The authenticity of Mark 16:9-20

[Amazing Rando]

Over in the GODISNOWHERE forum, we got a little sidetracked over the issue of the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20. I'd like to open the discussion up for broader consideration in this forum- anyone is free to jump in here! Here is the post in question, and my reply:

Rando,

You said,



Feel free to read The Last 12 Verses of Mark by John Burgan. Mr. Burgan provides numerous citations of early church fathers who quote Mark before the late manuscripts (deletions?) were written. If the last 8 verses were not in the original, where did the church fathers quote from? Mr. Burgen uses over 86,000 quotations of church fathers referencing the last 8 verses of Mark.

Read the book review here. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1888328002/ref=lpr_g_1/002-8352663-6934448?v=glance&s=books)

In fact, the NU (Critical Text) claims the last 8 verses are not in the original. They are lacking in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. Nearly all other manuscripts of Mark contain them.

I'll let Chris respond to the remainder of your issues. I might jump back in later...

--Jeremy

Hi Jeremy- I'd like to thank you for recommending this book to me. I'd never heard of it before. I'll be begining seminary myself in the fall at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, and will make it a point to look into it for myself.

On the other hand, Mr. Burgon was admittedly, writing in 1871, and much has been accomplished in the field of textual and literary criticism since then. There have been more manuscript discoveries as well as pioneering new techniques for determining the text of the original Greek manuscripts. As such, the book is a bit dated. Are you aware of any more contemporary studies that, perhaps building on Mr. Burgon's work or working independantly, have arrived at the same conclusions regarding Mark 16:9-20?

Without having read Mr. Burgon's book, all I can share with you is what I know of the subject. Every commentator that I have ever read and trusted, including the evangelical ones, has deemed the passage in question to be a later addition, including the translators of every modern Bible since the King James. Now perhaps someone sometime back then made a mistake in the textual criticism, and all the generations of scholars since then have uncritically accepted this mistake. That's certainly a possibility. But the greatest Christian minds of the 20th century, including those sincerely devoted evangelical Christians at such seminaries as Dallas Theological Seminary have accepted the possibility that this passage is not original to the gospels.

Let me quote Tektonics.org- a conservative site whose work I respect highly. The author (JP Holding) bases his case against Mark 16:9-20's authenticity on the two manuscripts that you mentioned as well as the testimony of Eusabius and other ECF's who apparently did not believe it to be authentic.

Mark 16:9-20

This passage may be dispensed, in my view, without discussion of baptism. The evidence is strongly against its inclusion (and that of Mark 16:9-20 as a whole) in the text:

External evidence. The two earliest parchment codices, Vaticanus B and Sinaiticus, plus 2 minuscules and several versions and manuscripts, do not contain verses 9-20. Two important early Christian writers testify that these verses are not found in Mark: Eusebius (Quaestiones ad Marinum I) says that they are not in "accurate" copies of Mark and are missing from "almost all" manuscripts; Jerome (Epistle CXX.3, ad Hedibiam) testifies that almost all Greek manuscripts of his time lack vss. 9-20. Many manuscripts that do have these verses "have scholia stating that older Greek copies lack them," and other textual witnesses add "conventional signs used by scribes to mark off a spurious addition to a literary text." There are also several variant endings of Mark in circulation. Our vss. 9-20 are the most common, but there is also a "short" ending, and seven Greek manuscripts with both the long and short ending.

Internal evidence. There is a sudden change in subject from verse 8 (the women) to verse 9 (Jesus). Mary Magdelene is introduced as one from whom Jesus had cast out seven demons, as though she had not been introduced in the Gospel before. The form, language, and style "militate against Marcan authorship." There are seventeen non-Marcan words or Marcan words used in a non-Marcan sense. There is no instance of the typical Marcan stylistic transitions or methods (such as beginning a phrase with a parataxis). Overall, the passage has the "distinct flavour of the second century" and appears to be a pastiche of material taken from other Gospels. [See for this data Markan commentaries by Brooks (272-3), Lane (601-4), and Anderson (358).]

From here (http://www.tektonics.org/baptismneed.html#mark16).

See also this excellent longer piece (http://www.tektonics.org/markend.html) devoted almost exclusively to examining the arguments for the passage's authenticity. It goes into some strong textual arguments and surveys the available literature about the topic.

So how about it? Let's have some expert opinions (Or "Quasi-expert" or even pseudo-expert opinions!) about whether or not Mark 16:9-20 belonged to the original gospel. :smile:

[Jaltus]

The quick answer is this:

If the longer ending is original, why are there two other endings at all? One simple rule in TC is the rule of asking what reading most likely gave rise to the other readings? Clearly the longer ending gave rise to the longest ending (e.g. Washingtonius having 16:14 being about a paragraph in length on its own), and thus the longest ending is obviously not original.

That leaves the longer ending, the shorter ending, and the non-ending. The non-ending has very early textual support and has support throughout all geographical areas and multiple languages. The longer ending has support in two geographical regions, two supporters early (Irenaeus and the Diatessaron), but that is about it. The shortest ending has little support.

Now, which is most likely to have given rise to the other two? Having no ending is likely to give rise to two different endings. A longer ending is unlikely to give rise to a non-ending AND a short ending. It could give rise to a non-ending if it were chopped off, but this in turn would go back to the longer ending, not cause a new ending to be made.

Therefore, due to the early support and likelyhood of attestation, I would say that the non-ending is the most likely ending.

[Amazing Rando]

I agree with you Jaltus- that's the logical way things are usually done in textual criticism. Check out the link to the book that Act9_12Out made in the post I quoted. Ever heard of that work? It was written in 1871.

[bar Jonah]

Yes, check out Acts9_12out's post. But in a nutshell, his argument is that if there are roughly 86,000 quotes of early church fathers referencing those ending verses of Mark in question, one cannot easily say that there is "little or no support." It certainly sounds like those early church fathers had reason to recognize these verses in question.

[tizzidale]

I know the Orthodox church considers the verses inspired. That's good enough for me.

Rusty

[bar Jonah]

The opinions of fallible men is your source for absolute truth? It doesn't matter what the facts of the case are? :rihrm:

(Keep in mind, I agree the verses are inspired.)

[Jaltus]

Yes, check out Acts9_12out's post. But in a nutshell, his argument is that if there are roughly 86,000 quotes of early church fathers referencing those ending verses of Mark in question, one cannot easily say that there is "little or no support." It certainly sounds like those early church fathers had reason to recognize these verses in question.

The problem with that, RI, is the ECFs do not in fact ever say if it is considered scripture or not. They do not say "as it says in the Gospel of Mark, '...'". Instead, they just quote something. If that is the case, we might as well include the apocrypha since it is quoted even more than that is.

Also, the ending in many of the early manuscripts contains markings showing that it is being copied but is considered fake. Eusebius and Jerome both discuss this as being the case. Being quoted is nothing important, but being quoted as part of the gospel would be.

[bar Jonah]

It wasn't my argument; tell it to Jeremy. LOL I simply stated in a nutshell what he posted there. :doh:

Don't shoot the messenger, for goodness sake. :lol:

[tizzidale]

Very quickly - Right Idea, you trust fallible men who were inspired by the Spirit of God to write Holy Scripture. I trust fallible men who are inspired by the Spirit of God to be God's Church. I really don't see the difference.

But, back to the topic. Here's a good article about the issue by a Protestant (http://www.new-life.net/faq011.htm):
Irenaeus, a man taught by Polycarp, who had been taught by the apostle John. About A.D. 180 Irenaeus explicitly quoted from Mark 16:19. In Against Heresies (Book Three, 10:5-6) Irenaeus says, "Also, towards the conclusion of his gospel, Mark says, 'So then, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven and sits on the right hand of God.'"

[bar Jonah]

You make it sound like scripture was written fallible! :doh:

I trust the writings of fallible men who were infallibly inspired in their writing of scripture. Their lives were fallible. Their scriptural writings are not, for they are "God-breathed."

[tizzidale]

Well, in an effort not to sabatoge the thread, I'll just say that no matter what it sounded like - I've made it clear to you that I believe in the infallibility of scripture.

Back to the topic on hand.

rusty

[bar Jonah]

Yes, and you also believe the works of mere men are equal to the perfection of God, which is idol worship. Even though we both agree about the ending of Mark, you're putting forth invalid evidence. So it certainly is on topic.

[tizzidale]

No matter what your deluded ideas may be concerning the Orthodox Church and what we believe (I doubt you've even attempted to verify things for yourself, but if you have, kudos to you), it would behoove you to educate yourself a little. We do not take the individual writings of Saints as infallible. That settles your complaint concerning my using St. Irenaeus as a source for the validity of the longer Markian ending. I was merely using it as evidence.

Now, when we begin talking about the Church as a whole, then we can get into some discussion about this issue - which is not related to the topic.

Rusty

[Amazing Rando]

:popcorn:

I'll sit this one out since I really know nothing! :clueless: Carry on, gentlemen!

[Bib Lit Major]

There doesn't seem to be much difference between RI and Tizzi, IMO, despite the argument. Acts9_12Out (through RI) believes the longer endeing to be inspired because it is quoted by fallible men (the ECFs); Tizzi believes it to be inspired through the testimony of the ECFs, and the major consensus of the Orthodox Church. Is there really that much of a difference here?

Anyways, I just though I'd add that.

[bar Jonah]

You must be kidding. :ahem:

There is a world of difference between Tizzi and myself. Neither I nor Acts9_12out hold to the infallibility of those early church leaders. Where on earth did you get that idea?

However, thousands upon thousands of quotes of the final part of Mark among church leaders does give evidence (not proof) that this ending is valid. That doesn't mean they are infallible by any stretch of the imagination. Talk about a flaming strawman! That's the most absurd leap of logic I've heard in a long time, here at Tweb. :doh:

The scripture is infallible. The early church leaders can be worth reading and learning about, but they are not infallible. Josephus sure as heck wasn't inspired by the Holy Spirit, nor was he infallible at any time; however, his writings are used as evidence of a number of aspects of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ! If a Christian apologist like Geisler or McDowell refer to Josephus' writings about Christ, do you think they're suggesting that Josephus was divinely inspired and infallible? :rihrm:

I didn't think so.

[John Reece]

Someone help me here.

I know my mind is getting weaker due to age and health problems, so perhaps I am missing something obvious.

Or, did RI misread BLM?

. . . Acts9_12Out (through RI) believes the longer ending to be inspired because it is quoted by fallible men (the ECFs . . .

You must be kidding. :ahem:

. . . Neither I nor Acts9_12out hold to the infallibility of those early church leaders. Where on earth did you get that idea?

[Solly]

Looks like eisegesis on RI's part John, I think he is still reacting to Tizzi's statements and what he thinks Tizzi believes in.

Tizzi said this in post #9: Very quickly - Right Idea, you trust fallible men who were inspired by the Spirit of God to write Holy Scripture. I trust fallible men who are inspired by the Spirit of God to be God's Church. I really don't see the difference.
If RI is asuming that this means the EO have infallible truth through the ECF it might explain it.

Either that or he misread BLM's post, and I'm shown up for the homiletical fudger that I am :lol:

But still, i agree with BLM; what is the difference between us doing a quote count of the ECF and saying, this is evidence for the text being genuine, and the ECF just quoting it - from somewhere, I wonder where? - and saying, this is genuine.

sllly

[Bib Lit Major]

Why, RI, would I need to build a strawman, since I have no interest in debating you at all? I thought strawmen were for characterizing one's opponents position in order to easily demolish it. I am a neutral third party to your exchange with Tizzi. I am merely offering my commentary on how remarkably similar your reasoning is to his. My observation is that you believe the longer ending to be original (therefore inspired), because fallible men at least decades, but more probably centuries later, quote it. This doesn't seem to be any different of an argument from Tizzi's reasoning that since these same men, along with the Orthodox Church, have quoted it and considered it original, it is therefore inspired.

