From James White’s
The King James Only Controversy, “Part Two – The Textual data,” page 252.
MATTHEW 6:13: THE LORD’S PRAYER
The “Lord’s Prayer” of Matthew 6 is an excellent text for illustrating how scribal expansion took place in the context of a passage that was deeply ingrained in the Christian liturgy from the earliest times. Not only does the “long ending” in verse 13 provide a valuable insight into the habits of the scribes, but the many efforts at harmonizing Luke’s much abbreviated version in Luke 11:2-4 are of great interest as well. Here is Matthew 6:13:
KJV
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever, Amen. NIV
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
As in the “longer ending” of Mark, the additional material in verse 13 gives us indications of its later origin in a number of ways. First we have the external evidence against its originality. The verse ends as in the NIV with the Greek term
ponhrou in
a B D Z 0170 l 547, many Latin translations and numerous Fathers. Metzger notes regarding the reading,
The absence of any ascription in the early and important representatives of the Alexandrian (a B), the Western (D and most of the Old Latin), and the pre-Caesarean (f1) types of text, as well as early patristic commentaries on the Lord’s Prayer (those of Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian) suggests that an ascription, usually in a threefold form, was composed (perhaps on the basis of 1 Chr 29.11-13) in order to adapt the Prayer for liturgical use in the early church.*
When we look at the longer ending we discover a number of variants. Some omit “and the power,” one omits “and the glory,” some omit “the kingdom and,” and some add a Trinitarian formula, “of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” This kind of “variant cluster” is a sure sign of a later addition. Yet verse 13 has become so traditional that to question its originality is often construed as engaging in the most rank kind of “liberalism.”
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*Bruce Metzger,
A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (United Bible Societies, 1975), pages, 16-17.