Rising Star: What's Nelson Hsieh Think? (Part One)

Nelson Hsieh

"James, you handsome rogue," I wondered, "Regarding New Testament textual criticism, what school of thought is represented by the new guy, Nelson Hsieh, the Assistant Professor of New Testament at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary?"  I decided to find out, so here is the first part of an interview with Dr. Hsieh on an assortment of issues.

Q:  The foundational premise of Hort’s approach, and his motive for rejecting all distinctly Byzantine readings, was his theory of a Lucianic recension.  Peter Gurry insists that virtually nobody adheres to that theory anymore.  So, regarding the Gospels-text only, where and how did the Byzantine Text originate?

         

Hsieh:  I’m not fully convinced that the Lucianic recension theory has been 100% refuted. The testimony of Jerome certainly suggests that Lucian had some sort of editorial hand among Gospel manuscripts. And the Lucianic recension of the Septuagint is quite well-established and the characteristics of the Septuagint Lucianic recension certainly match many of the characteristics of the New Testament Byzantine text; see Bruce M. Metzger, “Lucian and the Lucianic Recension of the Greek Bible,” NTS 8 (1962): 189–203; Kurt Aland, “The Text of the Church?,” TJ 8 (1987): 131–44.

 Furthermore, we probably shouldn’t create a false dichotomy where, on one side, there is a recension in the strict sense (a large-scale editorial effort to edit a text according to predetermined principles) and, on the other side, there is no editing or revision at all. Maybe Lucian made some small revisions in the fourth century in just the Gospels (since Jerome speaks about Lucian in the context of the Gospels), and not necessarily a large-scale recension of the entire New Testament.

Certainly some Byzantine readings are early as shown by Harry Sturz with alignments between the papyri and later Byzantine readings; see Harry A. Sturz, The Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament Textual Criticism (Nelson, 1984) and also David Alan Black, “A Sturzian Solution to the Problem of ‘Original Text’ as Illustrated by Eph 1:1, Matt 5:22, and John 3:13,” in Can We Recover the Original Text of the New Testament?, ed. Abidan Paul Shah and David Alan Black (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2023), 67–86. 

The papyri were not available to Westcott & Hort, so they obviously couldn’t see examples of Byzantine-papyri agreements. And the church fathers often show us that Byzantine readings are early, even if we don’t possess any early Greek manuscript witnesses for a Byzantine reading (e.g. with the Long Ending of Mark being found in Irenaeus). But a few isolated early Byzantine readings do not mean that the Byzantine Text as a whole is early.

Maybe the answer about origin is a combination of several factors: Lucian’s revisions to the Gospels, early scribal interpolations (e.g. the Long Ending of Mark in the second century, and Pericope of the Adulteress in the third century), and later scribal revisions/smoothing out of the text — which eventually were supplemented by later editorial efforts (like the Harklean Syriac version and von Soden’s K^r group) leading to a fairly standardized late Byzantine Majority text in the 13th century onwards (as Klaus Wachtel argues for the Catholic Epistles). But we can’t be certain. And I don’t see why Lucian has to be tossed out entirely; he could have had a small part in the origin of the Byzantine Textform.

Q:  Considering the likelihood that users of Scripture in languages other than Greek would like to observe that the the text in their language was based on Greek, when a Greek text was used at a scriptorium as the basis for a version, did that particular form of the Greek text get locked into place?

Hsieh:  It is hard to see why a version must have been “locked into place” by an initial Greek exemplar. On subsequent copying, it would be unsurprising for scribes to check against whatever Greek manuscripts were available, which could have differed from the initial Greek exemplar. 

And we have clear examples where versions are corrected/updated against different Greek exemplars (Old Latin vs. Vulgate, and Old Syriac vs. Peshitta). Any “locking in” probably had more to do with liturgical use and/or ecclesiastical authority like with the Peshitta as liturgical standard for the Syriac church, and with the Vulgate for the Latin/Western church.

Q:  In Acts 27:37, 03 and an early layer of the Sahidic version both say that “about 76” souls were aboard the ship.  F. F. Bruce, and Dean John Burgon before him, surmised how this variant came into existence from the usual “276.” Considering how unlikely it is that two independent scribes made the same quirky mistake, was 03’s exemplar (or ancestor) the basis for the Sahidic version of Acts?

Hsieh:  To draw a connection between 03’s exemplar and the Sahidic version of Acts, we would need far more evidence than a single reading, so I wouldn’t make any claim until we could look at more instances of 03-Sahidic agreements that disagree with the rest of the tradition. This is not something I’ve researched before, so I can’t say anymore unless someone already has a list of such agreements.

Q:  In the book of Revelation, what reading do you consider the most unstable in the Nestle-Aland compilation? 

