The copies

Witness

Matthew jumps a verse. The prayer stops. Two strokes decide God or He.

Walk the copies. KJV often keeps the longer reading. BSB follows the older books. When a post says theft, we show you the page. A missing verse is often still in Mark. This is not a decoder ring for villains.

The gaps

A line sits in the KJV and not in the oldest copy. It is often still in Mark or Luke.

01Fasting02Lost03Widows04Ears05Worm06Forgive07Numbered08Fire09Field10Barabbas11Angel12I believe13Goads14Silas15Grace

The joins

An Amen was added. A hard stop was kept. Sweat like blood is argued. A woman the church would not lose.

01Amen02Ending03Sweat04Woman

The words

The copies disagree on God or He, on blood, on three that testify, and on God or Son.

01Comma02Blood03God or He04Son of God05God or Son

The gaps · 13 of 15 · Paul will say it later

Kick against the goads

The road already knocks him down. The extra lines are borrowed from the speeches he has not given yet.

King James (1611)
And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.
Berean Standard Bible
“Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν

The seam

  1. 01The first telling

    Acts 9:4

    A light. He falls. Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? The oldest chapter 9 does not yet have the goads. It has the voice.

  2. 02Get up and go in

    Acts 9:6

    The Lord sends him into Damascus blind. Ananias will meet him. The extra trembling question is not in the oldest Greek here.

  3. 03Paul on the steps

    Acts 22:10

    What shall I do, Lord? Paul tells Jerusalem this himself. A later hand of chapter 9 wanted that question already asked on the road.

  4. 04Paul before Agrippa

    Acts 26:14

    It is hard for you to kick against the goads. Said in court, in Paul’s own retelling. That is where the proverb lives.

In these copies

  • E, some Latin
  • Textus Receptus
  • KJV

Not in these copies

  • p⁷⁴
  • Sinaiticus
  • Vaticanus
  • A, B, C
  • BSB, WEB, ASV, NIV

Read it this way

Acts tells the Damascus road three times. Chapter 9 is Luke’s telling. Chapters 22 and 26 are Paul telling it. The oldest copies of chapter 9 are spare: a light, a voice, “why do you persecute Me?”, then “get up and go into the city.”

The KJV chapter 9 has more mouth in it. “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks” — that sentence is Paul’s, before Agrippa, in 26:14. “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” — that is Paul’s, on the steps, in 22:10. Later copies of chapter 9 pulled those later speeches back onto the first telling, so the conversion would already sound like Paul.

That is memory, not theft. The goads are still in Acts. They are in Paul’s own mouth, on the page, when he is ready to say them.

Still on the page: Acts 26:14 — Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads. Paul tells Agrippa this himself.

Some sayThey stripped Paul’s conversion of “it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

The goads were not removed from Acts. They were not copied from the speeches back into chapter 9.

  • KJV

    on the page

  • WEB

    not printed

  • BSB

    not printed

  • ASV

    not printed

Open Acts 9

The line the text already walks — that is Foretold. Words you already say out loud sit in Words with weight. Witness is when the copies do not match.