Minuscule 1241 and the Ending of Mark

 Minuscule 1241, housed at Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai, is sometimes cited as apparent support (“1241vid”) for the abrupt ending at Mark 16:8.  More specifically, in the 1966 Greek New Testament published by the United Bible Societies, in the textual apparatus, in a list of witnesses that “add vv. 9-20 with asterisks, obeli, or critical note in ms,” we see the entry “1241^vid.”

The basis for this frugally presented entry is found in Six Collations of New Testament Manuscripts, by Kirsopp Lake and Silva New (which was the 1932 Harvard Theological Studies #17).  The author(s) wrote on page 111, “The end of f. [folio] 55 is εφοβουντο γαρ written in the centre of the line.  The scribe has not done this elsewhere.”

By the time the fourth edition of the  UBS Greek New Testament was released, the apparatus’ report about the testimony of 1241 was changed.   The textual apparatus, instead of having an entry for witnesses that “add vv. 9-20 with asterisks, obeli, or critical note in ms,” the fourth edition had an entry for “add vv 9-20 with critical note or sign,” and the witnesses thus described are “f¹ 205 and others.”  1241 is included (without “vid”) in the list of witnesses which “add vv 9-20.”

There is a good reason for this change:  in the real world, the scribe did do this elsewhere.    If one visits the website of the Library of Congress and finds the microfilm page-views of 1241, a tour of the pages containing the four Gospels will show that there are several pages on which the final line contains only a word or two; for instance, if one looks at Image 15, it can be plainly seen that the final line on the page contains only the single word αρτους from the middle of Matthew 14:19.  This phenomenon occurs repeatedly.    But final lines consisting of a single non-centered word are not really the thing to see. 

The thing that Lake and New claimed only occurred at the end of Mark 16:9 also occurs at Image 23 (Matthew 18:19), and at Image 105 (John 5:44), and at Image 116 (John 14:5) and at Image 123 (John 20:18).        

In addition, Mark 16:9 is identified in the side- margin of 1241 as the third Heothinon-reading.  John 20:19, which follows a centered final line concluding John 20:1 on the previous page, is identified as the ninth Heothinon.  And, within the text of Mark 16:9, Jesus’ name is part of the text of the opening phrase – that is, the text of Mark 16:9 is slightly expanded for liturgical reading. 

It should be perfectly clear that Lake and New’s claim that centered final lines only occur at the end of Mark 16:8 is untrue.  It should also be perfectly clear that 1241 provides no support whatsoever for the abrupt ending.  Rather, 1241 attests that when and where it was made, Mark 16:9-20 was treated as authoritative Scripture.

We have here another example of pseudo-evidence to which a paraphrase of Balak’s words in Numbers 24:10 may be applied:  “This witness was cited to draw these twelve verses into question, and, behold, it has altogether blessed them!”

 

Answering James White's Questions About Mark 16:9-20

            In a recent video, Dr. James White asked some questions about Mark 16:9-20.  Here are some answers.

(1)  How do you define overwhelming evidence?

            Something like this: 
99.9% of the extant Greek manuscripts of Mark 16.  The score is something like 1,650 to 3.

99.9% of the extant Latin manuscripts of Mark 16. The score is something like 8,000 to 1 (and the one, Codex Bobbiensis, is the worst-copied Latin manuscript of Mark in existence).

99% of the extant Syriac manuscripts of Mark 16.  The score is at least 100 to 1. 

100% of the extant Gothic manuscripts of Mark 16.  The score is 1 to 0.

At least 80% of the extant Sahidic manuscript of Mark 16.  The score is at least 5 to 1.

100% of the extant Bohairic manuscripts of Mark 16.  

100% of the Ethiopic manuscripts of Mark 16.  The score is about 200 to 0.   

100% of the extant Greek lectionaries of the Heothina series. 

(The ratios regarding Syriac and Sahidic manuscripts should be increased; I used low amounts here.  The one Syriac manuscript that ends the text of Mark at 16:8 is the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript; the one Sahidic manuscript that ends the text of Mark at 16:8 is Codex P. Palau-Ribes Inv. Nr. 182.) 

(2)  How could Eusebius and Jerome have said what they said?

            For some preliminary data about the testimony of Eusebius and Jerome regarding the ending of Mark, see section #2 of the 2016 post, Mark 16:9-20:  Sorting Out Some Common Mistakes.  As David Parker has acknowledged, Jerome simply recycled material from Eusebius to save time when facing a broad question about reconciling the Gospel-accounts.  (Additional details are in my book, Authentic:  The Case for Mark 16:9-20.)
            Eusebius worked at Caesarea in the early 300s, and part of the library there had been passed along from Origen in the 200s.  Origen had previously worked in Egypt, and it can be safely deduced that some copies of Mark in Egypt in the 200s ended their text at 16:8.  Eusebius’ comments reflect his awareness of such copies, or of copies at Caesarea descended from such copies. 

            In his composition Ad Marinum, however, Eusebius did not reject Mark 16:9-20.  He addressed Marinus’ question of how a person can harmonize Matthew 28:1-2 with Mark 16:9, regarding the question of the timing of Jesus’ resurrection.  Eusebius said that there are two ways to resolve the question:   one way might be to reject Mark 16:9, and everything that follows it, on the grounds that the passage is not in every manuscript, or is in some copies but not in others, or that it is seldom found.  But that is not the option that Eusebius recommends.  Instead, he advises Marinus to retain the text he has, and to resolve the question by understanding that there is a pause, or comma, in Mark 16:9, so that “early on the first day of the week” refers to the time of Jesus’ appearance to Mary Magdalene, rather than to the time He arose.    

              The Greek text of Eusebius’ composition can be read in Roger Pearse’s free book, Eusebius of Caesarea: Gospel Problems and Solutions, with an English translation.  The things to see are that (a) Eusebius framed the claim that one could reject Mark 16:9-20 on the grounds that it is not in most manuscripts as something that could be said, not as his own favored option, even though there were manuscripts at Caesarea (descended from manuscripts from Egypt) which ended at 16:8, and (b) Eusebius recommended to Marinus that Mark 16:9-20 should be retained, and (c) he used Mark 16:9 on two other occasions in the same composition, and (d) Eusebius showed no awareness of the Shorter Ending.

