Where the manuscripts differ · Matthew 18:11
"The Son of man is come to save that which was lost"
A much-loved sentence that the earliest manuscripts of Matthew do not contain — because it belongs, word for word, to Luke 19:10.
This is one of the warmest sentences in the Gospels, and a reader who finds it missing from Matthew 18 can feel like something has been taken. It has not been. The sentence is still in the Bible, in Luke 19:10, in every manuscript, undisputed, spoken by Jesus at Zacchaeus's house.
The question here is narrower than it looks: did Matthew write this line at this spot, or did a copyist add it as a bridge into the parable of the lost sheep that follows?
You can see why someone would. Verse 10 talks about not despising little ones; verse 12 begins the story of the sheep that wandered off. A sentence about the Son of Man coming to save the lost sits between them like a handrail. That is exactly the sort of helpful addition scribes made — and exactly why scholars watch for it.
What the manuscripts actually show
| Witness | Date | What it reads here |
|---|---|---|
| Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus | 4th century | No verse 11 — verse 10 is followed directly by the parable in verse 12. |
| The Byzantine majority of Greek manuscripts | 9th–15th centuries | "For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost." |
| Latin and Syriac witnesses | 4th–7th centuries | Divided; several of the earlier ones lack it. |
| Luke 19:10, in every witness | All periods | "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." The sentence is unquestioned there. |
The case each way
That it belongs in the text
It stands in most surviving Greek manuscripts and in the tradition the KJV translators worked from.
It fits the flow of the chapter, and Jesus certainly could have said the same thing on more than one occasion — teachers repeat themselves.
That it came later
The earliest Greek manuscripts do not have it, and they represent more than one line of transmission.
Where the sentence appears, it tracks Luke's wording, which points to borrowing rather than to independent memory.
It reads like connective tissue. Sentences that smooth a transition are the classic profile of a scribal addition, because a copyist adding one is trying to help, not to deceive.