IT’S THE QUESTION OF THE WEEK.
And Robin Walker gets a free book for asking it.
Here’s her question:
I was doing a fast for three weeks last month. In one of my books on fasting it had a scripture, Matthew 17: 20-21. Interestingly enough some of my Bibles have blatantly eliminated the entire verse 21, which to me is the key to the entire story: “However, this kind [of demon] does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”
It [the Bible] actually goes from verse 20 to 22….
I find it disturbing that people have taken out pertinent information from the Word…. why would we start taking out this kind of important information that God originally gave us?
Short answer many scholars would suggest: God didn’t give us verse 21.
Some well-meaning dweeb of an editor did.
Because editors are like that. They say what they think we should have said.
Imagine the chutzpah it would have taken to put words in the mouth of Jesus.
The names of some editors I know are coming to mind.
Here’s the quote from Jesus…his answer to why the disciples couldn’t exorcise a demon. I’ve put the controversial verse 21 in dark type.
“I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting” (New King James Version).
Here’s what’s going on, Robin. We don’t have the original copy of the Book of Matthew.
We don’t have the original copy of any book in the Bible.
We don’t even have even a shred of the original copy of any book in the Bible.
What we have are ancient copies of copies of books of the Bible.
We’ve found a variety of ancient copies of some books—or parts of books—Matthew included.
Scholars consider some ancient copies more reliable than others.
There are several ancient copies of Matthew that include verse 21. There are also several that don’t.
Most scholars seem to feel that Matthew without verse 21 is more reliable.
The reason. It’s hard to imagine someone deleting these words of Jesus from the original copy.
On the other hand, it’s not too hard to imagine an editor dweeb adding it. Especially if the editor had read what many say was the first of the Gospels—Mark. If he saw it there, he may have decided to insert it into Matthew’s version of the same story, assuming Matthew overlooked it: “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting” (Mark 9:29, NKJV).
Scholars seem to think Matthew left it out on purpose because he wanted to focus on faith, not on fasting.
So, though you might be bummed that your key verse isn’t in Matthew, you can find it in Mark.
Speaking of Mark and deleted Bible verses, you might also notice that about half of the last chapter in Mark gets edited out of some Bibles. When Bible translators get to that chapter—16—some give you two choices for an ending: the Short Version (8 verses) or the Long Version (20 verses).
Heads up: the Short Version is the one most scholars say is the reliable one.
Why? Let’s save that for another Question of the Week.
Why, please tell, is the shorter version of
Mark the more reliable? 🙂
Erin
OK, Erin. I’ll add that to the Question of the Week entries. I was hoping someone would jump on that.
you say there r several ancient copies that do include M17.21 and several that don’t in saying this you are being misleading it is quite clear that the majority do have Matthew 17:21 and the minority do not the majority of texts consists of well over 95% of the existing manuscript you are being extremely disingenuous by saying several do and several don’t that is not the true situation at all.
Mt. 17:21 doesn’t appear in the oldest copies of Matthew that have been discovered. The King James Version included it because it was on the copies they had access to. We now have older copies. An extreme example is that the Isaiah scroll found with the Dead Sea Scrolls is 1,000 years older than the one the KJV scholars used to translate Isaiah for the Old Testament. Sorry for the delayed response. Peace to you.
I was reading Mathew 17:21 in my HCSB bible and got really scared of what it said, because i never heard anyone talk about faith also being dependent on fasting. I can see now why this verse is debated and omitted
Assuming this verse is somewhat valid since it is in Mark 9, what does it actually mean? Is Jesus saying to the disciples that they didn’t pray and fast enough to be able to expel this particular demon? How does that square with his later comments about having faith the size of a mustard seed – which suggests that with faith anything is possible? Surely the point is that the disciples didn’t have enough faith to make the healing happen. So why verse 21 at all?