Mark 16:9-20

Sorry - is this a silly joke? I wrote:

Where is my accusation of a logical fallacy? Where is my "well poisoning"? There are only THREE manuscripts without this passage. THREE!!! And one of those even has a space where it should be! But we have HUNDREDS in which God preserved this passage!!! I'm just saying trust God. Why am I being attacked for saying this?

 

Bartholomew,
That was hardly an attack my friend. If you feel attacked, I apologize. But you are starting with a conclusion ("God did preserve Mk 16:9-20 and it must be reliable") which has not been proven utterly true. Maybe that's not poisioning the well as much as it's the fallacy of begging the question. Let me start laying out some other evidence below relative to your claims

 

Chris has posted some of this but no one has cared to interact with it, but let me post some additional date:

Mark ends at verse 8 in the two oldest Greek mss. The scribe who brought Mark's Gospel to an end in Codex Sinaiticus seemed to have no doubt that it finished at verse 8. He underlined the text with a fine artistic squiggle, and wrote, "The Gospel according to Mark." Immediately following begins the Gospel of Luke.
It also is lacking in over 100 Armenian texts and the two oldest Georgian mss, and the Codex Bobiensis. As Chris pointed out, Eusebius and Jerome knew nothing of vv. 9-20.

While there are vastly more mss with the longer ending, we cannot reduce textual criticsm to bean counting. MSS are not counted, they are weighed. According to Bentley, Manuscripts written after Sinaiticus and Vaticanus have been found that contained the Marcan Appendix but with scribal notes in the margins that said the verses were not in older copies; others have been found that had dots or asterisks by the verses in the Marcan Appendix as if to signal that they were in some way different from the rest of the text.

Internally, there are words used in vv. 9-20 that appear nowhere else in Mark. (see J. K. Elliott, “The Text and Language of the endings of Mark’s Gospel,”). One factor considered weighty by many students is the apparent scribal insertions taken from a strictly Pauline vocabulary that is foreign to all four gospels!

Let me try to answer Clint's question about the "drinking of poison." Some allege that this has happened in the Acts or epistles. I don't find this. If someone knows where this is, post the evidence.

 

Good points Tom.

 

I haven't formed an opinion on 9-20 yet, and if I had it would be a quietly held one. I dont have the academic background to argue the fine points, (or broader points for that matter) of this passage. However I have enjoyed it and cant complain for lack of information. But I still have a couple of questions.

Chris: You stated you believed this passage was canonical but not necessarily Markan. Is the reason because "God preserved it" as Bartholomew stated in this thread, or other criteria?

Tom: You seem to come down on the side of the passage not being Markan also. I am presuming you also consider it canonical? As a Baptist pastor I am sure you have been asked the "inerrancy" question considering 9-20. How do you respond?
Thank You.

 

I do not believe it is either Markan or canonical. What specifically as the inerrancy question are you referring to?

 

I do not believe it is either Markan or canonical. What specifically as the inerrancy question are you referring to?</font>[/QUOTE]Perhaps I should re word this. Do you consider this passage to be inspired? If not, then what do you say to those who would claim the Bible has errors in it because this book claims the author is Mark. Would the reply go back to it not being the orignal manuscript? Please bear with me on this because if I do end up persuaded it is uninspired I will be asked to defend my position. Once again, thanks.

 

No, therefore non-canonical.

Correct. The fact that it appears in some Bible versions (or some mss for that matter) and would not be canonical does not negate the Bible doctrine of inspiration. There are differences in other mss and versions relative to punctuation and word order and the like, and that doesn't negate the inerrancy & inspiration of Scripture. Seems like this issue gets a lot of attention just because you're talking about 11 verses. But still, the Bible doctrine of inspiration stands. Hope that helps

[ May 29, 2002, 11:32 PM: Message edited by: TomVols ]

 

Well, let's see. Three (yes, that is right, only three) MSS lack the long ending of Mark, and every other existing MSS in the world has the long ending, but you don't consider that "massive?" You just throw out all the MSS, a massive number of them, in favor of two early, but contradictory, MSS, and one very late and obviously inferior MS. Interesting position. Where did you say you went to Seminary?

 

well, three's not very many more than the MS support for 1Jn 5:7, izzit?

hmm, perhaps we cld clutch at the Old Latin straw for this?

 

At one where the courses in textual criticism involved far more than being able to count And do you really want to go down that road?

 

Just how many courses in textual criticism did you take, who were the instructors, and what were the textbooks you used? Was you instruction completely one sided, or did your reading assignments include books from the other point of view? My textbooks and required reading included Hort, Kenyon, Girdlestone, French, Scholz, Lachmann, and of course, Metzgar. Did your required reading include Burgon, Scrivener, et. el.?

 

Hmmm. I don't have my transcripts in front of me, but I'd just have to say several, not counting the fact that it was part and parcel of survey and language classes (as it should be) also. I cannot remember right off the top of my head. Plus, counting the classes may not be the best barometer because some profs love to cram or leave out more matl than others. Your profs may have covered more turf in one sem than my profs did in two, or vice-versa. As for the books, we read the standard works on the subject and of course we looked at evidence from both sides. (BTW, why did you leave out Kurt Aland? Curious, although he's not going to go over ground Metzger didn't.) This is in addition to the outside reading of course (I was one of the guys that always did more than necessary. I love to learn.) In Bible college and seminary I studied under guys who leaned to the Byz position and those who leaned to the earlier mss position, so I'd hardly say I was spoon fed one side or the other. I could give you names of instructors, but are you honestly going to be impressed? Some might be, some might not, blah, blah, blah. Did you honestly study both sides? Did you study under profs who held to the position other than yours? If so, good for you.

Now that I've swallowed your bait and spit it back out, can we leave the resumes and get back on topic

 

I asked because when I was in Seminary for my M.Div. I was taught a pretty one sided view. We used only the Critical Greek Text (back then it was UBS 1, UBS 2 came out while I was a student). We were not taught anything from the "other" side. It was not until I got into post graduate study that I got both sides of the issue. Most of my professors were still CT advocates, but at least they presented both sides. It was through my personal study for my thesis that I gradually, over about a 2 year period, came to the Byzantine priority position. I had always been KJV prefered, but as a student the jury was still out regarding the text issue.

And, you are correct, I did not mention Aland simply because he and Metzger covers exactly the same material. In fact, I often wonder how much of Metzger's work is simply rehashed Aland. However, I did, and still do, use the NA 21 (again, it shows how old I am). But my primary Greek text is the Scrivener 1894.

 

Interesting. Obviously, profs will have their biases and opinions, but in textual criticism it's best to lay out the evidence and let the students sift through. I've been fortunate at the undergrad and grad level to have had a balance I suppose, so you get to hear the arguments from proponents on both sides.

 

DocCas:

Can you list the main reasons/things that
convinced you of the Byzantine priority position?
I'm currently studying through this issue and would appreciate any insight.

thanks,
kman