The Vocabulary of Mark 16:9-20

           “The vocabulary and style of verses 9-20 are non-Markan (e.g., ἀπιστέω, βλάπτω, βεβαιόω, ἐπακολουθέω, θεάομαι, μετὰ ταῦτα, πορεύομαι, συνεργέω, ὕστερον are found nowhere else in Mark; and θανάσιμον and τοῖς μετ’ αυτοῦ γενομένοις, as designations of the disciples, occur only here in the New Testament.”  Thus wrote Bruce Metzger in his Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (p. 125, Ó 1971 by the United Bible Societies, Stuttgart, Germany). 

          Throughout Metzger’s Textual Commentary, signs of his reliance upon Hort’s Notes on Select Readings (1881) can be detected; for example, Hort wrote that “the petty historical difficulty mentioned by Marinus as to the first line of v. 9 could never have suggested the substitution of 4 colourless lines for 12 verses rich in interesting material” (p. 44) and Metzger has merely paraphrased this (in TCGNT p. 126) as “No one who had available as the conclusion of the Second Gospel the twelve verses 9-20, so rich in interesting material, would have deliberately replaced them with four lines of a colorless and generalized summary.”

          Metzger parroted Hort a little.  More recent commentators have parroted Metzger a lot, as if the first point he makes about vocabulary is  very cogent, sufficient to settle the question about whether or not Mark wrote 16:9-20.  For example, after making a lengthy quotation from Metzger, Matt Slick wrote in 2008, “In the last 11 verses under discussion there are 17 “new” words that don’t occur in the entire gospel of Mark.  It appears that someone wrote the ending of Mark and added it to the gospel because the style is different, and the vocabulary is different.”

          But Metzger never told his readers how many once-used words readers ought to expect in a twelve-verse segment of the Gospel of Mark.  This situation was remedied in 2019 by Karim al-Hanifi in the brief essay, The end of an argument on the ending of Mark, (available at Academia.edu).  Al-Hanifi identified 696 words that Mark uses only once in Mark 1:1-16:8.  Bruce Terry, defining a “once-used word” more strictly, put the total at 555 once-used words.  Using the lower total, if we divide 555 once-used words into 659 verses (rejecting, with the Nestle-Aland compilation, Mark 7:16, 9:44, 9:46, 11:26, and 15:28, just to keep things simple) that’s an average of .84 once-used words in each verse.  So in a typical twelve-verse segment of Mark, it should not be unusual at all to find 8 once-used words.   Using Al-Hanifi’s tally, we should expect an average of .95 once-used words in each verse, averaging 11-12 once-used words in each 12-verse segment.

          There are quite a few 12-verse segments of Mark in which the rate of once-used words is significantly higher than eight, and higher than 12.  This list is based on Al-Hanifi’s essay:

          Mark 1:1-12:  17 once-used words

          2:16-27:  18 once-used words

          4:13-24:  16 once-used words

          4:25-36:  16 once-used words

          4:37-5:7:  17 once-used words

          6:49-7:4:  17 once-used words

          7:5-16:  15 once-used words

          7:17-28:  21 once-used words

          11:31-12:9:  16 once-used words (9 of which are in 12:1!)

          12:34-13:1:  19 once-used words

          13:14-25:  21 once-used words

          13:26-37:  16 once-used words

          13:38-14:12:  20 once-used words

          14:37-48:  19 once-used words

          15:13-24:  23 once-used words

          15:25-36:  15 once-used words

          15:37-16:1:  24 once-used words

 

Here are the top nine 12-verse segments of Mark, ranked in a most-non-Markan-words contest:

j 15:37-16:1:  24 once-used words

k 15:13-24:  23 once-used words

l 7:17-28:  21 once-used words

m 13:14-25:  21 once-used words

n 13:38-14:12:  20 once-used words

o 12:34-13:1:  19 once-used words

p 14:37-48:  19 once-used words

q 2:16-27:  18 once-used words

r 16:9-20:  18 once-used words

 

          The number of once-used – or, in Metzgerian spin-language, “non-Markan” words – in Mark 16:9-20 is high, but not remarkably or exceptionally high.  Mark 16:9-20 finishes the Most “Non-Markan”-Words contest in eighth or ninth place. 

          Mark 16:9-20 does have a few vocabulary-related features that don’t look fully consistent with the syntax used in Mark 1:1-16:8.  Perhaps the most notable example is the use of ἐκείνη (16:10), κἀκεῖνοι (16:11, 13), ἐκείνοις (16:13), and ἐκεῖνοι (16:20) all appearing as pronouns in 16:10, 11, and 13.  But κἀκεῖνον also appears in Mark 12:4-5 as a pronoun, twice.   This seems within the expressive range of any writer.  Plus, before we define “Markan style” and declare that Mark was capable of this expression but not that one, we should remember that it is not as if we are examining the style of War and Peace;  we only have 16 chapters from Mark.   

          Let’s look at some other objections:

          · Is it a glaring absence, as Travis Williams has alleged, for Mark 16:9-20 not to contain the words εὐθύς (“immediately”) and the πάλιν (“again”)?  Not the least little bit!  As Bruce Terry has pointed out, it is not just Mark 16:9-20 that does not employ εὐθύς and πάλιν; the last 53 verses of Mark do not employ them.  Terry divided the text of Mark 1:1-16:8 into 650 sets of 12 consecutive verses, and found that over 57% of such sets contain neither εὐθύς nor εὐθέως, and 61% do not have πάλιν.  More than 35% do not contain εὐθύς nor εὐθέως nor πάλιν.  “It is hardly an objection,” Terry writes, “to say that the last twelve verses are in the same category with more than one-third of the sets of twelve consecutive verses in the rest of the book.”

