Matthew 27:49

Matthew 27:49 auvto,n. {B}

Although attested by a B C L al the words a;lloj de. labw.n lo,gchn e;nuxen auvtou/ th.n pleura,n( kai. evxh/lqen u[dwr kai. ai-ma must be regarded as an early intrusion derived from a similar account in John 19:34. It might be thought that the words were omitted because they represent the piercing as preceding Jesus’ death, whereas John makes it follow; but that difference would have only been a reason for moving the passage to a later position (perhaps at the close of ver. Matthew 27:50 or Matthew 27:54 or Matthew 27:56), or else there would have been some tampering with the passage in John, which is not the case. It is probable that the Johannine passage was written by some reader in the margin of Matthew from memory (there are several minor differences, such as the sequence of “water and blood”), and a later copyist awkwardly introduced it into the text.