Hsieh:  Probably Revelation 5:9: “You redeemed to God by your blood,” which follows the singular reading in Codex Alexandrinus that omits the pronoun “us,” so there is no object for the verb

“redeem.” ECM Revelation rightly goes with the rest of the manuscript tradition in including the pronoun “us.” The variant occurs at the end of a column in Codex Alexandrinus, so it is easy to understand the scribe of Alexandrinus accidently omitting the pronoun.

Q:  There is a longstanding philosophical debate that overlaps with the text-critical contest between the Byzantine Textform and the Nestle-Aland compilation, orbiting the question, To what is the ordinary Christian obligated to submit to:  the text as issued by the initial producers of each book of the New Testament, or the text as approved and disseminated by the church?.  Which side do you favor?

Hsieh:  Of course, we don’t have the initial/original text regardless of whether one is a Byzantine Textform or critical text advocate, so it’s not possible for an ordinary Christian to submit to a text that we do not possess. We only have an approximation of the initial/original text (whether Byzantine Textform or critical text – both are approximations). I am an evangelical and a Baptist, so obviously I wouldn’t favor a Roman Catholic approach where the biblical text is approved and disseminated by the “church.”

I would say that the ordinary Christian submits to the Word of God that (in God’s providence) is available to them. So a tenth century monk who only has access to one Byzantine text manuscript submits to the biblical text available to him, while a Christian in the twenty-first century submits to the biblical text available – whether a translation, or a Greek critical text. 

But more important is how significant the differences are between the Nestle-Aland editions and the Byzantine Textform. I have looked at all the differences between Robinson & Pierpont’s Byzantine Textform and Nestle-Aland 27 (in RP’s lower apparatus), and I will say that there is not really any textual difference that would significantly affect doctrine or practice for the ordinary Christian. For example, the Byzantine text has four more references to fasting (1 Cor 7:5; Matt 17:21; Mark 9:29; Acts 10:30) than NA27, but I doubt that this would increase (or decrease) the practice of fasting among ordinary Christians. A person’s theological beliefs or denomination would probably have more influence on one’s practice of fasting than which biblical text was used. 

Johannes Karavidopoulos, the only Eastern Orthodox scholar on the UBS4/NA27 editorial committee, said during committee meetings: “I fought especially for New Testament verses which are very familiar to the Greek Orthodox audience because of their liturgical use (e.g., Mark 9:29) . . . But I did not succeed in many cases.” (see Peter J. Gurry, “ETC Interview with John Karavidopoulos,” Evangelical Textual Criticism (blog), September 22, 2015, http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2015/09/etc-interview-with-john-karavidopoulos.html). Karavidopoulos has passed away, but he would probably be pleased to see the THGNT and ECM Mark (and therefore NA29) adopting the Byzantine reading with fasting in Mark 9:29.

Other examples – the doctrine of the Trinity does not need the Johannine Comma to be supported and believed. Without the Pericope of the Adulteress, we do lose a beautiful story about Jesus’s mercy towards a marginalized woman and his critique of the religious leaders – but such themes are prevalent throughout the rest of the Gospels. Without Luke 23:34a (“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”), we do lose a magnificent saying of Jesus from the cross. But other passages in the New Testament teach about loving our enemies (Matt 5:44; Luke 6:35) and about the ignorance of the Jews in condemning Jesus to death (Acts 3:17; 13:27), so the essential teaching of Luke 23:34a is still found elsewhere in the New Testament, even if the text is judged to be a later interpolation.

Q:  The conjectural emendation in NA28 in Second Peter 3:10 that effectively reverses the meaning of the sentence printed in previous edition: do you support it?

Hsieh: No, I disagree with the NA28’s conjecture – although I suppose it hinges more on the meaning of εὑρεθήσεται (can it mean “exposed” in ESV or “laid bare” in NIV-1984?). Metzger and others cannot make sense of εὑρεθήσεται – how can the earth “be found” after the eschatological burning up of all things? 

But an intelligible meaning is possible: Jörg Frey suggests that in the context of apocalyptic literature, the verb can have the sense of “being brought to judgment,” so that there is no need for a conjecture (what Frey calls “an act of desperation” on the part of the ECM). See Jörg Frey, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, trans. Kathleen Ess (Baylor University Press, 2018), 409-11. 

And there is an additional argument in favor of viewing εὑρεθήσεται as judgment: it’s not only the physical earth (γῆ) being exposed, but the earth and its works (τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ ἔργα) being exposed, so that mankind is in view and not just the physical earth.

NA27 / THGNT’s reading εὑρεθήσεται seems to best represent the original text. The external evidence is early and good (01, 03, 025, 1739txt; P72 indirectly) and it’s easier to understand a change from εὑρεθήσεται to κατακαήσεται based on harmonization than the other way around. In other words, I think that the Byzantine reading κατακαήσεται (“be burned up”) is probably a harmonization to earlier in the verse: στοιχεῖα δὲ καυσούμενα λυθήσεται (“the elements being burned up will be dissolved”) and verse 12 also: στοιχεῖα καυσούμενα τήκεται (“the elements being burned up will melt”).

