Hippolytus and Mark 16:9-20

 

Hippolytus (d. 235) was a leader of the church in the city of Rome in the early 200s.  He had an interesting career, challenging some decisions which he saw as indicators of laxity on the part of the bishop of Rome.  Hippolytus eloquently opposed the false doctrine of modalism no matter where it originated.  Near the end of his life, Hippolytus even let himself be considered an alternative to Urban I and Pontian I, and then Roman persecutors stepped in and sent Hippolytus and Pontian both to the mines on the island of Sardinia.  There Hippolytus died, but not before being recognized as a brother by his fellow-saints in Rome; his body was brought in peace to a Roman cemetery in 236.    

            Several compositions are attributed to Hippolytus, including Apostolic Tradition, Against Noetus, On Christ and Antichrist, Peri Charismaton (About the Gifts), Commentary on Daniel, and segments of some works better known by different titles, such as the composite Apostolic Constitutions.   Hippolytus is known for proposing December 25th as the day of Christ's birth.

Hippolytus    

            Hippolytus, like Irenaeus and Tatian, has been effectively ignored by Bible footnote-writers who refer to two manuscripts made in the 300s but fail to mention earlier patristic support for Mark 16:9-20.  What does Hippolytus say about Mark 16:9-20?  Several things.

            First, Hippolytus made a strong allusion to Mark 16:18 in Apostolic Tradition 32:1:  “Let every one of the believers be sure to partake of communion before he eats anything else. For if he partakes with faith, even if something deadly were given to him, after this it cannot hurt him.”

            The evidence for Apostolic Tradition 32:1 is not limited to works in which it has been absorbed and edited. This particular part of the composition is extant in four non-Greek transmission-lines of the text of Apostolic Tradition: in Latin, in Ethiopic, in Sahidic, and in Arabic. (When Hort formed his opinion of the authorship of this part of the text, he was not aware of this.)  Apostolic Tradition 32:1 is also preserved in Greek.  In the 1992 edition of Gregory Dix’s book on Apostolic Tradition, revised by Henry Chadwick, the reader is informed of the following:

            “Two new Greek fragments have to be reported here. The first is preserved in a dogmatic florilegium of patristic quotations contained in two manuscripts, cod. Ochrid.86 (saec. XIII) f.192 and Paris.gr.900 (saec. XV) f. 112. The discoverer, Professor Marcel Richard, printed the excerpt from the Apostolic Tradition in Symbolae Osloenses 38 (1963), page 79 . . . . This new fragment preserves the original Greek of chapter xxxii.1 (= Botte 36):

            ’Εκ των διατάξεων των αγίων αποστόλων∙ 

            πας δε πιστος πειράσθω, προ του τινος γεύσασθαι,

            ευχαριστίας μεταλαμβάνειν

            · ει γαρ πίστει μεταλάβοι [v. l.: μεταλάβη], ουδ’ αν θανάσιμόν τις

            δώη αυτω μετα τουτο, ου κατισχύσειαυτου (cf. Mark xvi. 18).”

            The term θανάσιμόν, which refers to a “deadly thing,” is the same word that is used in Mark 16:18.  It appears nowhere else in the New Testament.

            In the 1870s, John Burgon regarded a statement made by Hippolytus in On Christ and Antichrist, part 46, as if it includes a reference to Mark 16:19.  In Homily on Noetus, Hippolytus wrote, “This is the One who breathes upon the disciples, and gives them the Spirit, and comes in among them when the doors are shut, and is taken up by a cloud into the heavens while the disciples gaze at Him, and is set down on the right hand of the Father, and comes again as the Judge of the living and the dead.”  This looks like a simple credal statement, but Burgon claimed, “In the creeds, Christ is invariably spoken of as ανελθόντα: in the Scriptures, invariably as αναληφθέντα. So that when Hippolytus says of Him, αναλαμβάνεται εις ουρανους και εκ δεξιων Πατρος καθίζεται, the reference must needs be to St. Mark 16:19.”