          · Is it inconsistent for an author to write πρώτη σαββάτων in 16:9, having used μιᾶς σαββάτον in 16:2?  I suspect that if Mark 16:9 had employed μιᾶς σαββάτον, the objection would automatically be raised that a mimic has imitated Mark’s language.  Casual variations of this sort are natural and we observe them in other places in Mark.  For instance, Mark states in 5:2 that the demoniac came ἐκ τῶν μνημείων, and then Mark uses different wording almost immediately in  5:3 and 5:5 (τοῖς μνήμασιν).  Similarly, Luke wrote ἐν τῷ σάββατῷ and ἐν τοῖς σάββασιν and τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ σαββάτου (cf. Lk. 13:10-16).

          · Is it inconsistent to write πορεύεσθαι three times (in verses 10,12, and 13), rather than to employ a compounded word (such as ἐκπορεύσθαι)?   John Burgon addressed this objection over a century ago.  The appearance of the uncompounded words in verses 10, 12, and 13 is unique, but the word involved is also very common (like the English word “go”).  “Unless the Critics are able to shew me which of the ordinary compounds of πορεύομαι S. Mark could possible have employed for the uncompounded verb [Burgon then lists each passage where  a form of πορεύομαι is used] their objection is simply frivolous.”

          · Is it inconsistent to use ἐθεάθη in 16:11 and θεασαμέοις in 16:14, rather than other terms (forms of ὁράω and βλέπω) that could have been used instead?  Again, this objection existed in Burgon’s day, and Burgon covered it thoroughly (on pp. 156-158 of The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According To S. Mark Vindicated, etc., 1871).  Comparable usages of unique verbiage that could be replaced with an author’s more ordinary vocabulary appear in the other Gospels too.  That Mark should use a special term to convey what were special encounters is not at all surprising.

          · Is it inconsistent to refer to Jesus’ followers in 16:10 as “those who had been with Him” (τοις μετ’ αυτου γενομένοις)?   A few moments’ thought should be sufficient for anyone to realize that the new phrase is called for by new circumstances.  On earlier occasions, Jesus’ followers had been with Him; no reason yet existed to refer to them as “those who had been with Him.”  Also, Mark uses similar language in 5:40 (τους μετ’ αυτοῦ).  The words τοις μετ’ αυτου γενομένοις would not and could not describe Jesus’ followers in the Gospel of Mark until 14:50.  Similarly, Mark simply had no previous occasion to use terms such as ἔνδεκα (“eleven”) and θανάσιμον (“deadly thing”).

           The following points supportive of Markan authorship of 16:9-20 should not be ignored:

          (1) Mark’s fondness for presenting things in groups of three is exhibited by the arrangement of three appearances of Christ after His resurrection (to Mary Magdalene, to the two travelers, and to the eleven, with ἐφάνη or ἐφανερώθη used each time).

          (2) Mark employs the terms ἀναστῆναι (8:31, 9:10), ἀναστῇ (9:9), and ἀναστήσεται (9:31, 10:34) to refer to Christ’s resurrection, although other terms could have been used.  The use of Ἀναστὰς in 16:9 is thus a Markan feature.

          (3) Mark uses the word πρωϊ (in 1:35, 11:20, 13:35, 15:1, 16:2) more frequently than the other Gospel-writers.  Its presence in 16:9 supports Markan authorship.

          (4) The words in 16:15 – πορευθέντες εἰς τὸν κόσμος ἅπαντα κηρύξατε τὸ εὐαγγέλιον (“Go into all the world, preach the gospel”) resemble the words in Mark 14:9 – κηρυχθῇ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον εἰς ὅλον τὸν κόσμος (“the gospel shall be preached into all the world”).

          (5) The term σκληροκαρδίαν (“hard-heartedness”) in 16:14 is somewhat uncommon, but it also appears in Mark 10:5.

          (6) Κτίσει is more Markan than it is anything else in the four Gospels (besides 16:15, forms of this word appear in Mark 10:6 and 13:19).

          (7) Κατακριθήσεται (“shall be condemned”) is Markan; cf. κατακρινοῦσιν in 10:33 and κατέκριναν in 14:64.

          (8) The appearance of ἀρρώστους in 16:18 is Markan; cf. ἀρρώστοις in  Mark 6:5 and ἀρρώστους in 6:13.

          (9) Πανταχοῦ (“everywhere”) in 16:20 is Markan, at least in the Alexandrian Text, appearing in Mark 1:28.  (A related term, either πάντοθεν or πανταχόθεν, is used in Mark 1:45.) 

           Sometimes this sneaky objection is made:  If Matthew and Luke possessed copies of Mark with 16:9-20, why didn’t they use its contents?  Let’s imagine that Mark 16:9-20 contained strong parallels with Matthew 28 and Luke 24.  The deduction by champions of the Alexandrian Text would have been automatic:  whoever created such an ending for the Gospel of Mark must have derived the parallels from Matthew and Luke!         

          This objection puts Mark 16:9-20 in a no-win scenario:  when Mark 16:9-20 doesn’t have strong parallels in Matthew 28 and Luke 24, it means that Mark 16:9-20 is spurious; yet had Mark 16:9-20 been brimming with strong parallels in Matthew 28 and Luke 24, this, too, would mean that Mark 16:9-20 is spurious!   The objection amounts to mere rhetoric.   

