Another King James Bible Believer

Articles By King James Bible Researcher and Defender
Will Kinney


Luke 22:43-44 and the Vaticanus manuscript.

43 And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.

44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

All these words are found in the Majority of all Greek manuscripts including D, E, F, G, H, K, L, Q, X and the Old Latin copies ita itaur itb itc itd ite itff2 iti itl itq itr1 as well as the Syriac Curetonian, Palestinian, Harclean, and Syriac Peshitta, as well as the Ethiopic and Slavonic ancient versions and the Diatessaron 165 A.D.

Sinaiticus is interesting in that these two verses were in the original Sinaiticus, then some scribe omitted them and then another scribe put them back in the text!

The main manuscripts that omit both these verses are Vaticanus, P75, A and a handful of other minor copies.

The Revised Standard Version 1972 actually omits all of verses 43 and 44.

42 "Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done." 43 * [No text] 44 * [No text] 45 And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow,”

https://www.biblestudytools.com/rsv/luke/22.html

The older RSV 1952 included both verses without brackets! The 1972 edition omitted them. And then the New RSV 1989 put these two verses back in their version, but with brackets this time, while the ESV now includes the verses but with no brackets but just with a footnote that says “Some manuscripts omit verses 43 and 44.”

Among these Critical (Condition) Text versions the verses are NOT in brackets in the ESV, NIV, CSB, Legacy Standard Bible 2021 but the NASB, NET and Holman Standard put them in brackets so you won’t get too confident that they are actually inspired Scripture and belong in the Bible.

To see more examples of how the so called “oldest and best manuscripts” differ from each other and both contain many absurd readings that nobody follows, see What Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are really like, here -

vaticanus-sinaiticus-facts