[BlueFalcon]

The non-ending has very early textual support and has support throughout all geographical areas and multiple languages.

Two Egyptian uncials (Aleph B), one late minuscule (304), one Old Latin African MS (k), one Egyptian MS of the Syriac Version (Syrus Sinaiticus), and the Armenian Version which was not even translated from Greek (but rather from Syriac). That's the total MS evidence for the non-ending. The opinion stated above is simply not supported by the evidence, which is quite localized and minimal. Two fathers, Jerome and Eusebius, say almost identical statements that the genuine copies have the non-ending, but it seems impossible that Jerome would have included 12 verses he knew to be spurious in his Vulgate, and Eusebius was quite removed from the "genuine" copies, removed by some 300 years at least. The amazingly early (2nd c.) support of Irenaeus and the Syrus Curetonianus MS, which text has its origin in the 2nd c. (although the actual MS is later), not to mention the overwhelming number of copies truly covering all geographic regions point to the passage (Mk. 16:9-20) as authentic and far earlier than both the non-ending and the short-ending. A change introduced into the MS tradition later will generally evidence itself by not receiving as much propagation as the earlier text naturally would. In other words, a MS that has the advantage of being copied and multiplied for 200 years before an alternate MS with a different text arises will have such an advantage in the MS tradition, that under normal copying conditions the rival later MS and its copies will never be able to catch up to the earlier (original) text. This is a general fact in transmissionally based textual traditions.

Now, which is most likely to have given rise to the other two?

This question does not indicate all the options. Another option is that the longer ending gave rise to the non-ending (because it doesn't parallel the Synoptics, it has snake-handling, drinking poison, etc.), and that the non-ending gave rise to the short-ending (because ending the book with "And they were afraid," period, without the ascension of Jesus seemed too crude).

The internal characteristics do show some different words and structures in the last 12 verses that don't appear in the rest of the Gospel, but many more words and structures actually do appear in it. Arguing from a few different words and structures does not give the benefit of the doubt to the author to write in whatever style he pleases whenever he wants, and since Mark was probably not an eye-witness and may have been copying from a note-scrap of Peter or another disciple, the style certainly could change anywhere. Using the same techniques, one can prove that portions of Romans were not written by Paul, and even that other portions of Mark were not written by Mark. The fact that many words and clauses in the last 12 verses are not foreign to Mark is enough to give Mark the benefit of the doubt that he certainly could have written the verses.

Yours,

BlueFalcon

[mikeledo]

The story of Jesus’ appearance to his followers, post resur­rection, in the Gospel of Mark was added at a later date. The two oldest manuscripts available, Siniatic and Vatican, end at chapter 16 verse 8. Eusebius notes that many manuscripts of Mark ended with verse 8. St. Jerome also noted the missing passages. The last twelve verses of Mark do not mesh well with the previous verses. Jesus tends to ramble in them. Matthew and Luke ig­nored these verses (because they did not exist) while they plagiarized the rest of Mark. The language and style changes radically. While it is more noticeable in Greek, it is so contrasting; it can even be seen in King James’ English for thpse with open eyes and minds.

I have some more problems with Mark:

It seems Mark passed on writing about ho-hum topics as the virgin birth, visitation by angels, the massacre by Herod the Great, and mentioning the fact that Jesus had a Father who was the direct descendant of David making him eligible to be in the messiah running for the title of “King of the Jews.” In fact Joseph is NEVER mentioned in Mark.

 
Mark does go to great lengths to let us know who Jesus’ next of kin is. In 6:3 when Jesus is busy offending the crowd with his wit and wisdom and failure to perform wondrous feats of magic (he was bombing in front of the home crowd), the mob let into him, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us?” Where’s Joseph? And wasn’t Joseph the carpenter?
 
Years later Matthew changes this line (13:55), “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” A clever insertion or was it? Let us suppose both authors had an Aramaic text of Mark in front of him and were translating it into Greek. In Aramaic the phrase “son of the carpenter” is an expression that means the same as “the carpenter” (same as son of man would be, translated as “the man,” i.e., Jesus was “the man”). The translator of Mark correctly translates the expression into Greek; the translator for Matthew translates the expression word for word. Luke, of course, opts out of the whole thing by writing “Is not this the son of Joseph?”

 Christian apologists use poor reasoning as to why there is no mention on Jesus’ father in Mark. Their claims are that each gospel had a different meaning, John was spiritual, Mark just concerned his ministry, etc. I find these categories to be artificial creations using 20/20 hindsight. Mark, of course, had no idea John or anyone else was going to write another gospel after him, so why wouldn’t his narrative be all-inclusive?

[Bib Lit Major]

The amazingly early (2nd c.) support of Irenaeus

But isn't the reference in Ireneaus only found in a Latin (therefore, later) translation of his work?

and the Syrus Curetonianus MS, which text has its origin in the 2nd c. (although the actual MS is later)

Isn't Syrus Sinaiticus from a similar time? According to UBS4, they are both listed as 3rd/4th century, with Sinaiticus being listed first.

not to mention the overwhelming number of copies truly covering all geographic regions point to the passage (Mk. 16:9-20) as authentic and far earlier than both the non-ending and the short-ending. A change introduced into the MS tradition later will generally evidence itself by not receiving as much propagation as the earlier text naturally would. In other words, a MS that has the advantage of being copied and multiplied for 200 years before an alternate MS with a different text arises will have such an advantage in the MS tradition, that under normal copying conditions the rival later MS and its copies will never be able to catch up to the earlier (original) text. This is a general fact in transmissionally based textual traditions.

But if I illegally acquired 300 ballots and cast them all for George W. Bush in the next election, would they be considered one vote, or 300 votes?

I am no text critical expert, but I just wanted to ask those questions. Thus, maybe my questions are easily answered, but they are what stick out in mind.

[Jaltus]

Two Egyptian uncials (Aleph B), one late minuscule (304), one Old Latin African MS (k), one Egyptian MS of the Syriac Version (Syrus Sinaiticus), and the Armenian Version which was not even translated from Greek (but rather from Syriac). That's the total MS evidence for the non-ending.

Actually, you skipped that it does not occur in the Georgian manuscripts either, though those are later.

The opinion stated above is simply not supported by the evidence, which is quite localized and minimal. Two fathers, Jerome and Eusebius, say almost identical statements that the genuine copies have the non-ending, but it seems impossible that Jerome would have included 12 verses he knew to be spurious in his Vulgate, and Eusebius was quite removed from the "genuine" copies, removed by some 300 years at least.

First, your dating of Eusebius is questionable, since the first copies would be 70ad ish at the earliest, and Eusebius wrote well before 370ad (he died in that year). Any copies that Eusebius had seen would probably be within a timeframe of 250 years or less.

As for including verses known to be questionable, it is in fact likely that Jerome would include them with notation but that the notation was lost. The inclusion of many spurious passages occurred in such a way since the copyiests did not understand the textual markings of the original coalaters. This happened frequently to Origen's works.

The amazingly early (2nd c.) support of Irenaeus and the Syrus Curetonianus MS, which text has its origin in the 2nd c. (although the actual MS is later), not to mention the overwhelming number of copies truly covering all geographic regions point to the passage (Mk. 16:9-20) as authentic and far earlier than both the non-ending and the short-ending.

Again, the problem is that all of these dates offered are spurious. Irenaeus' work is only copied, and we have to assume it was in the original.

In terms of manuscripts we actually possess, the non-ending is the oldest. There is no question about this and any protestations to the contrary are in fact false. The short ending also is quite old and has widespread geographical support. Various languages all have it as the predominant ending (Syriac, Sahidic, Bohairic come to mind, as do some Ethiopian manuscripts). Greek Majiscules and the Old Latin k also have the shorter ending. As Metzger says, the shorter ending is essentially attestation for the non-ending since if there was a long ending why would the short ending be needed?

A change introduced into the MS tradition later will generally evidence itself by not receiving as much propagation as the earlier text naturally would. In other words, a MS that has the advantage of being copied and multiplied for 200 years before an alternate MS with a different text arises will have such an advantage in the MS tradition, that under normal copying conditions the rival later MS and its copies will never be able to catch up to the earlier (original) text. This is a general fact in transmissionally based textual traditions.

This is out and out false. Errors which lengthen the text tend to accumulate, not vice versa, in Holy Writ. The only time this is not true is the Western Text of Acts as seen in Beza Catabrangensius (sp).


This question does not indicate all the options. Another option is that the longer ending gave rise to the non-ending (because it doesn't parallel the Synoptics, it has snake-handling, drinking poison, etc.), and that the non-ending gave rise to the short-ending (because ending the book with "And they were afraid," period, without the ascension of Jesus seemed too crude).

This reasoning is not sound. Portions were not dropped because of the lack of harmonizing, in fact quite the opposite. The longer ending of Mark borrows phrases from both of the other Synoptics which never occur in the body of Mark, the exact opposite of what you contend. If the non-ending gave rise to the shorter ending, then all of the shorter ending material counts as evidence for the non-ending, which makes the non-ending even more impressive. The internal evidence of the longer ending (lack of vocab in common with Mark, bizarre grammatical pickup, strange continuation of subject when in fact it is discontinued, etc.) strikes against its originality as well.

The internal characteristics do show some different words and structures in the last 12 verses that don't appear in the rest of the Gospel, but many more words and structures actually do appear in it. Arguing from a few different words and structures does not give the benefit of the doubt to the author to write in whatever style he pleases whenever he wants, and since Mark was probably not an eye-witness and may have been copying from a note-scrap of Peter or another disciple, the style certainly could change anywhere. Using the same techniques, one can prove that portions of Romans were not written by Paul, and even that other portions of Mark were not written by Mark. The fact that many words and clauses in the last 12 verses are not foreign to Mark is enough to give Mark the benefit of the doubt that he certainly could have written the verses.

The problem is that some of the words are foreign to the entire NT, not just Mark. The grammatical bizarreness is enough to cause one to question the authenticity anyway.

[BlueFalcon]

This is out and out false. Errors which lengthen the text tend to accumulate, not vice versa, in Holy Writ. The only time this is not true is the Western Text of Acts as seen in Beza Catabrangensius (sp).

With the statement you have just made you are in good company with many fine scholars. However, before 130 years ago it was generally assumed, and with good reason, that errors that happened relatively later in the textual tradition would naturally not have as much propagation as errors that occurred earlier in the textual tradition. This is why, for instance, and contrary to your statement above, that some of the "oldest" MSS containing Mt. 27:49 (e.g. Aleph B L) actually contain a relatively "new" text, a harmonizing interpolation from Jn. 19:34, "But another grasping a spear pierced his side, and water and blood came out." This relatively "new" error indeed could not propagate itself enough to overcome the much earlier and ancient text that had already multiplied itself far to the point of dominating the textual tradition.

Yours,

BlueFalcon

[Jaltus]

With the statement you have just made you are in good company with many fine scholars. However, before 130 years ago it was generally assumed, and with good reason, that errors that happened relatively later in the textual tradition would naturally not have as much propagation as errors that occurred earlier in the textual tradition. This is why, for instance, and contrary to your statement above, that some of the "oldest" MSS containing Mt. 27:49 (e.g. Aleph B L) actually contain a relatively "new" text, a harmonizing interpolation from Jn. 19:34, "But another grasping a spear pierced his side, and water and blood came out." This relatively "new" error indeed could not propagate itself enough to overcome the much earlier and ancient text that had already multiplied itself far to the point of dominating the textual tradition.

Yours,

BlueFalcon

Of course I could easily counter with I John 5:7, etc.

[BlueFalcon]

Of course I could easily counter with I John 5:7, etc.

Not quite, because 1 Jn. 5:7 is contained in only a few MSS and is most certainly an interpolation, one that was introduced relatively late in the textual tradition and thus was unable to overcome the earlier and ancient original text whose multiplying copies had already come to dominate the MS tradition. But it is another good example though of the Byzantines refusing to add text. Thank you!