            Hippolytus also quoted Mark 16:16-18 in material incorporated into the beginning of Book Eight of Apostolic Constitutions (which was put together mainly as an edited combination of already-existing materials in 380).: “With good reason did he say to all of us together, when we were perfected concerning those gifts which were given from him by the Spirit, ‘Now these signs shall follow those who have believed: in my name they shall cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they happen to drink any deadly thing, it shall by no means hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.’ These gifts were first bestowed on us the apostles when we were about to preach the gospel to every creature.”

            Samuel Tregelles commented about this: “Amongst the works of Hippolytus, enumerated as his on the ancient marble monument now in the Vatican, is the book περι χαρισμάτων αποστολικη παραδοκις [Peri Charismaton Apostolike Paradokis], in which this part of St. Mark’s Gospel is distinctly quoted: (apostoli loquuntur) ως αν τετελειωμένων ημων φησιν [ο κύριος] πασιν αμα περι των εξ αυτου δια του πνεύματος διδομένων χαρισμάτων,” followed by the Greek text of Mark 16:17 through 18 (with καιναις transposed before λαλησουσιν, and without και εν ταις χερσιν at the beginning of verse 18).

            Tregelles maintained that although a later writer, in the course of incorporating Hippolytus’ work into the fourth-century work known as Apostolic Constitutions so as to make it all appear to consist of words spoken by the apostles, “The introductory treatise is certainly, in the main, genuine,” and, “This citation is almost essential to introduce what follows,” and, “I see no occasion for supposing that the compiler made other changes in this treatise, except putting it into the first person plural, as if the apostles unitedly spoke.”

            Hort disagreed, stating, “Even on the precarious hypothesis that the early chapters of the Eighth Book were founded to some extent on the lost work, the quotation is untouched by it, being introduced in direct reference to the fictitious claim to apostolic authorship which pervades the Constitutions themselves (τούτων των χαρισμάτων προτέρον μεν ημιν δοθέντων τοις αποστόλοις μέλλουσι το ευαγγέλιον καταγγέλλειν πάση τη κτίσει κ.τ.λ.).”

            To allow a full understanding of this disagreement between Tregelles and Hort, the paragraph from Book Eight of Apostolic Constitutions which Tregelles and Hort quoted is provided here in English:

            “With good reason did he say to all of us together, when we were perfected concerning those gifts which were given from him by the Spirit, ‘Now these signs shall follow those who have believed: in my name they shall cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they happen to drink any deadly thing, it shall by no means hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.’ These gifts were first bestowed on us the apostles when we were about to preach the gospel to every creature, and afterwards were of necessity afforded to those who had by our means believed, not for the advantage of those who perform them, but for the conviction of unbelievers.”

            Tregelles’ point seems valid to me:  erase the features of this text which give it the appearance of being an address from the apostles, and the quotation of Mark 16:17-18 are still entirely appropriate in a treatise on spiritual gifts. Hort’s objection is not a strong one, because the second sentence is more plausible a reworked statement rather than an insertion. In other words, Hort’s objection does not stand in the way of the idea that Hippolytus cited Mark 16:17-18 and commented on it by saying something like, “These gifts were first bestowed to the apostles when they were about to preach the gospel to every creature,” etc., and that this was reworded in Apostolic Constitutions.

            Although it is currently impossible to separate the voice of Hippolytus from the mild  interference that has been introduced by those who altered his compositions, the evidence from On Christ and Antichrist, Homily on Noetus, the reworked opening paragraph of Apostolic Constitutions, and Apostolic Tradition 32:1 effectively shows that Hippolytus knew and used Mark 16:9-20.

            Hippolytus’ comment in Apostolic Tradition 32:1 may reflect a sentiment that is also found in the writings of Justin Martyr:  that for a Christian who is sincerely resolved in his heart and aware of his sanctification, no experience, not even suffering and death, can be ultimately harmful.

 

 

Matthew 21:31 - Who Did the Father's Will?

            “Overall this is a very difficult problem.”  Thus wrote Wieland Willker, in his Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels, about the variation-units in Matthew 21:29-31, to which he devoted eight pages of analysis before concluding that “a fully convincing solution is currently not available.”

            “Verses 29-31 involve a rather complex and difficult textual problem.”  Thus begins the NET’s note on the same subject – one of the longest notes in the NET.

