From Newsgroup: uk.religion.christian

Ooo-er! That wicked American government has been at it again, this time deleting verses from the Bible!

At least, that is the latest conspiracy theory doing the rounds among
our gullible cousins across the water. Some of these individuals have
ust woken up to the fact that Matthew 17:21 is missing from their
Bibles. In case you have not memorised that particular chapter, it is
the one where Jesus comes down from the Mount of Transfiguration to find
a demon-possessed boy and a distressed father.

Jesus successfully casts out the demon and His disciples then ask why
they had not been able to do so. In the missing verse Jesus allegedly
tells them that "this kind goeth not out except by prayer and fasting",
a verse beloved by all those who trust in their own works and delight in
being uncomfortable.

There is a similar account in Mark 9:29 and scholars have noted that the earliest manuscripts of the gospel of Matthew do not include 17:21. It
is only after the 5th century AD that the verse begins to appear,
presumably copied from the parallel account in Mark.

But it gets even better, because Mark does not include the worda "and fasting", which seem to have been added around the same time as Mark's
verse was copied into Matthew.

In other words, I strongly suspect that some monk, addicted to
mortifying the flesh, felt that prayer was not sufficient and added in
"and fasting". It may have been the same person who transferred the
verse and added it into Matthew.

So unless the American government has perfected the art of time travel
and gone back in time to the 5th century AD, we have to let them off the
hook over this one. To the disappointment of all masochists out there,
Jesus recommended prayer but not fasting.

Isn't it awful? How are you going to blackmail God into answering your
prayers if you can no longer go on hunger-strike?

God bless,
Kendall K. Down
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