FABRICATIONS · ADDED VERSES
Let Him Hear Addition
If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.
doesn’t appear in the earliest manuscripts, for this reason, it is excluded in the NIV and ESV. Its addition in later copies likely came from a desire to align Mark’s account with other instances of Jesus urging attentive hearing. Such insertions, however minor, reveal that scribes felt authorized to adjust the text, raising questions about the overall integrity of the Gospels.
THE CHRISTIAN RESPONSE
Such exhortations are common in Jesus’ speeches. Adding it here may have been an attempt to maintain thematic consistency. This minor insertion doesn’t alter doctrine, just reinforces a familiar motif of listening to Jesus’ teaching.
THE ISLAMIC POSITION
If scribes casually inserted known phrases, it shows they were not simply preserving but also embellishing. Even a small addition suggests the text was moldable. This undermines the premise that we have a strictly transmitted record of Jesus’ words.
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Let Him Hear Addition