Westcott and Hort were unbelievers who jumped on the Tischendorf finds and generated a bunch of fake rules about the texts that nobody believes anymore. They promoted their Greek New Testament with no justification for any of the changes (no critical apparatus to explain their radical and stupid ideas) - like the WELS writer below.
Kurt Aland and his lovely second wife Barbara became the heirs of the Nestle-Aland style of Greek New Testament, constantly changing and beholden to Tischendorf-Westcott-Hort. |
The part below in purple is copied and pasted, not one of my delightful satires:
Lord’s Prayer Doxology
We find the Lord speaking the prayer that bears his name twice: in the sermon on the mount (Matthew 6:9-13) and on the occasion of his disciples asking for guidance on how to pray (Luke 11:2-4). The reality we face is that the original manuscripts of Matthew’s gospel and Luke’s gospel are not extant. That is the case with all original manuscripts of Bible books. We have copies and copies of the original manuscripts.*
The copies of Luke’s gospel do not contain a doxology. Some copies of Matthew’s gospel contain a doxology, other copies do not. Consequently, we cannot say with certainty whether or not Jesus spoke the doxology.**
In that regard, then, it is not a matter of right or wrong to speak or omit the doxology. Churches have freedom in which “version” they use. If Jesus did not speak the doxology, those words that are reminiscent of 1 Chronicles 29:10-11 could very well have been a liturgical addition by the early Christian church.*** Our Holy Communion liturgy from the 1941 hymnal reflected that when the pastor spoke the address and petitions of the Lord’s Prayer and the congregation sang the Doxology.
It is interesting to note that the Small and Large Catechisms that Martin Luther wrote contained the Lord’s Prayer without the Doxology. The Doxology was added to the Catechisms after Luther’s death. Also, when Luther revised the Mass, he included an instruction that “After the sermon shall follow a public paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer.” That paraphrase did not include a Doxology.
God’s blessings on your writing!