From Michael Waddle’s response—my first introduction to Western noninterpolations on 2/21/2026—in a post at BSA here:
What are the Western noninterpolations? (The link is to Wikipedia, where there are ranked lists of citations and the supporting manuscripts.) This is the name scholars give to a small set of passages in the Gospel of Luke (and a couple in the other Gospels) that are missing from the Western textual tradition—the most famous representative of that tradition is Codex Bezae (D) (pronounced BEE-zi’), a 5th‑century Greek–Latin manuscript. (The name “Western noninterpolations” is confusing, but that’s what they went with.) In most manuscripts, these verses appear normally, but in Bezae and some related Western text witnesses, the verses are absent. So did the Western tradition lose these verses? Or did all other manuscripts add them later? That’s the controversy.
Here are some of the main verses in question:
- Luke 22:19b–20: “This is my body… this cup poured out for you is the new covenant…”
- Luke 24:12: Peter running to the tomb.
- Luke 24:40: Jesus showing his hands and feet.
- Luke 24:51: The mention of Jesus being “carried up into heaven.”
About half of scholars (including Bart) think these are additions and were not in the original. These scholars point out the manuscripts in the Western Tradition are some of our oldest and best. They also note that these passages contain vivid details, the kind that a scribe might want to add, but that there’s no good reason to remove. They also note that the Eucharistic formula follows Paul’s wording closely, that it seems to fit awkwardly in its context, that it seems to contradict Luke’s tendencies elsewhere, etc.
From Claude.ai – What are the Western noninterpolations? List them from the NRSV and include why critical Bible scholars say that, how widespread that belief is, and who the prominent scholars are.
Response – The Western non-interpolations are a set of passages found in most New Testament manuscripts but absent from the “Western” text-type (primarily Codex Bezae and related Old Latin manuscripts). Westcott and Hort, who coined the term in their landmark 1881 Greek New Testament, argued that these shorter Western readings were actually more original — that is, the longer readings found in the majority of manuscripts were later additions (interpolations), not the Western omissions. This was a minority position even in their own day and has become more so since, but it still has serious scholarly defenders.
Here are the Western non-interpolations, all from Luke’s Gospel, with NRSV text of the longer (majority) reading:
1. Luke 22:19b–20 — The longer institution narrative
“…which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”
2. Luke 24:3 — “of the Lord Jesus”
“but when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.”
3. Luke 24:6 — “He is not here, but has risen”
“He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee…”
4. Luke 24:12 — Peter at the tomb
“But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.”
5. Luke 24:36 — “and said to them, ‘Peace be with you'”
“While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’“
6. Luke 24:40 — Jesus shows his hands and feet
“And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.“
7. Luke 24:51 — “and was carried up into heaven”
“While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.“
8. Luke 24:52 — “worshiped him”
“And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy…””
What scholars say and how widespread the view is
Westcott and Hort’s original argument was that the Alexandrian text (e.g., Codex Sinaiticus, Vaticanus) preserved these longer readings as scribal additions, often to harmonize Luke with John or to add theological weight to resurrection appearances. They trusted the Western text here as an exception to their general rule of preferring the Alexandrian witnesses.
However, this view has been significantly challenged and is today held only by a minority of textual critics. The dominant position in contemporary scholarship is that the majority/Alexandrian readings are original and that the Western text omitted these passages, perhaps accidentally (parablepsis) or because of theological discomfort. Several arguments support this:
- Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, generally the most trusted manuscripts, include the longer readings.
- The Western text is otherwise known for additions, not omissions, making these shorter readings anomalous.
- Omission is easier to explain as scribal accident, especially in the resurrection narratives where similar phrases recur.
Prominent scholars who questioned or rejected the Western non-interpolation theory include Bruce Metzger (whose Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament addresses each case and generally favors the longer readings, though noting they are disputed), Kurt Aland, and most members of the United Bible Societies committee. Gordon Fee wrote an influential 1974 article directly challenging the theory. J.K. Elliott and David Parker, representing more eclectic approaches, also remain skeptical.
Scholars who have shown some sympathy for Westcott and Hort’s position, or who keep the debate open, include Bart Ehrman (in his early work on the Western text) and a few who argue scribal expansion of resurrection narratives is plausible given theological motivations.
