chapter-level decision records generated from the live translation registry
The evidence beneath the English
Every consequential choice
leaves a record.
John, Mark, Matthew, and Luke were developed through direct Greek analysis, lexical work, and manuscript comparison. Where surviving witnesses materially disagree, the competing Greek readings and their effect on English remain open to the reader.
public provenance schema, designed to remain machine-readable and auditable
standardized inspectable Greek reference edition
Textual basis
SBL Greek New Testament
Edited by Michael W. Holmes. The project's standardized, publicly inspectable Greek reference edition. It is not presented as retroactive proof that every existing chapter originated from one uniform printed edition.
This is an honest reference claim, not a retroactive claim that all completed work began from one uniform printed edition. Material manuscript forks remain independently documented at the reading they affect.
Translation record
Matthew 3
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matthew.3.mt3Offspring
γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν
METAPHORRHETORICTRANSLATIONhigh confidence
What does John call the religious leaders?
The phrase literally means offspring or brood of vipers, attacking their lineage and character.
Why this default
‘Offspring of vipers’ is default because gennēmata attacks the leaders’ lineage and character while preserving the biological force of John’s insult. Traditional ‘brood’ is vivid but archaic to some readers, while ‘children of snakes’ explains the image and weakens its poisonous specificity.
Evidence
ExternalNo separate external-evidence note is recorded for this stable-text decision.
InternalThe decision record relies on the stated lexical, grammatical, or translation rationale.
Project defaultOffspring of vipers
Project default · lineage force
AlternativeBrood of vipers
Traditional image
AlternativeChildren of snakes
Meaning exposed
Record integrity
One registry drives both the reader and this record.
The manifest is regenerated from the translation source before every production build. Its source digest is 450adc54c1fc782fbae5e9ed6a640a2ae0e3be080722ac134c84e1248c2a312a.
Decision-level revision history begins with this ledger. Earlier development is not reconstructed into false precision; future material changes can be appended to the relevant record with their reason and date.