          The point should be raised though, that we should expect to see strong sustained parallels with Matthew or Luke or both in any ending composed to conclude the Gospel of Mark.  Since we see no such thing in Mark 16:9-20, the reasoning of Metzger on this particular point is cogent:  “It is unlikely that the long ending was composed ad hoc to fill up an obvious gap” (Textual Commentary, p. 125).    No one, trying to compose an ending for the Gospel of Mark, would write what is seen in Mark 16:9-20; the natural option would be, instead, to follow the narrative structure of Matthew 28:9-11 and 28:16-20.    

          The internal vocabulary-based evidence is is consistent with the hypothesis I have advocated in Authentic:  The Case for Mark 16:9-20:  Mark himself was permanently interrupted midway through 16:8, and his colleagues in Rome, before making any copies of Mark’s Gospel-narrative, completed his otherwise unfinished work by appending verses 9-20, having drawn them from Mark’s own writings.  As part of the text as it existed at the point when and where the production of the text in the ancestor of all copies ceased, and before the transmission of the text began, Mark 16:9-20 should be regarded as canonical and authoritative by all Christians.

Minuscule 304, Theophylact, and the Ending of Mark

          Minuscule 304 is a medieval Greek manuscript which contains a commentary on Matthew and Mark, along with the text of those two Gospels.  Sometimes, medieval commentaries are formatted so as to surround the Gospels-text:  the Gospels-text is positioned in a small rectangle, near the inner edge of the page, and the commentary occupies the space on the three outer margins of the page.  In 304, however, the Gospels-text and the commentary-text are interspersed:  a segment of Scripture is followed by a segment of corresponding commentary, separated by a small dark circle. 
          304 is considered to be a very minor manuscript, in terms of its significance for textual criticism, with one exception:  its text of Mark concludes at the end of 16:8.  In the second edition of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament, 304 was not mentioned; minuscule 2386, instead, was listed as if it is the only extant Greek manuscript which ends at the end of 16:8 in agreement with Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.
          In 1973, however, Kurt Aland deduced the reason why 2386 does not contain verses 9-20:  a thief has removed the page upon which those verses were written, in order to obtain the illustration of the Evangelist Luke which was on the opposite side of the page.  At that point, 304 was promoted, so that one now finds it mentioned in the textual apparatus as an ally of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus at Mark 16:8 in the fourth edition of the UBS Greek New Testament, and in the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland compilation.
          Let’s take a closer look at 304.  This manuscript is housed at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France – the National Library of France, and page-views of the manuscript, from microfilm, were recently made available.
          The catalog-note near the beginning of 304 assigns it to the 13th century, which disagrees with Aland & Aland, who described it as if it was made in the 12th century.  At the beginning of the portion that contains the text of Mark, the title is not “The Gospel of Mark.”  It is, instead, “The  Explanation (Ερμηνεια) of the Gospel of Mark.”  This commentary came to the attention of researchers centuries ago, when a transcription of its contents was printed by Pierre Poussines (also known as Petrus Possinus) as “Codex Tolesanus” in 1673, in Catena Graecorum Patrum in Evangelium Secundum Marcum.

The title, above Mark 1:1-3, in 304:
"The Explanation of the Gospel of Mark."

          The Gospels-text of 304 is essentially Byzantine, and its commentary-material on the Gospel of Mark consists mainly of a commentary written by Theophylact of Achrida (or Ochrid) (c. 1050-1108), supplemented by comments from various patristic writers, including – according to name-abbreviations which appear in the margin next to the excerpts – Cyril, Origen, Photius, Eusebius, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Apollinaris, and occasionally an excerpt is attributed to “Others.”   (Similar abbreviations also appear in the margins in the commentary on Matthew, in which Chrysostom’s works are cited very frequently.)

          In 1881, Hort mentioned the contents of 304, stating, “The third commentary printed by Poussin likewise comes to an end at v. 8 in the Toulouse MS employed by him.  But it is not yet known whether other MSS attest a similar text; and at all events the Toulouse scholia are here almost identical with those that are attributed to Theophylact, which certainly cover vv. 9-20.”

          Indeed, when we compare Theophylact’s commentary to 304, the text-divisions usually correspond exactly.  Most of the comments on Mark in 304 are derived from Theophylact, and this can be confirmed with certainty via direct comparisons between Theophylact’s comments and the comments found in 304.  To demonstrate this important point, here are translations of the beginnings of the comment-segments in 304, and the beginnings of the comment-segments in Theophylact’s commentary, throughout Mark chapter 15:

● After 15:15 –

304:  The Jews handed over Christ to the Romans. 

Theophylact:  The Jews delivered the Lord to the Romans.

● After 15:21 –

304:  Soldiers typically rejoice . . . 

Theophylact:  Soldiers typically rejoice . . .

● After 15:28 (which is not in the Alexandrian Text) – 

There is some difference in content and order, but in 304, sixteen lines into the comment, and in Theophylact’s commentary at the outset of this segment, we find this statement:

304 –There is an old tradition which says that Adam was buried in that place, where Christ was crucified, so that in the place where death began, it would also meet its end.

Theophylact – There is a tradition handed down from the holy fathers which says that Adam was buried in that place . . . so that where death began, there also death would be destroyed.
(This tradition, by the way, is why medieval illustrators sometimes drew a skull-and-crossbones at the base of the cross, representing the corpse of Adam.)

● After 15:32 –

304 – Not only did the soldiers blaspheme the Lord, but also those who were going by blasphemed him . . .

Theophylact – Even those who were going by, that is, along the road, blasphemed the Lord . . .

(The parallel continues throughout the comment, concluding with a reference to Luke’s observation about the repentant thief.)