            But you wouldn’t know that there is a very tough textual variant here from most of our English Bibles.  The CSB, ESV, NASB, NIV, NLT, EHV, MEV, NRSV, and NKJV all say that the answer to Jesus’ question was “The first,” and they have no footnote here.  (The EOB-NT is a rare exception; the EOB-NT has “The first” in the text and a footnote says, “A few manuscripts, notably D, read “the second” which is unlikely but presents the Jews as spoiling the parable by giving (seemingly deliberately) the wrong answer.”  The EOB’s note could be improved, though, by replacing “the second” with “the last.”)   

            I think one has to go back to J.B. Phillips’ version to find, in English, anything other than “the first” (or, in the CEV, “the older one”) as the answer that was given to Jesus’ question in Matthew 21:31.  (In Phillips’ version, the answer is given as “The second one,” echoing the variant δευτερω.  A different reading, ὁ ὕστερος, was in the text of the 25^th edition of the Nestle-Aland compilation, and was also adopted by Westcott & Hort and Tregelles.  (The 1881 Revised Version reads “The first.”  Perhaps the Revision Committee was unimpressed with Westcott and Hort’s divided opinion.)     (The Tyndale House GNT deviates from Tregelles’ compilation, adopting the usual reading ὁ πρῶτος, with an exceptionally thorough apparatus-entry.)    

            Hort, in 1881, devoted over two full pages (in Notes on Select Readings) to Mt. 21:28-31, and mentioned the view of Lachmann that the Jews’ answer to Jesus in Mt. 21:31 is “an early interpolation” (along with the four words which follow it).  Westcott inserted a note of his own into Hort’s analysis, stating, “Considering the difficulty of the Western combination of readings it seems not unlikely that Lachmann is substantially right.”

            The array of readings in this passage is interesting:  first comes a contest in verse 29:  οὐ θέλω, ὔστερον δέ μεταμεληθεὶς ἀπῆλθεν is read by the Byzantine Text, and by C L M W Π 157 565 579; À* has almost the same reading but without the δέ).  Codex Vaticanus has, instead, ἐγώ κε καὶ οὐκ ἀπῆλθεν (“I go, lord, and did not go”).  Third, f¹³ and 700 (Hoskier’s 604) read ὕπαγω κύριε καὶ οὐκ ἀπῆλθεν.  Fourth, Θ (038) has ὕπαγω καὶ οὐκ ἀπῆλθεν.  Fifth, Codex Bezae (05) reads οὐ θέλω ὔστερον δέ μεταμεληθεὶς ἀπῆλθεν but adds εἰς τὸν ἀμπελωνα (repeating the words from v. 28).       

            There are other textual contests (Byzantine witnesses have και before προσελθὼν; Alexandrian witnesses tend to have προσελθὼν δε, and the scribe of À skipped ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς ειπεν in v. 30), but the main contest near the beginning of v. 30 is between ἑτέρω (another) and δευτέρω (second). 

          Δευτέρω (second) is supported by B L M S Ω and by most Greek manuscripts, and by 28 33 700 892 and 1424.  The Byzantine Textform is somewhat split here, though:  δευτέρω is in the text and ἑτέρω is in the margin.  

            Ἡτέρω (the other) is supported by À*, D, Q, K, Π, W, Y, Δ, 157, 565, 579, et al.  In Codex À, someone creatively changed ἑτέρω by putting δ in the left margin and υ between the first  ε and τ, thus producing the variant δευτέρω. 

            Those two textual contests must be kept in mind as we approach the main textual contest in verse 31, where we see (after another variation-unit in v. 31:  after λεγουσιν, most MSS have αυτω but not B À L D Θ 33 f¹³ 788) the answer that Jesus’ listeners gave:

            Codex B and some Ethiopic copies support ὁ ὕστερος (“the later [one]”).

            Almost all manuscripts support ὁ πρῶτος (“the first”).

           Codex D and Θ 700 f¹³ and several Old Latin copies (a, b, d, e, ff², h, l) and the Sinaitic Syriac and the Armenian version support ὁ ἔσχατος (“the last”).    

            Let’s remember one of the canons of textual criticism:  prefer the more difficult reading.  The reading of Codex Bezae is the more difficult reading here – but it also makes Jesus’ hearers appear idiotic; it is obvious that the son who told his father that he would go, but did not go, did not do what the father wanted him to do.