In terms of how widespread the belief is today: it is a decided minority view. Modern critical editions — the Nestle-Aland 28th edition and the UBS5 — retain the longer readings in the text in most of these cases, though they note the variants with a {B} or {C} rating indicating some uncertainty. The debate is most alive around Luke 22:19b–20 (the “longer text” of the Last Supper), which has generated the most sustained scholarly discussion, and Luke 24:51–52 (the Ascension), where the omission would have significant theological implications.
2nd Prompt: Why do scholars think the noninterpolations were made?
This is really a question with two sides, depending on which direction you think the scribal change went.
If the Western text preserved the original (Westcott & Hort’s view) — why were the passages added?
The additions would have been made by Alexandrian scribes or their predecessors for several reasons. The resurrection narratives in Luke, in their shorter Western form, are notably sparse and somewhat abrupt. Scribes familiar with John’s Gospel would have noticed that Luke lacks Jesus saying “Peace be with you” at his appearance (John 20:19), that Luke has no equivalent to John’s showing of hands and side, and that Luke’s ascension account is theologically thin compared to Acts 1. The motive would have been harmonization — smoothing out differences between the Gospels — as well as theological enrichment, making the resurrection appearances more vivid and the physical reality of the risen Jesus more emphatic. This last point was especially important in an era of docetic controversy, when groups were denying that Jesus had a real physical body. A risen Christ who shows his hands and feet and eats fish is an anti-docetic Christ.
For Luke 22:19b–20 specifically, Hort argued the longer Last Supper text was imported partly from Paul’s account in 1 Corinthians 11, which uses nearly identical language about “the new covenant in my blood” and “do this in remembrance of me.” A scribe familiar with the Pauline eucharistic tradition might have unconsciously or deliberately expanded Luke’s account to match it.
If the majority text is original (the dominant modern view) — why were the passages omitted?
This is where modern scholarship has developed the richer and more persuasive set of explanations.
The most mundane explanation is parablepsis — a copyist’s eye skipping from one similar phrase to another, accidentally dropping the intervening text. In a resurrection narrative full of repeated phrases and parallel constructions, this is genuinely easy to do, and it could explain several of the omissions in Luke 24 as a chain of accidents in a single manuscript that then became the ancestor of the Western tradition.
Beyond accident, there are theological motivations for deliberate omission. Some scholars, particularly Bart Ehrman in his work on the Orthodox corruption of scripture (though he applied this framework more broadly), have noted that the Western omissions tend to cluster around passages that could be theologically awkward in certain early Christian contexts. The showing of hands and feet, the ascension language, and “Peace be with you” all make the resurrection more physically concrete — but in ways that some early readers, not necessarily docetists but Christians with varying theological sensibilities, might have found redundant, too corporeal, or in tension with their understanding of the glorified Christ.
For Luke 24:12 (Peter at the tomb), there is a specific argument: the verse looks very much like a condensed version of John 20:3–10, raising the question of whether a scribe added it to bring Luke into alignment with John, or whether the Western tradition dropped it precisely because it seemed like an intrusion from John into Luke’s narrative.
The Luke 22:19b–20 case is the most debated of all. Those who think the shorter text is original argue that an early scribe may have deliberately cut the longer eucharistic passage because it presents the cup before the bread in a way that, combined with the earlier cup in verse 17, creates a confusing double-cup sequence. Shortening the text to remove the second cup resolved a liturgical and narrative awkwardness. Those who defend the longer text respond that this awkwardness is precisely the kind of thing a scribe would smooth out by adding clarifying material, not create.
The broader picture
What makes this debate genuinely interesting is that both sides are appealing to the same basic principles of textual criticism — that scribes harmonized, expanded theologically, and occasionally made things accidentally worse — but applying them in opposite directions. The reason the modern consensus favors the longer readings is largely that the Western text is known elsewhere to be expansionist, making its shorter readings here seem like an unexplained exception rather than a reliable guide to the original. But the clustering of these variants in a single section of a single Gospel, all pointing the same direction, keeps a residual doubt alive in the minds of careful scholars. It is unlikely to ever be fully resolved.
