Samuel Tregelles and Mark 16:9-20

           In 1844, the year when Constantine Tischendorf first saw pages of Codex Sinaiticus at St. Catherine’s monastery, Samuel Tregelles released An Account of the Printed Text of the New Testament, a book which had a significant influence among researchers into the text of the New Testament.

          Recently, after discussing Mark 16:9-20 with Stephen Boyce of Explain International, someone observed that my position (that Mark was permanently interrupted as he wrote 16:8, and someone else attached verses 9-20 (from another composition by Mark) to complete the narrative, before the Gospel of Mark began to be disseminated for church-use, and that verses 9-20 are thus part of the original text) resembled the view of Tregelles, and it occurred to me that many discussion-viewers might not know what that means.  (I had read Tregelles, years ago, but on the spur of the moment I couldn’t recall his view in detail.)  So here, I have reproduced a large excerpt from Tregelles’ own statements on the subject, along with a few notes of my own, from pages 246-261 of An Account of the Printed Text of the New Testament.  I have not included the footnotes, in the interest of brevity.  Some readers, wearied by Tregelles’ thoroughness,  may wish to proceed to Tregelles’ closing comments, which I have marked with “···.”

Tregelles wrote:    

          “St. Mark xvi. 9-20. The last twelve verses of this Gospel have some remarkable phenomena connected with their history; in order fully to discuss their authority, it is needful first to establish by evidence of facts certain propositions.

I. That it is historically known that in the early ages it was denied that these verses formed a part of the Gospel written by St. Mark.

II. That it is certain, on grounds of historical transmission, that they were from the second century, at least, and onward, known as part of this book.

III. That the early testimony that they were not written by St. Mark is confirmed by existing monuments.

          After these propositions have been established, the conclusions to be drawn may assume the form of corollaries.

(I)  The absence of this portion from some, many, or most copies of St. Mark’s Gospel, or that it was not written by St. Mark himself, is attested by Eusebius, Gregory of Nyssa, Victor of Antioch, Severus of Antioch, Jerome; and by later writers (especially Greeks), who, even though they copied from their predecessors, were competent to transmit the record of a fact.

(i) Eusebius, in the first of his Questiones ad Marinum, discusses πως παρα μεν τω Ματθαιω “οψε σαββάτων” φαίνεται εγηγερμενος ο σωτηρ, παρα δε τω Μάρκω “πρωι τη μια των σαββάτων.”  [Tregelles then presents an extract from Eusebius’ composition Ad Marinum, which is similar to what Roger Pearse presents on p. 96 of Eusebius of Caesarea:  Gospel Problems and Solutions, and which translates in that book to: 

“The answer to this would be twofold.  The actual nub of the matter is the pericope which says this. One who athetises that pericope would say that it is not found in all copies of the gospel according to Mark:  accurate copies end their text of the Marcan account with the words of the young man whom the women saw, and who said to them: “‘Do not be afraid; it is Jesus the Nazarene that you are looking for, etc. … ’ ”, after which it adds: “And when they heard this, they ran away, and said nothing to anyone, because they were frightened.”  That is where the text does end, in almost all copies of the gospel according to Mark. What occasionally follows in some copies, not all, would be extraneous, most particularly if it contained something contradictory to the evidence of the other evangelists.”  That, then, would be one person’s answer: to reject it, entirely obviating the question as superfluous.”]

          Tregelles continues:  “Eusebius then goes on to explain the supposed difficulty, irrespective of the supposed authorship of these verses.  This testimony, then, is clear, that the greater part of the Greek copies had not the twelve verses in question.  It is evident that Eusebius did not believe that they were written by Mark himself, for he  says, κατὰ Μάρκον μετὰ τὴν ανάστασιν οὐ λέγεται ὤφθαι τοις μαθηταις.  The arrangement of the Eusebian Canons are also an argument that he did not own the passage; for in genuine copies of the notation of these sections the numbers do not go beyond ver. 8, which is marked σλγʹ (233).  Some copies, carry indeed, this notation as far as ver. 14, and some to the end of the chapter; but these are unauthorised additions, and contradicted by not only good copies which contain these sections, both Greek and Latin (for instance A, and the Codex Amiatinus), but also by a scholion found in a good many MSS. at ver. 8, εως ωδε Εὐσέβιος εκανόνισεν.  It has been objected that these sections show nothing as to the MSS. extant in Eusebius’s time, but only the condition of the Harmony of Ammonius, from which the divisions were taken.  [It does not seem to have occurred to Tregelles that Eusebius, after endorsing to Marinus the inclusion of verses 9-20, could have changed his mind when subsequently creating his Canons.]  The objection is not without significance; but it really carries back our evidence from the fourth century to the third; and thus it is seen, that just as Eusebius found these verses absent in his day from the best and most numerous copies, so was also the case with Ammonius when he formed his Harmony in the preceding century.”

          [That the “Ammonian Sections” are the work of Eusebius, and not Ammonius, was later demonstrated by John Burgon in Appendix G of his 1871 book, The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark Vindicated Against Recent Critical Objectors and Established.] 

          [Tregelles then reviews the testimony from Gregory of Nyssa – which, subsequent to Tregelles, was regarded as the work of Hesychius – and Victor of Antioch, noting that Victor’s remark] “is worthy of attention; for his testimony to the absence of these twelve verses from some or many copies, stands in contrast to his own opinion on the subject.  He seems to speak of having added the passage in question (to his own copy, perhaps) on the authority of a Palestinian exemplar.”

          Next, Tregelles reviews a statement from Severus of Antioch, and says, “This testimony may be but a repetition of that already cited from Gregory of Nyssa; but if so, it is, at least, an approving quotation.”

          “It is worthy of remark that both Eusebius and Victor have τῇ μιᾷ where our text has πρώτη; this may be an accidental variation; as they do not afterwards give the words precisely as they had before quoted them; or it may show that they spoke of the passage, ver. 9-20, without having before them a copy which contained it, and thus that they unintentionally used τῇ μιᾷ as the more customary phraseology in the New Testament.

          “Dionysius of Alexandria has been brought forward as a witness on each side.  Scholz refers to his Epistle to Basilides, as though he had there stated that some, or many, copies did not contain the passage; and Tischendorf similarly mentions his testimony; while, on the other hand, Dr. Davidson (Introd. i. 165) places Dionysius amongst those by whom the passage “is sanctioned.”  All, however, that I can gather from his Epistle to Basilides (Routh, Rel. Sac. iii. 223-32) is, that in discussing the testimony of the four evangelists to the time (whether night, or early in the morning) at which our Lord arose from the dead, he takes no notice whatever of Mark xvi. 9; and this he could hardly fail to have done, as bearing more closely on the question, when referring to the beginning of the same chapter, if he had acknowledged or known the last twelve verses. His testimony, then, quantum valeat, is purely negative.

