"So terycarl, whatever else one might conclude, this means it is not a Protestant invention, unless you want to make the named patristic writers, the Didache, and the third oldest Bible out to be Protestant products."=============================================================
I believe you were responding to my post. (I'm "Heart-Rest".) :-)
I did not say it was a Protestant invention. (Read my post #2606 again!) I said it was not in the oldest Greek manuscripts, and that most biblical scholars today (both Catholic and Protestant) believe it was added later by a "copyist", then propagated through a number of subsequent copies by other copyists as well, but that it was definitely not in the oldest manuscripts we have of the Gospel of Matthew (just like it is not in the Lord's Prayer in the Gospel of Luke), but was added later for liturgical reasons, following the custom of the time to add a "Doxology" like that to the end of vocal, liturgical prayers.
That's the simple truth.
I believe you were responding to my post.
Well, I was responding to both of you. TC made a comment that this doxology was of Protestant origin (#2304), and it dovetailed with your comment, so I just sent my response to both of you:
To: CynicalBear
The original Greek as found at biblehub New American Standard Bible King James Bible Holman Christian Standard Bible Aramaic Bible in Plain English King James 2000 Bible American King James Version Webster's Bible Translation World English Bible Young's Literal Translation man oh man....the protestants added that doxology to all those Bibles....no wonder they all say what you want them to say....edit here, add there, pretty soon you have a book that meets all your needs.
2,304 posted on
12/19/2014 11:34:27 PM by
terycarl ( common sense prevails over all)
So the accusation that the doxology was included due to Protestant meddling is just wrong.
And the fact remains that despite your recitation of some modern generic commentary, the universe of Biblical scholarship is not monolithic on this point. There is a credible case for the originality of the Majority Text in general (Byzantine), and there are good reasons to question the minority text. Exploring that fully would require an entirely new thread. I think it is enough to say for now that the reason the doxology has been questioned is NOT because it lacks ancient witnesses. One does not have to be a KJV-Onlyist (and I am not) to recognize that Codex Washingtonianus has the reading, and that's 4th/5th Century. Or that the Didache, thought to be from about 100 AD, uses the same language. So which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did the Didache influence some Matthew copyist to insert the ending? Or was it in the Didache because it was already circulating in a very early copy of Matthew? We have some very early fragments of the Gospels, so that could well have been the case.
The point is, there is substantial evidence that the reading is original. The reason you find so many in modern translational work ready to dismiss it is because of the wide-spread success of Higher Criticism selling the snake oil that the Majority text overall is inferior to the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, base almost entirely on an accident of preservation.
As for the doxology in particular, why would it be so hard to imagine Jesus did actually say it? It would have been the normal way to end such a prayer. And how does it affect our debate here? As between Catholics and Protestants, I would think we would both agree with what the doxology says, "for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever, Amen." Most Greek Bibles for most of church history had it, and we throw it away because liberal German scholarship says we must? I'm not buying that.
Peace,
SR