            (It is extremely likely that Eusebius of Caesarea rejected Mark 16:9-20 when he developed his Canon-Tables, but that is a separate subject from his statements in Ad Marinum.)  

(3) Why do you have early fourth-century codices that do not contain this text?

            We have two fourth-century Greek codices in which Mark stops at 16:8 because those two fourth-century codices were based on manuscripts from, or descended from, Egypt, where Mark 16:9-20 had been lost or taken from the text in a previous generation. 
            Unusual features in Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus show that their copyists were aware of the absent verses; for details see this post about Codex Vaticanus and this post about Codex Sinaiticus.  I show, among other things, that Codex Vaticanus has a blank space after Mark 16:8 that is capable of containing Mark 16:9-20, and that the page on which the text of Mark ends at 16:8 in Sinaiticus is part of a cancel-sheet, that is, four pages that replaced the work of the main copyist.  

(4)  Why do other early fathers never mention material from that passage?  

            Who is Dr. White talking about?  Clement and Origen?  Clement never quoted from 12 entire chapters of Mark.  Saying that Clement never mentioned material from Mark 16:9-20 is like saying, “Clement used Mark 16:9-20 as much as he used 90% of the book.”

            Origen might allude to Mark 16:17-20 in the reworked composition Philocalia, but even if one is not persuaded that he did so, Origen didn’t use the Gospel of Mark very much; there are very large segments of Mark that Origen never quoted.  Here is one way of picturing the situation:  if you divide the text of Mark into fifty-six 12-verse segments, Origen only quotes from 22 of them.  Even if we were to arbitrary increase that amount, and say that Origen used half of the 12-verse segments in Mark, the point would stand that we should approach the data from Origen with the understanding that the chance of Origen quoting from any 12-verse segment of the Gospel of Mark is 50%. 

            Origen did not use 54 consecutive verses from Mark 1:36 to 3:16.  Origen did not use 41 consecutive verses of Mark from 5:2 to 5:43.  Origen did not use 22 consecutive verses from 8:7 to 8:29, and Origen did not use 39 consecutive verses from 10:3 to 10:42. 

            So when he does not quote from 12 verses in Mark 16:9-20, is that supposed to suggest that the passage wasn’t in his manuscripts?  Seriously?  Too many apologists have read “Clement and Origen show no knowledge of these verses” in Metzger’s Textual Commentary, and thought, “Well, that sounds important,” and rephrased Metzger’s claim without ever investigating whether it’s solid evidence, or propaganda.  Well, folks, it is empty propaganda.  Origen shows no knowledge of 450 verses of Mark.  The claim that Origen does not use Mark 16:9-20 – if he wasn’t doing so in Philocalia – has no real force as an argument against the passage, and commentators who use it as if it does deserve to be ignored.

            While we are on the subject of patristic evidence:  when someone claims that early church fathers never use the contents of Mark 16:9-20, that person shows that he is not qualified to give an informed opinion on the subject.  Lots of patristic writers mention material from Mark 16:9-20.  

            In the 100s, Justin Martyr alluded to Mark 16:20.  Tatian incorporated almost the whole passage in his Diatessaron.  And Irenaeus, in what is now France, specifically quoted Mark 16:19, in his work Against Heresies, in Book Three.  In the 200s, passages from Mark 16:9-20 are used in Syriac in the Didascalia Apostolorum, and in a Latin statement by Vincent of Thibaris at a council in Carthage, and in the Latin composition De Rebaptismate, in the 250’s.            

            In the late 200s or early 300s, the pagan writer Hierocles, in the area that is now Turkey, used Mark 16:18 in the course of mockingly challenging Christians to select their leaders by poison-drinking contests.  Also in the 300s, the Latin writer Fortunatianus mentioned that Mark told about the ascension of Christ.  In the same century, the unknown author of the Acts of Pilate used Mark 16:15-16, and so did the author of the Syriac text of The Story of John the Son of Zebedee.    Meanwhile, Aphrahat the Persian Sage utilized Mark 16:17 in his composition First Demonstration, in 337.  Elsewhere, Wulfilas included Mark 16:9-20 in the Gothic version in the mid-300s.  In Syria in the late 300s or early 400s, the translators of the Syriac Peshitta included Mark 16:9-20.  Meanwhile in Milan, Ambrose quoted from Mark 16:9-20 in the 380s. 

            In 383, Jerome made the Vulgate, stating specifically that he had consulted ancient Greek manuscripts for the purpose, and he included Mark 16:9-20.  A little later on, in the early 400s, Jerome made a reference to the interpolation known as the Freer Logion, and said that he had seen it “especially in Greek codices.”  Metzger proposes that the Freer Logion itself was composed and inserted into the text between Mark 16:14 and 16:15 sometime in the second or third century.   

            In the 400s, Patrick quoted from Mark 16:16 in Ireland; Augustine quoted from Mark 16:9-20 in North Africa – and he casually mentioned that his Greek copies affirmed a reading in verse 12 – and Macarius Magnes used it in Asia Minor, and Marcus Eremita used it in Israel, and Eznik of Golb quotes verses 17 and 18 way over in Armenia, and five forms of the Old Latin chapter-summaries, displayed for instance in Codex Corbeiensis, refer to the contents of Mark 16:9-20. 

            How many names of patristic writers who utilized Mark 16:9-20 are found in The King James Only Controversy in the section where James White focuses on external evidence about this passage?    Is Justin mentioned?  No.  Tatian?  No.  White mentioned two Georgian copies made after the time of Charlemagne, but did he mention Irenaeus?  No.  He mentioned the Slavonic version from the ninth century, because he thought it supports non-inclusion (it actually supports inclusion), but did he mention the Gothic version from the fourth century?  No.  Why not?

