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.

1,738

chapter-level decision records generated from the live translation registry

1

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 8

Download complete JSON record

matthew.8.mt8Dead

ἄφες τοὺς νεκροὺς θάψαι

WORDPLAYMETAPHORDISCIPLESHIPTRANSLATIONhigh confidence

Who are the ‘dead’ who bury their dead?

The saying deliberately uses nekroi twice. The first is metaphorical or vocationally unresponsive; the second refers to physically dead family members.

Why this default

‘Leave the dead to bury their own dead’ is default because it preserves the deliberate repetition and lets the first use remain provocatively figurative beside the second physical one. ‘Spiritually dead’ and ‘those not following’ explain the first group by resolving the paradox for the reader.

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 defaultleave the dead to bury their own dead

Project default · paradox retained

Alternativelet the spiritually dead bury their dead

First sense interpreted

Alternativelet those not following bury their own dead

Discipleship meaning

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 8 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.