(14) “Form 3b (the
long form with asterisks or notes) is represented by the Revised Version of
1881, the Jerusalem
This
may be an appropriate moment for a brief detour, to consider a few inaccuracies written by the expert annotators of some
relatively recent English translations.
●
A note in the Jerusalem Bible stated,
“Many MSS omit vv. 9-20.”
●
The New American Standard Bible, in a
1977 edition, presented verses 9-20 in brackets, followed by the Shorter Ending
in brackets and italicized; a footnote to the Shorter Ending stated, “A few
later mss. and versions contain this paragraph, usually after verse 8; a few
have it at the end of chapter.” This note’s claim is untrue. No Greek manuscripts are extant in which the
text of Mark ends with the Shorter Ending, either after verse 8 or after verse
20.
● The English Standard Version, in a 2007
edition, featured a note which stated that “A few manuscripts insert additional
material after verse 14.” In real life,
only one extant manuscript (Codex W) does so.
I am not sure which worries me more:
the sloppy scholarship that allowed such a note to be written, or the
negligent peer review that allowed it to be distributed for over a decade.
● The New Living
Translation still contains a note which says that “Some early
manuscripts add” the Freer Logion. It also
features a note which refers to “various endings to the Gospel,” ensuring that
the state of the evidence remains fuzzy to NLT-readers.
(15) “Whether examining ancient manuscripts or
consulting modern English translations, a reader of the Gospel of Mark
encounters an astonishing number of alternative endings for the gospel.”
That is astonishingly
sensationalistic writing. As previously
noted, 1,600+ Greek manuscripts display verses 9-20 after verse 8; in two Greek
manuscripts the text clearly ends at the end of 16:8, and in six Greek
manuscripts (concentrated in Egypt )
the Shorter Ending and verses 9-20 are both presented, usually with brief
notes. (The inclusion of the Freer
Logion between 16:14 and 16:15 in Codex W is not another ending, any
more than a ship becomes a different ship after a barnacle attaches itself to
the hull.) So in terms of independent
texts that appear after 16:8, we observe two
endings – not “an astonishing number.”
(16) [Referring to the reading in Codex W, i.e.,
verses 9-20 with the Freer Logion between 16:14 and 16:15] “In
short, the historical support for this form is relatively late and very
slender.”
Slender? Yes. Relatively
late? No. Holmes described Codex W as a manuscript from
“the fourth- or fifth-century.” Codex
Vaticanus – the earliest extant Greek manuscript of Mark 16 – is also from the
fourth century. Reckoning that these
production-dates are assigned on the basis of paleography, and also taking into
account our inability to discern if a specific copyist produced a specific
manuscript near the beginning, or near the end, of his career, it is not
impossible that the elderly copyists of Codex Vaticanus and the middle-aged copyists of Codex Sinaiticus
and the young copyists of Codex W passed each other in the streets.
(17) “At the time of Eusebius in the early fourth
century, however, the long form still was found in only a small minority of
manuscripts.”
Holmes thus
treated Eusebius’ statements anachronistically, as if Eusebius had taken a survey
of manuscript-collections throughout the Roman Empire .
(18) “The historical evidence for Form 3a is early
(third quarter of the second century) but very narrow until the fifth century
or later.”
That’s
ridiculous, as can easily be seen from the use of Mark 16:9-20 by Irenaeus (in
Gaul, in the 100’s), Hippolytus (in Rome, in the early 200’s), Eusebius (in
Caesarea, in the early 300’s), Wulfilas (in Goth-controlled territory, in the
mid-300’s), and other early writers in other locales. The level of spin in Holmes’ claim is almost
amusing.
(19) “Neither Clement of Alexandria
You can say that again – especially since
Clement never makes any quotations from Mark chapters 1,
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 15, and 16 (unless, in a comment on Jude verse
24 preserved by Cassiodorus, Clement uses Mark 16:19), and since Origen fails
to quote from huge chunks of Mark; when we see Origen fail to quote from 54,
and 41, and 22, and 25, and 39, and 46, and 63 consecutive verses, his non-use
of 12 consecutive verses cannot validly be considered evidence of the contents
of his copies of Mark. Why is this never
mentioned by Holmes?
(20) “The earliest
manuscript witnesses for Form 1, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, date to
about the same time [that is, contemporary to Eusebius of Caesarea ], but have been
shown to preserve a textual tradition that dates back to around the time of
Irenaeus (c. 175).”
Do you see what Holmes is doing here? A footnote in his Bible Review article explains his approach: the discovery of P66 and P75, he says, “demonstrates that these two fourth-century manuscripts in fact preserve a textual tradition that dates back at least to around the time of Irenaeus.” He thus treats an extrapolation from manuscripts produced in the fourth century as if this should have the same weight as clear patristic utilizations of Mark 16:9-20 in the second century.