Yours,

BlueFalcon

[Bib Lit Major]

But it is another good example though of the Byzantines refusing to add text. Thank you!

But isn't 1 John 5:7 found primarily in Byzantine texts?

[BlueFalcon]

No, the interpolation in 1 Jn. 5:7,8 was introduced relatively late in the textual tradition, and therefore was only able to propagate itself to a very limited degree, in a few Old Latin MSS, a very few Gk. minuscules (and most of them as alternate readings), and some individual Vulgate MSS. The vast majority and mainstream textual tradition represented in large part by the consensus of the Byzantines refrained from adding this interpolation into the text.

Yours,

BlueFalcon

[Jaltus]

But isn't 1 John 5:7 found primarily in Byzantine texts?

It is found exclusively in Byzantine texts.

[Tercel]

This doesn't seem to be any different of an argument from Tizzi's reasoning that since these same men, along with the Orthodox Church, have quoted it and considered it original, it is therefore inspired.Just to heap on the confusion :teeth:, but that may not have actually been Tizzi's argument. Tizzi merely said that the Orthodox Church considered it inspired, by which he presumably meant that the majority of saints and theologians in the church considered it accurate and true. That's making no claim whatsoever about the originality of the passage, only it's truth. A statement can be true without being written by a gospel writer.

While Protestants seem think it's very important what was original, because they have the notion that God fully inspired the authors of original scriptures and then stopped His inspiration. Orthodox (though they may agree with the Protestants) are more likely to believe that God gives the same inspiration through His spirit to all Christians, and that the reason the Scriptures are true is not because the inspiration was any different in them from any other Christian writings but because 1) the writers were in a position to know the truth and so wrote it, and 2) because the theologians and saints of the later Church have recognised the scriptures as teaching truly and accurately the Christian faith which they themselves knew.

Thus the Scriptures are infallible because they have been judged by the Church as true, not because of a qualitative difference in inspiration. Many Orthodox would hold that ALL Christian writings are inspired by God, but that this doesn't make them all infallible. Athanasius, for example, speaks of "inspired scriptures and inspired teachers [ECFs]" at the conclusion of his On the Incarnation.
Thus, Tizzi's points is quite possibly that the Church has accepted the addition as true and accurate in accordance with the Christian faith, thus it is true and accurate in accordance with the Christian faith.

RightIdea and Bib Lit Major clearly hold that the statement must be original to be inspired. Whereas the Orthodox position would be that the statement is inspired but not necessarily original, and that it is true because it is in accordance with the Christian faith rather than because it is inspired or original.

[bar Jonah]

Allow me to clarify my view in an even simpler way.

Acts9_12out and I (and surely many others) would hold that these early church fathers quoting Mark are evidential. But they certainly are not inspired such that they are infallible authorities on doctrine. They are simply evidence, and not infallible declarations or proof.

Tizzi, on the other hand (and others) would hold that church fathers are inspired and infallible, because they believe scripture isn't the only infallible authority for doctrine.

[Tercel]

Acts9_12out and I (and surely many others) would hold that these early church fathers quoting Mark are evidential. But they certainly are not inspired such that they are infallible authorities on doctrine. They are simply evidence, and not infallible declarations or proof.I don't think that clarification is good enough. I (and probably Tizzi) would agree with this.
What you mean, I think, is that you think the early church fathers are evidence that Mark 16 was in the original manuscripts, but that you deny that the Fathers have any authority or evidence above and beyond their human attestation that the ending is authentically original. You think you have evidence the ending is original and that therefore it is infallibly true.

Tizzi, on the other hand (and others) would hold that church fathers are inspired and infallible, because they believe scripture isn't the only infallible authority for doctrine.Tizzi and I would both deny that any individual or small group of Church fathers were infallible. Though I (and probably Tizzi) would hold that all the Fathers were inspired.
The truth of the Church's teachings doesn't come from any individual human authority, it comes from God and the Christian faith given by Christ to the Apostles. Knowing the true faith, the church Fathers saw it reflected in Mark 16 and therefore recognised the truth of the passage, totally regardless of the originality or lack of it. Thus I think I have evidence the ending is true and that therefore it is infallibly true.

The sentences in bold show the difference. You move from the evidence via your view about the nature of inspiration to arrive at the conclusion of infallibility. I move from the evidence via my view about the truth of the Christian faith to arrive at the conclusion of infallibility.

[Waterrock]

Amazing Rando ~

As I mentioned in the other, more extensive thread about Mark 16:9-20, I have something to say about some things that were said earlier in this thread.

First, it’s “John Burgon,” not Burgan. Burgon was a leading New Testament textual critic (by “critic” I mean “analyst”) in the late 1800’s. His work on Mark 16:9-20 was pretty impressive, but I think his conclusion about the mechanism which caused the loss of Mark 16:9-20 is incorrect. Plus, he was laboring under the burden of some bad data about the Peshitta translation of the Gospels, and his data is flawed in other respects as well. Plus, he made use of rhetoric and mildly acidic remarks which sometimes distract for his presentation -- though this is not nearly as problematic as some have made it out to be.

William Farmer published a study (also called “The Last Twelve Verses of Mark”) in 1972 and corrected many of Burgon’s mistakes, and noted the mistakes made by various scholars who had chimed in against the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20. But he was then taken to task for claiming that the Coptic-Sahidic textual tradition supports Mark 16:9-20, because there is a Sahidic manuscript in which the Gospel of Mark ends at 16:8. The thing is, Farmer was simply unaware of that manuscript (and he had not bother to double-check because another leading scholar had indicated that the Sahidic transmission-stream supported the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20).

Jim Snapp II recently made a through investigation of this question, and put a summary of his work online at www.waynecoc.org/MarkOne.html . At that webpage he says he will share a more detailed research paper on the subject with anyone who asks for it.

Someone said, “They [Mark 16:9-20] are lacking in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. Nearly all other manuscripts of Mark contain them.” Sounds like a quote from the footnotes of the NKJV. What is not said there is that Codex Sinaiticus does not have its original pages at the end of Mark and the beginning of Luke. Nor does the footnote bother to mention that in Codex Vaticanus there is a large blank space, a highly unusual feature in Vaticanus which obviously indicates that the copyist was aware of the existence of 16:9-20.

Someone said, “Mr. Burgon was admittedly, writing in 1871, and much has been accomplished in the field of textual and literary criticism since then.”

Granted. But the only major Greek manuscript of Mark 16 discovered since then is Codex W, which contains Mark 16 complete with verses 9-20! (And with an interpolation between verses 14 and 15.)

Someone said, “There have been more manuscript discoveries as well as pioneering new techniques for determining the text of the original Greek manuscripts.”

But that is not necessarily relevant for this specific question. If you look at the Textual Commentary of Dr. Bruce Metzger, it can be demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that Dr. Metzger depended very heavily on the 1881 Notes of Westcott & Hort (some of the language used by Hort appears phrase-for-phrase in Metzger’s textual commentary). And Metzger’s commentary has been the single most influential source of data about this subject. Oodles of other commentators who have written that Mark 16:9-20 is inauthentic have relied, themselves, on Metzger’s say-so.

Someone asked, “Are you aware of any more contemporary studies that, perhaps building on Mr. Burgon's work or working independently, have arrived at the same conclusions regarding Mark 16:9-20?”

Contrary to the claims of some scholars that everybody agrees that Mark 16:9-20 is not an original part of the Gospel of Mark, in Snapp’s research paper you can find long lists of scholars from after Burgon’s era and later who have affirmed that Mark 16:9-20 is original, or canonical, or both.

Someone said, “Now perhaps someone sometime back then made a mistake in the textual criticism, and all the generations of scholars since then have uncritically accepted this mistake.”

That’s my view. Get Snapp’s research paper and you can see the evidence about this for yourself. Oodles of commentators have relied on Metzger and the UBS Greek New Testament as the definitive sources of information about Mark 16:9-20, and both Metzger and the UBS Greek New Testament have unfortunately spread misinformation.

Regarding Tektonics, “J.P. Holding” simply does not have a good grasp of the evidence (unfortunately, he is hardly unique in this respect). For instance, at http://www.tektonics.org/markend.html he tries to belittle Irenaeus’ quotation of Mark 16:19 by saying that it is somehow equivocal “as it is also to this time that our earliest external evidence is dated” – as if the fact that this piece of evidence is so early diminishes its weight! J.P. Holding simply is nonsensical there. He also does not know what he is talking about when he appeals simplistically to Eusebius the way he does. He also leaves out (intentionally??) important details about the evidence he cites in support of the abrupt ending. (Sorry, JPH, but it is so.)

Someone asked, “If the longer ending is original, why are there two other endings at all?”

Here are a couple of theories: verses 9-20 were accidentally lost in one locale, and the result of the loss = the abrupt ending. Then someone wrote the Short Ending to round off the truncated text. Or, verses 9-20 were intentionally removed and replaced with the Short Ending, and then someone who recalled the complete text (with 16:9-20) removed the Short Ending, but did not have a copy of Mark with which to provide the missing material, and so left his manuscript with a long blank space at the end of Mark in the hope that the missing material would become available, thus producing the abrupt ending.

Jaltus said, “The ECFs do not in fact ever say if it is considered scripture or not. They do not say "as it says in the Gospel of Mark, '...'". Instead, they just quote something.”

Once again Jaltus has his facts wrong. Irenaeus, in Against Heresies, Book III, 10:5-6, says, “Also, towards the conclusion of his Gospel, Mark says, ‘So then, after the Lord Jesus Christ had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God” -- a quotation from Mark 16:19. Furthermore, Jaltus’ objection is special; that is, he is constructing a special obstacle for this text which is not present when looking for patristic use of other texts.

Jaltus also said, “The ending in many of the early manuscripts contains markings showing that it is being copied but is considered fake.” A close examination of the evidence will bear out that the markings Jaltus refers to do not imply what he says they imply.

BibLitMajor asked, “Isn't the reference in Ireneaus only found in a Latin (therefore, later) translation of his work?”

Yes; the Greek text of Against Heresies is not extant there. See the other thread where this point is discussed, and supplemental evidence is described.

BibLitMajor asked, “Isn't Syrus Sinaiticus from a similar time?”

Yes; I think BlueFalcon was trying to say that although the Curetonian Syriac manuscript is 4th-century, the transmission-stream it exemplifies began in the second century, thus making its testimony a reflection of the contents of a manuscript from the second century. (Which is a disputable point.)

Jaltus said, “In terms of manuscripts we actually possess, the non-ending is the oldest. There is no question about this and any protestations to the contrary are in fact false.”

That is not quite true. The oldest manuscript we have of the Gospel of Mark is Papyrus 45, which is extensively damaged at the end of Mark and has no text at all from chapter 16. However, Dr. Larry Hurtado showed that the text in Papyrus 45 is more closely related to the text in Codex W than to the text in Codex Sinaiticus or the text in Codex Vaticanus -- and Codex W has 16:9-20 (with the Freer Logion interpolation). Plus, Codex Vaticanus (the oldest extant Greek copy of Mark 16) has the abrupt ending but it is obvious that the copyist of Codex Vaticanus was aware of the existence of 16:9-20. It is possible that the copyist(s) of Vaticanus ended the text of Mark at 16:8 because they knew (like Eusebius knew) that it was questioned, and wanted to leave it up to the manuscript’s eventual owner whether to include 16:9-20 or not. See the online replica of the last page of Mark in Vaticanus at www.waynecoc.org/Vaticanus.html .

The claim that "Various languages all have it as the predominant ending (Syriac, Sahidic, Bohairic come to mind, as do some Ethiopian manuscripts)" is quite false.

Yours in Christ,

Waterrock

[jpholding]

Regarding Tektonics, “J.P. Holding” simply does not have a good grasp of the evidence (unfortunately, he is hardly unique in this respect).