However, I do look forward to hearing Peter Gurry’s paper on this issue at SBL in November 2026, where he still insists that conjecture is still necessary. In his SBL paper abstract, he says: “a near consensus has developed among modern commentators and translators that the original text is εὑρεθήσεται (“will be found”). This shift relies on a lexical interpretation where the verb means “laid bare” (NIV) or “disclosed” (NRSVue). This paper challenges this consensus based on a survey of over 850 uses of the verb, demonstrating that it cannot sustain such a meaning in this context. Consequently, conjectural emendation remains a legitimate and even necessary solution.”

Q:  Michael Holmes’ benign conjectural emendation in the SBL-GNT in First Corinthians 6:5:  do you support it?

Hsieh: On principle, I am against conjectural emendations, but they are certainly interesting in revealing exegetical difficulties and attempts to solve such difficulties. Erasmus (in his Annotations on 1 Corinthians) noticed the grammatical difficulty in 1 Cor 6:5 (διακρῖναι ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ) – how is it possible to judge between one brother? We would either expect the plural ἀδελφῶν (“judge between brothers”), or an additional phrase like καὶ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ (“judge between a brother and a brother”), but no Greek manuscript attests to either possibility. According to the INTF’s Database of Conjectures, Theodore Beza conjectures the plural ἀδελφῶν, while Zuntz, Weiss, and Grotius conjecture various additional phrases that add a second individual. Also see Jan Krans, Beyond What Is Written: Erasmus and Beza as Conjectural Critics of the New Testament, ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, NTTS 35 (Brill, 2006), 180-81, and Jeffrey Kloha, “1 Corinthians 6:5: A Proposal,” NovT 46 (2004): 132-42.

The Latin Book of Armagh (Vetus Latina 61; Oxford Vulgate D) supports Beza’s conjecture of the plural “brothers.” [“Ad verecundiam vestram dico. Sic non est inter vos sapiens quisquam qui possit iudicare inter fratrem suum?” - JSJ]  The second type of conjecture adding an additional phrase is supported by the Syriac Peshitta and five Latin manuscripts – Codices Augiensis, Boernerianus, Sarisburiensis, a recent addition to Toletanus, and a correction to Ulmensis, but the evidence is not so easy to interpret; see the discussion of these Latin manuscripts in Gunther Zuntz, “The Critic Correcting the Author,” Philologus 99 (1955): 295-303. On patristic evidence for either the plural or a longer reading, see Kloha, 139-41.

Holmes and the SBLGNT’s conjecture at 1 Cor 6:5 are almost certainly dependent on Zuntz, who suggests that these versional witnesses do not go back to the original text of 1 Corinthians, but are conjectures/variants arising within the Syriac and Latin tradition, demonstrating attempts to make the text more clear and “correct.” Zuntz also suggests that the omission of an additional phrase (καὶ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ) arose in Paul’s autograph since no Greek manuscript attests to an addition, and the omission was not a scribal error in copying.

To avoid conjecture, one could also better explain the grammar of 1 Cor 6:5. Johannes Weiss (Der erste Korintherbrief [Ruprecht: 1910], 150) and BDAG, 57, provide some examples to alleviate the grammatical difficulty by suggesting Paul is using an abbreviated expression (Gen 16:5, ἀνὰμέσον ἐμοῦ καὶ σοῦ; Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (SEG) IX.8.64, ἀνὰμέσον Ἑλλήνων; JosAs 28:6, ἀνὰμέσον ἐμοῦ καὶ ὑμῶν; Sir 25:18). But only Sirach 25:18 is a true parallel to 1 Cor 6:5 with a singular object of the preposition: ἀνὰ μέσον τῶν (v.l. τοῦ) πλησίον αὐτοῦ, although there is a variant with the article τῶν. If τῶν is the original text (as adopted in the Göttingen Septuagint), then it is not a true parallel to 1 Cor 6:5. The other examples demonstrate that two objects are needed (Gen 16:5; JosAs 28:6), or a plural (SEG IX.8.64).

On the whole – I would agree with Zuntz that the Latin and Syriac readings were probably conjectures/variants that arose within those versions rather than witnesses to a Greek variant or to the original Greek text. It is especially revealing that Codices Boernerianus and Augiensis are both Greek-Latin diglots, yet the Greek sides do not match the additional text on the Latin sides in 1 Cor 6:5. However, I’m not so comfortable with Zuntz’s conjecture and explanation; perhaps additional grammatical study will yield more and better examples that can alleviate the grammatical difficulty in 1 Cor 6:5.

 

Continued soon in Part Two!

 

Second Peter 3:10 - A Step Backwards in NA28

 

            Has the church lost the original text of Second Peter 3:10?