After this, 304 has an excerpt which is assigned to Hesychius, beginning with Ακριβατε, about what Matthew and Luke say about the two thieves.  

● After 15:37 –

304 – The darkness was not in one place only, but over all the earth.  And at the end of the comment, there is a statement that Luke tells us the words of Jesus’ cry:  into your hands I commit my spirit.

Theophylact – The darkness was not only in that place, but over the whole earth.  And near the end of the comment, there is a statement that Luke tells us the words of Jesus’ cry:  into your hands I commit my spirit.

● After 15:41 –

304 – By the tearing of the curtain, it was shown by God that the spirit of grace had departed from the temple, and the Holy of Holies . . .     

Theophylact – By tearing the curtain, it was demonstrated by God that the grace of the Spirit had departed from the temple, and the Holy of Holies . . .

● After 15:47 –

304 – Joseph of Arimathea, though being a servant under the decrees of the law, understood Christ to be God . . .  

Theophylact – O Blessed Joseph!  Though a servant of the Law, he perceived the divinity of Christ . . .

          This very close relationship between Theophylact’s commentary and the commentary-material in 304 continues into chapter 16, as shown by this picture, in which the Greek text of Theophylact’s comments on Mark 16:1-8 are highlighted in blue when there is a verbatim correspondence in 304, and in yellow where the match is out of order or otherwise approximated. 

          When one looks at the final lines of the commentary-material in 304, the text ends as follows:  Η υπο του φοβου τον νουν απολεσασαι. (“Out of fear, they had lost their minds.”)  This corresponds to similar material in Theophylact’s commentary.  (In Theophylact’s commentary, there is another sentence after this, stating, And because of this they said nothing to anyone, ignoring even what they had heard. – Και δια τουτο ουδενι ουδεν ειπον,  επιλαθόμεναι και ων ηκουσαν.)   There the text of 304 ends, without any special marks (other than the usual dark circle that separates the commentary-material from the Scripture-text) – not even the “+” marks that appear in 304 at the end of the commentary on Matthew.  There is no closing-title.  There is not even an “Amen.”  (The opposite side of the page contains scrawled notes which are not part of the commentary.)

      There is, however, a faintly written note which indicates that this is where the exemplar of 304 ended.  Beginning on the very next line after the last line of commentary-text, and preceding the damage to the lower margin of the page, it runs as follows:

A two-line note -- faint but decipherable -- appears
in 304 below the last line of commentary.

ώσπερ ξένοι χαρουσι ιδειν πατρίδα

ουτω και η γράφοντες βιβλιον τελος 

As travelers rejoice on their homeland to look,

Thus also the scribe at the end of a book.

           Below this, in even fainter lettering, someone has repeated part of the first line of this little note, but then the damage takes over and nothing else is legible.

           A similar, slightly longer note is also found in 304 below the end of the commentary on Matthew.  (Similar notes are found in other medieval manuscripts, such as Lectionary 1663.)  There, the format is different:  the end of the commentary is signified by a plus-mark (“+”) at the end of the last line of text, followed by another line occupied solely by two additional plus-marks, before the note is written (followed by two more lines of text).

          All things considered, the following points should be clear:
          (1)  Pending further research, 304’s testimony to the ending of Mark at 16:8 should be considered highly dubious, inasmuch as Theophylact’s Explanation of the Gospels, the main source of 304’s Gospels-text and commentary-text, continues, not only with another sentence about Mark 16:1-8, but with two more segments, the first of which explains Mark 16:9-13 (beginning with a sentence descended from one that is also found in Eusebius’ Ad Marinum, stating that the opening phrase of 16:9 should be read with a pause) and the second of which explains Mark 16:14-20. 
          (2)  Considering the essentially Byzantine nature of the text in 304, it seems very likely that 304 was copied from a damaged exemplar which was missing its final pages, rather than that 304 echoes an exemplar which was designed to display Mark 16:8 as the final text of Mark with no further comment. 

          (3)  One cannot absolutely rule out the theory that (a) the exemplar of 304 contained a note similar to the one mentioned by Migne in a footnote in P.G. 123, found in “Codex 26”:  “Some who have commented on this passage say that Mark’s Gospel ends at this point [at 16:8] and that the remainder began its existence later.  An explanation of this passage is also necessary in order that no injury may be done to the truth,” and (b) on the basis of the first part of this note, the scribe of 304 boldly decided to abstain from copying any further text or comment.  However, this theory seems highly unlikely, inasmuch as the copyist displays no intention of altering the text according to patristic observations about variant-readings elsewhere in 304 (such as at Matthew 27:16-17 and Mark 1:2).

          (4)  If manuscripts which contain Theophylact’s commentary interspersed with the Gospels-text can be shown to share a particular collection of fairly unique readings (such as τον Ιησουν at the end of Mark 16:1), their weight should be considered collectively, rather than individually, and these manuscripts’ texts could plausibly be regarded as very extensive quotations made by Theophylact, rather than as continuous-text Gospels-manuscripts.

          (5)  More research on Theophylact’s Gospels-commentary would be welcome.  A good start (for any aspiring researcher) might involve a comparison of 304 and 2214.  2214 is another 13th-century copy of Theophylact’s commentary in which the Gospels-text and commentary-material are arranged in alternating segments.  It was thought to be lost in the 1980’s, but it is not lost; it resides as MS #233 at the Ivan Dujčev Research Center in Bulgaria.  Future investigators of Theophylact’s commentary and his Gospels-text should also look into minuscule 2879, which is at Oxford.  

