Luke 22:43,44

Luke 22:43-44 [[omit verses]] {A}

The absence of these verses in such ancient and widely diversified witnesses as î^{(69vid), 75} a^a A B T W syr^s cop^{sa, bo} arm^mss geo Marcion Clement Origen al, as well as their being marked with asterisks or obeli (signifying spuriousness) in other witnesses (D^c P^c 892^{c mg} 1079 1195 1216 cop^bomss) and their transferral to Matthew’s Gospel (after Matthew 26:39) by family 13 and several lectionaries (the latter also transfer ver. Luke 22:45), strongly suggests that they are no part of the original text of Luke. Their presence in many manuscripts, some ancient, as well as their citation by Justin, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Eusebius, and many other Fathers, is proof of the antiquity of the account. On grounds of transcriptional probability it is less likely that the verses were deleted in several different areas of the church by those who felt that the account of Jesus being overwhelmed with human weakness was incompatible with his sharing the divine omnipotence of the Father, than that they were added from an early source, oral or written, of extra-canonical traditions concerning the life and passion of Jesus. Nevertheless, while acknowledging that the passage is a later addition to the text, in view of its evident antiquity and its importance in the textual tradition, a majority of the Committee decided to retain the words in the text but to enclose them within double square brackets.