            James White didn’t mention the evidence from Justin, and Tatian, and Vincent of Thibaris, and Hierocles, and Fortunatianus, and Wulfilas.  But why should his readers feel as if they have been misled?

            James White didn’t mention Acts of Pilate, and the repeated quotations of Mark 16:9-20 by Ambrose in Italy, or by Augustine in North Africa. He didn’t mention that Augustine’s Greek manuscripts had Mark 16:9-20.  But why should his readers feel misled?    

            James White didn’t mention Patrick’s use of Mark 16:15-16 in Ireland, or Macarius Magnes’ extensive use of the passage in Asia Minor, or the use of Mark 16:18 by Marcus Eremita in Israel – but he did not lie to anyone.  Maybe his readers just misunderstood what they were being told.  

            White didn’t mention that Pelagius, Prosper of Aquitaine, and Peter Chrysologus used Mark 16:9-20.  But his readers have not been lied to.   

            James White did not mention a single one of these Roman-era witnesses that support Mark 16:9-20.  He did not mention that Irenaeus, c. 180, had a manuscript that contained Mark 16:9-20, over a century before Vaticanus was made. But why should anyone feel misled by White’s selectivity in choosing what evidence to share, and what to hide?      

(5)  Most importantly, why the differing endings if the one is original?

            Well, let me tell you.  The question is, in part, a request for a hypothesis:  in the first century, after the Gospel of Mark began to be disseminated from the city of Rome (with 16:9-20 included), a copy reached Egypt.  At this point, the last twelve verses were lost; a simple accident is possible, but I think they were removed or obelized (and then later removed) deliberately by someone who recognized them as resembling a short composition which Mark had written on another occasion as a freestanding text, summarizing Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances.  This individual regarded Peter as the primary author of the Gospel of Mark; Mark being merely a recorder and organizer of Petrine material.  He therefore obelized verses 9-20 as something that was not the work of the primary author, and in the next generation, the obelized portion was not perpetuated.   

            Of course we do not have this on video – just as we do not have any of the dozens of scribal corruptions that James White proposes in his book on video.  And this hypothesis can be tweaked without essential change; for example, it is possible that verses 9-20 were removed in a single step.  But this or something like this accounts for the absence of Mark 16:9-20 in Egypt, while the Gospel of Mark spread with 16:9-20 included everywhere else, as the patristic evidence shows – that is, as the patristic evidence would show, if the patristic writers had not been tied up and gagged, and thrown in a pit where they cannot be heard.

            In a later generation, in Egypt, the Shorter Ending was created by someone who could not stand the abruptness of the text in its truncated form (ending at the end of 16:8).  There are six Greek manuscripts that have the Shorter Ending; some of them are damaged, but all six also have verse 9, which implies that all six also had verses 9-20 when the manuscripts were in pristine condition. 

            Did James White tell you about the notes that appear in some of those manuscripts?  No?  Maybe that has something to do with why he is asking this question.  Let’s take a few minutes to zoom in on those notes.  Without getting bogged down in details, the thing to see is that most of these six manuscripts are related to the same narrow Egyptian transmission-stream.  Here are the basic details:

            In Codex L, a note appears before the Short Ending:  “In some, there is also this.”  And between the Shorter Ending and 16:9, a note says, “There is also this, appearing after ‘for they were afraid.”  It may be safely deduced from these notes that the person who wrote these notes knew of some copies with the Shorter Ending after verse 8, and some copies with verses 9-20 after verse 8.

            In Codex Ψ, the six lines that follow the line on which Mark 16:8 ends contain the Short Ending, and then there is a note:  “This also appears, following ‘for they were afraid.’”  The wording of the note is not quite identical to the note in L, but it is very close. 

            083 is a damaged fragment, but enough has survived to show that 083 has the closing-title “Gospel According to Mark” after 16:8, and then has the Shorter Ending in the next column, and before 16:9, the note, “There is also this, appearing after ‘for they were afraid,’” exactly as in Codex L. 

            099, which is even more fragmentary than 083, has a feature which creates a link to a locale in Egypt.  16:8 is followed by a gap, which is followed by the Shorter Ending, which is followed by another gap.  Then, instead of the beginning of 16:9, the contents of 16:8b are repeated (beginning with ειχεν γαρ αυτας τρομος ) and after 16:8 is completed, 16:9 begins.

            Why does this link these manuscripts to Egypt?  Because of the Greek-Sahidic lectionary 1602 – which James White mislabeled “l, 1602” in the second edition of his book, just as he mislabeled lectionary 153 as “l, 153” on the previous page.  In l 1602, a note appears between 16:8 and the Shorter Ending:  “In other copies this is not written.”  Then, after the Shorter Ending, there is the same note that appears in Codex L.  After the note, instead of beginning 16:9, the text resumes in 16:8b (at ειχεν γαρ, as in 099), which is followed by 16:9ff. 

            To review:  L and Ψ and 083 and  l 1602 have the note “There is also this, appearing after ‘for they were afraid,’” before 16:9.  099 and l 1602 both repeat the text of 16:8b before 16:9.  Thus, all five of these witnesses are traced to the same narrow transmission-stream, where Sahidic was read (i.e., in Egypt).     

 

            That leaves two Greek manuscripts with the Shorter Ending:  579 and 274.  579 (from the 1200s) does not share any of the notes that L, Ψ, 099 and 083 have, but it shares (approximately) the rare chapter-divisions that are displayed in Codex Vaticanus, the flagship manuscript of the Alexandrian Text.  It also shares many readings with Vaticanus, such as the non-inclusion of Luke 22:43-44 and Luke 23:34a.

            That leaves 274.  In the main text of 274 (from the 900s), 16:9 begins on the same line on which 16:8 ends (the verses are separated by an abbreviated lectionary-related note, “End of the second Heothina-reading”).  The Shorter Ending has been added in the lower margin of the page, to the right of a column of five asterisks; another asterisk appears to the left of 16:9 so as to indicate where the Shorter Ending was seen in another manuscript.    The Shorter Ending in 274 is more like an incidental margin-note, mentioning an interesting feature in some secondary exemplar, than part of the manuscript’s text copied from the main exemplar.

