Now, ReChoired, you're showing either a blatant ignorance, or a blatant bias.
By the most elementary principle, regarding sacred text or not, the oldest is the most reliable because it is the closest to the originals, and thus, less time for copyist errors and manipulation, well intended or not. This is a maxim of scribal principles and textual criticism, that again, does not even pertain only, to inspired scripture, but to all texts of antiquity. Simple reasoning warrants its veracity.
The shortest reading is always the preferred, or takes precedence, because, historically speaking, scribes have always had the tendency to add for the sake of clarity, or harmonization. In other words, as a hard fast rule, passages always grew in length the later the manuscript. That is, when there's a length discrepancy, the later manuscripts, as a rule, are always longer than the earlier MSS.
So, for you to say that, '...There is no logical reason to accept it, and no evidential reason to accept it, and no historical reason to accept it, and no manuscriptural evidence to accept it, there is no scriptural reason to accept it...' Makes you sound, again, unreasonable or ignorant of the matter at hand. For you, or anyone, can't refute what I said above.