Mark 16:9-20 - Top Ten Trainwrecks

In some previous posts, I’ve addressed the shortcomings regarding Mark 16:9-20 found in Metzger’s Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, and in the NET Bible’s notes, and in the ESV Study Bible.  Here are ten more examples of false claims about Mark 16:9-20 that are being spread online and/or in print.    

(A)  Commentaries written by Clement of Alexandria before 101, by Origen before 200, and by Eusebius in the 200s, confirm that Mark’s text stopped at 16:8. – Stephen M. Miller.  (No commentaries on the Gospel of Mark by these writers are known to exist.  Clement of Alexandria was not even born in 101.  Origen worked in the 200s, not in the 100s.) 

(B)  Mark 16:9-20 was produced by scribes in the Middle Ages. – Bart Ehrman.  (This is simply impossible, because the passage was utilized by dozens of individuals before the fall of the Roman Empire.  Irenaeus, for example, quoted Mark 16:19 around the year 184 - over a century before the production-date of the earliest existing Greek manuscript of Mark 16.) 

(C)  Verses 9-20 are not in any of the great early manuscripts. – William Barclay.  (Barclay, whose commentary-series was very popular, must've thought that there are only two great early Greek manuscripts!)

(D)  No early church fathers indicate awareness of these verses for the first few centuries of Christianity.  They don’t quote from them or comment on them. – H. Walker Evans.  (That's true, if you ignore Justin, Tatian, Epistula Apostolorum, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, De Rebaptismate, Hierocles, Marinus, Eusebius, Ambrose, Epiphanius, Apostolic Constitutions, Pelagius, De Trinitate, Augustine, Macarius Magnes, Marcus Eremita, etc., etc.)

(E)  Mark 16:9-20 is lacking in many of the oldest and most reliable manuscripts. - Norman Geisler.  (This is just a display of ignorance, plain and simple.  Only two old Greek manuscripts end Mark's text at the end of 16:8.)

(F)  Mark 16:9-20 is omitted “in very many Greek manuscripts of the Gospel.” – Wilfrid Harrington.  (Harrington was speaking out of ignorance -- by which I mean that I assume that he was not deliberately lying.  He simply was not aware of the fact that all undamaged Greek manuscripts of Mark 16 except two contain at least part of Mark 16:9-20.  The effect on his readers, unfortunately, is the same either way.)

(G)  Mark 16:9-20 was lacking in “all Greek manuscripts known to Eusebius and Jerome.” – W. R. Telford.  (Obviously Telford either never consulted the writings of Eusebius and Jerome, or else he forgot what he had found.)

(H)  Mark 16:9-20 is absent from Codex Alexandrinus. – Ron Rhodes.  (Probably he meant to refer, instead, to Codex Sinaiticus.  But regardless of how this falsehood originated, it continues to be spread.)

(I)  Mark 16:9-20 is omitted by important Ethiopic codices. – Eugene Nida, Matt Slick and many others.  Nida did not know any better, since he wrote before 1980, when Bruce Metzger published a detailed refutation of this claim -- which, alas, is still being spread in Metzger's own handbook, The Text of the New Testament!  Matt Slick, though, has been informed that every continuous-script Ethiopic manuscript of Mark known to exist contains at least part of Mark 16:9-20.

(J)  “Until you get to about eight- or nine-hundred A.D., you can’t find a manuscript that contains these verses.” – Bob McCartney.  (This ridiculous statement was made in a sermon at the First Baptist Church of Wichita Falls, Texas, in 2011.  Bob McCartney has two graduate degrees; it is hard to say if he spread this falsehood in spite of his training or because of it.)  

All ten of those statements are false, and all ten of those statements can easily be proven to be false.  Furthermore,  some of the authors responsible for those statements know that the statements are false, but allow them to continue to be spread anyway.  Stephen Miller, Bart Ehrman, and Matt Slick, I mean you.  (I suspect that I could include Norman Geisler and Ron Rhodes on the list of those who deliberately spread false information about Mark 16:9-20, too, if they answered the mail I sent to them.)  Matt Slick (supervisor of the pro-Calvinism apologetics-site CARM) has been fully informed that this claim is incorrect, but for years he has continued to spread this false claim at his website.  Let the CARM-visitor beware.

Commentaries must be weighed, not counted.  (Just read Ben Witherington's commentary's one-sided notes on Mark 16:9-20, and compare it to Bruce Metzger's one-sided statements in Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, and tell me how many commentaries you are really reading.)  Following the decades in which distortions and falsehoods about Mark 16:9-20 have been promoted in commentaries, in seminary classrooms, and in pulpits (such as the pulpits of John MacArthur and Alistair Begg), some recent commentators have decided not to comment about Mark 16:9-20 at all.  Perhaps that is better than spreading falsehoods about the passage, as the persons listed above have done -- but let no one doubt that the silence of some members of the current generation of commentators is the child of the lies that were spread by many commentators in previous generations.

Mark 16, Bruce Metzger, and Misinformation

          Very many commentators, when considering Mark 16:9-20, have not investigated the subject directly.  Instead, they have relied upon the late Dr. Bruce Metzger’s handbooks A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament and The Text of the New Testament.  Unfortunately many of Dr. Metzger’s statements about the external evidence pertaining to Mark 16:9-20 are incomplete, inaccurate, or incorrect, and convey false impressions.  To cast some light on all this, I have prepared this point-by-point review of Dr. Metzger’s statements, as found in A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament.

          (A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament by Bruce M. Metzger is © 1971 by the United Bible Societies, Stuttgart.  Used here for review purposes.)

