Take Luke 22:43-44, "And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground." This is not present in the very earliest Greek manuscripts p66 and p75 from the third century. (P66 stands for papyrus number 66, p75 for papyrus number 75). Will they be dropped from future printings of the King James Version because they are not in the earliest manuscripts we have? Somehow, I doubt it.
These verses are also omitted by Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Vaticanus (4th century), Codex Washingtonensis (5th century), etc., but are in Sinaiticus (4th century) and the great majority of later manuscripts. They are cited by the early church father Justin (c. A. D. 130). Whenever these verses were added or dropped, it must have been very early.
We know that these verses were quoted, not always exactly, in the second century by the early church fathers to counter the heretical view that Jesus was not a real human being and only quoted for that doctrinal purpose.
For example, Justin said, "(I)t is recorded that His sweat fell down like drops of blood while He was praying... in order that we may perceive that the Father wished His Son really to undergo such sufferings for our sakes, and may not say that He, being the Son of God, did not feel what was happening to Him and inflicted on Him" (Dialogue with Trypho, 103).
Irenaeus (c. A. D. 170) wrote, "(N)or would He have wept over Lazarus, nor have sweated great drops of blood; nor have declared, `My soul is exceeding sorrowful'; nor, when His side was pierced, would there have come forth blood and water. For all these are tokens of the flesh which had been derived from the earth, which He had recapitulated in Himself, bearing salvation to His own handiwork" (Against Heresy, 3, 22, 2).
Hippolytus (c. A. D 190) said, "Thus then, too, though demonstrated as God, He does not refuse the conditions proper to Him as man, since He hungers and toils and thirsts in weariness, and flees in fear, and prays in trouble. And He who as God has a sleepless nature, slumbers on a pillow. And He who for this end came into the world, begs off from the cup of suffering. And in an agony He sweats blood, and is strengthened by an angel..." (Against Noetus, 18).
These verses were cited only for doctrinal purposes and are missing from the earliest manuscripts of Luke's Gospel. What more proof is needed that Luke's Gospel was altered no more than decades after being written and that this was done for doctrinal reasons?
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Which Bible