           

            The takeaway from this is that the Greek witnesses for the Shorter Ending echo situations in one particular locale, namely Egypt, where Mark 16:9-20 was first lost (or excised), and the Shorter Ending was then created to relieve the resultant abrupt stop of the narrative, and then copies appeared in which 16:9-20 followed 16:8.  Copyists in Egypt, facing some exemplars with no text after 16:8, and some exemplars with the Shorter Ending after 16:8, and some exemplars with verses 9-20 after 16:8, resolved the situation by including both endings.  Meanwhile, everywhere else – from Ireland to France to Rome to North Africa to the coast of Italy to Asia Minor to Palestine to Cyprus to Israel to parts of Egypt to Syria to Armenia – copies of Mark were being used in which 16:8 was followed unremarkably by 16:9-20.          

            The Sahidic, Bohairic, and Ethiopic versions, like almost all versions, echoed the Greek manuscripts accessible to their translators:  the earliest strata of the Sahidic version echoes a situation in Egypt when and where the text of Mark ended at 16:8; the versions with the double-ending (always with the Shorter Ending first, when it appears in the text – for it would be superfluous after 16:20) echo later situations.  (Notably, the Garima Gospels, the oldest Ethiopic Gospels-manuscript, does not have the Shorter Ending after 16:8; it has 16:9-20.)

                       

            If Dr. White has any other questions on this subject, or still feels obligated to put Mark 16:9-20 in a "Maybe Scripture, Maybe Not" category, I will be happy to discuss this topic with him in a formal debate – anywhere, any place, any time.

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

Mark 16:9-20: Does John MacArthur Know What He's Talking About?

John MacArthur

            Grace To You, a California-based ministry, is still spreading the false statements about Mark 16:9-20 that are found in John MacArthur’s infamous sermon, The Fitting End to Mark’s Gospel.  Here are some of them.           

● MacArthur conveyed that copyists of New Testament books wrote one letter, and then took a bath, and then wrote another letter, and took a bath, and so forth.  This is false.  When Grace To You spreads this sort of nonsensical fable, they insult viewers’ intelligence.

● MacArthur said that all manuscripts of the New Testament survived after the Council of Nicea in 325 because no one was banning them or destroying them.  This is false.  The natural effects of humidity destroyed many papyrus manuscripts.  There were still areas where Christianity was opposed.  And there are many cases in which Christians themselves destroyed ancient manuscripts by recycling their parchment to use as material with which to make new books.             

● MacArthur stated that the earliest copies of Biblical texts are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus.  This is false, inasmuch as the Dead Sea Scrolls are older than those two manuscripts, and so are some New Testament papyrus manuscripts (P52, P104, P45, et al).

● MacArthur said that Codex Vaticanus contains both the Old Testament and the New Testament.  It should be clarified however that Codex Vaticanus does not contain the books of First Timothy, Second Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Revelation; in addition, the Old Testament text in Codex Vaticanus is a Greek text, primarily a form of the Septuagint, which includes apocryphal books  (Tobit, Bel and the Dragon, etc.) and which varies in many other respects from the Hebrew-based English translations that MacArthur uses and endorses.

● MacArthur, referring to Latin manuscripts, conveyed that there are “eight thousand copies going back to the fourth century” but what ought to be said is that the Vulgate was translated in the fourth century, and our extant copies of the Vulgate were produced later.  There were later revisions of the Vulgate, such as the revision undertaken by Charlemagne’s scholar-advisor Alcuin.  It is not as if all existing copies of the Vulgate read the same as the Vulgate as it existed at the end of the fourth century.

● MacArthur stated, referring to Syriac manuscripts, “There are 350 copies that go back to the 200s, very ancient manuscripts.”  In real life, the number of Syriac manuscripts with text from the New Testament that were made in the 200s is zero.  There are two major Syriac manuscripts that represent an early Syriac text of the Gospels (not the whole New Testament).  The 350 Syriac manuscripts to which MacArthur refers are copies of the Peshitta, a translation which scholars such as Syriac-specialist Sebastian Brock do not consider earlier than the late 300s in terms of its creation.  In terms of the production-dates of manuscripts of the Peshitta, its representative manuscripts are all significantly later than the 200s.   

● MacArthur, after describing Greek, Latin, and Syriac manuscripts, said, “When you compare all of these manuscripts, they’re all saying exactly the same thing.”  That is outrageously false – so false than it must be concluded, if one assumes that MacArthur had no desire to deceive, that MacArthur does not know very much at all about the contents of ancient manuscripts of the New Testament.  It boggles the mind that MacArthur was capable of saying such a thing in the course of a sermon in which he rejected Mark 16:9-20, because in those thousands of copies of the Vulgate, and in those dozens of copies of the Peshitta, Mark 16:9-20 is in the text.  MacArthur makes it seem as if the opposite is the case.  Grace To You spreads this severe misrepresentation of the evidence every day they keep MacArthur’s sermon online.      

● MacArthur claimed that using 32,000 Scripture-quotations made by patristic writers, it is not only possible to reconstruct the entire New Testament, but that “it matches perfectly all other manuscript sources.”  This too is absurd.  Dozens of patristic writers, in the era of the Roman Empire, quoted from Mark 16:9-20 and used the passage as Scripture; this alone proves that what can be reconstructed from patristic quotations does not match perfectly with “all other manuscript sources.”  A brief investigation of practically any major patristic writers – Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Basil of Jerusalem, Chrysostom – will show that their quotations do not match perfectly with each other, let alone with “all other manuscript sources.”  MacArthur’s claim about this is preposterous, and the staff of Grace To You should be ashamed to participate in the circulation of such nonsense. 

● MacArthur claimed that over 19 thousand quotations from the Gospels in patristic writings “read the Gospel text the very same way you read them in your Bible today.”  This is not just one absurdity, but a stack of absurdities, a tower of absurdities.  It is a statement which can only be made by an honest man if he has vigilantly avoided studying the materials about which he is speaking.  Anyone who picks up an ordinary UBS Greek New Testament and reads its textual apparatus with a modicum of understanding will see that there are hundreds of textual contests in which some patristic writers favor one reading, and other patristic writers favor a rival reading.  Grace to You should not expect to be trusted while it spreads claims that are refuted by a basic familiarity with the evidence.    

