Saturday, March 26, 2022

Michael Patella on the Authenticity of Luke 22:43-44

  

Although the textual tradition has led many to dispute 22:43-44 as original to Luke—some of the most dependable manuscripts show them either added or omitted—further investigation favors the inclusion of these verses, in addition to the fact that the Catholic tradition has always considered them authentic. An examination of the internal evidence within the whole Lucan narrative shows that the verses stand as a reprise of the desert temptation (scene 4:13). Luke reads that the devil departs from Jesus “for a time,” or more accurately, until an opportune time, achri kairos (4:13). The angel now arrives to minister to Jesus as well.

 

To emphasize the intensity of the scene, Luke describes the bloody sweat. A rare medical condition and often associated with people under severe duress, hematidrosis occurs when the capillaries in the sweat glands rupture, thereby causing the seat to become blood-tinged. Luke is describing such a situation here. An alternative view is that at the agony, Jesus sweats so profusely that the drops are like blood globules falling to the ground. Neither case is very complimentary to the Son of God, a point that explains why some over the centuries have questioned the authenticity of the verses.

 

Luke 22:43-44 are original to Luke. Docetists and others, who preferred to stress the divine nature of Jesus at the expense of his humanity, removed the verses from the text (see also 23:34). They are, nonetheless, part of the original reading . . . (Michael Patella, “Luke,” in The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century, ed. John J. Collins, Gina Hens-Piazza, Barbara Reid, and Donald Senior [3d ed.; London: T&T Clark, 2022], 1353)

 

Further Reading

 

Lincoln H. Blumell, "Luke 22:43–44: An Anti-Docetic Interpolation or an Apologetic Omission?,” TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism 19 (2014): 1–35.