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
This charge is the first dark answer to the two healings that close Matthew 9.
Variant class
Omission / addition
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
The exact TR reading has not yet been entered in the structured field.
Authorized Version
“But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.” — Matthew 9:34
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
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 the weight and distribution of external attestation, 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., note on Matthew 9:34
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
Neither event requires us to assign a theological motive. Its words are not needed to invent a doctrine found nowhere else, and their omission does not erase the Pharisees’ charge from Scripture.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Matthew 9:34, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. The received Greek keeps it, and so do the modern critical editions. The question is worth asking because the omission is old, but it is not a case in which the Authorized Version stands against the present critical text.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Matthew 9:34 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: Neither event requires us to assign a theological motive. Its words are not needed to invent a doctrine found nowhere else, and their omission does not erase the Pharisees’ charge from Scripture.
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 9:34 A small line of witnesses omits the verse. The question is worth asking because the omission is old, but it is not a case in which the Authorized Version stands against the present critical text. The verse stands in the broad Greek transmission and in early witnesses from more than one line.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
The question is worth asking because the omission is old, but it is not a case in which the Authorized Version stands against the present critical text. A copyist could have brought the earlier charge into chapter 9 to prepare for that later dispute. Its omission is tied chiefly to a narrow Western stream.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The verse stands in the broad Greek transmission and in early witnesses from more than one line. The received text lets hostility gather in stages—from inward reasoning, to muttered accusation, to the open blasphemy of chapter 12. 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 9:34. 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 Greek keeps it, and so do the modern critical editions. The question is worth asking because the omission is old, but it is not a case in which the Authorized Version stands against the present critical text.
Conclusion
This makes the charge a fitting threshold to the mission discourse. The Twelve will heal and cast out devils under Christ’s authority. They should not expect the works themselves to compel every observer. If the Master’s work is called Beelzebub’s, his household will bear the same slander.
The narrow Western omission may therefore make the narrative smoother while making Matthew’s conflict less gradual. The received text lets hostility gather in stages—from inward reasoning, to muttered accusation, to the open blasphemy of chapter 12.
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 9:34 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
This charge is the first dark answer to the two healings that close Matthew 9. Jesus gives sight to the blind and speech to a man held by a devil. The crowds marvel. The Pharisees cannot deny what happened, so they call the power behind it evil.
“But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.” — Matthew 9:34
A small line of witnesses omits the verse. The received Greek keeps it, and so do the modern critical editions. The question is worth asking because the omission is old, but it is not a case in which the Authorized Version stands against the present critical text.
Why the shorter form attracts notice
The sentence appears again in stronger form at Matthew 12:24: “This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.” A copyist could have brought the earlier charge into chapter 9 to prepare for that later dispute. The verse also interrupts the easy movement from the crowd’s wonder in verse 33 to Jesus’ journey in verse 35. Those are real reasons to examine it.
Yet repetition is one of Matthew’s ways of building a conflict. The Pharisees first mutter the charge; later, when Jesus heals a blind and dumb demoniac before the people, they state it openly. Matthew 10:25 also looks back to the accusation: if they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, his servants should expect the same abuse. The earlier charge gives that warning a near setting.
The external evidence points in the same direction. The verse stands in the broad Greek transmission and in early witnesses from more than one line. Its omission is tied chiefly to a narrow Western stream. Age gives that shorter reading a hearing, but narrowness limits what it can prove.
A smooth omission
Nothing breaks if a scribe passes from “the multitudes marvelled” to “Jesus went about all the cities and villages.” That smooth join may explain why the loss survived. A copyist who remembered the fuller Beelzebub dispute could also have suspected the shorter accusation and removed it as a duplicate. Neither event requires us to assign a theological motive.
The received verse does useful narrative work. It places two judgments side by side. The people see an act never witnessed in Israel; the Pharisees see the same act and slander its source. Matthew then turns to the plentiful harvest and the sending of the Twelve. Christ’s servants enter a field in which wonder and hatred already meet.
Matthew 9:34 belongs in the text. Its words are not needed to invent a doctrine found nowhere else, and their omission does not erase the Pharisees’ charge from Scripture. But the verse fixes the charge where Matthew first placed it and gives Christ’s warning in chapter 10 its full edge.
The verse also keeps two kinds of amazement apart. The crowd’s wonder does not yet equal saving confession, but it remains open to the sign: “It was never so seen in Israel.” The Pharisees close that opening by offering an explanation that turns mercy into demonic work. Their words are not skepticism awaiting more data; they are moral reversal.
This makes the charge a fitting threshold to the mission discourse. The Twelve will heal and cast out devils under Christ’s authority. They should not expect the works themselves to compel every observer. If the Master’s work is called Beelzebub’s, his household will bear the same slander.
The narrow Western omission may therefore make the narrative smoother while making Matthew’s conflict less gradual. The received text lets hostility gather in stages—from inward reasoning, to muttered accusation, to the open blasphemy of chapter 12.
Sources and further reading
- Matthew 9:32–10:25; 12:22–32.
- Frederick H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version.
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, note on Matthew 9:34.
- John William Burgon, The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels.
7Related materials
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- Record
- VAR-1041
- 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 9:34 — “He Casteth Out Devils through the Prince of the Devils”: Is the Verse Authentic?,” VAR-1041, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas
- — Chris Thomas