For more data,
watch my 26-minute video
John MacArthur and
the Ending of Mark. 

● MacArthur conveyed that the original text of the New Testament was “preserved and protected as it was passed down.”  Without testing this claim, I merely wish to raise a point:  considering that out of 1,670 Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark, only three end the text at 16:8, how can MacArthur say one minute that the original text has been preserved and protected as the text was passed down, and then say the next minute that 99.8% of the Greek manuscripts of Mark contain a “bad ending” that shouldn’t be there? 

● MacArthur explicitly appeals to the number of manuscripts as evidence of the preservation of the original text:  “we have so many accurate, consistent manuscripts that we know without hesitation that what we hold in our hands is an English translation of the original with no loss.”  By “many,” he cannot mean three.  But if he were to consult 99.8% of the Greek manuscripts of Mark (plus lectionaries, in which Mark 16:9-20 is routinely found), he would find the passage that he rejects!  The moment one posits that the text of the vast majority of manuscripts is the text that should be accepted without hesitation, one surrenders any objection against Mark 16:9-20.

● MacArthur claimed that the oldest manuscript we have of Homer’s Iliad is from the thirteenth century A.D.:  “We don’t have anything between the thirteenth century and the eighth century B.C. of Homer’s Iliad.”  That is false,  Over two dozen fragments of the Iliad exist which were produced before the thirteenth century A.D.  Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 560, from the 200’s, is just one example.

● MacArthur claimed that Irenaeus, a prominent Christian writer in the 100s, was aware of “other endings starting to float around.”  This too is false.  In real life, Irenaeus – writing well over a century before Codex Vaticanus was made – clearly quoted Mark 16:19, stating that he was quoting from near the end of Mark’s Gospel-account.  This shows that as far as Irenaeus’ manuscripts of Mark were concerned (and Irenaeus had been in Asia Minor, and southern Gaul, and Rome), the Gospel of Mark ended with verses 9-20.  Contrary to MacArthur’s claim, the only way in which the Gospel of Mark ended, as far as we can tell from Irenaeus’ testimony, is with verses 9-20 included.  Irenaeus does not express an awareness of the existence of manuscripts of Mark that end at the end of verse 8.  Irenaeus does not indicate in any way that he is aware of manuscripts of Mark that end with the “Shorter Ending.”  MacArthur’s statement about Irenaeus is 100% fictitious and 100% misleading. 

● MacArthur claims that two other second-century writers – Justin Martyr and Tatian – also “show knowledge of other endings.”  This too is false.  The only ending of Mark attested in any way by Justin Martyr and Tatian is the ending that consists of verses 9-20.   

For even more data,
read my book Authentic:
The Case for Mark 16:9-20.

● MacArthur claims that several endings were composed by people who tried “to help Mark a little bit with his abrupt ending.”  However this too is false; exactly one alternative ending, the Shorter Ending, was created in Egypt, where the text had formerly circulated with no words after the end of verse 8.  Except for the Shorter Ending – which stands alone after (most of) Mark 16:8 in exactly one Latin manuscript, and which appears along with verses 9-20 (or at least verse 9; incidental damage having affected the rest) in six Greek manuscripts (sometimes in the margin, sometimes with notes – see my book for details) – there are no endings of Mark after 16:8 that do not involve the presence of verses 9-20.  When Grace To You spreads the claim that “several endings” were floating around, as if referring to several independent compositions, Grace To You misleads people.

    

            And where are the faculty members of The Masters Seminary on this subject?  Where are the staff-members of Grace To You?  Or the officers of Grace Community Church?  These trusted men are entirely silent as far as I can tell – either too scared, too apathetic, too distracted, or too misinformed to adequately address the wild inaccuracies that are being spread daily by their school’s founder.      

            Grace To You, you have one proper course of action:  take down the video in which John MacArthur makes these false claims.  This is not about debatable points of theology; this is not even about whether or not Mark 16:9-20 belongs in the text.  It is about whether Grace To You’s leadership and staff want to spread false statements, or not.    

            Any teacher who aspires to inform listeners, rather than misinform them, would be happy to improve his work by removing false claims.  If Dr. MacArthur and Grace To You do not stop spreading these claims, having been informed that the claims are false, the only conclusion that can reasonably be drawn is that these men continue to spread false claims because they have decided to do so.  I do not mean for this to be construed as an accusation but rather as an invitation:  please show me, Dr. MacArthur and Grace To You, that you do not want to continue to spread false claims.

Mark 16:9-20 and the Strange Scholarship of BAR

This is a sequel to my post Mark 16:9-20 and Early Patristic Evidence.  A fellow researcher, upon encountering my post, referred me to an article at the website of the Biblical Archaeology Review magazine:  James Tabor’s The Strange Ending of the Gospel of Mark and Why It Makes All the Difference.  I saw this material when it was first published, and I had hoped that the editors of BAR might let Tabor’s embarrassing inaccuracies (and lack of quotation-marks when borrowing from Metzger’s Textual Commentary) quietly slip into the shadows.  Alas, the article is still being circulated and still needs to be addressed.

In the interest of brevity I will not address the parts of the article in which Tabor promotes his books and his view on peripheral subjects, and via this step alone I have spared myself from delving into most of the article. 