          “Jerome’s testimony is yet to be adduced.  He discusses (Ad Hedibiam, Qusest. II. ed. Vallarsi, i. col. 819,) the difficulties brought forward as to the time of the resurrection. “Hujus qusestionis duplex solutio est; aut enim non recipimus Marci testimonium, quod in raris fertur Evangeliis, omnibus Grceciae libris pene hoc capitulum in fine non habentibus, praesertim quum diversa atque contraria Evangelistis caeteris narrare videatur ; aut hoc respondendum, quod uterque verum dixerit,” etc.  He then proposes to remove the difficulty by a different punctuation, in the same manner as Eusebius and Victor did.”

          “But an endeavour has been made to invalidate Jerome s testimony by referring to what he says in his Dialogue against the Pelagians, II. 15.  “In quibusdam exemplaribus, et maxime in Græcis codicibus juxta Marcum in fine ejus Evangelii scribitur:  Postea quum accubuissent undecim apparuit eis lesus, et exprobravit incredulitatem et duritiam cordis eorum, quia his qui viderant eum resurgentem non crediderunt.  Et illi satisfaciebant dicentes; Sæculum istud iniquitatis et incredulitatis substantia* est, quæ non sinit per immundos spiritus veram Dei apprehendi virtutem: idcirco jam nunc revela justitiam tuam. Cui si contradicitis, illud certe renuere non audebitis; Mundus in maligno positus est,” etc. (Ed. Vallarsi. ij. 744, 5.)  Hence it has been inferred that Jerome contradicts himself as to the Greek copies.  But (i.) that conclusion does not follow, because he may here speak of those Greek copies which did contain the verses in question, and not of the MSS. in general, (ii.) If this testimony be supposed to relate to Greek MSS. in general, it is at least remarkable that we have no other trace of such an addition at ver. 14. [The situation to which Tregelles alluded changed when Codex W was discovered.]  (iii.) Jerome wrote against the Pelagians in extreme old age, and he made in that work such demonstrable errors (e. g. citing II. 2, Ignatius instead of Polycarp), that it would be a bold step if any were to reject an unequivocal testimony to a fact stated in his earlier writings on the ground of something contained in this; especially when, if the latter testimony be admitted as conclusive, it would involve our accepting a strange addition at ver. 14 (otherwise wholly unknown to MSS., versions, and fathers) as a reading then current in Greek copies.

          These testimonies sufficiently establish, as an historical fact, that in the early ages it was denied that these twelve concluding verses formed a part of the Gospel of St. Mark.

(II.) I now pass to the proofs of the second proposition; that it is certain, on grounds of historical transmission, that, from the second century at least, this Gospel concluded as it does now in our copies.

          This is shown by the citations of early writers who recognise the existence of the section in question. These testimonies commence with Irenaeus: “In fine autem Evangelii ait Marcus, Et quidem Dominus Iesus, postquam locutus est eis, receptus est in caelos, et sedet ad dexteram Dei” (C. H. iii. 10. 6).  This sentence of the old Latin translator of Irenseus is thus cited in Greek in confirmation of his having used this part of the Gospel:  Ὁ μὲν ουν κύριος μετὰ τὸ λαλησαι αὐτοις ἀνελήφθε εις τὸν ουρανόν, καὶ εκάθισεν εκ δεξιων του θεου.  Εἰρηναιος ὁ των ἀποστόλων πλησίον ἐν τω πρὸς τὰς αιρέσεις γʹ λόγω τουτο ανήνεγκεν τὸ ρητὸν ὡς Μάρκῳ ειρημένον.  [A footnote in Printed Account states that this was drawn by Cramer from Cod. Harl. 5647, that is, minuscule 72.  What Tregelles presented is a combination of 72’s text of Mark 16:19, and the note in 72’s side-margin.] 

          “Whether this part of St. Mark was known to Celsus has been disputed.  My own opinion is, that that early writer against Christianity did, in the passage which Origen discusses (lib. II. §§ 59 and 70), refer to the appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalen, as found in Mark xvi. 9; but that Origen, in answering him, did not exactly apprehend the purport of his objection, from (probably) not knowing or using that section of this Gospel.  This would not be the only place in which Origen has misapprehended the force of remarks of Celsus from difference of reading in the copies which they respectively used, or from his not being aware of the facts to which Celsus referred.

          Tregelles turns next to Hippolytus, and supplies an extensive quotation from Περὶ Χαρισμάτων Ἀποστολικὴ Παράδοσις “in which this part of St. Mark s Gospel is distinctly quoted.”

          “After these testimonies of the second and third centuries, there are many who use the passage; such for instance as Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose, Augustine, Nestorius, (ap. Cyr. Alex. vi. 46.)

          Under this head may be mentioned the MSS. and versions in general (the conspectus of their evidence on both sides will be given under the next proposition); and amongst the MSS.  Those may in particular be specified which continue the Ammonian Sections on to the end of the chapter.  This seems to have been done to supply a supposed omission; and in ancient MSS., such as C, it is clear that the copyist took this section for an integral part of the book.

          The early mention and use of this section, and the place that it holds in the ancient versions in general, and in the MSS., sufficiently show, on historical grounds, that it had a place, and was transmitted as a part of the second Gospel.

III. To consider properly the third proposition (that the early testimony that St. Mark did not write these verses is confirmed by existing monuments), the evidence of the MSS. and versions must be stated in full.

          The passage is wholly omitted in Codex B.,* in the Latin Codex Bobbiensis (k), in old MSS. of the Armenian, and in an Arabic version in the Vatican (Cod. Arab. Vat. 13).  [This was later shown to be an effect of damage to the manuscript, as Metzger says in a footnote in his Textual Commentary:  “Since, however, through an accidental loss of leaves the original hand breaks off just before the end of Mark 16.8, its testimony is without significance in discussing the textual problem.”  See also Clarence Russell Williams’ comments about Cod. Arab. Vat. 13 on p. 398 of Williams’ The Appendices to the Gospel of St. Mark, which is contained as the last essay in Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 18 (Feb. 1915, Yale University Press).]  Of these versions, the Codex Bobbiensis adds a different brief conclusion, “Omnia autem quaecunque praecepta erant et qui cum puero [1. cum Petro] erant breviter exposuerunt. Posthaec et ipse jhesus adparuit. et ab orientem usque. usque in orientem. misit per illos sanctam et incorruptam (add. praedicationis, -nem ?) salutis aeternae. Amen.”  And the Armenian, in the edition of Zohrab, separates the concluding twelve verses from the rest of the Gospel.  Mr. Rieu thus notices the Armenian MSS.; “ἐφοβουντο γάρ·   Some of the oldest  MSS. end here : many put after these words the final Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μάρκον, and then give the additional verses with a new superscription, εὐαγγ. κατὰ Μ.  Oscan goes on without any break.”  The Arabic MS. in the Vatican is that described by Scholz in his “Biblisch-Kritische Keise” (pp. 117-126); and though the Arabic versions are of too recent a date to possess much critical value, this MS., so far as may be judged from the few extracts made, seems to be based on an ancient Greek text.  Besides the MS. which omits the verses, they are marked with an asterisk in two cursive copies. [The two cursive copies to which Tregelles referred here are 137 and 138 – neither of which is as Tregelles described it; both have the Catena Marcum and feature the comment that alludes to a cherished Palestinian exemplar.]