            Jerome’s Vulgate supports ὁ πρῶτος.  But in his Commentary on Matthew, Jerome said something about the variant in verse 31: “one should know that with respect to what follows: ‘Which of the two did the father’s will? And they said, ‘the last,’ the authentic copies do not have ‘the last’ but ‘the first.’”  Jerome proposed that “If we want to read ‘the last,’ the interpretation is plain.  We would say that the Jews indeed understood the truth, but they are evasive and do not want to say what they think.”  In other words, to Jerome, the reading ὁ ἔσχατος (“the last”) makes the Jews seem not stupid, but duplicitous. 

            Bruce Metzger, in his Textual Commentary, rejected the very difficult reading of Codex Bezae, stating that “it is not only difficult, it is nonsensical” – and explained that the UBS committee judged that D’s reading originated “due to copyists who either committed a transcriptional blunder or who were motivated by anti-Pharisaic bias.”  Whatever the mechanism was, the range of its effect must have extended not only to Codex D but to several Latin copies, to the Sinaitic Syriac, and to Jerome’s “authentic” Latin manuscripts – most of which are major representatives of the Western Text.

[But not the Curetonian Syriac.  As Willker notes, the Curetonian Syriac was erroneously cited in NA27 as if it supports ὁ ἔσχατος.  Willker supplies Peter Williams’ rendering of the Curetonian Syriac, which concludes with “The first/former”.] 

[Another oddity in the apparatus of NA27 is that Θ is assigned two readings in v. 31:   ἔσχατος and ὕστερος.] 

[A mistake might have been made by Kurt and Barbara Aland in their Text of the New Testament where they took a close look at this passage (beginning on p. 233), and they zoom in on Mt. 21:31 (beginning on page 235).  The Alands stated that ὁ ὕστερος is supported by Codex Vaticanus “and other Greek manuscripts as well as in some Sahidic manuscripts and the whole Bohairic tradition.”  What are the “other Greek manuscripts” here?  The apparatus of NA27 lists  B Θ f¹³ 700 al; however, this seems to refer to the reading ὕστερον near the end of v. 30; Swanson gives ὁ ἔσχατος as the reading of Θ f¹³ 700 in v. 31 before λέγει.  If there are any other Greek manuscripts that read ὁ ὕστερος other than Codex Vaticanus, I do not know what they are.  If anyone knows of any, please mention them in the comments.]      

            Now let’s apply another canon:  prefer the variant which accounts for its rivals better than they account for it.  The reading in Mt. 21:31 adopted in the UBS compilation – ὁ πρῶτος – does not explain ὁ ὕστερος.  And ὁ ὕστερος can account for ὁ πρῶτος and  ὁ ἔσχατος. 

            As as answer to Jesus’ question, ὁ ὕστερος is a somewhat fluid answer; to someone whose first language was Latin, ὁ ὕστερος might be misunderstood as if it means “the latter.”  And such a misunderstanding explains the origin of the Western reading; there is no need to suppose that an “anti-Pharisaic bias” was involved here.     

            Ὁ ὕστερος also explains ὁ πρῶτος:  The answer “The later one” refers to the first son, not initially (when he said that he would not go), but later (after he changed his mind).  An early scribe who perceived that ὁ ὕστερος could be misunderstood as a reference to the second son could easily avoid the misunderstanding that mars the Western Text by making the wording clearer, and he did so, creating the reading ὁ πρῶτος.

            This internal evidence – (1) ὁ ὕστερος is difficult but not nonsensical, and (2) ὁ ὕστερος accounts for ὁ πρῶτος better than ὁ πρῶτος accounts for ὁ ὕστερος, and (3)  ὁ ὕστερος accounts for ὁ ἔσχατος – compels the adoption of ὁ ὕστερος. 

NA 25

            Whatever other shortcomings Vaticanus’ Gospels-text has, here in Matthew 21:31, it preserves the original wording.   This was the verdict of Tregelles, and it should be the reading in future editions. 

            By the way, I adopted ὁ ὕστερος over a decade ago in my Equitable Eclectic English Edition of the Gospel of Matthew, rendered as “The later one.”   EEEE Matthew, as I call it, is available as a Kindle e-book on Amazon for $1.99.

