The gaps · 01 of 15 · Matthew skips a verse
Prayer and fasting
Matthew jumps from 20 to 22. The missing line is still in Mark, almost word for word.
Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
Not in the BSB (or NIV) main text. A footnote in modern editions reads: some manuscripts add, “But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”
τοῦτο δὲ τὸ γένος οὐκ ἐκπορεύεται εἰ μὴ ἐν προσευχῇ καὶ νηστείᾳ
The seam
01The disciples cannot drive it out
Why could we not? He says: because of your little faith. Verse 20 already closes the lesson. The oldest Matthew goes on to verse 22.
02Matthew skips 21
Sinaiticus and Vaticanus have no sentence here. Later copies write Mark’s closer in, and the KJV numbers it 21.
03Mark still says it
This kind cannot come out except by prayer. The private room is the same, and so is the boy. The teaching lives in Mark whether Matthew borrowed the closer or not.
In these copies
- Byzantine majority
- Textus Receptus
- C, D, W, families 1 and 13
- KJV, WEB
Not in these copies
- Codex Sinaiticus (א)
- Codex Vaticanus (B)
- early Alexandrian copies
- BSB, ASV, NIV
Read it this way
The earliest Greek copies of Matthew skip 17:21. That is not a hole in the teaching. It is a hole in this copy of this story. A scribe who knew Mark’s healing — the boy, the disciples, the private room — often wrote Mark’s closer into Matthew so the two pages would match. Copies talk to each other. A line you loved in Mark starts showing up in Matthew so nobody would think Matthew had forgotten it.
Mark 9:29 still has the sentence. In the oldest Mark the closer is “by prayer.” The KJV Mark adds “and fasting,” the same extra that landed in Matthew. Fasting is not the scandal. The scandal in the posts is the word “removed.” Removed from which book? Matthew’s oldest copies never had the sentence. Mark still teaches it, in every Bible on this shelf.
BSB follows the older Matthew and leaves the line in a footnote. WEB and KJV print it as verse 21. The numbers jump because later copies inserted a verse, and the printers kept the numbers. The teaching was not stolen. What changed is which copy of Matthew you are reading.
Still on the page: Mark 9:29 — This kind cannot come out except by prayer. (KJV adds “and fasting.”)
Some sayMatthew 17:21 has been REMOVED from the Bible.
The teaching was not stolen. It still stands in Mark 9:29. What changed is which copy of Matthew you are reading.
KJV
on the page
WEB
on the page
BSB
not printed
ASV
not printed