            “Doubtless” was Hort’s answer in 1881.    His note is a bit torpid but his verdict is clear:

“iii.10 (†) εὑρεθήσεται] οὐχ εὐρεθήσεται syr.bod[= an obscure Syriac version of the three Catholic Epistles not in the Syriac canon] theb :  κατακαήσεται (? Alexandrian and) Constantinopolitan (Gr. Lat. Syr. Eg. Æth.) ; incl. A L₂ lat. vg. codd Cyr.al Aug:  ἀφανισθήσονται C: , ni: , the whole clause (καὶ γῆ … κατακ.) lat. vg pp^scr pp^lat.scr.  Text ﬡBK₂P₂27 29 66** syr.hl.mg. arm :  cf. bod the.  The great difficulty of text has evidently given rise to all these variations (Introd. § 365).  It is doubtless itself a corruption of ῾ρυήσεται (῾ρεήσεται) or of one of its compounds.”

Second Peter 3:10 in Codex Alexandrinus

            The Byzantine text of II Peter 3:10 is:   Ἥξει δὲ ἡ ἡμέρα κυ ὡς κλέπτης ἐν νυκτί ἐν ᾗ οἱ οὐρανοὶ ҅ροιζηδον παρελεύσονται στοιχεῖα δὲ καυσούμενα λυθήσονται καὶ γῆ καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ ἔργα κατακήσεται – diverging from the text of NA27 at five points, two of which are detectable in translation:  the simple presence or absence of ἐν νυκτί and the final word of the sentence.     

            While the shorter reading is explainable as a loss due to parablepsis from the ἐν before νυκτί to the ἐν after it, and its longer rival is supported by C K L 049 104 629 1751 Byz, the Byzantine reading was assumed so readily by the editors of UBS4 to be a harmonization to First Thessalonians 5:2 that it didn’t even receive a listing in the apparatus.  The array of external against it is indeed very impressive – P72 ﬡ A B P Ψ 048^vid 0156 33 323 945 1739 Vulgate Coptic. 

      
      It is the textual contest at the end of the verse that has attracted the most attention recently, because the editors of Novum Testamentum Graece decided to print in the text a reading which is not found in any Greek manuscript of Second Peter.   The textual contest in the last word of Second Peter 3:10 has been an issue for a long time.   Not only Westcott & Hort but also (according to NA27’s apparatus) Naber, Olivier, Mayor, and Eberhard Nestle each proposed different conjectural emendations here – swept away, conflagrated, removed, and judged, respectively).  Normal people might imagine that an “embarrassment of riches,” would naturally preclude such guesses, but, no, the NET’s annotator candidly admits that this is “one of the most difficult textual problems in the NT.” 

            The NET’s annotator firmly endorsed εὑρεθήσται as the original reading, arguing that the opacity of the meaning of εὑρεθήσται provoked scribes to substitute a word that seemed easier to understand.  This is perfectly lucid.  In addition, the meaning of the text in the smattering of non-Greek witnesses enlisted to support ουχ is accounted for as a harmonization to the meaning of Revelation 20:11 (οὐχ εὐρέθη in the majority text).  The conjectural emendation that currently is printed in NA28 cannot be recommended as superior – but it does serve as an interesting and obvious admission that the editors do not believe that the original text of Second Peter 3:10 has survived in any extant Greek witness.  Some onlookers have assumed that the C.B.G.M. had something to do with the editors’ decision, but that seems impossible, inasmuch as there is no coherence to consider.

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.

Biblical Archaeology Review and the Ending of Mark (Part 1)

            In 2001, Bible Review, which was at the time a sister-publication with Biblical Archaeological Review, featured an article by Michael Holmes:  To Be Continued … The Many Endings of the Gospel of Mark.” Although Bible Review was discontinued, that article is still being distributed by BAR  in a collection of article titled, Easter:  Exploring the Resurrection of Jesus.  Unfortunately, Holmes’ article contains numerous statements which either significantly distort the evidence pertaining to the subject of the ending of the Gospel of Mark, or else omit important details which, if presented, convey a different impression to readers.  Here they are, with clarifying notes.

(1)  “At least nine versions of the ending of Mark can be found among the 1,700 ancient Greek manuscripts and early translations of the Bible.”

            This sensationalistic claim gives the impression that nine different endings were composed for Mark 16.  Granted, Holmes goes into more detail further along in his article – but this sentence is likely to be quoted solo for sensationalistic effect.  In real life, the tally looks like this, in basic terms of whether the Greek manuscripts have verses 9-20 or the Shorter Ending or both:

            ● In Codex Vaticanus (from c. 325), Mark 16:8 is followed by the book-title, which is followed by a deliberately-placed blank space.

