My book Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20 is now in its fourth edition. That book, along with my book New Testament Textual Analysis, which has two full chapters on the ending of the Gospel of Mark, are available on Amazon. The 2016 edition of my book focusing on Mark 16:9-20 remains available for 99 cents. I encapsulated the data about the overwhelming evidence for these twelve verses of sacred Scripture in a recent article at the Text & Canon Institute (in June of 2022).
I am thus at a loss to account for the continued spread of false claims about those twelve verses - but it is plain that Dr. Douglas Sean O'Donnell has not been paying attention, for he is perpetuating the time-honored tradition of spouting nonsense about the ending of the Gospel of Mark.
In an article posted at Crossway's website, Dr. O'Donnell wrote, "We can state with confidence that verse 8 is the original ending of the Gospel of Mark as Mark 16:9–20 is not found in our most reliable Greek manuscripts of the NT. It is evident that a copyist likely a century or more after the Four Gospels were written thought it necessary to add an ending that features Mary Magdalene seeing Jesus himself."
This claim is of course preposterous. "A century of more after the Four Gospels were written" - positing A.D. 90 as the composition-date for the Gospel of John, the last canonical Gospel to be written - takes us up to the year 190.
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| READ THIS BOOK AND LEARN, Dr. Douglas Sean O'Donnell |
Before the year 190, we have five patristic witnesses - the author of The Preaching of Peter (as J. D. Adkins has shown), the author of Epistula Apostolorum (as granted by Dr. Robert Stein), Justin Martyr (as I show here), Tatian (in his Diatessaron, as I have demonstrated here, contra Dr. Peter Head) and Irenaeus (in Book 3 of Against Heresies, as I have shown here) - all testify to the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20 in their manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark. Even if some scholars insist on employing an arbitrary hermeneutic of suspicion, and jettison the testimony of the author of The Preaching of Peter and that of Justin Martyr (although I consider Justin's testimony sufficiently clear), the other second-century witnesses' testimony is as plain as day: within the century that passed from the day John finished his gospel, their manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark INCLUDED VERSES 9-20.
I call upon Crossway and upon Dr. Douglas Sean O'Donnell to retract his false claim immediately, or be found guilty of spreading false information. They have been notified. They have one week to respond.
The clock is ticking.
UPDATE: the deadline has been extended to June 3.
3 comments:
The quote “Mark 16:9–20 is not found in our most reliable Greek manuscripts of the NT”
The Gnostics would like a word with him.
Hey James i love ur work, can u help me with source Q?
While you are going about defending the longer ending of Mark 16, there is a recent article by James Voelz "The Longer Ending of the Gospel of Mark Still Not to Be Embrace." Voelz takes a skeptical view, but does mention your position in a positive manner.
I would be interesting to read your push back. The article can be found here. https://www.csl.edu/resources/publications/concordia-journal/
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