to be the needy objects. Christian prayer often begins there: not with a theory of providence, but with named people under a named threat.
Matthew will use “save” for more than bodily rescue, and the name Jesus was given because he saves his people from their sins. The storm does not collapse those meanings into one, but it gives the disciples a lived sign. The Lord who can rebuke wind can carry sinners through the judgment no boat can weather.
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 8:25, the received text reads “The received reading is nevertheless better attested across the full tradition and gives the scene its named bond.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.” — Matthew 8:25”. The assessed critical reading is “The received and current critical texts may agree at this unit; consult the full essay for any versional or apparatus-only variation.”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The immediate local effect is exegetical or interpretive; this argument does not claim that a distinct Christian doctrine disappears from the verse.
Necessary reasoning chain
- At Matthew 8:25, the received Hebrew/Greek form is “The received reading is nevertheless better attested across the full tradition and gives the scene its named bond.”; the Authorized Version represents it as “And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.” — Matthew 8:25”. The assessed critical form is “The received and current critical texts may agree at this unit; consult the full essay for any versional or apparatus-only variation.”.
- 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 8:25, the received text reads “The received reading is nevertheless better attested across the full tradition and gives the scene its named bond.” and its Authorized Version representation reads “And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.” — Matthew 8:25”. The assessed critical reading is “The received and current critical texts may agree at this unit; consult the full essay for any versional or apparatus-only variation.”. The immediate consequence is that the critical text no longer states the received wording at this locus. The immediate local effect is exegetical or interpretive; this argument does not claim that a distinct Christian doctrine disappears from the verse.
- 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 critical text shortens two elements. It does not explicitly name his disciples, and their cry is simply “Lord, save!” rather than “Lord, save us!” The actors and objects remain clear, but the received text voices both.
“And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.” — Matthew 8:25
A cry with a subject and object
Matthew has said that the disciples followed Jesus into the ship. A critic can therefore call “his disciples” a clarifying subject added to the participle “coming.” The pronoun us can be called equally obvious: whom else are they asking him to save in the sinking boat?
Obvious words are also easy to lose. A scribe who can supply both from context may pass over them without hearing a gap. Short pronouns often suffer precisely because meaning survives their absence.
The full sentence has broad support and a personal line: his disciples come to him, wake him, call him Lord, and ask him to save them. Matthew is showing a relation under pressure, not merely recording a nautical alarm.
“We perish” is not calm theological speech. The boat is covered with waves while Jesus sleeps. Their fear is understandable; their conclusion forgets who lies beside them.
Jesus rebukes the disciples before he rebukes the winds. The danger is real, but the greater fact is his presence. Their prayer is both faithful and faithless: faithful because they call on the Lord, faithless because they speak as though the Lord could perish with them or sleep through their ruin.
The phrase has long served Christian prayer because it is plain enough for a drowning heart. Its use does not prove its origin, but its compact force fits Matthew.
The shorter reading does not erase the disciples or turn the cry selfishly vague. The received reading is nevertheless better attested across the full tradition and gives the scene its named bond. “Lord, save us” is not extra drama. It is the exact petition of frightened disciples to the Master whose word stills the sea.
The Greek present “we are perishing” places the danger in motion. Water rises, the boat fills, and the disciples read the process toward its apparent end. Their prayer does not minimize circumstances. Faith is not pretending the waves are small; it is bringing real peril to the Lord in the boat.
The explicit us also prevents “save” from sounding like a command to repair the weather in general. The disciples know themselves to be the needy objects. Christian prayer often begins there: not with a theory of providence, but with named people under a named threat.
Matthew will use “save” for more than bodily rescue, and the name Jesus was given because he saves his people from their sins. The storm does not collapse those meanings into one, but it gives the disciples a lived sign. The Lord who can rebuke wind can carry sinners through the judgment no boat can weather.
Sources and further reading
- Psalm 107:23–30; Matthew 8:23–27; Mark 4:35–41; Luke 8:22–25.
- Frederick H. A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.
- John William Burgon and Edward Miller, The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels.
7Related materials
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- Record
- VAR-1038
- 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 8:25 — “Lord, Save Us: We Perish”: The Disciples’ Cry in Full,” VAR-1038, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas
- — Chris Thomas