Do you see what Holmes is doing here? A footnote in his Bible Review article explains his approach: the discovery of P66 and P75, he says, “demonstrates that these two fourth-century manuscripts in fact preserve a textual tradition that dates back at least to around the time of Irenaeus.” He thus treats an extrapolation from manuscripts produced in the fourth century as if this should have the same weight as clear patristic utilizations of Mark 16:9-20 in the second century.
Such
jugglery is not the same as the enterprise of “measuring Hercules by his
foot.” It is more like attempting to
draw Hercules’ beard by measuring his foot.
It is unobjectionable to deduce that Codices Vaticanus and Sinaiticus
are descended from the same text-stream of which Papyrus 75 is a core member,
and of which P66 is a not-so-strong member.
It is not valid, however, to treat manuscripts which do not contain a
single word from the Gospel of Mark as if they shed light on any specific
textual variant in the Gospel of Mark.
If
it is valid to build second-century evidence out of general affinities and
inferences, then let’s notice the general affinity between Papyrus 45 and Codex
W in the Gospel of Mark, and infer that Papyrus 45, in its pristine form,
agreed with Codex W at the end of Mark.
If you see why this approach would be unsound then you see why Holmes’
approach is unsound. (In addition, one could
ask that if it is okay to treat two fourth-century
witnesses as evidence for an ancestor-text in c. 175, why is it not okay to
treat four second-century witnesses as evidence for an ancestor-text in c. 65?)
(21) “In summary,
the evidence for a short form of Mark ending at 16:8 is both early (mid- to
late second century) and broad.”
A
number of points may be made in response:
● His “mid- to late second century evidence” for the abrupt ending at the end of 16:8 is not evidence. His earliest evidence is in the fourth century.
● His “mid- to late second century evidence” for the abrupt ending at the end of 16:8 is not evidence. His earliest evidence is in the fourth century.
●
He misrepresents Eusebius’ description of the manuscript-evidence (reading it
as if it is a direct observation, rather than something that Eusebius framed as
something that someone might say) and reads Eusebius’ statement
anachronistically, as if the manuscripts encountered by Eusebius were typical
of manuscripts everywhere.
●
He interprets the annotation in f-1 (and the note in some of the
Jerusalem-colophon-group MSS ) as if it is “attests to the existence of manuscripts that
end at 16:8” – which is correct – without considering that these MSS are
echoing older annotations from a shared source, and without considering that
the oldest forms of the annotations support the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20 by
appealing to the majority of MSS , or to the ancient MSS . Whatever weight is given to these witnesses
for the abrupt ending, bit more weight should be placed on the scales in favor
of the inclusion of 16:9-20.
●
On the basis of the Sinaitic Syriac and Codex Bobbiensis, he concludes that
“the short form was widely dispersed geographically at an early period.” Yet somehow, the even earlier Syriac support
for Mark 16:9-20 from Aphrahat and Ephrem Syrus, and the earlier Latin support
for Mark 16:9-20 from the Vulgate, leads Holmes to the conclusion that the
evidence for Mark 16:9-20 is “very narrow.”
This is a terribly uneven treatment of the evidence.
(22) “In favor of
the originality of the long form, some scholars have suggested that the short
form was created by Alexandrian biblical scholars who were embarrassed by the
references to handling snakes and drinking poison and therefore deliberately excised
verses 9-20.”
Holmes
is referring to a theory offered by William Farmer in 1974. This explanation for the loss of verses 9-20
in an Egyptian text-stream is the easiest one to deflect, and the only one
Holmes mentions. The theory of simple
accidental loss of the final page of an early copy, the theory of excision due
to a copyist’s misunderstanding of a lectionary-related note (“The End of the
Second Gospel” after Mark 16:8 – meant to refer to the second Gospel-reading in
the Heothina cycle of lections), and
my own theory that an Alexandrian copyist removed verses 9-20 because he
considered it a separate composition, are not even mentioned.
(23) “At least 17
words or phrases (for example, “form,” 16:12 ; “not believe,” 16:11 , 16) found in 16:9-20 do not occur elsewhere
in Mark or are used with a different sense than elsewhere in the gospel.”
