Luke 22:23-24 are textually disputed; that is, they appear in some manuscripts, but not others. Judging their reliability is, in this case, extremely tricky since the evidence for regarding them as original is about as strong as that for regarding them as suspect. In the past, the tendency of critical scholars was to judge against texts like these, but that no longer seems the case. The more recent critical commentaries I consulted favored their inclusion. Perhaps more interestingly, my copy of A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament by Bruce Metzger, which is based on the third edition of the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament, reports that the editing committee gave these two verses a "C" grade. However, my actual UBS Greek New Testament is a 4th revised edition, which grades them as "A."
My own reason for thinking 22:23-24 are genuine has to do with the way Luke has structured his Gospel. He explicitly points out Satan's return as Jesus' Passion begins (Luke 22:3, 31), a theme which is at best only implicit in Mark's and Matthew's Gospels. Thus, in Luke, Jesus' anticipation of his suffering (Luke 22:1-46) is paralled to his temptation by Satan in Luke 4:1-13. Now, Luke's account of Jesus' temptations after his baptism differs from Mark's and Mathew's in that he does not record the fact that Jesus was ministered to by angels. Therefore, it seems likely to me, and possibly because he had the other Gospel accounts in mind, that Luke is the only Evangelist to mention the angel at Gethsemane because he wants his readers to note how our Lord resisted temptations at both the beginning and end of his earthly ministry.
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