            ● In Codex Sinaiticus (from c. 350), Mark 16:8 is followed by an emphatic column-wide decorative design, followed by the book-title.  In addition, all four pages in Codex Sinaiticus containing Mark 14:54-Luke 1:56 constitute a cancel-sheet; that is, these four pages were produced by the diorthotes, or proofreader/supervisor, when the manuscript was in production; the text on these four pages was not written by the same copyist who wrote the text on the surrounding pages.  The diorthotes wrote Luke 1:1-56 in extremely compact lettering, and wrote the text in the ninth column of the cancel-sheet in extremely stretched-out lettering. 

            ● In 304 (from the 1100’s), the text of Mark ends at the end of 16:8 without a subscription and without the book-title.  304’s text of Mark is interspersed with a commentary, and the commentary continues after this point for several pages, describing parallel-passages from the other Gospels, but then it abruptly stops.  304 is probably simply a damaged manuscript, possibly one which, when initially produced, was a single-volume Gospels-manuscript which was rebound as two volumes.

            ● In six Greek manuscripts, the Shorter Ending appears – always accompanied by at least part of Mark 16:9-20.  These six Greek manuscripts are 083 (from the 600’s), 099 (from around 600), L (from the 700’s), Ψ (from the 800’s), 274 (from the 900’s), and 579 (from the 1200’s).  

            ● In the remaining 1,600+ Greek manuscripts of Mark, 16:8 is followed by 16:9. 

            When we leave Holmes’ sensationalistic fantasy of “nine versions” of Mark 16, and explore the evidence, we see that two endings – not nine – were attached to Mark 16:8.  We also see that every Greek witness for the Shorter Ending also contains at least part of verses 9-20. 

(2)  “We also have copies of Syriac, Sahidic Coptic and Armenian translations dating as early as the fourth century that preserve this form.”

            The blurriness of Holmes’ statement may be remedied by focusing on the evidence.

            ● One Syriac manuscript (the Sinaitic Syriac) ends the text of Mark at 16:8.  It is the only Syriac manuscript to do so. 

            ● One Sahidic Coptic manuscript ends the text of Mark at 16:8.  This is Codex P. Palau-Ribes Inv. Nr. 182.  When initially published, it was assigned a date around 425 (which is not “as early as the fourth century”) but it may be centuries younger.

            ● We do not have Armenian manuscripts of Mark from the fourth century.  The Armenian alphabet was not created until the early fifth century.  Holmes’ claim is simply erroneous.

(3)  “Eusebius wrote:  The accurate copies conclude the story according to Mark in the words of the young man seen by the women and saying to them, “Do not be afraid.  You seek Jesus . . . for they were afraid.”  For the end is here in nearly all the copies of Mark.”

  

            If Holmes had given his readers a closer look at Eusebius’ statements about Mark 16:9-20, they would receive a far different impression than the one given by this cherry-picked quotation.  That statement – from Eusebius’ composition Ad Marinum – is part of a response to a question about how to harmonize the accounts of Matthew and Mark when it comes to the time of Jesus’ resurrection.  Eusebius says that there are two ways to settle this question:
            “This could be resolved in two ways.  On one hand, the person who rejects the passage itself – the pericope which says this – might say this:  ‘It does not appear in all copies of the Gospel of Mark.  At least, the accurate copies close Mark’s account with the words of the young man who appeared to the women and said to them, “Do not fear.  You are seeking Jesus the Nazarene” and so forth, proceeding to where it says, ‘And having heard, they fled, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.’
            “For there the Gospel of Mark is brought to a close in almost all the copies.  The material that comes afterward seldom appears; it is in some copies but not in all, and may be spurious, especially since it implies a disagreement with the witness of the other Gospels.’  This, then, is what someone might say to avoid and altogether dismiss a superfluous question.
            “On the other hand, someone else, who dares to set aside nothing at all which appears, by whatever means, in the Gospel-Scriptures, says that this point in the narratives, like many others, is described in two ways, and each of the two must be accepted, since they are advocated by the faithful and pious, not this one instead of that one, or that one rather than this one. 
            “And furthermore, since it is granted that this section is true, it is appropriate to seek to fathom the meaning of the passage.  And if we accurately discern the sense of the words, we would not find it contrary to what Matthew said: ‘Late on the Sabbath’ the Savior was raised.  For we will read Mark’s ‘and having risen early on the first day of the week’ with a pause:  after ‘and having risen,’ we shall add a comma.  And we will separate the meaning of what is read next:  so, on one hand, we could read ‘having risen’ in regard to Matthew’s ‘late on the Sabbath,’ for that is when he was raised.  On the other hand, we might join what follows, producing a different meaning, with what is read next:  for ‘early on the first day of the week he appeared to Mary Magdalene.’

            “At any rate, John has also made this clear, and has himself testified that the appearance to the Magdalene was ‘early on the first day of the week.’  So, likewise, in Mark also he appeared ‘early’ to her.  It is not [that] he ‘rose early’ but much earlier, according to Matthew, ‘late on the Sabbath.’  For having arisen at that time, he did not appear to Mary at that time, but ‘early.’  The implication is that two episodes are represented by these phrases:  one is the time of the resurrection, which was late on the Sabbath; the other, of the appearance of the Savior, which was early.  Mark referred to the later time when he wrote, saying what must be read with a pause:  ‘And having risen.’  Then, after adding a comma, one must read the rest – ‘early on the first day of the week He appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons.’”