Metzger: “The last 12 verses of the commonly received text of Mark are absent from the two oldest Greek manuscripts” –

           This refers to the oldest two manuscripts that contain Mark 16:  Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, from the 300’s. (Papyrus 45 is the oldest catalogued manuscript of Mark (although an older fragment containing text from Mark will probably be catalogued before 2014, God willing), but due to damage, Papyrus 45 contains no text of Mark 16 at all.)
          In Codex Vaticanus, the end of Mark is formatted differently from the ends of the other New Testament books.  Usually, after the copyist who wrote the New Testament portion of Codex Vaticanus reached the end of a book, he began the next book at the top of the very next column.  But after Mark 16:8, there’s the closing-title of the Gospel of Mark, and the rest of the column is blank (which is not unusual) and the next column is also blank.  It is as if the copyist was using an exemplar in which Mark’s text stopped at 16:8, but he recollected the remaining verses, and attempted to leave space for them in the event that the eventual owner or user of the codex wanted to include them.
          In Codex Sinaiticus, there are two unusual features that involve the end of the Gospel of Mark.  First, the pages in Codex Sinaiticus which contain Mark 14:54-Luke 1:56 are replacement-pages; the text on these four pages was not written by the copyist who produced the surrounding pages.  The person who wrote the text on these replacement-pages adjusted his lettering so that Luke 1:1-56 would fit into six columns and so that Mark 14:54-16:8 would occupy ten columns with no blank column in between (instead of nine columns plus a blank column).  Second, there is an elaborate decorative design in Codex Sinaiticus after Mark 16:8; if one compares this decorative design to the other decorative designs at the ends of books transcribed by the same copyist, it’s clear that the decorative design after Mark 16:8 is uniquely emphatic.

Metzger: “from the Old Latin codex Bobiensis” –

          This particular Old Latin codex was made in Egypt by a copyist who was not very familiar with the contents of the Gospels.  Codex Bobbiensis (the name can be spelled both ways) has a very anomalous text of Mark 16.  In the Shorter Ending, the copyist wrote the Latin for “child” (puero) instead of Peter’s name (Petro); instead of writing “from east to west,” he wrote “from east to east,” and he skipped the Latin word for “proclaim” (praedicationis, which was then placed in the lower margin of the page).  Contrary to the impression given by the ESV’s footnotes, Codex Bobbiensis says that Jesus appeared to the disciples before He sent out the gospel through them. 
          In Codex Bobbiensis, the names of the women are removed from verse 1, and an interpolation has been added between verse 3 and verse 4, stating that angels descended to the tomb, and that Christ gloriously arose, and they ascended with him.  Also, in verse 8, the phrase stating that the women said nothing to anyone has been removed.  To sum up:  the aberrations in Mark 16 in Codex Bobbiensis are not merely the effects of incompetent copying; some of them are clearly the results of conscious editorial tampering.  The text of Mark 16 in Codex Bobbiensis is not a reliable text. 

Metzger: “the Sinaitic Syriac” –

          This is the only known Syriac copy of Mark in which chapter 16 ends at verse 8. It shares several unusual readings with Codex Bobbiensis (notably at Matthew 1:25, 4:17, 5:47, 8:12, and Mark 8:31-32), indicating that they both descend from the same transmission-stream.
Metzger: “About 100 Armenian manuscripts” –
          The Armenian copies to which Dr. Metzger refers were listed by E. C. Colwell in a 1937 article; many more Armenian copies have been discovered since then.  The history of the transmission of the Gospels-text in Armenian is still a matter of debate.  But a few things should be added to Dr. Metzger’s lonely citation.  
          First, the Armenian manuscripts to which he refers are not particularly early; they are all medieval. Second, there are hundreds of other Armenian manuscripts that include Mark 16:9-20.  Third, one of the oldest Armenian manuscripts, Matenadaran 2374 (which used to be called Etchmiadzin 229), which was produced in 989, includes Mark 16:9-20.  Fourth, long before the production-date of any of the extant manuscripts, the Armenian writer Eznik of Golb used the contents of Mark 16:17-18 in his composition De Deo (also called Against the Sects) around 440.  And, fifth, according to Armenian historians, the Armenian Version was initially produced around 410, but was extensively revised in the 430’s after cherished Greek copies were taken to Armenia from Constantinople.  Now although the history of the Armenian Gospels-text is not altogether clear, it looks like there are two ancient Armenian transmission-streams that both go all the way back to the 400’s; one contained Mark 16:9-20 and the other did not.  Those “about one hundred Armenian manuscripts” are about 100 echoes of one early Armenian transmission-stream.
Metzger: “And the two oldest Georgian manuscripts (written A.D. 897 and A.D. 913).” –  
          Those two Old Georgian copies should be understood as having no more weight than two more Armenian copies would, because the Old Georgian Version was translated from Armenian.  Many readers are likely to get the impression that the Armenian evidence and the Old Georgian evidence stand side by side as two independent lines of evidence, instead of seeing that the Old Georgian evidence mentioned by Dr. Metzger is an echo of the Armenian evidence.  In addition, Dr. Metzger did not mention Old Georgian copies that include Mark 16:9-20 which are only slightly younger than the two oldest Old Georgian copies. 