Spare me, please. :ahem:

Burgon's work is regarded as gutter trash by professional textual critics, and his competence is seriously questioned by Heuer and Wallace. As for this:

For instance, at http://www.tektonics.org/markend.html he tries to belittle Irenaeus’ quotation of Mark 16:19 by saying that it is somehow equivocal “as it is also to this time that our earliest external evidence is dated” – as if the fact that this piece of evidence is so early diminishes its weight!

It most certainly does. It makes it equivocal as there is no way to tell whether Irey is influenced by Mark, or vice versa.


He also does not know what he is talking about when he appeals simplistically to Eusebius the way he does. He also leaves out (intentionally??) important details about the evidence he cites in support of the abrupt ending. (Sorry, JPH, but it is so.)

I'll let the vagueness of that objection speak for itself. I expect better from the brethren; this is Farrell Till stuff. Try to do better, please.

[Waterrock]

J.P. Holding ~

JPH: "Burgon's work is regarded as gutter trash by professional textual critics, and his competence is seriously questioned by Heuer and Wallace."

Burgon made his share of mistakes and was led on by some inaccurate data (especially regarding the date of the Peshitta). But his book about Mark 16:9-20 is certainly not "gutter trash." I have read it. Have you?

WR: [JH] tries to belittle Irenaeus’ quotation of Mark 16:19 by saying that it is somehow equivocal “as it is also to this time that our earliest external evidence is dated” – as if the fact that this piece of evidence is so early diminishes its weight!"

JPH: "It most certainly does. It makes it equivocal as there is no way to tell whether Irey is influenced by Mark, or vice versa."

No it doesn't. A quotation is a /quotation/. That should be obvious. Whether it's Irenaeus quoting Mark, or a modern author quoting Hemingway, a quotation shows what the quoter regarded as being stated by the source being quoted. Why you seem to want to avoid admitting that this suddenly becomes untrue for second-century writers is a mystery to me.

JPH: "I'll let the vagueness of that objection speak for itself."

Very well; I will be more specific: you have obviously never read Eusebius' Q&A to Marinus, either in Greek or English. You cite it as if Eusebius was stating, as his own position, that Mark 16:9-20 should be deleted because many manuscripts omit 16:9-20, whereas actually he presents this as one position which an apologist might take, but his own approach -- the approach he recommends to Marinus -- is different, and involves the acceptance of 16:9 as part of the Gospel of Mark.

You probably read the NA-27 and UBS textual apparatuses and Metzger and said to yourself, "Okay; that makes sense -- I will repeat the comment that f1, 205 and others "add vv 9-20 with critical note or sign" and interpreted that to mean that the copyists of those manuscripts were copying it even though they believe it was not original." You would not have been the first reader of the GNT or NTG to do so.

However the "critical note" in those manuscripts says, in one form or another, "In some of the copies, the evangelist is completed here, and here is Eusebius Pamphili’s canonization. But in many, this also appears" followed by 16:9-20.

From this one may surmise that
(a) the copyist who wrote this note believed that some copies of Mark ended at the end of 16:8,
(b) the copyist who originated this note was were aware that Eusebius had questioned 16:9-20, and
(c) the copyist who originated this note was aware that many manuscripts contained 16:9-20,
(d) the copyist who originated this note was aware that Eusebius' Canon-tables, or at least one form of them, did not include 16:9-20, and
(e) the appearance of the same note in these manuscripts indicates that this note descends from a common source -- i.e., this is not the equivalent of several pieces of independently-ascertained opinions about 16:9-20; it is one note, distributed among related descendant-manuscripts, and it merely states that Eusebius' Canon-tables did not include 16:9-20, and that many manuscripts contained 16:9-20.

The note does not imply (contrary to your statement) that the copyists of these manuscripts regarded 16:9-20 as an accretion. If anything, the note implies that a copyist, somewhere, had read Eusebius' Q&A to Marinus and thought it was worth pointing out what Eusebius had seemed to observe, despite the presence of 16:9-20 in many manuscripts known to the note-maker.

In addition, the probability is high that this piece of marginalia is a boiled-down comment based on the Commentary/Catena of Victor of Antioch, and Victor's non-condensed writing firmly endorses Mark 16:9-20! You would already know this, by the way, if you had read Burgon's "gutter trash."

Yours in Christ,

Waterrock

[jpholding]

But his book about Mark 16:9-20 is certainly not "gutter trash." I have read it. Have you?

Yes. The number of times he resorts to calling mss. readings names without any actual arguments is quite funny. The smell of infuriated begged questions wafts heavily from his pages. I haven't seen so much red-faced bellowing since Farrell Till on the Land Promise.

No it doesn't. A quotation is a /quotation/. That should be obvious.

It is not in the least obvious because in Irey's time, quote marks had yet to be invented, and it still does not tell us who influenced whom. Irey makes an attribution to Mark; but if this occurs at the same time that it first appears in Mark's mss., it tells us nothing about textual originality.

Why you seem to want to avoid admitting that this suddenly becomes untrue for second-century writers is a mystery to me.

Why you resort to such cheap psychologizations, after the manner of Burgon himself, is quite obvious to those who recognize your efforts as a chimera in need of any emotional support it can find.


Very well; I will be more specific: you have obviously never read Eusebius' Q&A to Marinus, either in Greek or English.

Marinus was not the subject of any source I made use of. You have copied and pasted your explanation to a straw man.

Perhaps you'd better read more carefully before you apply your attitude to what you read. In the meantime I have located a scholarly evaluation of the Marinus issue and will tomorrow compare your evaluation with it.

[Jaltus]

First, let me state that I hold Waterrock in the highest regard. He is quite the champion of Mark 16:9-20m being valid. He also knows his stuff and I really enjoy debating with him.

Second, let me say that I do disagree with him on this point, but appreciate his scholarship. I think, however, that he needs to find a major commentator on Mark who would agree with him. As of right now, I cannot think of a single one who would back Waterrock's position.


Jaltus said, “The ECFs do not in fact ever say if it is considered scripture or not. They do not say "as it says in the Gospel of Mark, '...'". Instead, they just quote something.”

Once again Jaltus has his facts wrong. Irenaeus, in Against Heresies, Book III, 10:5-6, says, “Also, towards the conclusion of his Gospel, Mark says, ‘So then, after the Lord Jesus Christ had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God” -- a quotation from Mark 16:19. Furthermore, Jaltus’ objection is special; that is, he is constructing a special obstacle for this text which is not present when looking for patristic use of other texts.

My point was that there is no specific reference to the ending of Mark as being scripture. Your citation of Irenaeus is in fact a contradiction of this. I stand corrected.

As for being special, it was building a case, though I could see how you would think it is special pleading.

Jaltus also said, “The ending in many of the early manuscripts contains markings showing that it is being copied but is considered fake.” A close examination of the evidence will bear out that the markings Jaltus refers to do not imply what he says they imply.

That is in fact false. The text critical markings are well known on specific manuscripts. Some manuscripts which have the longer ending do in fact have those marks around it. It just means it is disputed or not found in some. This is a well known scribal practice in Christian tradition which began (IIRC) with Origen.

BibLitMajor asked, “Isn't the reference in Ireneaus only found in a Latin (therefore, later) translation of his work?”

Yes; the Greek text of Against Heresies is not extant there. See the other thread where this point is discussed, and supplemental evidence is described.

This is a good point. I would have disputed this myself, but saw that BLM already had.


Jaltus said, “In terms of manuscripts we actually possess, the non-ending is the oldest. There is no question about this and any protestations to the contrary are in fact false.”

That is not quite true. The oldest manuscript we have of the Gospel of Mark is Papyrus 45, which is extensively damaged at the end of Mark and has no text at all from chapter 16. However, Dr. Larry Hurtado showed that the text in Papyrus 45 is more closely related to the text in Codex W than to the text in Codex Sinaiticus or the text in Codex Vaticanus -- and Codex W has 16:9-20 (with the Freer Logion interpolation). Plus, Codex Vaticanus (the oldest extant Greek copy of Mark 16) has the abrupt ending but it is obvious that the copyist of Codex Vaticanus was aware of the existence of 16:9-20. It is possible that the copyist(s) of Vaticanus ended the text of Mark at 16:8 because they knew (like Eusebius knew) that it was questioned, and wanted to leave it up to the manuscript’s eventual owner whether to include 16:9-20 or not. See the online replica of the last page of Mark in Vaticanus at www.waynecoc.org/Vaticanus.html .

All you did here was show that I was correct. If in fact P 45 comes from Washingtonius' textual tradition, it is once again a point not in favor of the longer ending. Just because something has similarities, however, does not in fact mean they will always converge (see the study The New Testament Text of Cyril of Jerusalem).

The claim that "Various languages all have it as the predominant ending (Syriac, Sahidic, Bohairic come to mind, as do some Ethiopian manuscripts)" is quite false.

Not according to Metzger, France, etc.

[BlueFalcon]

Most would agree that Eusebius spent a great deal of time trying to promote his own type of text "in view of his scriptorium and the influence he enjoyed in official places" (to use the words of the Alands, The Text of the New Testament, 172). No doubt his voice was well revered, but I can see how he might have said various things, like, "none of the genuine copies have Mark 16:9-20," even though what a "genuine" copy is was probably up to interpretation in his own day as much as it is in our own. I'm sure he considered his own text as promulgating and representing the most "genuine" copies, but what do we find in the evidence of Eusebius' patristic evidence but that he disagrees with both the NA27 and the Byzantine Textform more than he agrees with them. This is astonishing, and quite condemnatory of any comments he makes about what the "genuine" copies contained or didn't contain.

And as for the latin translation of Irenaeus that dates from ca. 200-400, the Alands say "it is such a literal translation that the text of Irenaeus' New Testament can practically be reconstructed from it" (172). This means when Ir-lat is cited in the NA27, at least in the eyes of the revered editors, it's as good as a 2nd century witness.

Yours,

BlueFalcon

[BlueFalcon]

Another comment regarding Jerome's statement, noted long ago by F.H.A. Scrivener, is that it is so similar to Eusebius' that his statement is most likely only an echo of Eusebius. Afterwards, however, when he looked into the situation for himself when making the Vulgate, decided for certain that Eusebius was mistaken (as his text appears to have been at variance at more places with the original text, be it the NA27 or Byzantine Textform, it matters not); so that Jerome included Mark 16:9-20 because he has come to the conclusion that it was more probably original than not. Otherwise he purposefully included a spurious passage of 12 verses, and that, my friends, is ludicrous.

Yours,

BlueFalcon

[BlueFalcon]

Okay, I've collected all of Eusebius' citations in the NA27 for Matthew and Mark, and here are the results:

39 times with the Byzantines
22 times with the NA27 against the Byzantines
50 against both the Byzantines and NA27

Granted, NA27 doesn't cite every quotation available, but what it does cite should be a roughly accurate picture of who the Father sides with percentage-wise, especially with a Father with as many quotes as Eusebius.

Yours,

BlueFalcon

[Waterrock]

J.P. Holding ~

JPH: ... "I haven't seen so much red-faced bellowing since Farrell Till on the Land Promise."

Oh come. Burgon is much more emotional in "The Last 12 Verses of Mark Defended" than scholars typically are in the course of research-papers. But what you call "red-faced bellowing," I call emotional preaching. Either way it merely distracts from the evidence he presents; it does not diminish it.

JPH: "It is not in the least obvious [that a quotation is a quotation] because in Irey's time, quote marks had yet to be invented, and it still does not tell us who influenced whom."

I have trouble taking you seriously about this. Why not admit that Irenaeus was quoting from a copy of the Gospel of Mark in "Against Heresies" Book III, 10:5-6? Everyone agrees that that is the meaning of "Against Heresies" Book III, 1-:5-6. A child can read "Against Heresies" Book III, 10:5-6 and discern that Irenaeus was quoting from the Gospel of Mark.