          [Tregelles then reviews the note in Codex L that appears before the Shorter Ending, and L’s text of the Shorter Ending.] “Thus far L is supported by the cursive cod. 274, by the marg. of the Harclean Syriac, and by the Latin Codex Bobbiensis (see above). L then continues :  “ἔστην [i. e. -τιν] δὲ καὶ ταυτα φερόμενα μετὰ τὸ Ἐφοβουνται γάρ” ~ - - - - - - - ~ ἀναστὰς δὲ κτλ. (and then follow the twelve verses).

          In Cod. 1, ver. 8 ends on folio 220 A, and at the top of the next page is written in vermillion, ἔν τισι μὲν των ἀντυγράφων ἕως ωδε πληρουται ὁ ευαγγελιστής· ἔως ου καὶ Ευσέβιος ὁ παμφίλου ἐκανόνισεν. ἐν πολλοις δὲ καὶ ταυτα φέρεται (and then follow ver. 9 20).  A similar note or a scholion stating the absence of the following verses from many, from most, or from the most correct copies (often from Victor or Severus), is found in twenty-five other cursive codices; sometimes with τελος interposed after ver. 8.  The absence of Ammonian divisions in A L and other good copies after ver. 8 should here be remembered.

          Such is the testimony of existing monuments confirming the ancient witnesses against this passage.

          On the other hand, the passage is found in the uncial codd. A C D, X Δ, E G Π K M S U V (F is defective); as well as in 33, 69, and the rest of the cursive copies which have been collated.  It is in copies of the Old Latin; in the Vulg. in the Curetonian Syriac, as well as the Peshito and the Harclean (with the marginal note given above), and the Jerusalem Syriac; in the Memphitic, Gothic, and Æthiopic; besides those which have been previously mentioned as characterised by some peculiarity.  The Thebaic is here defective, but it is supposed that a citation in that language may be a paraphrase of ver. 20.  The Gothic is defective in the concluding verses, but enough is extant to show that it recognised the passage; [The final page of Mark in the Gothic manuscript Codex Argenteus, containing verse 12-20 of the sixteenth chapter, was not recovered until 1970, when Franz Haffner found it in St. Afra’s Chapel in the cathedral in Speyer, Germany.] and of the Curetonian Syriac no part of this Gospel is found except a fragment containing ver. 17 to the end of this chapter.

          The Old Latin is here defective in the best copies; for the Codex Vercellensis is imperfect from ch. xv. 15, and Cod. Veronensis from xiii. 24.  Also the Cod. Brixianus is defective from xiv. 70.  The mode in which Cod. Bobbiensis concludes has been noticed already. The Codices Colbertinus, Corbiensis, and others, are those which may be quoted as showing that the Old Latin contains this section.

          It has been suggested that this portion of St. Mark was omitted by those who found a difficulty in reconciling what it contains with the other Evangelists.  But so far from there being any proof of this, which would have required a far less change, we find that the same writers who mention the non-existence of the passage in many copies, do themselves show how it may be harmonised with what is contained in the other Gospels ; we have no reason for entertaining the supposition that such a Marcion-like excision had been here adopted.

          In opposing the authenticity of this section, some have argued on the nature of the contents;‒ that the appearance of our Lord to Mary Magdalene first, is not (it is said) in accordance with what we learn elsewhere; that the supposition of miraculous powers to be received (ver. 17, 18) is carried too far; that (in ver. 16) Baptism is too highly exalted. I mention these objections, though I do not think any one of them separately, nor yet the whole combined, to be of real weight. There is no historical difficulty which would be regarded as of real force, if, on other grounds, doubt had not been cast on the passage; for else we might object to many Scripture narrations, because we cannot harmonise them, owing to our not being acquainted with all the circumstances.  As to the doctrinal points specified, it is hard to imagine what difficulty is supposed to exist; I see nothing that would involve the feelings and opinions of an age subsequent to the apostolic.

          The style of these twelve verses has been relied on as though it were an argument that they were not written by Mark himself.  I am well aware that arguments on style are often very fallacious, and that by themselves they prove very little; but when there does exist external evidence, and when internal proofs as to style, manner, verbal expression, and connection, are in accordance with such independent grounds of forming a judgment, then these internal considerations possess very great weight.

          A difference has been remarked, and truly remarked, between the phraseology of this section and the rest of this Gospel.  This difference is in part negative and in part positive. The phraseology of St. Mark possesses characteristics which do not appear in these verses.  And besides these negative features, this section has its own peculiarities; amongst which may be specified πρώτη σαββάτω (ver. 9), instead of which τη μια των σαββάτων would have been expected: in ver. 10 and 14 sentences are conjoined without a copulative, contrary to the common usage in St. Mark.  εκεινος is used four times in a manner different from what is found in the rest of the Gospel.  The periodic structure of verses 19 and 20 is such as only occurs once elsewhere in this Gospel (xiv. 38).

          Many words, expressions, and constructions occur in this section, and not in any other part of St. Mark:  e. g. πορεύομαι (thrice), θεάομαι (twice), απίστεω (twice), ἕτερος, παρακολουθέω, βλάπτω, επακολουθέω, συνεργέω, βεβαιόω, πανταχου, μετὰ ταυτα, εν τω ονοματι, ὁ κυριος, as applied absolutely to Christ (twice).  Now, while each of these peculiarities (except the first) may possess singly no weight, yet their combination, and that in so short a portion, has a force which can rather be felt than stated.  And if any parallel be attempted, as to these peculiarities, by a comparison of other portions of St. Mark, it will be found that many chapters must be taken together before we shall find any list of examples as numerous or as striking as those which are crowded together here in these few verses.  

