Douglas Stuart on Identifying Interpolations

The ability to excise a portion of a text can never be considered grounds for identifying that portion as inauthentic. The situation is a bit like arguing that the ability of an individual to survive the removal of his or her gall bladder is evidence that the gall bladder is only artificially present in the human body. Virtually any piece of literature can be abridged; virtually any document has some clauses, sentences, or paragraphs relatively less crucial to, or relatively less stylistically integral to its core than others. But the portions seeming easier to excise are merely those portions someone considers peripheral or awkward. Such value judgments, not being ultimately empirically based, are always to be suspected. (Stuart, Douglas. Hosea-Jonah. Word Biblical Commentary 31. Dallas: Word Books, 1987. Page 15.)