            When the full contents of this part of Ad Marinum are revealed, it is plain that Eusebius was not very concerned about the consistency of the view of a hypothetical person who rejected Mark 16:9-20:  the description of the manuscript-evidence swings from “not in all” to “hardly in any” – because that was not Eusebius’ approach to the issue when he wrote Ad Marinum.  He recommended that Marinus should accept Mark 16:9-20 and resolve the perceived discrepancy via the insertion of punctuation in Mark 16:9.    Furthermore, in the course of answering Marinus’ third question in Ad Marinum, Eusebius refers to Mary Magdalene as the Mary “from whom, according to Mark, he [Jesus] had cast out seven devils.”  (This detail, also related less precisely in Luke 8:2, is stated in Mark only in 16:9), showing that Eusebius used a text which included Mark 16:9-20.  (Those who wish to see the text of Ad Marinum for themselves may consult Eusebius of Caesarea:  Gospel Problems and Solutions, edited by Roger Pearse; see especially pages 96-99, 112-113, and 118-119.)

            Holmes did not warn his readers against interpreting Eusebius’ statement about quantities of manuscripts anachronistically, so I will do so here.  When Eusebius wrote in the early 300’s, not long after the Diocletian persecution, he had no means to survey the manuscript-collections of libraries and churches in far-flung locations.  When he refers to quantities of manuscripts, he is not referring to proportions of all manuscripts in existence.  At best – if he is not casually guessing or repeating unverified claims from some other writer – he is describing proportions of manuscripts that he has encountered.  The experience of a contemporary somewhere else might be entirely different (and was different to Eusebius’ contemporary Marinus).   

(4)  “Eusebius’ report is echoed some decades later by Jerome (c. 343-420), who based his Latin translation of the Vulgate on the oldest Greek texts known at the time.  Speaking of Mark 16:9-20 (the final verses that are not included in the shortest form), he writes that this section “is found in only a few copies of the Gospel – almost all the Greek copies being without this final passage.”

            “Echo” is truly the correct word to describe how Jerome used Eusebius’ material in Ad Marinum.  Jerome frequently borrowed material from other writers without naming his source – and he straightforwardly admitted doing so.  That is what he did in the early 400’s, when he was writing Ad Hedibiam (at a time in his life when most of his letters were written by dictation).  Facing a broad question about how the accounts of events following Jesus’ resurrection should be harmonized, Jerome replied by summarizing Eusebius’ first three responses to Marinus – along with forms of Marinus’ first three questions – and loosely restated them in Latin.  As David C. Parker has pointed out (on page 135 of The Living Text of the Gospels, © 1997 David Parker), in this part of Ad Hedibiam, “Jerome’s work is simply a translation with some slight changes of what Eusebius had written.  It is thus worthless for our purposes.”

            Holmes thus presented part of Eusebius’ statement twice (once from Eusebius, and once from Jerome’s Latin abridgement) – and both times, he somehow neglected to mention that in Eusebius’ Ad Marinum, and in Jerome’s Ad Hebidiam, the person to whom the letter is addressed is instructed to retain Mark 16:9-20. 

(5)  “The intermediate ending is found only in Codex Bobbiensis, an Old Latin manuscript that was written in the late fourth or early fifth century but that preserves a text whose roots go back at least to the early third century.  We know this because the text is very similar to that cited by Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (d. 258), in his writings.”

            Holmes omitted some important details:  (a)  Codex Bobbiensis is thoroughly damaged, rendering it somewhat tenuous to extrapolate a close relationship to Cyprian’s Gospels-text.  (b)  The text of Mark 16:1-8 in Codex Bobbiensis is extremely corrupt; among other things, it contains a unique insertion between verses 3 and 4, and omits part of verse 8.  (c)  The Shorter Ending is very badly written in Codex Bobbiensis:  he wrote “puero” (child) instead of “Petro” (Peter), and wrote the Latin equivalent of “from east to east,” and omitted the word “praedictionis.”  Basic errors abound throughout the text of this manuscript, as if the copyist was seeing an exemplar of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark for the very first time. 

(6)  “These verses are also found in a wide range of early translations.  They include most manuscripts of the Old Latin.”

            Or to put it another way:  every undamaged Old Latin manuscript of Mark 16 includes verses 9-20, except Codex Bobbiensis.  The Gothic version (produced by Wulfilas in the mid-300’s) was not mentioned by Holmes. It includes Mark 16:9-20 immediately after 16:8.  Likewise the Garima Gospels – the earliest Ethiopic Gospels-manuscript, produced sometime in the 400’s-600’s – should be ungagged:  it contains Mark 16:9-20 immediately after 16:8.