          These considerations must be borne in mind as additional to the direct evidence stated before.

          It has been asked, as an argument that the section before us was actually written by St. Mark, whether it is credible that he could have ended his Gospel with . . . ἐφοβουντο γάρ.  Now, however improbable, such a difficulty must not be taken as sufficient, per se, to invalidate testimony to a fact as such. We often do not know what may have caused the abrupt conclusion of many works.  The last book of Thucydides has no proper termination at all; and in the Scripture some books conclude with extraordinary abruptness:  Ezra and Jonah are instances of this.  Perhaps we do not know enough of the circumstances of St. Mark when he wrote his Gospel to say whether he did or did not leave it with a complete termination.  And if there is difficulty in supposing that the work ever ended abruptly at ver. 8, would this have been transmitted as a fact by good witnesses, if there had not been real grounds for regarding it to be true?  And further, irrespective of recorded evidence, we could not doubt that copies in ancient times did so end, for B, the oldest that we have, actually does so.  Also the copies which add the concluding twelve verses as something separate, and those (as L) which give another brief termination, show that this fact is not incredible. Such a peculiarity would not have been invented.

          It has also been urged with great force that the contents of this section are such as preclude its having been added at a post-apostolic period, and that the very difficulties which it contains afford a strong presumption that it is an authentic history: the force of this argument is such that I do not see how it can be avoided; for even if a writer went out of his way to make difficulties in a supplement to St. Mark’s Gospel, it is but little likely that his contemporaries would have accepted and transmitted such an addition, except on grounds of known and certain truth as to the facts recorded.  If there are points not easy to be reconciled with the other Gospels, it is all the less probable that any writer should have put forth, and that others should have received, the narrative, unless it were really authentic history. As such it is confirmed by the real or supposed points of difficulty.

          As, then, the facts of the case, and the early reception and transmission of this section, uphold its authenticity, and as it has been placed from the second century, at least, at the close of our second canonical Gospel; and as, likewise, its transmission has been accompanied by a continuous testimony that it was not a part of the book as originally written by St. Mark; and as both these points are confirmed by internal considerations― 

          The following corollaries flow from the propositions already established:‒

[···]

          I. That the book of Mark himself extends no farther than ἐφοβουντο γάρ, xvi. 8.

          II. That the remaining twelve verses, by whomsoever written, have a full claim to be received as an authentic part of the second Gospel, and that the full reception of early testimony on this question does not in the least involve their rejection as not being a part of Canonical Scripture.

          It may, indeed, be said that they might have been written by St. Mark at a later period; but, even on this supposition, the attested fact that the book once ended at ver. 8 would remain the same, and the assumption that the same Evangelist had added the conclusion would involve new difficulties, instead of removing any.

          There is in some minds a kind of timidity with regard to Holy Scripture, as if all our notions of its authority depended on our knowing who was the writer of each particular portion; instead of simply seeing and owning that it was given forth from God, and that it is as much his as were the commandments of the Law written by his own finger on the tables of stone.  As to many books of Scripture, we know not who the writers may have been; and yet this is no reason for questioning their authority in the slightest degree.  If we try to be certain as to points of which there is no proof, we really shall find ourselves to be substituting conjecture in the place of evidence.  Thus some of the early Church received the Epistle to the Hebrews as Holy Scripture; who, instead of absolutely dogmatising that it was written by St. Paul ‒ a point of which they had no proof ‒ were content to say that “God only knoweth the real writer”: and yet to many in the present day, though they have not one whit more evidence on the subject, it seems, that to doubt or disbelieve that Epistle to have been written by St. Paul himself, and to doubt or disbelieve its canonical authority, is one and the same thing.  But this mode of treating Scripture is very different from what ought to be found amongst those who own it as the word of God.

          I thus look on this section as an authentic anonymous addition to what Mark himself wrote down from the narration of St. Peter (as we learn from the testimony of their contemporary, John the Presbyter); and that it ought as much to be received as part of our second Gospel, as the last chapter of Deuteronomy (unknown as the writer is) is received as the right and proper conclusion of the books of Moses.

          I cannot but believe that many upholders of orthodox and evangelical truth practically narrow their field of vision as to Scripture by treating it (perhaps unconsciously) as though we had to consider the thoughts, mind, and measure of apprehension possessed personally by each individual writer through whom the Holy Ghost gave it forth.  This is a practical hindrance to our receiving it, in the full sense, as from God; that is, as being really inspired: for, if inspired, the true and potential author was God, and not the individual writer, known or anonymous. 

          We know from John the Presbyter just enough of the origin of St. Mark’s Gospel to be aware that it sprang from the oral narrations of the Apostle Peter; and we have the testimony of that long-surviving immediate disciple of Christ when on earth (in recording this fact) that Mark erred in nothing.  But even with this information, if we thought of mere human authorship, how many questions might be started : but if we receive inspiration as a fact, then inquiries as to the relation of human authors become a matter of secondary importance.  It has its value to know that Apostles bore testimony to what they had seen of Christ’s actions, and that they were inspired to write as eye and ear witnesses of his deeds and teaching.  So it is of importance to know that in this Gospel we have the testimony of Peter confirmed by John the Presbyter; but the real essential value of the record for the continuous instruction of believers, is that inspiration of the Holy Ghost which constitutes certain writings to be Holy Scripture.  Those which were originally received on good grounds as such, and which have been authentically transmitted to us, we may confidently and reverently receive, even though we may not know by what pen they were recorded. 

          To sum up:  Tregelles believed that verses 9-20 were not written by Mark, but that verses 9-20 nevertheless “have a full claim to be received as an authentic part of the second Gospel,” just as Deuteronomy 34 is received as the proper conclusion of the books of Moses.

Mark 16:9-20 Is Being Misrepresented. It Must Be Easter!

            Today is the first day after Easter 2020.   Happily, most journalistic outlets seem to have decided against publishing attacks on the passages of Scripture that affirm the bodily resurrection of Christ (or on the reliability of the Bible in general) – with one exception:  Bonnie Kristian’s article “Coronavirus and the mystery of St. Mark’s Easter story” was published in The Week, and on the Yahoo! News website.

            Kristian, a graduate of Bethel Seminary, targeted Mark 16:9-20 as part of her Easter celebration.  She attempted to draw a parallel between the fear that was felt by the women in Mark 16:8 and the fear that is felt by some people about the COVID-19 pandemic.  The same sort of parallel could be made using the fearfulness that is mentioned in Mark 16:5, or Luke 24:4-5, or John 20:19 – but Mark 16:8 was chosen instead, apparently so that Kristian could encourage readers to erase Mark 16:9-20 from the authoritative text, spreading some false claims along the way, such as the following:

● The KJV was translated from Latin rather than Hebrew and Greek.  That claim is false, and it has already been withdrawn from the article in The Week.  The Week regrets the error.

