Hitherto we have studied small blocks of material, a dozen verses or so at most, which either show extensive variation or are altogether secondary. In this chapter we study a different phenomenon, the effect on a longer passage of a number of variations scattered through it. At the same time, we are able to observe the way in which traditions, and with them texts, continued to grow and to change in the earliest centuries and beyond.

The final chapters of Luke are the most suitable for this study. The whole text of Luke has, as we have discovered on several occasions already, been the subject of extensive revision. The most notable of all such assaults was that of Marcion, and there can be little doubt that his drastic revision had an unsettling influence on the text, even if direct influence is found but rarely. It is in the final chapters that uncertainty about Luke's text becomes most prominent, not only among the ancient witnesses to the text, but also among modern scholars. Significantly different versions of the last two and a half chapters of the Gospel have been accepted in the last 120 years.

We are fortunate in having to hand a recent and exhaustive edition of the material, in the International Greek New Testament Project's edition.