              

(7)  “This long version was known among the early church fathers.  The Christian apologist Justin Martyr (d. c. 165) probably knew the longer ending; the church father Irenaeus, who quotes Mark 16:19 in his work Against Heresies (written c. 175), certainly did.  The apologist Tatian apparently cited it in his Diatessaron, a late second-century harmony of the four Gospels, and the church father Hippolytus (c. 170-236) quotes 16:17-18.”

            This is all true as far as it goes (though I would say that Justin’s use of Mark 16:9-20 is more than just probable, and the corresponding arrangement of Mark 16:9-20 in the Arabic Diatessaron and in Codex Fuldensis locks down the case that Tatian used the passage).  But some other patristic witnesses in support of Mark 16:9-20 should be added to the list besides those four.  For example, Robert Stein has stated that the author of the second-century composition Epistula Apostolorum knew Mark 16:9-20.  (If these four second-century witnesses – Justin, Tatian, Epistula Apostolorum, and Irenaeus – were papyri instead of patristic utilizations, I wonder if we would need to write anything further in defense of Mark 16:9-20.) 

            Other witnesses include Vincentius of Thibaris at the Seventh Council of Carthage (257), the author of De Rebaptismate (258),  Hierocles, recycling the work of Porphyry (305), Acts of Pilate (early 300’s), Aphrahat (335), Fortunatianus (c. 350), Ambrose (370’s), De Trinitate (by Didymus or Pseudo-Didymus, c. 380), Apostolic Constitutions (380), manuscripts seen by Jerome with the Freer Logion (late 300’s), Augustine (c. 400), Greek manuscripts mentioned by Augustine (400), Apocryphal Acts of John (early 400’s or earlier), Philostorgius (late 300’s/early 400’s), Macarius Magnes (405), Pelagius (410), Marcus Eremita (435), Eznik of Golb (440), Marius Mercator (mid-400’s), and Patrick (mid-400’s). 

            Is it fair to individually name every Greek manuscript in which Mark’s text ends at the end of 16:8, and then casually skip over 20 early patristic witnesses that support the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20?  No; that is not a fair presentation.

(8)  “In five medieval manuscripts, the long form is accompanied by asterisks or obeli (the ¸ symbol), marks traditionally used to indicate suspect or spurious material.”      

           

            This false claim was repeated by Daniel Wallace in a chapter in the 2007 book, Perspectives on the Ending of Mark.  Wallace listed the five medieval manuscripts:  138, 264, 1221, 2346, and 2812.  However, in 138, the mark in the margin alongside Mark 16:9 is not alone; the manuscript has a note in the margin, and commentary-material below the text.  In 264, the symbol that accompanies the beginning of Mark 16:9 also accompanies the beginning of Mark 11:12, 12:38, and 14:12; at each point it appears at the beginning of a lection.  The idea that these marks in 264 were intended to convey scribal doubt is baseless.  They either serve the same purpose as modern footnote-numbers, or else are part of the normal lectionary-related marginalia.
            In 1221, the symbol between Mark 16:8 and 16:9 is neither an asterisk nor an obelus; it is a lozenge-dot (four dots arranged in a north-south-east-west pattern), and this symbol also appears in Mark in 1221 after 2:12, halfway through 5:24, and at 6:7.  In Luke, this symbol appears several more times:  at the beginning of 1:24, at 1:26, and at the end of 1:56.  In each case, the symbols indicate the start of a lection.  They were added for the convenience of the lector and have no text-critical significance.

            In 2346, we again encounter a lozenge-dot above the line, between Mark 16:8 and 16:9.  In the margin are symbols for τελος and αρχη, indicating the end and beginning of lections.  Once again, this is all lectionary-related and does not indicate a smidgen of scribal doubt.  (The same symbols converge in 2346 at the end of John 1:28.)

            In 2812, a Gospels-manuscript from the 900’s, in which the Biblical text is accompanied by a commentary in the margins, there is a “comet” symbol which is intended to draw the reader’s attention to the commentary-material on a following page, where one finds the Victor of Antioch’s comment about Mark 16:9-20 in the margin – an ordinary component of the Catena Marcum.  This symbol is merely drawing the reader’s attention to one of this manuscript’s many commentary-notes.

None of these five manuscripts have the feature which Holmes said they have.  The lectionary-related symbols, instead of conveying scribal doubt or suspicion about Mark 16:9-20, show that the passage was a prominent lection (to be read at Ascension-Day, and as part of the eleven-part cycle of resurrection-related lections known as the Heothina).

(9)  “In 12 manuscripts, the long form is accompanied by a critical note.”

            199 (from the 1100’s), a MS related to Λ/566.  Its short note says, “In some of the copies this does not occur, but it stops here” (that is, at the end of 16:8).