             In closing, I recommend that that the Armenian and Ethiopic evidence in Matthew 21:31 should be double-checked.

How We Got the New Testament (in 22 minutes)

           A new video that I've prepared is at YouTube:  How We Got the New Testament.  It's  a slide-show presentation that covers the basics of the history of the transmission of the books of the New Testament from their initial distribution to the present day.  Viewers are introduced to papyrus copies, parchment copies, majuscule (uncial) script, and minuscule script.  They are also informed of a few developments the New Testament went through in the Middle Ages.   

          Pages of Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Bezae. and Codex Cyprius are shown, and early versions are also featured, such as the Vulgate and the Peshitta.   Viewers are then informed of a few developments the New Testament text went through in the Middle Ages, such as the recycling of parchment, and illumination.

Tyndale at the stake

         When a person asks, "How did we get the New Testament?" the identity of the "we" affects the answer.  After all, some people-groups still don't have the New Testament in their native language.  After the first nine minutes, the focus is on how the English-speaking church got the New Testament.  Viewers are briefly introduced to Lorenzo Valla, Desiderius Erasmus, William Tyndale, and other individuals from the Renaissance and Reformation era.   Early English versions are described, up to and including the King James Version, before the era of modern textual criticism is covered:  the contributions of Bengel, Griesbach, Scholz, Tregelles, Tischendorf, and Westcott and Hort are briefly described.

          The last five minutes focus on the spread of the New Testament in what is (for better or worse) English as it is spoken today. and developments subsequent to Westcott and Hort (such as the papyrus discoveries at Oxyrhynchus.  

        How We Got the New Testament is suitable for church-viewing and Bible-study groups.  

    

Do Any Textual Variants Impact Doctrine?

           Do any textual variants in the New Testament have the potential to make a significant doctrinal impact?

          In the past, major champions of the traditional text answered that question with a simple “No.”  Robert L. Dabney wrote in 1871, that the received text – the Textus Receptus, the base-text of the KJV, while “not asserted to be above emendation,” “contains undoubtedly all the essential facts and doctrines intended to be set down by the inspired writers,” and “If it were corrected with the severest hand, by the light of the most divergent various readings found in any ancient MS or version, not a single doctrine of Christianity, nor a single cardinal fact, would be thereby expunged.”

          More recent writers have expressed similar sentiments.   D.A. Carson, for example, has written that the Westminster Confession’s affirmation that the Biblical text has been kept pure in all ages ought to be understood to mean that “nothing we believe to be doctrinally true, and nothing we are commanded to do, is in any way jeopardized by the variants.” (from p. 56 of The KJV-Only Controversy – A Plea for Realism.) 

          The view of Dan Wallace, however, is better-informed and more nuanced.  It amounts to this:  no viable and meaningful variant jeopardizes any cardinal doctrine.  The adjectives in that sentence are important, so let’s look into what they mean.  A viable variant is one which textual critics regard as potentially original; it is favored by weighty (though not necessarily decisive) evidence.  A meaningful variant is one which affects the meaning of the passage in which it occurs.  And a cardinal doctrine is one that expresses a fundamental point of the Christian faith.  

          Using this nuanced approach, a question immediately arises:  which doctrines are cardinal?  Is inerrancy a cardinal doctrine?  Looking at the website of Dallas Theological Seminary (where Dr. Wallace has taught), a statement can be seen that requires students to agree with seven beliefs; the seventh is “the authority and inerrancy of Scripture.”  And looking at the requisite Statement of Faith – “requisite” in the sense that faculty members at DTS are required to affirm it annually – one sees a statement that “We believe that the whole Bible in the originals is therefore without error.”

          Michael Kruger argued at the Ligonier website (in 2015) that the doctrine of inerrancy is essential, and that it supplies “the foundation for why we can trust and obey God’s Word.”   Don Stewart has also proposed that “inerrancy is an essential, foundational concept and its importance should not be minimized.”  Dan Wallace, meanwhile, has downplayed the centrality of inerrancy, stating in 2006 (in a post that is still online) that “inerrancy and verbal inspiration are more peripheral than core doctrines.”  In other words – if I understand him correctly – Dr. Wallace does not, and has not, for some time, regarded inerrancy as a cardinal doctrine – and so his statement to the effect that no viable and meaningful variant significantly affects cardinal doctrines should not be interpreted to mean that no viable and meaningful variants affect the doctrine of inerrancy. 