JPH: "Irey makes an attribution to Mark; but if this occurs at the same time that it first appears in Mark's mss., it tells us nothing about textual originality."

While true, that is hardly worth saying, since IF /any/ quotation is a quotation of a recent accretion, it tells us nothing about textual originality. But that is precisely the question: *is* Mark 16:9-20 an accretion, or is it original? We have, in the case of Irenaeus, a highly-esteemed bishop, writing in order to refute false teachers, known to cite "ancient manuscripts" in another point in his writings (when he discusses Rev. 13:18), 80 years after the death of the apostle John, *quoting Mark 16:19 and attributing it to Mark.* That is evidence, my friend. To quibble that Irenaeus did not use quotation Marks does not even slow it down.

JPH: "Why you resort to such cheap psychologizations, after the manner of Burgon himself, is quite obvious to those who recognize your efforts as a chimera in need of any emotional support it can find."

Hmm. I'm not sure what that means, but I don't think it is about the evidence.

JPH: "Marinus was not the subject of any source I made use of. You have copied and pasted your explanation to a straw man."

When you cited Eusebius' comments about Mark 16:9-20, you were citing Eusebius' Eusebius' writing "Ad Marinum," because it is in that composition that Eusebius' comments about Mark 16:9-20 are found. Okay? Okay. So when Eusebius is presented as if he merely said that Mark 16:9-20 is absent in "many manuscripts" or "the best manuscripts," his comments are being misrepresented. That is not what he said. He said that someone could say that in order to dismiss the harmonizing-problem that he is discussing (regarding how to harmonize Matthew 28:1 and Mark 16:9).

Now, it's fair to deduce that Eusebius had seen, there in Caesarea, some manuscripts that were missing Mark 16:9-20. That surely influenced Eusebius' decision not to include Mark 16:9-20 in the Eusebian Canons. But it does *not* mean that Eusebius rejected the passage as inauthentic. (Later in "Ad Marinum" Eusebius attributes Mark 16:9 to Mark.) And it does not mean that all of the claims that Eusebius put in the mouth of a hypothetical apologist are true.

Let's take a closer look at part of "Ad Marinum." (Since you're already read Burgon's "The Last 12 Verses of Mark Defended" this will be no news to you but it might be helpful to others.) Dr. James Kelhoffer published a translation of "Ad Marinum" a while ago. Snapp's research-paper presents it like this:

"Eusebius presents the question which Marinus has asked: "How is it that in Matthew, the risen Savior appears ‘late on the Sabbath’ but in Mark ‘early on the first day of the week’?" He offers two ways to resolve the difficulty.
"There might be two paths to a solution to this. On one hand, the person who rejects the passage itself ~ the pericope which says this ~ might say that it does not appear in all copies of the Gospel of Mark. At least, the accurate copies have the subscription, "The end of the account given by Mark," [Or, "At least the accurate copies indicate the end of Mark’s account"] with the words of the youth who appeared to the women and said to them, “Do not fear. You are seeking Jesus the Nazarene” and so on, continuing on to where, in addition, it says, “And having heard, they fled, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
“For there appears the subscription ‘The end of the Gospel of Mark’ [Or, “For there is indicated the end of Mark’s Gospel”] in almost all the copies. The next part appears seldom, in some copies but not in all, and may be spurious, especially since it implies a disagreement with the witness of the other Gospels.” So, someone might make such a statement to avoid and altogether dismiss a superfluous question.
“On the other hand, someone else, who dares to set aside nothing at all which appears, by whatever means, in the Gospel-Scriptures, says that the reading, like many others, is double, and each of the two [variants] must be accepted, being advocated by the faithful and pious, not this one instead of that one, or that one rather than this one.
“Furthermore, since it is granted that this section is true, it is appropriate to expound the meaning of the passage. And if we accurately discern the sense of the words, we would not find it contrary to what Matthew said (“late on the Sabbath” the Savior was raised). For we will read Mark’s “and having risen early on the first day of the week” with a pause: after “and having risen” we shall add a comma.”
A little further down, Eusebius states, “Mark referred to the later time when he wrote, saying what must be read with a pause ~ “and having risen.” Then, after adding a comma, one must read the rest ~ “early on the first day of the week He appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons.”

There's a lot more going on in "Ad Marinum" that what is suggested by an apparatus-listing for "manuscripts-according-to-Eusebius." Eusebius basically gave the questioner two ways of resolving the harmonization-problem: (a) reject Mark 16:9-20, or (b) posit a comma in Mark 16:9. He acknowledged that someone who wished to get rid of the harmonization-problem could do so by rejecting Mark 16:9-20, claiming that it does not appear in all copies, /or/ it does not appear in the accurate copies, /or/ it is absent in almost all copies. Notice that the evidence-assessments that Eusebius mentioned vary in their degree of precision. Eusebius had seen manuscripts at Caesarea that did not contain Mark 16:9-20. But in "Ad Marinum," he does not offer his own observation of their quality or quantity; he merely relays what someone could say about them. Eusebius kicked around the idea of saying that sort of thing -- but it is not the option he recommended.

Yours in Christ,

Waterrock

[Waterrock]

Jaltus ~

I enjoy our discussions too.

J: "I think, however, that he needs to find a major commentator on Mark who would agree with him."

That would be nice. It would help if I could find major commentators (besides James Edwards) who agree with the manuscript-evidence. (Oodles of commentators have described the manuscript-evidence mistakenly, so their deductions about the implications of the manuscript-evidence are accordingly flawed.)

J: "That [claim that the markings claimed to imply inauthenticity do not actually do so] is in fact false. The text critical markings are well known on specific manuscripts."

See the other post for my specific comments about this.

Previously you said, "In terms of manuscripts we actually possess, the non-ending is the oldest." And I said, "That is not quite true," and mentioned P-45. You then replied --

J: "All you did here was show that I was correct. If in fact P 45 comes from Washingtonius' textual tradition, it is once again a point not in favor of the longer ending."

Let me briefly say what I mean by "That is not quite true." Your statement implies that the oldest extant manuscript of Mark supports the abrupt ending. By "oldest extant manuscript" you must be referring to Codex Vaticanus. However, Codex Vaticanus is not the oldest manuscript of Mark. P-45 is -- it is not extant at the end of Mark, but it testifies to an early transmission-stream, and Codex W is descended, in part, from the same transmission-stream -- and W has 16:9-20. Plus, the highly unusual format in Codex Vaticanus at the end of Mark demonstrates that the copyist was aware of the existence of Mark 16:9-20. Vaticanus, in other words, testifies to the existence of older manuscripts which contained 16:9-20, and it testified to the existence of older manuscripts which ended at the end of 16:8. It does *not* say which was older.

In other news, I said that your claim that "Various languages all have it as the predominant ending (Syriac, Sahidic, Bohairic come to mind, as do some Ethiopian manuscripts)" is false. You said, "Not according to Metzger, France, etc."

Regarding Syriac manuscripts: the only Syriac manuscript which ends at the end of Mark 16:8 is the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript.
Regarding Sahidic manuscripts: they are few and diverse. Only one ends Mark at the end of 16:8: Codex P. Palau Rib. 182.
Regarding Bohairic manuscripts: F. Kenyon wrote, "The last twelve verses of Mark are contained in all Bohairic MSS.; but two copies (Hunt. 17 and Brit. Mus. Or. 1315) give in their margins a short alternative ending which is practically identical with that found in L" (p. 184, Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, © 1912 Macmillan and Co., Limited, London). [Huntington 17 is from A.D. 1174.]
Regarding Ethiopic manuscripts: Metzger perpetuated misinformation about the Ethiopic manuscripts in the UBS GNT for a while. So did Robert G. Bratcher and Eugene A. Nida in their work "A Translator's Handbook on the Gospel of Mark." They said that Mark 16:9-20 is omitted "by important codices of the Armenian, Ethiopic, and Georgian versions." (p. 506.)

But in the UBS Textual Commentary, p. 123, Metzger withdrew his claim about the Ethiopic evidence. And in "The Early Versions of the New Testament," here is what he said: "The present writer, having examined the ending of Mark in sixty-five Ethiopic manuscripts, discovered that none, contrary to statements made by previous investigators, closes the Gospel at xvi.8, but that most (forty-seven manuscripts) present the so-called shorter ending directly after vs. 8, followed immediately by the longer ending (verses 9-20)." (p. 234, Bruce Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament, © 1987 Oxford University Press.)

Regarding Richard France's claim that "In many early manuscripts and versions these verses are either absent altogether or marked as of doubtful authority" (p. 214, Doubleday Bible Commentary: Mark): Dr. France used the term "early" very very loosely, and he used the term "many" in a way in which most people do not use the word. (I am speaking diplomatically.) The number of extant early (pre-800) unmutilated manuscripts of Mark 16 in any language which clearly do not feature the Long Ending is five -- Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Sinaitic Syriac, Codex Bobbiensis, and Coptic Codex P. Palau Rib. 182. Either five is "many," or Dr. France has misinformed you.

Extra Note: saying that margin-marks show that a passage "is being copied but is considered fake" is not the same as saying that they "just mean that it is disputed or not found in some copies." A copyist could easily perpetuate the marginalia in his exemplar without regarding the passage as spurious -- especially if the margin-note stated, "Some manuscripts don't have this, and Eusebius did not put this in the Canon-tables, but most manuscripts have it."

Yours in Christ,

Waterrock

[Etcetera]

Waterrock:

Greetings again, old friend, in the holy name!

You may want to read my concession (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showpost.php?p=687493&postcount=41) to you on the thread about women speaking in church, if you have not already done so.

I enjoyed our earlier exchanges on the longer ending very much. I still reject the longer ending as original, but am much more nuanced in my view since exchanging with you. So for that I thank you.

I have not read Eusebius, Ad Marinum, in either English or Greek, except for what you supply in your post. But it seems to me, from that snippet, that Eusebius is indeed evidence against the longer ending. Granted, he offers different ways of resolving the problem in Mark 16.9, but even today apologists will offer two or three different solutions to a conundrum, and will prefer one over the other(s). But the point is that the apologist still regards the other solutions as viable.

In other words, do we have any indication that Eusebius himself thought that the not-in-the-accurate-copies answer was unviable? It looks very much to me like the textual critic in Eusebius wanted to reject the longer ending, while the apologist in him knew that scores of the faithful would not so quickly cut that ending out. Confirmation for this divided purpose would seem to be right at hand in the Eusebian canons, where he does not include Mark 16.9-20. And it would be Eusebius the textual critic that I would want to interview on this issue, not Eusebius the apologist.

But you are correct, I think, that the evidence from Ad Marinum is more nuanced than many would suppose.

What is not said there is that Codex Sinaiticus does not have its original pages at the end of Mark and the beginning of Luke. Nor does the footnote bother to mention that in Codex Vaticanus there is a large blank space, a highly unusual feature in Vaticanus which obviously indicates that the copyist was aware of the existence of 16:9-20.

I grant that the scribe of Vaticanus probably knew of the longer ending, and hence the blank column. Sinaiticus, however, seems a bit more equivocal as evidence in this connection.

The oldest manuscript we have of the Gospel of Mark is Papyrus 45, which is extensively damaged at the end of Mark and has no text at all from chapter 16. However, Dr. Larry Hurtado showed that the text in Papyrus 45 is more closely related to the text in Codex W than to the text in Codex Sinaiticus or the text in Codex Vaticanus -- and Codex W has 16:9-20 (with the Freer Logion interpolation).

If the papyrus is damaged at the end, then it would seem to constitute neutral evidence. Completely neutral, no matter which codex its text most closely resembles. One may as well cite 45 as evidence for the Freer logion itself.

Added: I think that you explained yourself on this matter with Jaltus in your last post.

That said, I agree with Jaltus that you present a strong external case. Ever since my earlier exchanges with you I have told people who asked (and, yes, people occasionally do ask!) that I see the external evidence as equivocal. It is not at all the lock for exclusion that some would make it out to be.