Rather than convey his position in anything like a restrained and measured tone, Tabor describes Mark 16:9-20 in boisterous terms:  he calls this passage “concocted” and “patently false” and “forged” and “bogus” and a “forgery” and he then attempts to make a case for his own belief that Mark believed in something other than the bodily resurrection of Jesus.  But where and how does he present the evidence?  His presentation of external evidence begins and ends with this excerpt: 

            “The evidence is clear. This ending is not found in our earliest and most reliable Greek copies of Mark.  In A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Bruce Metzger writes: “Clement of Alexandria and Origen [early third century] show no knowledge of the existence of these verses; furthermore Eusebius and Jerome attest that the passage was absent from almost all Greek copies of Mark known to them.” ”

Tabor’s concise description misleads his readers at every step:  he fails to mention that he is referring to only two manuscripts as “our earliest and most reliable Greek copies,” namely Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus – and he fails to mention that both of these manuscripts contain unusual features at or near the end of Mark that indicate that their copyists were aware of the existence of the missing verses.  In Codex Vaticanus, for example, the copyist left a distinct blank space (including an entire blank column) just the right size for a skilled scribe to fit verses 9-20.  In Codex Sinaiticus, the four pages containing Mark 14:54-Luke 1:76 written by the main copyist are not extant; the four pages which now exist in the manuscript are a single sheet of parchment (written on the front and back and folded down the center, so as to form four pages) which replaced the work of the main copyist; for details see the post Codex Sinaiticus and the Ending of Mark).  He fails to mention that over 1,500 Greek manuscript of Mark include 16:9-20.       

Tabor also repeats Bruce Metzger’s claim that Clement of Alexandria and Origen show no knowledge of the existence of these verses, letting readers imagine on their own that the writings of Clement and Origen are jam-packed with quotations from the rest of the Gospel of Mark, while in real life Clement of Alexandria hardly ever made specific quotations from the Gospel of Mark except for one long extract from chapter 10.  To put it another way:  according to the data in Carl Cosaert’s research, Clement of Alexandria does not makes specific citations from Mark chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 15, and 16.  Even if tomorrow someone were to discover a dozen citations from Mark made by Clement, the implication would not change:  Clement cited the Gospel of Mark only very rarely and his lack of usage of Mark 16:9-20 is merely a symptom of his general neglect of the entire book.  What Tabor (and Metzger) says about Mark 16:9-20 as a passage not used by Clement can be said about almost every 12-verse segment of the book, outside chapter 10.    

As for Origen, while he cited Mark more often than Clement did, he did not cite it anywhere near the frequency with which he cited the other Gospels.  As far as I can tell via a study of Origen’s major works, Origen cited nothing in Mark 3:19-4:11 (28 consecutive verses), or in 5:2-5:43 (41 consecutive verses) or in 8:7-8:29 (22 consecutive verses), or in 10:3-10:42 (39 consecutive verses), or in 1:36-3:16 (54 consecutive verses).  If we should conclude that a non-use of Mark 16:9-20 means that the verses were absent in Origen’s copies (as Tabor seems to expect his readers to conclude that it does), then by the same measure, they would conclude that Origen had a much shorter text of Mark.  Whereas the proper conclusion is simply that Origen’s non-use of Mark 16:9-20 – if a reference in Philocalia 5 does not allude to Mark 16:17-20 – is a side-effect of his general preference for the other three Gospel-accounts.

Tabor also misrepresents (because Metzger did) the testimony of Eusebius and Jerome; those who seek a more realistic and informed perspective on their testimony may want to bypass the misleading snippets used by various commentators and read Eusebius’ comments for themselves in Eusebius of Caesarea – Gospel Problems and Solutions, and to compare it to Jerome’s Epistle 120 – To Hedibia, and notice (as D. C. Parker noticed) that Jerome’s comment is not a personal observation by  Jerome about Jerome’s manuscripts; it is part of Jerome’s Latin abridgment of part of Eusebius’ Ad Marinum, cobbled together in response to Hedibia’s general question about how to harmonize the Gospels regarding events that followed Christ’s resurrection.  Those who take the time to do so will see that Eusebius, rather than forcefully reject Mark 16:9-20, advised Marinus about how to punctuate and pronounce (and thus retain) Mark 16:9; they will also see that Eusebius used Mark 16:9 himself on two other occasions in the same composition.  

Tabor then mentions “two other endings,” and here too he misleads his readers.  For he fails to mention that when every Greek manuscript that includes the Shorter Ending – all six of them – was made, the usual 12 verses were included too.  And he says that these endings show up in “various manuscripts” but there is only one manuscript that has what he describes as an ending:  the Freer Logion, found in Codex W.  Furthermore, it is plainly false to call the Freer Logion another ending, because it is not an ending; it is an interpolation, as you can see (page-views below).  This material does not appear after Mark 16:8.  It appears between Mark 16:14 and 16:15, right where Jerome mentioned in one of his writings that he had seen it, “especially in Greek codices.”    

            And that is where Tabor’s presentation of the external evidence ends; the remainder of the article is not much more than restatements of the author’s unorthodox beliefs regarding the nature of the resurrection of Christ.  Where does he mention that Irenaeus specifically quoted Mark 16:19 around the year 180, over a century before Codex Vaticanus was made?  Nowhere.  Where does he mention that manuscripts representing the Byzantine, Western, Caesarea, and Alexandrian text-types include Mark 16:9-20?  Nowhere.  How is it that in a footnote Tabor mentions (via a quotation from Metzger’s Textual Commentary) two Georgian manuscripts from the 800s and 900s, but none of the patristic utilizations of Mark 16:9-20 from the 300s and 400s?  Is evidence from the Vulgate, from Codex Alexandrinus, from Codex Bezae, from Apostolic Constitutions (380), from Ambrose, from Augustine, and from Jerome suddenly so trivial as to be ignored?  No?  Then why – I ask the editors of BAR – was none of this mentioned in their article?     

            No matter what the answer is – whether such glaring omissions and evidence-molding were intentional or accidental – it seems obvious that BAR should be considered a dry well – or worse, a poisoned well – by readers thirsty for accurate descriptions of the external evidence pertinent to important text-critical questions about the text of the New Testament.

Josh Buice and the Ending of Mark

Josh Buice

            Lots of preachers are misinformed about Mark 16:9-20, and Josh Buice is one of them.  In 2016 when he announced to the congregation of Pray’s Mill Baptist Church that he was going to end his sermon-series on Mark at 16:8, he helpfully explained why he was doing so.  Here are his reasons, and my responses.