That’s
all fine as far as it goes, but if readers were aware of Bruce Terry’s research
of the internal evidence, in which he pointed out that a nearby 12-verse
passage (Mark 15:40-16:4) contains 20
(or 22, depending on textual variants) words found nowhere else in the Gospel
of Mark, and that Mark 1:1 through 12 contains 16 once-used words, and that 14:1-12 contains 20 once-used words the existence of 17 once-used words (and
phrases) in Mark 16:9-20 would tend to be seen as an example of a recurring
phenomenon in the Gospel of Mark, rather than as evidence that Mark did not
write verses 9-20.
In
addition, Holmes only told one side of the story, mentioning none of the Marcan
features displayed in 16:9-20, such as the words αναστας, πρωϊ, αγρον, εφανερώθη,
σκληροκαρδίαν,
κατακριθήσεται, αρρώστους, and πανταχου,
and the phrase in 16:15 , εις τον
κόσμος άπαντα κηρύξατε το ευαγγέλιον, to which the verbiage of Mark 14:9 is
very similar.
(24) “In the end,
verses 9-20 give every indication of having been tacked on to the end of 16:8,
probably sometime early in the second century.”
Holmes
is partly right: Mark 16:9-20 does look
“tacked on,” for all the reasons that he lists:
the transition from 16:8 to 16:9 is awkward; Mary Magdalene is
reintroduced; the day and time are restated; Mary’s companions are suddenly off
the narrative stage; the resurrection-appearances in 16:9-20 are situated in,
or near, Jerusalem, although Galilee would be expected in light of 14:28 and
16:7. All of these points indicate that
this passage was not composed by someone whose purpose was to conclude the narrative that otherwise would end
at 16:8. However, this works against the
idea that the passage is a second-century pastiche as effectively as it works
against the idea that Mark wrote these verses to conclude his account.
I
consider the following scenario the best explanation of the evidence, both
external and internal:
(1) Mark, before composing his Gospel-account,
wrote a short freestanding summary of Jesus’ resurrection-appearances. This text was known and used in Rome in the 60’s.
(2) Mark, as he was writing his Gospel-account,
was interrupted by an emergency as he was writing 16:8. He left the city of Rome , leaving behind his unfinished account.
(3) Mark’s colleagues in Rome , possessing Mark’s unfinished Gospel-account, and Mark’s short summary
of Jesus’ resurrection-appearances, were unwilling to distribute Mark’s
Gospel-account in its obviously unfinished form. So instead of composing a fresh ending, they
combined the two Marcan compositions.
(4) After those two texts had been combined and
only then – Christian copyists at Rome began to produce and distribute copies of the Gospel of Mark for church
use. (Verses 9-20 thus form part of the
original text of the Gospel of Mark, just as Proverbs 30 and 31 are part of the
original text of Proverbs, and Jeremiah 52 is part of the original text of
Jeremiah, even though they were not added by the primary human author of those
books.)
(5) One recipient of a copy of Mark 1:1-16:20,
when encountering 16:9-20, recognized it as a separate text which he had
already encountered. He therefore
separated it from the rest of the text, in accord with the meticulous
Alexandrian practice of preserving only the text which came directly from the
primary author. The consequently
abruptly-ending form of Mark’s Gospel was circulated in Egypt .
(6) Some Egyptian copies with the abruptly-ending
text of Mark were transported to Caesarea , where they were known to Eusebius in the 300’s. Eusebius was unaware of the existence of the
Shorter Ending.
(7) Someone in Egypt , unable to tolerate the abrupt ending, composed the Shorter
Ending.
(8) When copies with verses 9-20 entered the
Egyptian text-stream where the Shorter Ending was circulating, copyists reacted
by combining the Shorter Ending and verses 9-20, putting the Shorter Ending
first because (a) it had been the
first ending they had encountered, and (b)
it tidily wraps up a lection after 16:8, but would be a textual island after 16:20 . Meanwhile, outside
Egypt , copies of Mark 1:1-16:20 were distributed far and wide,
as the patristic evidence plainly shows.
Perhaps
some readers will prefer the idea that Mark deliberately stopped writing at the
end of 16:8 – thus misrepresenting the women as if they remained silent, and
trapping the reader in a state of empty and unfulfilled expectation. Hort regarded such a notion as absolutely
impossible. Whatever conclusion one
reaches, the path toward a conclusion should be made without the encumbrances
of half-truths, exaggerations, distortions, inaccuracies, falsehoods, and
selective evidence-picking which currently pervade not only the Biblical Archaeological Review article,
but also the vast majority of commentaries on the Gospel of Mark.
●●●●●●●
(For more information
about the evidence pertaining to the ending of the Gospel of Mark,
including details
about some evidence which was mentioned here only briefly (such as the anomalies
in Vaticanus and
Sinaiticus, and the comment of Victor of Antioch), see my book,
Authentic: The Case for Mark
16:9-20.)