I would like to introduce an intangible into the equation, something along the lines of what Jaltus presented about which ending probably gave rise to the others, but different. This is no run-of-the-mill section of Mark. This is the resurrection appearances. Even without the multiple endings I would have guessed that a gospel truncated before the appearances would be nearly intolerable amongst the church fathers. So it rather impresses me that any manuscripts show solid evidence for an ending at 16.8. This point is rather subjective, I know, but it has to count for something.

For me, however, the deciding factor is the internal evidence. Even with only one or two manuscripts ending at 16.8, I would still be inclined to reject Mark 16.9-20 as original to the gospel (though I would never reject it as important to the history of the church!). The first two are the more subjective:

1. It just seems so non-Marcan! Where are the incidental details? Where is the pericope development? The clever intercalations? Subjective, certainly. But I cannot read 16.9-20 straight after, say, the bread section without raising an eyebrow.

2. Mark 16.9a backtracks in time with wording more appropriate to 16.2 (early on the first day) than to anytime after the empty tomb has been discovered. It looks like a fresh beginning. It looks like a separate list of the appearances that we find in Luke and John.

The next one is more substantive:

3. Mark 15.40-16.8 mentions Mary Magdalene no fewer than 3 times. Yet in 16.9 she is introduced as if it were the first time we read about her: Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. That this is the sort of blurb that is more likely at the first mention of a name than the fourth is confirmed by the use of this same blurb in Luke 8.2, which is the first mention of Mary Magdalene in that gospel.

But it is this final one that is, for me, the fatal blow:

4. In the gospel of Mark, when Jesus thrice predicts his passion in 8.31, in 9.31, and in 10.33-34, that prediction is fulfilled in full throughout the entire passion narrative. When Jesus predicts his betrayal in 14.18-21, the prediction is exactly fulfilled (with clear verbal connections) in 14.42-45. When Jesus predicts the scattering of his disciples in 14.27, the prediction is fulfilled in 14.50. When Jesus predicts that Peter will thrice deny him in 14.30, the prediction is fulfilled, again with clear backward verbal connections, in 14.53-54, 66-72 (see especially 14.72).

So, when Jesus twice predicts that he will meet the disciples in Galilee in 14.28 and 16.7, what does the longer ending give us? Appearances in or near Jerusalem. Nowhere in the entire ending is Galilee named as a site of the appearances. One may compare the injunction in 16.15 with the Matthean appearance in Galilee, but here the reader has absolutely no reason to place these words anywhere but the table appearance in 16.14. Galilee is conspicuously absent.

(Note that this is not an argument from silence. It is Mark who explicitly builds up the expectation of a meeting in Galilee; the reader is not at fault for noticing that the longer ending fails to fulfill this expectation.)

That is one hurdle that I just cannot jump. To assign 16.9-20 to Mark would make him a clutz. And he is anything but clutzy in the rest of his gospel. I often marvel at the subtle interweaving of themes and verbal connections in all of the gospels, especially Mark.

I find myself leaning of late toward the hypothesis put forth by Streeter, that the Galilean appearance in John 21 preserves the essence of an original ending of Mark, lost very soon after the autograph left the desk. (I seem to recall you yourself making some such proposal once.) And in John 21 the disciple Peter happens to play an important role, as we might expect from the odd wording of Mark 16.7: Tell his disciples, and Peter....

Just the ramblings of a foolish former skeptic.

Forever his.

Etcetera.

[Etcetera]

J. P. Holding:

You wrote to Waterrock:

It is not in the least obvious because in Irey's time, quote marks had yet to be invented, and it still does not tell us who influenced whom. Irey makes an attribution to Mark; but if this occurs at the same time that it first appears in Mark's mss., it tells us nothing about textual originality.

I will post what Irenaeus wrote (without quotation marks):

Also, toward the conclusion of his gospel, Mark says: So then, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God.

Are you really trying to say that the lack of quotation marks makes this anything less than a direct quotation of Mark 16.19? When Irenaeus explicitly says that it occurs toward the end of the gospel of Mark?

And are you really saying that the direction of influence could be something other than Mark-to-Irenaeus, that sometime after Irenaeus penned these words (about what he read in his version of Mark) the longer ending was written on the basis of what Irenaeus wrote???

I think that you need to clarify your position here.

You posted:

Marinus was not the subject of any source I made use of. You have copied and pasted your explanation to a straw man.

The article (http://www.tektonics.org/markend.html) on your site reads:

Two important early Christian writers testify that these verses are not found in Mark: Eusebius (Quaestiones ad Marinum I) says that they are not in "accurate" copies of Mark and are missing from "almost all" manuscripts; Jerome (Epistle CXX.3, ad Hedibiam) testifies that almost all Greek manuscripts of his time lack vss. 9-20.

So surely Waterrock's comments are not to a straw man, right? Agree or disagree with his argumentation, he is referring to something that you actually wrote, right?

In him.

Etcetera.

[Waterrock]

BlueFalcon ~

Apologies in advance for hogging the thread; I just want to briefly clarify a couple of things about what you said about Jerome.

Sloppy commentators have told their readers that Eusebius and Jerome regarded Mark 16:9-20 as inauthentic. For instance, Ralph P. Martin wrote that "The last 12 verses printed in the King James Version are missing from the two oldest Greek manuscripts, and other important witnesses, including several church father, Eusebius and Jerome, say that the passage was unknown in all copies to which they had access." (p. 152, "Where the Action Is" - Bibe Commentary for Laymen, 1977/81)

I don't know whether to laugh or cry! Eusebius and Jerome never said that! Neither did any other witnesses!

Moving on ... BlueFalcon is correct that Jerome (in the composition "Ad Hedibiam") was basically condensing the same material that appears in Eusebius' "Ad Marinum." But, Jerome made the Vulgate in the early 380's, and wrote "Ad Hedibiam" later, maybe in about 417. The point stands that Eusebius, in his Preface to the Vulgate Gospels, claimed that he had relied on "old" Greek manuscripts as a major basis for his revision/standardization of the Latin text (and I think it is fair to surmise that what was an old manuscript to Jerome would be older than Vaticanus). And so does the main point: Jerome's testimony in "Ad Hedibiam" is entirely secondary; it does not reflect Jerome's personal investigation of the question.

If one wishes to see what Jerome found independently in the manuscripts available to him, one may observe that Jerome included Mark 16:9-20 in the Vulgate (and there is zero evidence that he attached any note to it) and that he mentioned in "Against the Pelagians" 2:14-15 that the Freer Logion appears "in some copies and especially Greek codices" and he makes it abundantly clear that it is situated between Mark 16:14 and 16:15 -- thus showing beyond a shadow of a doubt that 16:9-20 was in those copies. And "Against the Pelagians" is among Jerome's later works, so it cannot be maintained that Jerome accepted Mark 16:9-20 early in his career (when he was merely in charge of revising the official Latin text under orders from Damasus) but considered it spurious later. The logical conclusion to draw is simply this: Jerome was not above regurgitating the compositions of others in the course of composing his letters.

Yours in Christ,

Waterrock

[Waterrock]

Etcetera,

(Regarding women speaking in church, I think that I Cor. 11 is referring to general meetings, and I Cor. 14 isn't. John Piper has written about this a bit. Somewhere.)

Etc: ... "Do we have any indication that Eusebius himself thought that the not-in-the-accurate-copies answer was unviable?"

No; Eusebius offered it as a real option.

Etc: "I grant that the scribe of Vaticanus probably knew of the longer ending, and hence the blank column. Sinaiticus, however, seems a bit more equivocal as evidence in this connection."

Sinaiticus is rather a mystery when it comes to Mark 16:9-20, because the original pages of Sinaiticus at the end of Mark and at the beginning of Luke are not extant. What we have, when we look at the last page of Mark in Sinaiticus, is a "cancel-sheet," a four-page unit of text (think of one piece of typing-paper folded in half vertically, and then turned horizontally -- that's a "bifolium," that's what I'm talkin' about), on which is written the contents of Mark 14:54-Luke 1:56. The original material which this bifolium replaced was removed while the manuscript was in production (the basis for this deduction is a tad technical, but solid). So, yes, it is hard to tell whether the copyists of Sinaiticus knew of the existence of Mark 16:9-20 or not. But then again, it is hard to discern what the original contents of Sinaiticus at the end of Mark were. Sinaiticus almost certainly did not contain 16:9-20, but it may have originally contained the Short Ending; we don't know because we do not have the original copyist's pages.

Etc: "If the papyrus [P-45] is damaged at the end, then it would seem to constitute neutral evidence. Completely neutral, no matter which codex its text most closely resembles."

I agree! However, using the same approach, Vaticanus says nothing about the text of Mark in the late 100's and early 200's. But because Vaticanus' text resembles the text of P-75 (in other books; P-75 does not contain Mark), some scholars claim that the evidence from Vaticanus should be asigned the same weight as a second-century witness on the grounds that trickles from a second-century transmission-stream. If they are allowed to do that sort of thing in regard to Vaticanus and P-75, then I should be allowed to do that regarding Codex W and P-45. (At least P-45 actually has text from Mark!) Anyway, my point is that the oldest extant manuscript evidence (Vaticanus) points both ways.

Etc: ... "It rather impresses me that any manuscripts show solid evidence for an ending at 16.8. This point is rather subjective, I know, but it has to count for something."

Vaticanus, strange to relate, might not be solid evidence for an ending at 16:8. It probably /is/ evidence for that. But it is explicable as evidence of something else: a scenario in which its copyists had one exemplar with the Short Ending, and one exemplar with the Long Ending, and did not know what to do, so they wrote down neither ending, and left a prolonged blank space, essentially leaving the text of Mark unfinished.

Etc: "It just seems so non-Marcan! Where are the incidental details? Where is the pericope development? The clever intercalations?"

I am not insisting that 16:9-20 is definitely Marcan -- just that it is original. The question of authorship is secondary. The question I'm asking isn't "Did Mark write this?" -- it's "Was this originally present in the Gospel of Mark?".

Etc: "Mark 16.9a backtracks in time with wording more appropriate to 16.2 (early on the first day) than to anytime after the empty tomb has been discovered."

I wouldn't say that a move from "very early" to just plain "early," and a move from the appearance of the angel, to the appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene, is backtracking. The camera does move, but it moves elsewhere in Mark too (like in 1:35-38).

Etc: "Mark 15.40-16.8 mentions Mary Magdalene no fewer than 3 times. Yet in 16.9 she is introduced as if it were the first time we read about her...."

That detail may have been thrown in to pre-explain why the disciples did not immediately believe her. There wasn't much impetus for it earlier. In the case of Simon Peter, Simon is mentioned and is on the scene for a while before Mark bothers to mention (in 3:16) that Jesus had given him the name "Peter."

Etc: ... "So, when Jesus twice predicts that he will meet the disciples in Galilee in 14.28 and 16.7, what does the longer ending give us? Appearances in or near Jerusalem. Nowhere in the entire ending is Galilee named as a site of the appearances." ... "here the reader has absolutely no reason to place these words anywhere but the table appearance in 16.14."

But 16:7 is pretty close at hand. It may have been regarded as superfluous to specify that Galilee was indeed the place of the appearance related in 16:14-18, since Galilee had been specifically mentioned by the angel in 16:7.

(Why have the same commentators who have taken the /repeated/ mention of Mary Magdalene as a sign of non-Marcanness, simultaneously taken the /not-repeated/ mention of Galilee as a sign of non-Marcanness?)

Etc: "To assign 16.9-20 to Mark would make him a clutz."

If Mark wrote 16:9-20, I don't think the decision to leave it up to his readers to discern that the at-the-table appearance in 16:14-18 occurred in Galilee (i.e., he left it up to his readers to discern that the angel had not lied). Nor does it seem clutzy for him to add an extra detail about Mary Magdalene's history, at the point in the narrative where her testimony enters the picture.