● In many ancient manuscripts of Mark, the Gospel ends at 16:8.   Today, the surviving text ends at the end of verse 8.  In real life, the number of Greek manuscripts of Mark that end the text there is three. The number of Latin manuscripts that end the text there:  one. The number of Syriac manuscripts that end the text there:  one.  The number of Greek manuscripts in which support for Mark 16:9-20 has survived is 1,640.  (This includes important ancient Greek manuscripts such as Codices A, C, D, W, etc.)   The number of Latin and Syriac manuscripts that include Mark 16:9-20 is in the thousands.  In addition to Gospel-manuscripts, Mark 16:9-20 is also prominently featured in hundreds of lectionaries, such as Sinai MS Gr, 212.

● Most modern translations, if they have verses 9-20, “add a preface stating it isn’t present in many of the best ancient manuscripts of Mark.”  This is false.  Most recent translations add a footnote, but when I consult the BibleGateway website, only the NIV and ESV appear to have a heading-note prefacing Mark 16:9, and it does not say what Kristien says.  There’s a reason for that:  two is not many.  

            The ESV’s heading-note stating that “Some of the earliest manuscripts” do not include verses 9-20 is not very accurate:  how many Greek manuscripts are in that “Some”?  The answer is, as already mentioned, is three.  One is GA 304, a medieval non-continuous commentary-manuscript.  Codex Sinaiticus (À, with replacement-pages at the end of Mark) is one of the two earlier ones, and Codex Vaticanus (B, with an entire blank column after the column in which Mark 16:8 appears) is the other.  

            Heading-notes and footnotes are brief by nature, and the point could be argued that a heading-note cannot be expected to mention Sinaiticus’ replacement-pages, or Vaticanus’ blank column.  But what keeps the note from being precise by referring to “Two” early Greek manuscripts instead of “Some”?  I hope it does not sound conspiratorial to mention one possibility:  the editors did not want readers to easily notice the narrowness of the thread from which their favored variant hangs.

● The KJV “includes uncritically a 12-verse ending.”  This is a technically ignorant statement – that is, Kristian has no special knowledge or insight about the critical research that went into the KJV; she simply does not know how much critical investigation into the question was made by the KJV’s translators.  Kristian says the KJV adopted Mark 16:9-20 “uncritically” but she did not mention any of the printed editions of the Greek New Testament that were issued in the 1500s – perhaps because she is unaware of their existence, thinking that the KJV was based on Latin instead.  I suspect that she is equally oblivious to the early patristic support of Mark 16:9-20 supplied by writers such as Irenaeus (in 180), Jerome (383), Augustine (400), Ambrose (385), Aphrahat (337), Ephrem Syrus (360) and Patrick (450) (to name just a few).  (For if she had known about them, it would have been deceptive to avoid mentioning them.  Surely, undoubtedly, The Week only misled its readers due to ignorance, not due to intent.) 

            There is still time for The Week to undo some of the damage its carelessly written article has done – although, alas, when misinformation is spread so irresponsibly, correcting it all is like trying to capture all of the coronavirus that a carrier has been sharing with family and friends over a weekend.

            There’s a lesson that may be learned from this:  if you read anything about the ending of the Gospel of Mark in a journal of any kind around Easter-time, and it does not mention that only three Greek manuscripts out of over 1,600 end the text at 16:8, and it does not mention that Irenaeus quoted Mark 16:19, and it does not mention Codex B’s blank space, know that you are reading propaganda, not a balanced report.

P.S.  N.T. Wright, this was partly your fault.  Fix your book!

P.P.S.  My research-book Authentic:  The Case for Mark 16:9-20 is available at Amazon as a Kindle e-book for 99 cents.   It can also be downloaded from Academia.edu for free.  Also, I will be glad to try to send a free digital copy to those who contact me and request it. 

Readers are invited to double-check the data in this post.

Mark 16:9-20 - My Reply to Michael Kruger

By request, here is a reconstructed transcript of a lecture I gave last year, in which I responded to some claims made by Dr. Michael J. Kruger about Mark 16:9-20.   

This is a response to a recent lecture about the ending of the Gospel of Mark.  The lecture was given by Dr. Michael J Kruger, the President of the Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina.  I’m going to test the accuracy of Dr. Kruger’s claims.  I’m glad that he is investigating questions about the New Testament text, but on this particular subject, his lecture contains errors of various kinds – some minor, but some major.  

As Dr. Kruger acknowledged at the outset of his lecture, people can become emotional about the ending of Mark.  But getting emotional, when a respected teacher denies the authority of part of the Word of God, is not necessarily a bad thing.  Jesus got emotional sometimes, especially when the religious elite were trying to deprive people of what God wanted them to have. Well, let’s try to approach Dr. Kruger’s claim with scientific detachment.

At first, he said there’s a general consensus that these 12 verses were not originally in Mark’s Gospel.  But how does Dr. Kruger really view the force of arguments from a general consensus?  Well, this is what he has said in the past:  he said, “That type of perspective is designed to force people to make a decision before they hear any of the evidence.”  And he said, “Simply saying that all scholars believed something isn’t a reason to believe it.”  

Thus, Dr. Kruger’s reason number one to believe that Mark 16:9-20 is not inspired, is entirely a reason which according to him, according to him, is not a valid reason.  Dr. Krueger leaned on this argument repeatedly in his lecture, but clearly, he does not accept it himself.  

Now, let’s look at Dr. Kruger’s description of the external evidence that pertains to the ending of Mark.  Here is how he described external arguments.  

He said external arguments have to do with the evidence from the way the manuscripts are, and how many manuscripts have one reading versus another.  That’s how he framed the question about external evidence:  how many manuscripts say this and how many manuscripts say that. But what’s the answer to that question, where the ending of Mark is concerned?

Well, if you know the answer, you can see why there is a tradition of timidity when it comes to accurately describing the Greek manuscript evidence about the ending of Mark, because the number of Greek manuscripts with show that their copyists ended the text of Mark 16 at the end of verse 8 is three.

One of those three is a medieval commentary manuscript, and in one of the others, Codex Vaticanus, the copyist, left a blank column after chapter 16 verse 8, and that’s the kind of thing the copyist sometimes did when they recollected a passage that was missing from the manuscripts that they were copying from.  And in the other manuscript, Codex Sinaiticus, there are some very strange features at the end of Mark involving replacement pages and changes in the copyist’s lettering, and more.

Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are the two Greek manuscripts that are referred to in the note that says, “Our earliest manuscripts don’t include verses 9 through 20.”  But what about the manuscripts that are older than our earliest manuscripts?  What about the manuscripts that were used by Justin Martyr and, and by Tatian and by Irenaeus in the 100s?

Irenaeus grew up in Asia Minor.  He had heard Polycarp, who had heard the Apostle John. After visiting Rome, Irenaeus settled down in what is now France and became a bishop, and he wrote the book Against Heresies, a multivolume work.  And in Book Three of Against Heresies, Irenaeus specifically quoted Mark 16:19.  Irenaeus was familiar with the text from at least three locales.  But he expressed no hint of any doubt about the genuineness of Mark 16:19.

Irenaeus, Tatian, and Justin are not the only patristic writers who used the contents of Mark 16:9-20.  Ambrose of Milan quoted it extensively, in Italy.  Augustine cited it in North Africa.  He mentioned his Greek manuscripts had it, as well as the Latin manuscripts.  Hierocles, a pagan writer, used this passage around the year 305, before the production of any of our earliest manuscripts of Mark 16.  Aphrahat used it in Syria in the early 300s.  Patristic support for the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20 is ancient, it is abundant, and it is all over the place.  Why did all this go unmentioned in Dr. Kruger’s lecture?

Because Dr. Kruger was not trying to present the case for both sides – at least that’s what he said, and I believe him.  Near the end of the lecture, he said that he’s giving his listeners the case that these verses are not original.  Now, if he had been presenting a detached scientific review of the evidence, we would have heard something about the blank space in Codex Vaticanus.  We would have heard something about the dozens of patristic writings that support the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20.

Now, let’s take a closer look at what Dr. Kruger said about Codex Sinaiticus, six minutes into the lecture:  “In the late 1900s, a scholar by the name of Constantine von Tischendorf . . . discovered Sinaiticus while the monks were burning manuscripts in the belly of the monastery to keep it warm in the winter.  So they were chucking manuscripts in the fire and he rescued Sinaiticus from it.”  

What?!  It’s not just Tischendorf’s story, but Tischendorf’s first visit to Saint Catherine’s monastery, when he first obtained pages of Codex Sinaiticus, was not a few decades ago in the late 1900s.  It was in May of 1844.  Saint Catherine’s monastery does not have much of a winter in May.  Tischendorf described the weather in Cairo this way, “A climate where the thermometer during March, April, and May is never below 77 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade.”

So, um, Tischendorf’s account of his first encounter with pages from of Codex Sinaiticus is already highly implausible.  There’s no need to stretch it any farther.  

Dr. Kruger also said that Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are both complete New Testaments.  But Codex Vaticanus in its present condition is missing several New Testament books.  And its text of Revelation is technically a different and much younger manuscript.

But when Dr. Krueger mentioned patristic evidence, there’s a lot that he left out.  He focused on Eusebius and Jerome.  Now Eusebius wrote around the 320s, and Jerome wrote in the late 300s and early 400s.  Dr. Krueger claimed that these two authors make it very plain that their versions of Mark do not have Mark 16:9-20, and that virtually all the Greek codices they knew about did not have verses 9 through 20.  However, you can see what Eusebius actually wrote in a book that Dr. Krueger apparently has never read, Eusebius of Caesarea: Gospel Problems and Solutions.

Eusebius, when he was asked a question about how to harmonize what Mark says and what Matthew says, about Jesus’ resurrection-appearances, and the timing of the resurrection, [that] Eusebius mentioned that one possible way to resolve the problem was to reject Mark 16:9-20.  But Eusebius proceeded to advocate the inclusion of those 12 verses and he quoted Mark 16:9 on two other occasions in the same composition.

Eusebius worked at Caesarea, which was a sort of intersection between the Egyptian texts that did not have verses 9-20 and a local text that did have these verses.  So he was aware that some copies did not have them, but he did not say “None of my manuscripts have them.”  He even explained to Marinus how verse nine should be written.  He even explained to Marinus how it should be read out loud.  That is not how you reject a passage.

Now about Jerome.  Jerome included Mark 16:9-20 in the Vulgate Gospels, made in 383. Jerome said that he consulted ancient Greek manuscripts when he prepared that Latin text.  If Dr. Kruger had taken a closer look at Jerome’s composition Ad Hedibiam, or Epistle 120, he would have realized that in the relevant portion of that composition, Jerome was recycling part of Eusebius’ earlier composition, just like Jerome recycled some other writers’ work.  What we have there is essentially a Latin abridgment of Eusebius’s work.  It’s not an independent observation about Jerome’s manuscripts.

After misrepresenting the testimony of Eusebius and Jerome, and letting many other patristic writers go unmentioned, Dr. Kruger misrepresented the internal evidence.  He stated that the vocabulary words in Mark 16:9-20 tend to look like they came from the other three Gospels. Well, maybe they do when you just look at it from a distance, but not when you get up close.  Start to look at those details, and the case that those words are taken from the other Gospels collapses.

These twelve verses relate some of the same events that are described in the other gospels, but that’s the case for every twelve-verse segment of the Gospel of Mark.  The common claim that the verbiage in Mark 16:9-20 is cut and pasted in from the other gospel accounts is unsustainable when you start to look at the details.  To give just one example:  where in Matthew 28, where in Luke 24, where in John 20-21, is there anything about serpents and poison?  We see these things mentioned in Mark 16:18.  Clearly, they did not get there due to someone’s desire to create an ending for the Gospel of Mark that resembled the endings in the other Gospels.

Apparently Dr. Kruger believes that somebody, someone who had read Matthew 28, instead of finishing the scene that’s left hanging there in verse eight, by using the framework of Matthew 28’s narrative, decided it would be a good idea instead to suddenly restart the narrative by reintroducing Mary Magdalene, restating the day, restating the time, and reporting that Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene without mentioning anything He said, and without mentioning Mary’s two companions, as if they suddenly vanish with no explanation.

That is implausible in the extreme, but that is just one of many things, many implausible things, that you have to convince yourself to believe if you’re going to believe that Mark 16:9-20 is a patchwork that was designed to conclude the Gospel of Mark.  One also has to believe simultaneously that it is highly significant that Mark 16:9-20 contains eighteen words that Mark doesn’t use elsewhere, but the observation that Mark 15:40-16:4 (another twelve-verse passage) contains twenty words that Mark does not use elsewhere – well, that’s so trivial, it’s not even worth mentioning in the lecture, is it.