Buice:  “Below I’ve included the three main reasons why I will not be preaching the longer ending of Mark.”

(1)  The Textual Evidence

Buice:  “The disputed longer ending of the Gospel of Mark does not appear in the two oldest manuscripts of the Bible — the codex Vaticanus (B) and codex Sinaiticus (א).  Many of the Latin, Syrian, Georgian, and Armenian manuscripts likewise end with Mark 16:8.”

            Buice appears to be partly underinformed and partly misinformed.  The first thing to notice about the evidence he describes is that Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are from the 300’s.  They are the oldest two Greek manuscripts of Mark 16, but they are both younger than the testimony of Justin, Tatian, the unknown author of Epistula Apostolorum, and Irenaeus, from the 100’s – all of whom utilized the contents of Mark 16:9-20 in one way or another.

Also, Codex Vaticanus’ copyist left a distinct blank space after Mark 16:8, indicating his awareness of the absent verses.  And in Codex Sinaiticus, there are other anomalous features at this point; the four-page parchment sheet containing Mark 14:54-Luke 1:76 was not made by the main copyist.

As for Buice’s claim about the Latin and Syriac (not Syrian) manuscripts, it is false.  No undamaged Latin manuscript of Mark end the text at 16:8.  And only one Syriac manuscript ends the text at 16:8.  Lots of Armenian manuscripts (all medieval) end the text there (although even more include the passage), and since the Old Georgian version was translated from Armenian, two Old Georgian manuscripts also do so.  But none of those manuscripts are remotely close to the time of Eznik of Golb, an Armenian scholar in the 400’s who used Mark 16:17-18 in his writings.

Buice:  “If the oldest (earliest) manuscripts don’t have the longer ending, it points to a later addition by some scribe who might have considered the Mark 16:8 a strange way to end John Mark’s work.”

            The manuscripts used by Justin, Tatian, the unknown author of Epistula Apostolorum, and by Irenaeus were much older than the two manuscripts from the 300’s (Vaticanus and Sinaiticus) to which Josh refers.  Furthermore, why focus on those two old copies and not mention the other ancient manuscripts of Mark that support the inclusion of 16:9-20:  Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Ephrem Rescriptus, Codex Bezae, Codex Washingtoniensis, and all the other uncial manuscripts of Mark?  Over 99% of the Greek manuscripts support the passage, and they did not spring from the ground; they had ancestor-manuscripts, and it is remiss to ignore – to hide – their testimony from the man in the pew, particularly if one is going to promote the idea (as Buice does) that the more manuscripts one has, the better the text is preserved.

Buice:  “In addition, the longer ending of Mark (16:9-20) contains at least 14 different words that are not found anywhere else in the Gospel of Mark.  Considering the fact that John Mark is ending his work on Jesus’ life and ministry, it would be rather odd to start inserting new vocabulary in the last 12 verses of his work.”

            This all sounds good until one notices that Mark uses 20 words in 15:40-16:4 (12 verses) that are not found anywhere else in the Gospel of Mark.  Then Buice’s vocabulary-based argument is exposed as a hollow shell that is only persuasive when used on listeners who are uninformed about the evidence. 

Buice:  “This points to the fact that someone added it to the Gospel of Mark and was not an original ending from John Mark himself.”

            Except (a) calling it a “fact” in the course of the argument is loaded language, and (b) if the use of 14 new words in Mark 16:9-20 “points to the fact” that Mark didn’t write those verses, then the use of 20 new words in Mark 15:40-16:4 “points to the fact” that Mark didn’t write those 12 verses either.  The real facts that Buice needs to fathom are that (a) in a relatively brief work such as the Gospel of Mark, every 12-verse segment is likely to have some unique vocabulary, and (b)  if Buice were to apply his vocabulary-based approach to other parts of Mark (and to other parts of the New Testament), he would draw them into question too.

(2) The Historical Evidence

Buice:  “When we read authors, theologians, preachers, and scholars from church history, it’s apparent that many of them did not have any knowledge of the longer ending of the Gospel of Mark.  For instance, Clement of Alexandria and Origen both show no evidence in their writing that they embraced a longer ending of Mark.”

            Buice thus put his ignorance of patristic writers on display.  Besides the four second-century writers already mentioned – Justin, Tatian, the unknown author of Epistula Apostolorum, and Irenaeus – there are numerous early authors, preachers, and scholars who demonstrate their awareness and acceptance of Mark 16:9-20.  These individuals include the author of De rebaptismate (258), the pagan author Hierocles (305), Eusebius of Caesarea (325), Eusebius’ contemporary Marinus, Aphrahat the Syrian (337), the unknown author of Acts of Pilate (300’s), Ambrose of Milan (380’s), Ephrem the Syrian (360’s), Apostolic Constitutions (380), Augustine (late 300’s/early 400’s), Greek manuscripts mentioned by Augustine, Epiphanius of Salamis (late 300s), Patrick, the creators of various forms of the Old Latin chapter-summaries, Jerome, Macarius Magnes, Prosper of Aquitaine, Marius Mercator, Marcus Eremita, Nestorius (as cited by Cyril of Alexandria), Peter Chrysologus, Severus of Antioch, Leontius of Jerusalem, the unknown author of The History of John the Son of Zebedee, and the unknown author of the Coptic composition  The Enthronement of the Archangel Michael.

            But Buice assures us that “Clement of Alexandria and Origen both show no evidence in their writing that they embraced a longer ending of Mark.”  This is nothing but a repetition of the claim passed down from Bruce Metzger’s Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament:  “Clement of Alexandria and Origen show no knowledge of the existence of these verses.”  This appeal to Clement is laughable, inasmuch as he scarcely used any of the Gospel of Mark except chapter 10.  Everything in Clement’s writing points to the absence of 16:9-20 as much as everything in Clement’s writing point to the absence of the first seven entire chapters of Mark.  Buice (like many others) has preposterously misrepresented the evidence from Clement.    

Buice:  “Eusebius, the church historian born approximately AD 260, claims that the most accurate copies and “almost all copies” of Mark’s Gospel ended at Mark 16:8.”