But what if Mark did not write 16:9-20? That does not mean that the original form of the Gospel of Mark did not contain 16:9-20. If Mark wrote up to the end of 16:8, and someone else finished the book (in Rome, amidst the Neronian persecution) before it was released for dissemination, then all we are looking at is a case of co-authorship, not a case of accretion by some copyist.

Allow me to develop that hypothesis a bit: suppose that a copyist in Egypt received a copy of the Gospel of Mark (with 16:9-20) but knew (because he was told) that Mark did not personally compose 16:9-20. Suppose that this copyist mechanically implemented the rule of preserving only what was written by the main author. What would he do with 16:9-20? He would excise it -- leaving a truncated ending which the original author(s) and distributor(s) of the Gospel of Mark never intended.

Another possibility is that a copyist in Egypt, aware that Mark had not written 16:9-20, excised it, but just could not live with the resultant abruptness, and so he composed the Short Ending to round off the text. Subsequently, someone else -- someone familiar with the Gospel of Mark -- came across copies with the Short Ending, and figured, "That's not how it goes; there is supposed to be a lot more text here," and removed the Short Ending when making his copies -- but he did not have a copy of Mark with 16:9-20, so he took what seemed to be the best available option: make copies of Mark with blank spaces after the end of 16:8 -- space reserved for the waited-for missing verses.

Fast-forward to Caesarea in the early 300's. Eusebius has in the library several copies of the Gospel of Mark, some of which are descended from manuscripts brought from Egypt by Origen in 230-231. Among those are copies which end at 16:8. (Notice what Eusebius does *not* say in "Ad Marinum" -- he apparently has no clue that the "Short Ending" exists -- which suggests that the "Short Ending" had been left behind in Egypt -- i.e., the abrupt ending outlived the Short Ending, as far as the evidence available to Eusebius at Caesarea is concerned.) (But that was not quite the case, or did not remain the case, because the Short Ending pops up later in an Armenian manuscript!)

Meanwhile, c. 325, the copyists making Vaticanus are in a quandary: they need to finish the Gospel of Mark, but their exemplars disagree: some have the Short Ending, and some have 16:9-20. Maybe some end at the end of 16:8. What to do? They decide not to decide.

Now, that hypothesis could be twisted and tweaked a bit. But my point (besides offering an explanation of why Eusebius seems to be oblivious to the existence of the Short Ending, and why Vaticanus looks the way it looks) is that -- as Burgon said in the opening of his 1871 book -- authorship is a secondary concern. If the Gospel of Mark, when first published, had 16:9-20, then 16:9-20 is original and canonical by all orthodox yardsticks.

Yours in Christ,

Waterrock

[Etcetera]

Waterrock:

(Regarding women speaking in church, I have read some about two different kinds of meetings being in view, and have so far been quite unpersuaded.)

Sinaiticus is rather a mystery when it comes to Mark 16:9-20....

Yes, I read about that on the Snapp site to which you link. Strange indeed, but I would still regard it as evidence against the longer ending.

I am not insisting that 16:9-20 is definitely Marcan -- just that it is original. The question of authorship is secondary. The question I'm asking isn't "Did Mark write this?" -- it's "Was this originally present in the Gospel of Mark?".

I see. I would worry about you if you read 16.9-20 and saw Mark written all over it.

I wouldn't say that a move from "very early" to just plain "early," and a move from the appearance of the angel, to the appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene, is backtracking. The camera does move, but it moves elsewhere in Mark too (like in 1:35-38).

Mark 1.35-38 appears to be a different thing. It nowhere backtracks to the point of stating what had already taken place before the previous incident. Jesus goes off to pray, the disciples look for, and find, him, and they talk. Pretty linear.

That detail may have been thrown in to pre-explain why the disciples did not immediately believe her. There wasn't much impetus for it earlier. In the case of Simon Peter, Simon is mentioned and is on the scene for a while before Mark bothers to mention (in 3:16) that Jesus had given him the name "Peter."

This time the phenomenon is very different. Mark 3.16-19 is the apostolic list, a good collection bin for tidbits about the disciples that do not make it into the narrative. Nothing like that going on in 16.9.

But 16:7 is pretty close at hand. It may have been regarded as superfluous to specify that Galilee was indeed the place of the appearance related in 16:14-18, since Galilee had been specifically mentioned by the angel in 16:7.

Mark 14.72 specifically and pointedly calls back to mind the prediction of the denials, the passion story emphasizes each element of the triple passion prediction in spades, and the betrayal in 14.41 recalls (on a verbal level) the prediction in 14.18-21.

Mark 14.28 and 16.7 make a pretty big deal about Galilee being the place. I mean, Jesus has already predicted that he will rise from the dead. Thrice. This prediction is not just about the resurrection, or about any appearances, but specifically and pointedly about an appearance in Galilee. That is the whole point of these two verses. The rest is old ground.

So to fail to mention any appearances in Galilee at all, well, I find that too hard to swallow. (As for 16.14 being an appearance in Galilee, two streams of tradition place it, or something very much like it, in Jerusalem: Those of the third and fourth gospels.) Mark connects all the dots in the other predictions. This one he drops the ball on, if 16.9-20 is original.

Why have the same commentators who have taken the /repeated/ mention of Mary Magdalene as a sign of non-Marcanness, simultaneously taken the /not-repeated/ mention of Galilee as a sign of non-Marcanness?

I myself do not argue from the actual repetition of Mary Magdalene. I argue from the fact that 16.9 looks like a first-time introduction to Mary Magdalene, despite her already having appeared, and recently at that. It would be a mistake to argue that 16.9 is spurious because Mary Magdalene is there, and that is a mistake that I am not making. I argue that 16.9 is spurious (partially) because the seven demons are there.

As for the repetition of Galilee, to confirm the prediction of an appearance there would not be repetition, anymore than the son of man saying in 14.41 is a mere repetition of the corresponding prediction in 14.18-21.

But what if Mark did not write 16:9-20? That does not mean that the original form of the Gospel of Mark did not contain 16:9-20. If Mark wrote up to the end of 16:8, and someone else finished the book (in Rome, amidst the Neronian persecution) before it was released for dissemination, then all we are looking at is a case of co-authorship, not a case of accretion by some copyist.

I might be able to buy that, with the proviso that Mark intended to situate his main appearance in Galilee. But I still prefer Streeter.

As for 16.9-20 belonging or not belonging in the orthodox Bible, well, that is really not my main concern. I read Mark with a literary eye, and just cannot accept that he intended 16.14 as the fulfillment of the prediction that Jesus would appear in Galilee, especially given the exact nature of the other prediction-fulfillments. If others can accept that, and it seems perfectly natural to them, so be it. Pending further evidence it would be reckless of me to regard the longer ending as Marcan.

In the love.

Etcetera.

[jpholding]

But what you call "red-faced bellowing," I call emotional preaching. Either way it merely distracts from the evidence he presents; it does not diminish it.

It substantially takes the place of "evidence" when he has none to offer.

Why not admit that Irenaeus was quoting from a copy of the Gospel of Mark in "Against Heresies" Book III, 10:5-6?

I did not say he did not. I was correcting your simplistic "a quotation is a quotation" rubric (note please, Etcetera) and then noted the reason why, even as he cites Mark, the evidence remains equivocal.

We have, in the case of Irenaeus, a highly-esteemed bishop, writing in order to refute false teachers, known to cite "ancient manuscripts" in another point in his writings

A typical example here of the sort of patrently bogus reasoning Burgon and his ilk use, as if Irey's "ancient mss." comment magically poofs over to that of his cite of Mark, thus making it from an "ancient mss." also.

Hmm. I'm not sure what that means, but I don't think it is about the evidence.

It is about your repeated attempts at cheap psychologization, which are not about evidence either.

When you cited Eusebius' comments about Mark 16:9-20, you were citing Eusebius' Eusebius' writing "Ad Marinum," because it is in that composition that Eusebius' comments about Mark 16:9-20 are found.

Excuse me. I perceived that you were referring to this:

Claimed is a "probable allusion to Mark 16:18" by Papias, as recorded by Eusebius. But this is tremendously misleading, for here is what Eusebius says: "[Papias] also mentions another miracle relating to Justus, surnamed Barsabas, how he swallowed a deadly poison, and received no harm, on account of the grace of the Lord." Papias is NOT being quoted here, and if anything, Eusebius is using an allusion to Mark 16:18 of his own to describe what Papias says. There is no evidence that Papias himself alluded to Mark 16:18. In addition, as Heuer notes, Mark 16:18 does not even use the same word for "deadly thing" as Eusebius: It is thanasmos in Mark, but pharmakon in Eusebius.

Etc. has cleared up the matter. I had forgotten my shorter citation taken directly from Witherington, actually.

Dr. James Kelhoffer published a translation of "Ad Marinum" a while ago. Snapp's research-paper presents it like this:

Yes, Kelhoffer did this. He also says that the textual argument was probably taken seriously and has "independent value". Did you not want to mention that?

Now, it's fair to deduce that Eusebius had seen, there in Caesarea, some manuscripts that were missing Mark 16:9-20. That surely influenced Eusebius' decision not to include Mark 16:9-20 in the Eusebian Canons

And of course, as both he and Etc. note, the probability language was no doubt affected by the audience he wrote to, some of whom (like present company) would prefer on completely emotional grounds not to have Mark 16:9-20 be false. The author, he also says, was not interested in textual-critical questions but in defending the integrity of scripture; all that mattered was that it was resolved, one way or the other -- just like apologists against Mormonism who agree Mark 16:16 is not genuine will still
go on to explain why Mark 16:16 does not support the Mormon view of salvation.

And it does not mean that all of the claims that Eusebius put in the mouth of a hypothetical apologist are true.

That is an absurdly desperate stretch, since it implies that the author (whether Eusy or not) is suggesting that someone could use FALSE evidence!

Good grief! :ahem:

JPH

[Waterrock]

Etcetera ~

Etc: ... "Strange indeed, but I would still regard it [Sinaiticus] as evidence against the longer ending."

Yes -- but the cancel-sheet raises a question about whether or not the Short Ending was originally present, or was present in its main exemplar. I'm not suggesting that Sinaiticus should not be on the scales in favor of the abrupt ending; I'm questioning the estimate of its weight.

Etc: "I would worry about you if you read 16.9-20 and saw Mark written all over it."

I don't think every single feature says "written by Mark," but, on the other hand, Dr. Bruce Terry's online essay about neutralizes some of the overstatements of the case for internal evidence against Markanness, imho.

Etc: "Mark 1.35-38 appears to be a different thing. It nowhere backtracks to the point of stating what had already taken place before the previous incident."

Neither does Mark 16:9, except for the opening phrase, which doesn't describe anything in the narrative camera of the preceding pericope. (16:9 does not specify where Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene; no clue is supplied in 16:9 that Mary has remained in, or returned to, the garden.)

Etc: "Mark 14.28 and 16.7 make a pretty big deal about Galilee being the place. I mean, Jesus has already predicted that he will rise from the dead. Thrice."

Looks like a good case against the abrupt ending as the original ending to me!

Etc: ... "As for 16.14 being an appearance in Galilee, two streams of tradition place it, or something very much like it, in Jerusalem: Those of the third and fourth gospels.) Mark connects all the dots in the other predictions. This one he drops the ball on, if 16.9-20 is original."

I don't think there's anything really parallel to 16:14 in Luke (other than the Emmaus encounter, but that's covered in 16:12-13). As for John, well, suppose the Gospel of John didn't exist. Wouldn't we find 16:9-20 satisfactory, and yield to the irresistible and obvious inference that at least one post-resurrection appearance occurred in Galilee? Would we insist that Mark must tell us "Location of Post-resurrection appearance: Galilee" four times rather than three?