Now, because I want to keep this brief, I’ll pass by what Dr. Krueger said about the possible impact of the subject on the doctrine of inerrancy. I do not regard Mark 16:9-20 as a scribal corruption like he does, but I agree with Dr. Kruger’s position that if divine authority is exclusive to the original text, then the removal of a scribal corruption simply gives us a better picture of the original text.  The removal of a barnacle does not say anything about the skill of the shipbuilder.

Now let’s return to what Dr. Krueger claimed about the evidence itself.  In the 19th minute of his lecture, he stated, “If you didn’t live in the modern day with the history of English translations, this wouldn’t bother you at all, and here’s why:  because you wouldn’t even know it wasn’t there.”  What a false, false, false statement.  That’s false!  Numerous patristic writings from diverse locations in the 300s and 400s demonstrate that the typical manuscript of Mark used outside the borders of Egypt included verses 9-20.  There’s an easy way to test Dr. Kruger’s claim and expose how false, false, false, it is.

Suppose we were to collect all of the surviving Greek manuscripts of Mark 16 from the year 400 to the year 1000.  Put them all together, and among those manuscripts, how many of them end of the text of Mark at the end of verse 8?  None of them do, not one.  

Again, Dr. Kruger said, “In the ancient day, if you’d been reading the original Greek manuscripts, chances are you would never have even known the Gospel of Mark had this ending unless you were living in the Middle Ages.”

Now, let’s interpret that generously and interpret his reference to the original Greek manuscripts as if he meant manuscripts in the original Greek language.  I don’t think he intended to suggest that the autographs were being handed around in the 200s and 300s.  With that being granted, his statement is still preposterous.  The medieval manuscripts did not just spring out of the earth.  They contain Mark 16:9-20 because their ancestor-manuscripts contained 16:9-20. And plenty of ancient manuscripts support Mark 16:9-20:  Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Bezae, Codex Washingtoniensis, and Codex Regius are just a few examples.

Dr. Kruger wanted his students to believe that the issue about Mark 16:9-20 is just a holdover from the history of the English Bible, but that’s not true, and you can easily demonstrate that that statement is not true.  The removal of Mark 16:9-20 would not just be an admission about an error in the text used by the leaders of the Protestant Reformation.  It would also imply that the Latin Vulgate was incorrect.  It would imply that the Syriac Peshitta version, also from the late 300s, was incorrect.  It would mean that the Gothic version, from around the mid-300s, was incorrect. It would mean that every Ethiopic manuscript of Mark is corrupt at this point, and it would require that every extant Greek manuscript of Mark 16, except three, contained a twelve-verse long corruption when it was produced.  Ladies and gentlemen, that is over 1,600 manuscripts representing an assortment of ancient tradition-lines.  It’s not just the quantity; it’s the scope.  This reading was everywhere.

It would require that the leaders of the Christian church in the 100s, 200s, and 300s – those entrusted with the task of handing down the canonical text – were using manuscripts embedded with a significant corruption and failed to detect it.  It would require that every Greek Gospels-lectionary, and every complete Latin Book of Hours, contained verses that would never supposed to be there.  Obviously, there’s much more to the picture than just the traditional English texts, and whoever tries to convince you otherwise is not doing his credibility any favors.

As Dr. Kruger started to wrap up, he said, “People ask me all the time, why doesn’t the ESV just drop it?”  He said, “People are going to throw a fit if it’s removed.”  And here we come to another [a] bad academic habit:  a commentator’s promotion of the idea that people who would object to the removal of Mark 16 are just driven by their emotions; they’re addicted to their tradition; why can’t they just follow the evidence where it leads?

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Well, it’s almost as if the motives of those who want to keep Mark 16 to 19 in the text, it’s almost like their motives of being questioned.  This is just rhetorical sleight of hand, like spreading the claim about a tradition of timidity, when the real timidity belongs to the professors who are extremely timid when it comes to letting the evidence about the ending of Mark see the light of day.

There’s something else wrong with Dr. Kruger’s answer.  If a person believes that these twelve verses do not belong in the Bible, then “People will throw a fit” is not a sufficient reason to keep them in the text.  I mean, you’ve already taken out so many other verses, what’s another twelve?  If he thinks they’re not inspired, then he shouldn’t be okay with having them in the Bible.

In closing, it was not my intention today to make a case that verses 9-20 of Mark 16 are genuine inspired scripture.  If you’d like to see a detailed case to that effect, I offer my digital book, Authentic: the Case for Mark. 16:9-20, which can be purchased at Amazon, or you can obtain a free copy from me by request.  My purpose today was only to show that Dr. Kruger’s presentation about this passage has a disturbing number of major flaws as well as minor ones, and leaves out an enormous amount of relevant evidence.  That lecture ought to be withdrawn, not only because there’s a practical concern that it puts shame on a Christian seminary when its president openly mistreats evidence about the New Testament text, but also because it’s morally wrong to distribute false statements.

Thank you for watching. May God bless your study.

Ending Inaccurate Comments about the Ending of Mark

           Last month, Larry Hurtado, at his blog, recommended the late Bruce Metzger’s A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, stating that readers would find it “very helpful as a first resource to consult.”  Hurtado mentioned specifically that Metzger’s book should be consulted for information about “the data on the “Pericope of the Adulteress”” and “the thorny issue of the endings of Mark.”  I chimed in to protest, in a brief comment, that Metzger’s comments on both of those passages contain some false claims, and that throughout Metzger’s book, readers frequently receive one-sided propaganda in favor of the UBS Committee’s decision.  Important evidence routinely is not mentioned, simply because it favors a variant that the UBS Committee did not adopt.

          Another reader of Hurtado’s blog chimed it to briefly say that I was making an “attack on Dr. Metzger” and that my views have been shown to be erroneous.  To this I concisely responded that my views have not been shown to be erroneous; they have been ignored.  (For instance, I have demonstrated that Metzger’s claim that some non-annotated manuscripts of Mark have asterisks or obeli accompanying Mark 16:9-20 is false.  Nevertheless Dan Wallace, Larry Hurtado, Ben Witherington III, James White, and others keep spreading that false claim.)  I also said, “Metzger’s commentary is terrible one-sided and selective.  A far more informative resource is Wieland Willker’s online Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels.”

          The following week, Hurtado told his blog-readers about Wieland Willker’s work. Better late than never, I suppose.  The data in Willker’s online textual commentary is a welcome remedy to the inaccuracies, falsehoods, and constant spin that one finds in the obsolete volume by Metzger that Hurtado had recommended just a week earlier.  I am delighted that Hurtado has, at last, discovered and acknowledged Willker’s superior text-critical commentary on the Gospels.  

