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The phrase ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ is not found in the parallel Gospels of Mark and Luke, even where these Gospels were quoting the very same words of Jesus found in Matthew. Instead, Mark and Luke report that Jesus said, ‘Kingdom of God,’ not ‘Kingdom of Heaven.’

We put more trust in what Mark and Luke wrote wherever there are contradictions between them and Matthew (and there are several). Why? The Gospel of Matthew is the most corrupted of all the Bible texts. It’s likely that Jesus did not say ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, but that someone changed it from the original words, ‘Kingdom of God.’ They must have done this sometime before Matthew was translated from Aramaic into Greek, because the same corruption appears in the Aramaic version too.

This corruption could have a significant effect upon Biblical interpretation. How so? The phrase ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ could imply that the Kingdom is only located in heaven. However, the phrase ‘Kingdom of God’ has no such limitation.

For a greater discussion of this corruption and its doctrinal implications, please see the commentary, What is the Kingdom?

For a discussion about the Kingdom of God in general, please see the commentary, The Seed – God’s Kingdom.

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