Etc: ... "I argue from the fact that 16.9 looks like a first-time introduction to Mary Magdalene, despite her already having appeared, and recently at that."

To me it looks like an incidental detail. The odds that a copyist, knowing very well that Mary Magdalene had been introduced already, would go out of his way to re-introduce her, seem higher than the odds that Mark or his co-author would mention this detail about her.

Etc: "I argue that 16.9 is spurious (partially) because the seven demons are there."

This is the first time in the Gospel of Mark that we meet Mary Magdalene by herself. On an occasion in which readers might wonder about her reputation for reliability, or lack thereof. Is the inclusion of this detail really so remarkable?

Etc: ... "I ... read Mark with a literary eye, and just cannot accept that he intended 16.14 as the fulfillment of the prediction that Jesus would appear in Galilee, especially given the exact nature of the other prediction-fulfillments."

Then it would seem that Mark would have had to explicitly identify the location of the post-resurrection appearances as Galilee not only three, but four times, to remove this obstacle to the idea that it was he, Mark, who was writing. I'm not so sure that Mark or any first-century author would consider strict adherence to pattern to be that crucial. (But, again, even if the author was not Mark, that does not make 16:9-20 unoriginal.)

Plus, it occurs to me that if Mark was the author of 16:9-20, and if he had mentioned Galilee, someone could protest that he had violated Marcan style by mentioning Galilee four times, rather than three (since Mark seems to have a penchant for groups of three). O the wondrous flexibility of internal evidence.

Yours in Christ our Lord,

Waterrock

[Waterrock]

J. P. Holding ~

JPH: "It substantially takes the place of "evidence" when he has none to offer."

But Burgon /does/ offer evidence. It's flawed by some bad data and inaccurate assumptions which were commonly held among textual critics in 1871. But Burgon did a lot more than rant in that book.

JPH: ... "I ... then noted the reason why, even as he cites Mark, the evidence remains equivocal."

Irenaeus' statement in "Against Heresies" III:10:5-6 is not equivocal. It is a manifest quotation, by Irenaeus, of a copy of the Gospel of Mark.

JPH: "A typical example here of the sort of patrently bogus reasoning Burgon and his ilk use, as if Irey's "ancient mss." comment magically poofs over to that of his cite of Mark, thus making it from an "ancient mss." also."

Is it automatic that just because Irenaeus claimed to have access of "ancient copies" of Revelation that he had equally ancient copies of the Gospel of Mark? No. And I did not say that it was. But it's sure something to take into consideration; it shows that Irenaeus recognized the value of using older manuscripts when addressing textual questions.

Plus, figuring that Irenaeus was writing in c. 177, his quotation implies the existence of a copy of Mark, with 16:9-20, about 150 before the production of Vaticanus, and only about 109 years after the Gospel of Mark was produced.

JPH: "Etc. has cleared up the matter."

Yes, by showing that my "cheap psychologization" was accurate, and that you had cited "Ad Marinum" after all. Thank you Etc. Onward.

JPH: ... "The probability language was no doubt affected by the audience he wrote to, some of whom (like present company) would prefer on completely emotional grounds not to have Mark 16:9-20 be false."

(What a graceful ~ albeit unjustified ~ swipe. You've been practicing!) It looks like Eusebius mentioned several descriptions of what could be said about the manuscript-evidence, the way a traveller says, "We could go that way, or that way, or that way, but /this/ is the path we will take." There's not a high level of concern about the details along the roads not taken (not much concern, beyond the observation that they exist). As you noted, what mattered to him was the resolution of the harmonization-question and thus, the defense of the integrity of Scripture.

JPH: "That is an absurdly desperate stretch, since it implies that the author (whether Eusy or not) is suggesting that someone could use FALSE evidence!"

That's not really what is implied. Eusebius knew what was in the library at Caesarea. But he did not know what would be found in libraries elsewhere. And he did not know how forcefully others would be able to show that 16:9-20 was absent from some copies. Elsewhere, some other bishop might have a stack of copies without 16:9-20 -- and thus one could say that almost all copies do not have the passage. But in another locale there might be only one copy, or no copies, without the passage -- in which case one could say that the one without the passage, or certain copies at Caesarea, is/are the accurate one(s). Eusebius just made his statement adaptable.

Yours in Christ,

Waterrock

[Etcetera]

Waterrock:

Neither does Mark 16:9 [backtrack], except for the opening phrase, which doesn't describe anything in the narrative camera of the preceding pericope.

That except is the exception that counts. Mark 16.9 looks like a fresh start because it (re)states the day and the time, and tells us about the resurrection that chronologically speaking occurs between 15.47 and 16.1 somewhere.

Mark 14.28 and 16.7 make a pretty big deal about Galilee being the place. I mean, Jesus has already predicted that he will rise from the dead. Thrice.

Looks like a good case against the abrupt ending as the original ending to me!

Yes, yes! That was the argument that persuaded me that Mark probably did not originally, or intentionally, end at 16.8. Simultaneously, it also demonstrates that none of our current endings is the original, or intended, conclusion.

When I exchanged with you years ago I thought that Mark did originally end at 16.8. And I still think that if any author could have ended a gospel that way it would have been Mark. But the Galilee prediction, set alongaside the other predictions (in which Mark himself connects the dots), has since persuaded me that something in Galilee was supposed to follow 16.8.

I don't think there's anything really parallel to 16:14 in Luke (other than the Emmaus encounter, but that's covered in 16:12-13).

What? Mark 16.14 has eleven disciples at a table, and Jesus reproaches them for unbelief. Luke 24.33-43 has eleven disciples gathered together with food readily available, and Jesus chides them for doubting. And both texts place this appearance immediately after the appearance to the two on the road. I am not at this point pushing for a necessary literary connection, but clearly these traditions are related. Too close for coincidence.

Wouldn't we find 16:9-20 satisfactory, and yield to the irresistible and obvious inference that at least one post-resurrection appearance occurred in Galilee?

Not after Mark has made a point of fulfilling the other predictions on such a close verbal level. The longer ending does not in the least satisfy the expectations of 14.28 and 16.7.

Would we insist that Mark must tell us "Location of Post-resurrection appearance: Galilee" four times rather than three?

Where are you getting the third time in our extant text? Did I miss one? I see only 14.28 and 16.7.

To me [the mention of the seven demons] looks like an incidental detail. The odds that a copyist, knowing very well that Mary Magdalene had been introduced already, would go out of his way to re-introduce her, seem higher than the odds that Mark or his co-author would mention this detail about her.

Ah, that is where you and I are going in different directions right from the start. I do not at all view Mark 16.9-20 as a piece written precisely in order to complete Mark. Just the opposite. I tend to see it as an originally separate appearance-list that was eventually tagged on to Mark. The backtracking in time, the (re)statement of the day and hour, the (re)introduction of Mary Magdalene... all point to this text not being a specific scribal remedy for a truncated Mark. Likewise especially the absence of Galilee.

Read just 16.9-20, supplying only the name Jesus in 16.9 (which I would suggest was originally there, but removed because the antecedent was available in 16.6-7). It is not a story (like we might expect from Mark, or even from a scribe trying to finish Mark), but only a bare list of appearances, and one from a tradition akin to that drawn upon by Luke and John.

It is the shorter ending that looks like it was composed especially for Mark. Peter and his companions answers to the disciples and Peter in 16.7, and all these instructions refers (somewhat awkwardly) back to the command to go to Galilee to see Jesus.

[Mark 16.9] is the first time in the Gospel of Mark that we meet Mary Magdalene by herself. On an occasion in which readers might wonder about her reputation for reliability, or lack thereof. Is the inclusion of this detail really so remarkable?

Based on the analogy of the apostolic list in Mark 3.16-19, which you brought up, I would have expected such a detail in 15.40, with the list of the female followers. As for being remarkable, no, it is not in itself that remarkable. But since 16.9 already looks like a fresh start for other reasons (see above), the introductory tone with regard to Mary Magdalene looks very much like more of the same.

As for adding the seven demons here to show why the disciples might not have believed her, ha! The real Mark never needed an excuse to show why the disciples did not believe. Read the bread section again. You will search in vain for a reason given why the disciples did not believe, other than that they were hard of heart, which is exactly the opposite sort of reason as you posit here. If indeed the seven demons are present to explain why the disciples did not believe Mary, that alone might be enough to convince me that we are not reading Mark.

Then it would seem that Mark would have had to explicitly identify the location of the post-resurrection appearances as Galilee not only three, but four times, to remove this obstacle to the idea that it was he, Mark, who was writing.

(Three and four again.) No, he would just have to fulfill the expectations that he himself raised.

Plus, it occurs to me that if Mark was the author of 16:9-20, and if he had mentioned Galilee, someone could protest that he had violated Marcan style by mentioning Galilee four times, rather than three (since Mark seems to have a penchant for groups of three). O the wondrous flexibility of internal evidence.

I am still not getting that third prediction of Galilee as the place. Where is it? If there are only two predictions about Galilee (14.28 and 16.7), and if Mark has a penchant for trios (and I agree with that in general), would not a mention of Galilee after 16.8 round out the trio?

His forever.

Etcetera.

[jpholding]

But Burgon /does/ offer evidence. It's flawed by some bad data and inaccurate assumptions which were commonly held among textual critics in 1871. But Burgon did a lot more than rant in that book.

Not much more. When he does offer "evidence" it fails him at the most crucial junctures; it is not for no reason that he is not credited as an authority and is not cited in peer-reviewed journals, except to criticize him.

Irenaeus' statement in "Against Heresies" III:10:5-6 is not equivocal. It is a manifest quotation, by Irenaeus, of a copy of the Gospel of Mark.

Please read carefully. I did not say hs STATEMENT was equivocal. I have said that the value of his statement is equivocal.


But it's sure something to take into consideration;

I can just as easily take the idea that aliens changed the text "into consideration". It still won't poof it any credibility by trying to stretch a statement about one book into a statement about another.

it shows that Irenaeus recognized the value of using older manuscripts when addressing textual questions.

As Kelhoffer notes, however, when it came to textual questions the Fathers weren't exactly Metzger or an Aland. Indeed as long as the text agreed with what the Bible still said in principle (as indeed Mark 16:19 does), it didn't matter to them and it probably should not have anyway.

Plus, figuring that Irenaeus was writing in c. 177, his quotation implies the existence of a copy of Mark, with 16:9-20, about 150 before the production of Vaticanus, and only about 109 years after the Gospel of Mark was produced.

And figure as well that Mark 16:9-20, missing as it is from mss. dated to the late second century, implies the existence of copies also without it prior to that. The same "logic" of speculation hoists you just as readily on a petard.


Yes, by showing that my "cheap psychologization" was accurate, and that you had cited "Ad Marinum" after all.

That was not your "cheap psychologization" in question, but I expect you would be unable to recognize your own manipulation tactics at this point.

(What a graceful ~ albeit unjustified ~ swipe. You've been practicing!)

I've been watching an expert. :wink: Like Burgon for example.

It looks like Eusebius mentioned several descriptions of what could be said about the manuscript-evidence, the way a traveller says, "We could go that way, or that way, or that way, but /this/ is the path we will take."

The problem with your warped analogy is that unless all the paths are indeed genuine routes to the destination, it doesn't remove your problem of it being a definitive answer.


That's not really what is implied. Eusebius knew what was in the library at Caesarea. But he did not know what would be found in libraries elsewhere.

:rofl:

Excuse me. Where do you get this notion that Eusebius "did not know" such a thing?

If his knowledge is limited to what happens in Caesarea's environs, you sure pull the plug on a lot of his testimony about other historical events. Try not to cut off your nose to spite your face.

Elsewhere, some other bishop might have a stack of copies without 16:9-20

Might, could be, maybe, so on. On such slender threads are your case hung. Why not take Burgon's silly argument that all the early mss. with Mark 16:9-20 were worn out by thumbs with loving usage?
<