          Some apologists have followed the example of Wallace’s nuanced approach very closely; for example, in an article at Stand To Reason’s website, Tim Barnett wrote in 2016 that “No major doctrines depend on any meaningful and viable variants.” 

          However, I can think of at least two variants that jeopardize the doctrine of inerrancy, both of which occur in the first book of the New Testament:  in Matthew 13:35 and Matthew 27:49.  Only the one in Matthew 13:35 is acknowledged by a footnote in the NLT, NASB, and ESV.  (At least, this is the case in the copies that I have.  So many editions of modern versions are in circulation that it would be burdensome to keep track of them all – which might make one wonder how seriously the “Standard” part of their names should be taken.)  Neither of these variants is given a footnote in the CSB, nor in the NKJV, nor in the hyper-paraphrase known as The Message.  And the Tyndale House Greek New Testament does not have a footnote at Matthew 13:35 or at Matthew 27:49. 

          Most of the English versions I have named so far are currently ranked among the ten most-popular versions of the Bible in America.  So much for the idea that no one is hiding these variants.

          Let’s see what those variants in Matthew 13:35 and 27:49 say.  

          In Matthew 13:35, the scribe of Codex Sinaiticus, rather than writing that a prophecy was spoken by “the prophet,” wrote that it was spoken by “Isaiah the prophet.”  This reading collides with reality:  the referred-to prophecy is from Psalm 78:2 – a composition by Asaph, and not from Isaiah.  In addition to the scribe of Codex Sinaiticus, witnesses that support “Isaiah the prophet” in Mt. 13:35 include (according to the textual apparatus of UBS4) Q, f¹, f¹³, 33, and the reading was known to Jerome; Jerome wrote (in Homily 11 on Psalm 77) that “in all the ancient copies,” the prophecy is explicitly attributed to Asaph, and Jerome offers the theory that scribes who were unfamiliar with Asaph replaced his name with Isaiah’s name.  The editors of UBS4 assigned this reading a ranking of “C,” which, as they explain in their Introduction, “indicates that the Committee had difficulty in deciding which variant to place in the text.”                   

          In an earlier generation, F. J. A. Hort – who edited, with Westcott, the primary ancestor of the base-text of the New Testament used for the NIV, ESV, NLT, CSB, NASB and NRSV – argued for including “in Isaiah the prophet” in the text.  His argument ran as follows:  “It is difficult not to think Ἠσαίου genuine.  There was a strong tendency to omit it (cf. xxvii 9; Mc 1 2); and, though its insertion might be accounted for by an impulse to supply the name of the best known prophet, the evidence of the actual operation of such an impulse is much more trifling than might have been anticipated.  Out of the 5 (6) other places where the true text has simply τοῦ προφήτου, in two (Mt ii 15 [Hosea]; Acts vii 48 [Isaiah]) , besides the early interpolation in Mt xxvii 35 [Psalms], no name is inserted; in two a name is inserted on trivial evidence (Mt ii 5, Micah rightly, and Isaiah [by a] wrongly ; xxi 4, Isaiah and Zechariah both rightly [Zech by lat.vt]) ; and once (Mt i 22) Isaiah is rightly inserted on various Western evidence.  Also for the perplexing Ἰερεμίου of xxvii 9, omitted by many documents, rhe has Ἠσαίου.  Thus the erroneous introduction of Isaiah’s name is limited to two passages, and in each case to a single Latin MS.  On the other hand the authority of rushw and aeth is lessened by the (right) insertion of Ἠσαίου by one in Mt i 22, and by both in xxi 4.  The adverse testimony of B is not decisive, as it has a few widely spread wrong readings in this Gospel.”   

