Exorcism 101 - In support of "by prayer and fasting" in Mark 9:29
Like many of you, I was told that Jesus did NOT include "fasting" in his answer to His disciples' question as to why they could not cast out the demon. And like many of you, I didn't question the commentators, the Bible scholars, the seminary professors, etc. But I think we clearly have another case of "fake news". In other words, "AND FASTING" were the original words of Jesus. Incredibly, the reason the shorter rendering was argued as being the "preferred" reading was that, since the Early Church had such an emphasis on fasting, the argument was that "and fasting" was a biased or "motivated" reading. And that modern NT textual critics simply concluded that it wasn't in the original. Could it be that the earliest Church fasted actually IN OBEDIENCE to Jesus' clear teaching? Incredible the conclusions that such scholars have reached! Why do I think so? What changed my mind? (In additio