Metzger:  “Clement of Alexandria and Origen show no knowledge of the existence of these verses.” –  

          Clement of Alexandria hardly ever quotes from the Gospel of Mark, except for chapter 10.  His non-use of Mark 16:9-20 has no evidentiary force when one considers that he similarly does not use chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, and 15 of the Gospel of Mark.  It is senseless to deduce that Clement’s copies of Mark did not include ten chapters of Mark – but the same kind of groundless deduction is what Dr. Metzger’s statement induces uninformed readers to make about Mark 16:9-20.
          In addition, Dr. Metzger seems to have overlooked Clement’s comment on Jude verse 24 in Adumbrationes, where, according to Cassiodorus, Clement stated the following:  “In the Gospel according to Mark, when the Lord was asked by the chief priest if He was the Christ, the Son of the blessed God, said in reply, ‘I am, and you shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power.’  Now this term ‘powers’ signifies the holy angels.  Further, when he says ‘at the right hand of God,’ He means the very same beings, who, because of their angelic holy powers and likeness, are called by the name of God.  He says, therefore, that He sits at the right hand, that is, He rests in pre-eminent honor.”
          Notice that Clement says that “He says, ‘at the right hand of God.’”  Who is the “he” to whom Clement refers?  It apparently cannot be Jesus, because Jesus never uses that phrase in the Gospel of Mark.  But if the “he” is, instead, Mark, then the reference must be to Mark 16:19.  The only way to avoid this conclusion, it seems, is to reckon that either Clement mixed up the sources of his citations, or that the text of Cassiodorus has been miscopied.
          Origen, like Clement, did not use the Gospel of Mark very much; his non-use of Mark 16:9-20 has no more implication about the contents of his copies of Mark than does his non-use of other large passages, including portions consisting of 54, 28, 41, 25, 39, 46, 63, 31, and 33 consecutive verses.  If it is granted that Origen’s non-use of such large portions of Mark does not imply their absence from his copies of Mark, then it should be obvious that nothing can be deduced from his non-use of a 12-verse passage.

Metzger:  “Furthermore Eusebius and Jerome attest that the passage was absent from almost all Greek copies of Mark known to them.” –   

