Did Jesus Bleed from Every Pore?

In his memorable speech, King Benjamin quoted words delivered to him by an angel concerning the coming of Jesus Christ and the infinite Atonement he would perform: “And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death, for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people” (Mosiah 3:7).

The angel’s prophecy of what Jesus would suffer appears to anticipate a similar detail recorded in the gospel of Luke: “And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:43–44). In evaluating the Lucan passage, there are two key points of disagreement among New Testament scholars.

The medical condition of Bleeding “from every pore”

First, it is not clear what these words might mean. Many scholars have read this passage in Luke as describing the rare but documented medical phenomenon known as hematohidrosis (or haimatidrosis). This “very rare condition” causes “an individual to sweat blood,” and may be caused by, among other things, “extreme levels of stress” and “excessive exertion.”¹ Is this what Luke meant by “drops of blood” (thromboi haimatos)? Hematohidrosis has been observed among soldiers preparing to enter battle and prisoners facing execution.² The common factor among these unusual cases is an unbearable amount of mental stress that comes from the anticipation of imminent pain and death, something the Gospels report Jesus experienced in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:37–38; Mark 14:33–34).³ This strengthens the likelihood that Luke was describing hematohidrosis.

There are, however, other ambiguities in the Greek text of this passage. For example, the Greek particle hōsei (as if, as though, as it were, as, like, etc.) used in v. 44 can denote several kinds of approximation or equivalence. It’s not entirely clear from the Greek text alone if Jesus was sweating normal sweat as if he were profusely bleeding or if the sweat was actual blood, and so scholars are divided on how to interpret this language.⁴ Most New Testament scholars read hōsei in v. 44 as introducing a simile (Jesus was sweating so profusely it was as if he were bleeding), although a minority of scholars have argued for the passage describing actual haimatidrosis, or blood being secreted (Jesus literally sweat blood).⁵

The Textual Issues with Luke 22:43–44

The second issue within this passage are problems with its textual history.⁶ While the imagery in Luke 22:43–44 certainly is striking, biblical scholars have come to question its authenticity or originality to Luke’s gospel based on evidence from ancient manuscripts.⁷ Why might these verses be absent from some of the earliest manuscripts of Luke? As two notable New Testament scholars have suggested:

These verses [Luke 22:43–44] are absent from some of the oldest and best [New Testament manuscripts]. . . . It is striking to note that the earliest witnesses attesting the verses are three Church fathers – Justin, Irenaeus, and Hippolytus – each of whom uses the verses in order to counter Christological views that maintained that Jesus was not a full human who experienced the full range of human sufferings. It may well be that the verses were added to the text for just this reason, in opposition to those who held to a [heretical] Christology [that Jesus was not fully human as well as fully God].⁸

Another scholar has hypothesized that even if these verses were not original to Luke, they may still have been historically accurate, having “been drawn from some floating tradition which had not found its way into” the original text.⁹

More recent work by Latter-day Saint scholars has reinforced the plausible authenticity of these verses in Luke’s gospel both on manuscript grounds as well as for linguistic reasons,¹⁰ as scholar Thomas A. Wayment has summarized:

These two verses are greatly disputed, and a number of important ancient manuscripts omit them. Other early and important manuscripts include these verses. Given the current evidence, it is unlikely that the question of their omission or inclusion can be resolved. However, the evidence is strong enough to suggest that they may be original to Luke’s Gospel but were perhaps omitted over doctrinal concerns.¹¹

In other words, based solely on the manuscript evidence and the understandings of ancient Christian writers, while the matter of whether these verses are original to Luke’s gospel cannot be fully resolved at the present time, there are, however, enough reasons for one to cautiously accept their factual authenticity while still being aware of their questionable textual status.