            20, 215, and 300 share a note which says, “From here to the end forms no part of the text in some of the copies.  But in the ancient ones, it all appears intact.”   

1, 205, 205abs, 209, and 1582 share a note which says, “Now in some of the copies, the evangelist’s work is finished here, and so does Eusebius Pamphili’s Canon-list.  But in many, this also appears.”

15, 22, 1110, 1192, and 1210 share basically the same note displayed in MSS 1 and 1582, minus the part about the Eusebian Canons:  “In some of the copies, the Gospel is completed here, but in many, this also appears.”

These are not independent notes; they descend from two ancestors:  one ancestor-manuscript of the copies with the Jerusalem Colophon had a note stating that although some copies do not have Mark 16:9-20, the ancient copies contain it all.  Another note, in an ancestor-manuscript of the family-1 MSS, stated that some copies did not contain the passage, and the Eusebian Canons did not include it, but it was found in many copies.  The latter note was then truncated some time (or somewhere) when the Eusebian Canons had been adjusted to include Mark 16:9-20.

(10)  “Form 3b occurs in several manuscripts that include the long form (Mark 16:1-20) but indicate (in different ways) that this longer ending might not be original.”

            Holmes is referring to the five non-existent asterisked MSS, and to the 14 (not 12) MSS with notes, described above.  Contrary to the impression which one could easily receive from Holmes’ article, close examination of these notes, especially in their older, fuller forms, these notes tend to encourage readers to accept, rather than reject, the passage, by appealing to either the majority of copies, or to the ancient copies, in support of the inclusion of the passage.

            (It may be worth mentioning that although the note displayed in some MSS with the Jerusalem Colophon, and the note displayed in the family-1 MSS are not very similar, they might both have originated as nothing more than summaries of the comment of Victor of Antioch.)      

(11)  “One typical note reads, “In some copies the evangelist finished here [that is, Mark 16:8] – which is also as far as Eusebius the student of Pamphilus canonized; but in many copies this also [16:9-20] is in circulation.”

            This rendering of the note does not convey its meaning accurately.  Eusebius of Caesarea did not “canonize” any texts; the note refers to the Eusebian Canons, a cross-reference system for the Gospels which Eusebius of Caesarea developed, and which is found in many Gospels-manuscripts. 

(12)  “Form 4 is an expanded version of the long form.”

            Exactly!  What Holmes calls one of “nine versions of the ending of Mark” is just the usual 12 verses after verse 8, with an interpolation between verses 14 and 15.  This is not a “different ending” (as the NET erroneously described it).  It is the normal twelve-verse ending, plus an interpolation.  If we were to describe the last 12 verses of Matthew, or the last 12 verses of Luke, as a “different form of the ending,” just because of the presence of textual variants, we could easily state that there are a dozen forms of the ending of Matthew, and two dozen forms of the ending of Luke.  But this would be highly misleading, which is my point:  it is misleading to look at a ship, and then look at the same ship with a barnacle on it, and call it a different ship.

(13)  “Our final form, Form 5, is a combination form that appears in several manuscripts in four variations, which is how we get a total of nine different versions of Mark.”

           

            To rephrase what Holmes admits in this sentence:  what he calls “Form 5” is not a fifth composition.  It is not even a third composition:  it is the combination of the Shorter Ending, followed by verses 9-20, sometimes accompanied by brief notes and sometimes not.    

            In the Greek core-witnesses to the double-ending – 083, 099, L, and Ψ – the notes accompanying the Shorter Ending and verses 9-20 (or, due to damage, only the first part of verses 9-20) share either content, or an unusual format, or both, with Greek-Sahidic lectionary 1602, placing the origin of this arrangement squarely in Egypt.     

            After 16:8 and before the Shorter Ending, Greek-Sahidic Lectionary 1602 has a note that says, “In other copies this is not written.”  After the Shorter Ending, Greek-Sahidic Lectionary 1602 has basically the same note that is present in L, Ψ, and 083:  Εστιν δε και ταυτα φερομενα μετα το εφοβουντο γαρ.  Then it begins, like 099, a little more than halfway through 16:8, at the words ειχεν γαρ, and its text proceeds from there, presenting the rest of verse 8 followed by verse 9.

            So, these several (i.e., six) manuscripts do not constitute six independent annotations.  Four of them clearly emanate from an Egyptian edition of the Gospel of Mark.  (In the remaining two – 274 and 579 – the Shorter Ending is not accompanied by a note.)  It seems obvious that what Holmes described as “a continuing awareness of the multiple endings of the Gospel of Mark” was an awareness, isolated somewhere in Egypt, of manuscripts of Mark with no text after 16:8, and manuscripts of Mark with 16:9-20 after verse 8, and manuscripts of Mark with only the Shorter Ending after verse 8.  The annotators simply described the manuscripts that they inherited – which is not a new independent ending; it is a description of the manuscripts they inherited in that particular location. 

(To be continued . . .)