DWThe Direct WitnessAccount

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.

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chapter-level decision records generated from the live translation registry

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public provenance schema, designed to remain machine-readable and auditable

SBLGNT

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.

SBLGNT project · Text and apparatus · License

Translation record

Matthew 6

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matthew.6.mt6Righteousness

δικαιοσύνην / ἐλεημοσύνην

TEXTTRANSLATIONhigh confidence

Does Jesus open with ‘your righteousness’ or ‘your charitable giving’?

The earliest recoverable reading warns against practicing ‘your righteousness’ before people. Many witnesses narrow the heading to ‘your almsgiving,’ matching the first example that follows.

Why this default

‘Righteousness’ is default because it is the broader, more difficult heading and has strong early support. ‘Charitable giving’ naturally arose when a scribe aligned the heading with the first example in verses 2–4.

Evidence

ExternalRighteousness: א, B, D, 0250, family 1, 33 and important early versions; charitable giving: L, W, Z, Θ, family 13 and the Byzantine tradition.

InternalA general heading followed by three practices—giving, prayer, and fasting—fits the discourse. Narrowing it to the immediately following topic is a common smoothing change.

Project defaultyour righteousness

Project default · broader early heading

Witnessesδικαιοσύνην · א, B, D, 0250, family 1, 33, early versions
Alternativeyour charitable giving

Reading aligned to verses 2–4

Witnessesἐλεημοσύνην · L, W, Z, Θ, family 13, Byzantine tradition
Alternativeyour righteousness [charitable giving]

Fork visible in-line

WitnessesDisplay option · both nouns shown

Reference roleStandardized inspectable reference; manuscript forks are independently reopened.

Revision historyNo decision-level revision has been recorded since the provenance ledger was introduced.

← All Matthew 6 records

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.