            If someone were to pass a law against misrepresenting Eusebius’ statements about Mark 16:9-20, Buice and many other commentators would be imprisoned.  The first thing that should be realized is that Eusebius, writing in the early 300’s following the Diocletian persecution, had no way to survey all manuscripts everywhere; his references to quantities of manuscripts refers to what could be compared in particular places.  

            The second thing that should be realized is that when one looks at Eusebius’ main comments about Mark 16:9-20 in the composition Ad Marinum, he addressed how to harmonize Matthew 28:1-2 and Mark 16:9 and offered two explanations:  one way is to reject the passage on the grounds that it is not in all the manuscripts, or not in the accurate ones, or seldom in any of them – and the other way is to accept the passage and punctuate the opening sentence.  And what option did Eusebius recommend that Marinus take?  The second one.  Eusebius went into verbose detail about how to pronounce Mark 16:9 to resolve the perceived discrepancy with Matthew 28.  He frames the description of manuscripts as something that could be said by someone who rejects the passage, but he does not regard this as some sort of definitive statement, or else he would not have proceeded to tell Marinus how the passages can be harmonized.  Eusebius also cited Mark 16:9 twice elsewhere in the same composition.

Buice:  “Jerome likewise points out that Mark 16:9-20 was absent from the majority of the manuscripts available during his lifetime.”

            Again Buice exposes the shallowness of his research.  For it is obvious that Jerome accepted the passage (he included 16:9-20 in the Vulgate and referred to Mark 16:14 in Against the Pelagians 2:14).  In the composition upon which Buice depends (Ad Hedibiam, Epistle 120), Jerome was abridging and loosely translating into Latin the contents of Eusebius’ earlier composition to Marinus.  Jerome, in the course of answering a broad question about Jesus’ resurrection-appearances, recycled the work of Eusebius, and even included three of the questions that Marinus had asked Eusebius, in the same order.   The statement of Jerome to which Buice refers is essentially Eusebius’ statement, put into Latin by Jerome.   D. C. Parker has written, “Jerome’s work is simply a translation with some slight changes of what Eusebius had written” (Living Text of the Gospels, p. 135).   

Buice:  “The overwhelming historical evidence points to the fact that the earliest witnesses to the apostles viewed the ending of Mark to be 16:8.”

            At this point Buice is just making stuff up, all while failing to inform his congregation about the evidence from the 100’s – the earliest patristic evidence we have – that favors the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20.

Buice:  “When reading the Ante-Nicene Fathers (the ancient writings leading up to A.D. 325), it’s apparent that they viewed the ending of the Gospel of Mark to be 16:8 rather than 16:20.”

That statement is manifestly false.  The many utilizations of Mark 16:9-20 by the authors I have already listed, both before the Council of Nicea and afterwards, demonstrate that Buice’s claim is detached from reality.

(3)  Doctrinal Evidence

            Buice sees “troubling doctrines” and in Mark 16:9-20 and uses this as part of his basis for rejecting the passage.  This is a problematic approach, not only because it is not scientific, but because it is inconsistent.  If textual variants can be validly selected according to how well they correspond to one’s doctrine, then why does the ESV, made by people who subscribe to the doctrine of inerrancy, say that Jesus was descended from Asaph and Amos, or that Isaiah wrote Malachi 3:1?  Let’s just select the more doctrinally palatable variant and such things can be efficiently resolved! 

            If such an approach is not valid in those cases then it Is not valid regarding Mark 16:9-20 either.  

            I submit that what Buice sees as “strange doctrines” emanate from interpreters, and not from the text itself.  For the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20 is supported not only in 99% of the Greek manuscripts of Mark, and in 99.9% of the Latin manuscripts of Mark, and 99% of the Syriac manuscripts of Mark, but it is also in the Greek lectionaries; yet the Greek and Latin and Syriac churches have somehow avoided advocating snake-handling and poison-drinking and sensationalistic faith-healers.  Martin Luther likewise fully accepted Mark 16:9-20 (as did the formulators of the Westminster Confession of Faith) and yet he is not known for snake-handling.   

          As for “baptismal regeneration” – as if this passage says more about baptism than the New Testament teaches about confession – perhaps Buice should consider whether he is teaching correctly about the purpose of baptism in the New Testament, and ask himself and his fellow Baptists whether the baptisms described in the book of Acts were intrinsically public.  But in any case it is surely a bad methodology to base one’s text on one’s doctrine, and not the other way around.

            If Buice considers the content of Mark 16:17-18 as indicative that the passage is spurious, what is he going to do with the broader declarations in Luke 19:10 and Matthew 17:20 and Mark 11:24-25?  Should we invent a bad interpretation and use that as a reason to reject these passages (the way Buice approaches Mark 16:9-20)?  No passage is safe from such an approach. 

Finally, after mentioning that there are 643 copies of Homer’s Iliad, Buice states:  “When we compare that to the 5,839 New Testament manuscripts and approximately 25,000 manuscripts in Latin and other languages — the mountain of evidence rests on the side of the Bible.”

            It should first be noted that Buice’s example is unfair to Homer; Homer is one author; the New Testament includes works by several authors, and different parts of the New Testament are represented by very different quantities of manuscripts.

            But a larger point overshadows Buice’s whole argument:  if it is granted that the more manuscripts we have, the better the text is preserved, then Mark 16:9-20 should be accepted without a second thought, because these verses are supported in over 99% of the Greek manuscripts of the Gospels, and in the Greek lectionaries.  There can be no doubt (unless one has been a victim of sad misrepresentations of the facts of history like the one offered by Buice) that Mark 16:9-20 is part of the text that has been handed down in the churches from generation to generation, century after century, wherever the Greek text has been copied.  The mountain of evidence rests on the side of Mark 16:9-20.

            I note in conclusion that F. F. Bruce, the deceased scholar cited by Buice at the end of his comments on Mark 16:9-20, wrote this about these 12 verses:  “While we cannot regard them as an integral part of the Gospel to which they are now attached, no Christian need have any hesitation in reading them as Holy Scripture.”