          Unfortunately Hurtado did not deduce that the typographical error in my earlier comment about Metzger’s book was a typographical error (like all the times Hurtado mentions the “periscope” about the adulteress).  The word “terrible” in my sentence, “Metzger’s commentary is terrible one-sided and selective” should have been “terribly.”  This became the basis for the following sentence from Hurtado:   “I think that James Snapp was unkind and inaccurate to describe the Metzger textual commentary as “terrible” in the way it handles the questions about the ending of Mark a recent comment.”  

          I responded to explain that I meant to write the word “terribly” instead of “terrible.”  Here we are two weeks later, and no change has been made in Hurtado’s blog-entry (not even to add the word “in” to the sentence).  So I will clarify my meaning here.  

          Metzger’s A Textual Commentary on the New Testament is not terrible.  As a defense of the UBS Committee’s decisions to favor the Alexandrian Text more than 99% of the time in their allegedly eclectic approach, Metzger’s book is very good.  However, its readers should be warned that it mainly consists of terribly one-sided defensive arguments which very frequently minimize, misrepresent, or simply ignore important evidence and strong arguments for the readings which the UBS Committee rejected.

          The sad results of heavy reliance upon Metzger’s book can be seen in Hurtado’s own commentary on Mark.  He stated (in his 1983 volume on Mark in the New International Commentary series, reissued in 1989, and again in 2011 in Baker Books’ Understanding the Bible commentary-series) that “Readers of more modern translations will find these verses set off from the rest of Mark with an editorial note that they are not found in some of the most highly regarded manuscripts of the Gospel.”  By “some,” Hurtado meant two Greek manuscripts – Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. 

          Hurtado then wrote, “There is evidence in the ancient manuscripts of other material that may have formed two other endings of Mark in some editions of the Gospel.”  Hmm.  There is evidence of the “Shorter Ending” – a brief paragraph which states that the women who left the tomb reported to the disciples and to Peter, and that Jesus sent His followers to proclaim the eternal gospel from east to west.  Hurtado was referring to that little flourish when he wrote, “Several Greek manuscripts and other ancient witnesses insert a short block of material after 16:8, often followed by vv. 9-20.”  By “several,” he meant six.  In all six Greek manuscripts that have the Shorter Ending, Mark 16:9 also appears.

          But what did Hurtado mean by “often”?  He meant, in every such case except one (namely, in the Old Latin Codex Bobbiensis, in which an interpolation appears between Mark 16:3 and 16:4, and in which part of 16:8 has been removed).  Considering that Mark 16:9 appears in all six Greek manuscripts that have the Shorter Ending, and in the dozens of non-Greek copies that have the Shorter Ending, Hurtado’s statement is amusingly inaccurate:  the statement that when the Shorter Ending appears after Mark 16:8 it is often accompanied by verses 9-20 is like a statement that dead men often do not rise from the dead, eat food, and ascend to heaven.  There is only one exception.      

          And what is the second ending to which Hurtado referred by mentioning “two other endings”?  There is no such thing.  Hurtado was referring to the Freer Logion, but the Freer Logion is not another ending; it is an interpolation that appears between Mark 16:14 and 16:15 in one extant manuscript.  (I repeat:  One.  Not “Some” – the footnote about this in the New Living Translation is false and its author should issue a loud and clear apology for misleading the NLT’s readers about this.  Tyndale House Publishers should include the apology in the preface of the NLT for at least the next 20 years, to undo the damage their falsehood has done.  The NET’s false note about the Freer Logion also needs to be corrected.)  The Freer Logion is not “another ending,” and any commentator who presents it as one is mishandling the data and obscuring the evidence.

          To restate:  when Hurtado referred to “the several other endings that appear in the manuscript tradition,” he misrepresented the evidence so as to convey that rivals to verses 9-20 besides the Shorter Ending were written as continuations from Mark 16:8.  Other authors, such as Michael Holmes, have similarly juggled the formats in which Mark 16:9-20 and the Shorter Ending are presented, and have mistreated Codex W’s testimony.  

          Metzger knew that the Freer Logion was never an independent ending of the Gospel of Mark.  He described the Freer Logion as “probably the work of a second or third century scribe who wished to soften the severe condemnation of the Eleven in 16.14,” which would render the Freer Logion a piece of evidence in favor of verses 9-20 from the 100’s or 200’s.  This seems not to have registered at all upon those who are busy misrepresenting the Freer Logion as “another ending,” as if it began as a continuation of the narrative after 16:8.

The new edition of my defense
of Mark 16:9-20
as part of the original text.

          And consider Hurtado’s claim that “The testimony of the earliest “fathers” of the church (in the first four centuries) indicates that these verses were known only in a few copies.”  When we see utilizations of the contents of Mark 16:9-20 in Justin’s First Apology, in the Epistula Apostolorum, in Tatian’s Diatessaron, in Irenaeus’ Against Heresies Book Three (in which Irenaeus, in chapter 10, paragraph 5, specifically quotes Mark 16:19 from the Gospel of Mark, over a century before the production of the earliest surviving manuscript of Mark 16), in De Rebaptismate, in the pagan author Hierocles’ writings cited by Macarius Magnes, in Aphrahat’s First Demonstration (part 17), in Acts of Pilate/Gospel of Nicodemus, in the Gothic version, in the Apostolic Constututions, in the Peshitta, in the Vulgate, in Old Latin chapter-summaries, in four compositions by Ambrose, and in Greek manuscripts mentioned by Augustine – all from before the year 400 – all hope must be abandoned that a realistic appraisal of the evidence can be found in Hurtado’s work.

          Let future commentators take warning:  the days in which Metzger’s Textual Commentary could be cited as if it is a source of trustworthy and balanced information about the ending of Mark are over.  (The same should be true regarding Metzger’s comments on John 7:53-8:11.)  And so are the days when commentators could take reckless swipes at Mark 16:9-20, and spread all sorts of falsehoods, without expecting their competence to be called into question.     

          This week I released the 2016 edition of Authentic:  The Case for Mark 16:9-20 as a Kindle e-book, at a price which most researchers can easily afford.  Its new opening chapter includes numerous samples of the vague. misleading, and inaccurate (in some cases, bizarrely inaccurate) claims about Mark 16:9-20 which commentators have made.  Its appendix addresses some false claims promoted by Dan Wallace. 

          The old edition is still available for the researchers in Dallas, Wheaton, Edinburgh and elsewhere who prefer to rely on resources which are overpriced and obsolete.

The New International Commentary - Mark by Larry W. Hurtado is © 1983, 1989 by Larry W. Hurtado.  Published by Hendrikson Publishers and Paternoster Press.  

A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament by Bruce M. Metzger is  © 1971 by the United Bible Societies.