          Constantine von Tischendorf included Ἠσαίου in Matthew 13:35 in the 8th edition of his compilation of the Greek New Testament.  And in 1901, Eberhard Nestle wrote (on p. 251 of his Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the Greek New Testament) that διὰ Ἠσαίου τοῦ προφήτου “is certainly, therefore, original.”  Anyone using a Greek New Testament compiled by Tischendorf or Nestle today would be rather challenged if he were to attempt to maintain the doctrine of inerrancy, inasmuch as if Matthew attributed Psalm 78:2 to Isaiah, then Matthew erred.  

Mt. 27:49 in Codex L.

         In Matthew 27:49, major Alexandrian witnesses (Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Codex C, Codex L), some important versional witnesses (Mae¹, Mae², the Ethiopic version, and assorted witnesses (listed by Willker as U, Γ, 5, 26, 48, 67, 115, 127, 160, 175, 364, 782, 871, 1010, 1057, 1300, 1392, 1416, 1448, 1555, 1566, 1701, 1780, 2117, 2126, 2139, 2283, 2328, 2437*, 2585, 2586, 2622, 2680, 2766, and 2787) support the reading, at the end of the verse, ἄλλος δὲ λαβών λόγχην ἔνυξεν αὐτοῦ τήν πλευράν καί ἐξῆλθεν ὕδωρ καί αἷμα.  (In the underlined witnesses the final words are αἷμα καί ὕδωρ instead of ὕδωρ καί αἷμα.)  This means:  And another [person], taking a spear, pierced his side, and out came water and blood.   Then, in Matthew 27:50, Jesus dies.

          The adoption of this reading into the text would be fatal to the doctrine of inerrancy, because the Gospel of John candidly states (in 19:34) that Jesus was pierced in His side with a spear, resulting in a flow of blood and water, after He died, and this contradicts the text of Matthew if this reading – supported by the two early manuscripts (À and B) that are the primary basis for the heading and footnote that draw into question Mark 16:9-20 in the ESV, CSB, NRSV, etc. – is adopted.

          In 2018, in a post at Evangelical Textual Criticism, Tyndale House GNT editor Dirk Jongkind acknowledged that this variant probably should have been mentioned in the apparatus of the Tyndale House GNT.  He also acknowledged that “On external evidence, the addition has definitely a very good shout” – which  – I think – is tantamount to granting that the reading is viable.  But Jongkind rejects the reading, admitting that “The ‘best and earliest manuscripts’ do not always present us with the ‘best and earliest readings.’”   Perhaps this statement should be printed in large letters alongside the ESV’s bracketed heading between Mark 16:8 and 16:9 (which reads, “Some of the earliest manuscripts do no include 16:9-20.”).

          But this reading in the most significant manuscripts representative of the Alexandrian Text certainly was treated as viable by Westcott and Hort, who included the variant, within double brackets, in their compilation.  In Westcott & Hort’s Notes on Select Readings, after analyzing the evidence pertaining to this variant, they concluded as follows:  “Two suppositions alone are compatible  with the whole evidence.  First, the words  ἄλλος δὲ κ.τ.λ. [“κ.τ.λ.” meaning “etc.”] may belong to the genuine text of the extant form of Mt, and have been early omitted (originally by the Western text) on account of the obvious difficulty.  Or, secondly, they may be a very early interpolation, absent in the first instance from the Western text only, and thus resembling the Non-Western interpolations in Luke xxii xxiv except in its failure to obtain admission into the prevalent texts of the third and fourth centuries.  The prima facie difficulty of the second supposition is lightened by the absence of the words from all the earlier versions, though the defectiveness of African Latin, Old Syriac, and Thebaic evidence somewhat weakens the force of this consideration. We have thought it on the whole right to give expression to this view by including the words within double brackets, though we did not feel justified in removing them from the text, and are not prepared to reject altogether the alternative supposition.”

          Competent textual critics – including some who laid the foundation for the compilations of the ESV, CSB, NLT, and NRSV – have treated one or two readings that convey erroneous statements as if they are viable and meaningful.  Therefore, the notion that there are no viable and meaningful textual variants in the New Testament that jeopardize any cardinal doctrine can only be maintained by those who do not consider the doctrine of inerrancy to be a “cardinal doctrine.”    

           So:  do any textual variants in the New Testament have the potential to make a significant doctrinal impact?  If you consider the doctrine of inerrancy a significant doctrine (which most evangelical Christians do), the answer is yes.        

    

 

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.