          That is not what Eusebius and Jerome say.  Eusebius, in a response to a question about how to harmonize Matthew 28 and Mark 16 on the question of the timing of the resurrection, wrote that there are two ways to solve the perceived discrepancy.  Eusebius then framed those two options by saying that a person might say that the passage in Mark that says that Jesus arose early on the first day of the week should be rejected on the grounds that it is not in all the manuscripts, at least, the accurate manuscripts end after the statement that the women fled in silence because they were afraid; almost all the copies end there; the rest is in some copies but not in all of them.  That, Eusebius then wrote, is what someone might say to settle a superfluous question.
          But then Eusebius proceeded to present a second option:  someone else, not daring to set aside anything at all that appears in the Gospels, would insist that both statements (i.e., the one in Matthew 28:1 and the one in Mark 16:9) must be accepted, and that they each report one of two aspects of what they describe, and that both are advocated by the faithful and pious.  Therefore, since it is granted that this passage is true, it is appropriate to seek to fathom what it means.  And (he continued to write) if we accurately discern the sense of the words (in Mark 16:9) we won’t find it contrary to Matthew’s statement that the Savior was raised “Late on the Sabbath.”  For we shall read Mark’s statement, “And having risen early on the first day of the week” with a pause: after “And having risen,” we shall add a comma.  And we will separate the meaning of what follows, so, in the one case, we can read “Having risen” to correspond to Matthew’s “Late on the Sabbath,” for that is when he was raised, and, regarding the rest, we might join what follows with what is read next:  for “early on the first day of the week he appeared to Mary Magdalene.”
          Eusebius kept going, proceeding to advocate the second option, stating words to the following effect: John, at any rate, makes it clear in his account that the appearance to Mary Magdalene was early on the first day of the week.  So, likewise in Mark also he appeared early to her.  It is not that he rose early – for he rose much earlier, according to Matthew:  late on the Sabbath.  Having arisen at that time, he did not appear to Mary at that time, but “early.”  What is implied is that two episodes are represented by these phrases:  one is the time of the resurrection, late on the Sabbath.  The other is the time of the appearance of the Savior, which was early.  Mark referred to the later time when he wrote, saying what must be read [aloud] 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.”
          The brevity of Dr. Metzger’s description of the testimony from Eusebius prevents readers from seeing the context of Eusebius’ statement.  The part that says that almost all the manuscripts, at least the accurate ones, do not contain verses 9-20 is framed by Eusebius as something that someone could say to resolve the initial question.  Clearly Eusebius was aware of such copies, and he was aware that someone had advocated such a solution, and he thought it was worth mentioning to Marinus.  But Eusebius himself, when he wrote this composition to Marinus, did not consider that claim to be decisive, because after framing it as something that someone could say, he proceeded to tell Marinus that the passage should be retained, and that the harmonistic difficulty should be resolved by introducing a comma as one reads Mark 16:9.  If Eusebius himself had believed that only a smattering of copies contained Mark 16:9-20, and that the accurate copies did not contain Mark 16:9-20, it is difficult to explain why he would acquiesce to the inclusion of the passage, and describe Mark 16:9 as something written by Mark, and even recommend to Marinus that Mark 16:9 (and thus the rest of the passage, too) should be retained, provided that a pause be introduced when reading verse 9 aloud.
          In the course of answering Marinus’ next question, Eusebius referred to Mary Magdalene as the individual “of whom it is stated in Mark, according to some copies, that He had cast seven demons out of her.”  And, further along, answering Marinus’ third question, Eusebius stated that the individual named Mary who is mentioned in John is “the same one from whom, according to Mark, he had cast out seven demons.” 
          Eusebius seems to have held two opinions about this at two different times, for when he made his Canon-tables – a cross-reference system for the Gospels – he did not include Mark 16:9-20.  It looks like he must have rejected the passage at some point, but it is not clear if he rejected Mark 16:9-20 before, or after, he wrote to Marinus.  Whatever the case may be, Dr. Metzger’s brief description does not do justice to the testimony from Eusebius.  Readers who have only been allowed to peek at a snippet of Eusebius’ letter to Marinus have received an impression of Eusebius’ testimony that is very different from the one that one obtains from a full survey of his testimony.  (This situation has recently been remedied by the publication of the book Eusebius of Caesarea:  Gospel Problems and Solutions.) 
          The impression that Dr. Metzger gives about the testimony from Jerome is much more misleading.  The statement attributed to Jerome appears in a part of his Epistle 120 (To Hedibia) in which Jerome provides his own loose Latin abridgment of Eusbius’ letter to Marinus!  Jerome frequently borrowed material from earlier writers, without plainly stating that he was doing so.  That is what he did in this case; the third, fourth, and fifth Question-and-Answers in Jerome’s letter to Hedibia are based on the first, second, and third Question-and-Answers in Eusebius’ letter to Marinus.  In addition, Jerome, like Eusebius, recommended that Mark 16:9-20 be retained, and that a comma be used in verse 9.
          We should understand this reference in Jerome’s Epistle 120 as if Jerome had said, “Here’s what someone else has said about this question, and I passed it along as I composed a letter by dictation” not as if Jerome has said, “I have made a careful search of the manuscripts available to me, and here is what I have discovered.”  In 383, Jerome included Mark 16:9-20 in the Vulgate (which he states in his Preface that he made using old Greek copies), and in a composition he wrote around 414, Mark 16:14 is cited to show where the interpolation that is now known as the Freer Logion had been seen in Greek codices.
Metzger:  “The original form of the Eusebian sections (drawn up by Ammonius) makes no provision for numbering sections of the text after 16:8.” – 
          This comment reflects a misunderstanding of the Eusebian Sections.  In their earliest extant form, the Eusebian Sections include sections that are not in Matthew.  The non-extant cross-reference system that Ammonius developed, as described by Eusebius in Ad Carpianus (which served as a User’s Guide to the Eusebian Sections), was centered upon the Gospel of Matthew, and thus could not include sections to which there is no parallel in Matthew.  Ammonius’ non-extant cross-reference system inspired Eusebius to develop his own cross-reference system but the two things should not be confused.  Unfortunately that is exactly what Dr. Metzger has done, and many commentators who have repeated his claim have shown that they, too, have never really looked into the subject, and have never even consulted the analysis that John Burgon provided about it in Appendix G of his 1871 book The Last Twelve Verses of Mark. (Burgon’s book can be downloaded for free online.)
Metzger: “Not a few manuscripts which contain the passage have scribal notes stating that older Greek copies lack it” –
          Dr. Metzger’s vague description of “not a few” manuscripts refers to 14 manuscripts (which, considering that there are over 1,700 Greek copies of Mark, is relatively few).  The annotations in those 14 manuscripts are not the comments of 14 independent copyists; we are dealing here with essentially three notes.  One note is simple and short; it says at Mark 16:8, “In some of the copies this [i.e., verses 9-20] does not occur, but it stops here.”  One note says at 16:8, “In some of the copies, the Gospel comes to a close here, and so does Eusebius’ Canon-list.  But in many, this also appears.”  And another note says the same thing minus the part about the Eusebian Canons.  Another note, shared by a small group of manuscripts which also feature notes stating that they were compared to old copies at Jerusalem, says, “From here to the end forms no part of the text in some of the copies.  But in the ancient ones, it all appears intact.”
          Dr. Metzger told his readers that the scribal notes state “that older Greek copies lack it.”   But when we examine the notes themselves, one form of the note says, “In the ancient copies it all appears intact.”  The note states the exact opposite of what a reader of Dr. Metzger’s note would naturally expect.  All of these notes, except for the first one I mentioned (which, for slightly complicated reasons, I consider to be just a brief version of the last one), tend to express support for the legitimacy of the passage.  Dr. Metzger’s description misleads his readers about the quantity of manuscripts with these notes, and about what is stated by the notes themselves.
Metzger: “in other witnesses the passage is marked with asterisks or obeli, the conventional signs used by copyists to indicate a spurious addition to a document.” –          
          This statement from Dr. Metzger is not true.  Earlier researchers described various manuscripts inaccurately, “spot-checking” this particular part instead of surveying the entire manuscript, and symbols which actually represent the beginnings and ends of lections (that is, individual passages selected for public reading in the church-services) were misinterpreted as if they meant that there was some doubt about the passage.  (Dr. Metzger’s statements about asterisks and obeli have been distorted by many commentators, including Robert Stein and Craig A. Evans.)

          In addition to these misleading statements about the external evidence, Dr. Metzger misrepresented some aspects of the internal evidence, too.  For instance, he wrote, "θανάσιμον and τοις μετ’ αυτου γενομένοις, as designations of the disciples, occur only here in the New Testament."  Part of this statement simply does not make any sense, because θανάσιμον [thanasimon] is not a designation of the disciples; it is the word for “deadly thing” that appears in 16:18.  The weight of Dr. Metzger’s description of the vocabulary in Mark 16:9-20 as “non-Markan” is rather diminished by the observation (made by Dr. Bruce Terry) that the 12-verse passage consisting of Mark 15:40-16:4 contains more once-used words than 16:9-20.  

          These are not the only things that deserve clarification in Dr. Metzger’s comments, but this should prove, I think, that the descriptions of the external evidence pertaining to Mark 16:9-20 provided by Dr. Metzger (or by other commentators who have essentially borrowed and rephrased his descriptions) should not be used as the basis of text-critical decisions about Mark 16:9-20.