Mark 16:9-20 - Taking It to the Streets

More than one publishing-house and more than one Christian commentator have refused to quietly correct the mistakes in their commentaries and similar books.  So I shall do so publicly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfbSjIkCIF0

In this 48-minute video I expose some commentators' errors about Mark 16:9-20 such as the popular (but erroneous) claim about doubt-conveying asterisks and obeli.

When doing apologetics and wielding the sword of the Spirit . . . make sure its metal hasn't been weakened before going into battle. First Timothy 5:20

Proverbs 18:9

John 5:3b-4: Original or Not?

            Metzger’s observation that 5:3b contains two “non-Johannine” words is lightweight, considering that John had few other occasions to use either ἐκδέχεσθαι or κίνησις.

            (I commend to readers both the article written by Zane Hodges in 1979 in Bibliotheca Sacra 136, pp. 25-39, and the article by Gordon Fee which appeared in Evangelical Quarterly 54 (pp. 207-218.)              

            Before reaching a conclusion about John 5:3b, let’s investigate 5:4.  Dr. Bill Mounce addressed this variant briefly, but his treatment is extremely oversimplified.  More is required.  First, we must get an idea of how much textual variation there is within this verse.  In A K L Y Δ Π, κυρίου (ΚΥ) appears after αγγελος γαρ (or, in L, αγγελος δε).  And instead of κατέβεινεν, A K Π Ψ 579 have ἐλούετο.  And A (supported by some Bohairic manuscripts) has ουν between δήποτ’ and κατείχετο.  Instead of δήποτε, K and Π have δ’ αν.  In C^c H M U Y Δ Λ Π 078 and at least 17 lectionaries, instead of ἐτάρασσεν, the text reads ἐταράσσετο.  The Ethiopic version also supports ἐταράσσετο.   Swanson erroneously lists Δ as if it reads ἐταράσσετο and ἐτάρασσεν; a check of the manuscript show that it supports ἐταράσσε το (the το being the το before ὕδωρ).  

            Plus, in S Λ Π 047, and 72 minuscules, the passage is marked with asterisks.  The Harklean Syriac also features the verse marked with asterisks.

             The external evidence mostly aligns with the external evidence for 5:3b – but not quite. D W^supp 33, 2718, and the Armenian and Georgian versions, which include 4:3b, do not imclude 5:4.  5:4 is supported by Tatian’s Diatessaron (as demonstrated by a comment by Ephrem in his commentary ), by Ambrose, by Tertullian, by Chrysostom (who was listed in UBS1 as a witness for both inclusion and non-inclusion), and Cyril.  

            Tertullian, in De Baptismo 5, near the end of the chapter, wrote, “If it seems an unheard-of thing that an angel should interfere with water, there was a precedent for that which was to be. The pool of Bethsaida ‘was stirred’ by the intervention of ‘an angel.’  Those who complained of their health used to watch for him. For anyone who had first descended there ceased to complain after a bath. This picture of bodily cure was prophetic of spiritual cure, according to the practice by which things carnal always precede, being a picture of things spiritual. As, therefore, the grace of God spread among men, greater power was added to the waters and the angel.”

            Tertullian goes on to say, “Those who healed bodily defects now heal the spirit.  Those who worked temporal salvation now restore for us everlasting salvation.  Those who freed one once a year, [this indicates how Tertullian understood κατά καιρόν] now daily save communities, death being destroyed by the washing away of sins.”  Tertullian clearly had no problem reading this verse and applying it to the life of the church.

            Chrysostom commented on 5:3b-4 in detail in his commentary on John, perceiving in the paralytic’s healing a thematic template of baptism and salvation. 

            Tertullian, in Latin, and Chrysostom, in Greek, demonstrate the antiquity of the passage in the text, as early as two papyri from c. 200 and c. 400 would.  Chrysostom also shows that John 5:4 was read in the text of the church in Byzantium during his bishopric.  Amphilochius of Iconium (340-403; bishop after 374) – cousin of Gregory of Nazianzus – does not include 5:4 in the text he used.  Both the non-inclusion and inclusion of 5:4 are very early readings.

            What phenomenon, occurring sometime between 90 (when the Gospel of John was written – unless John Robinson’s redating to pre-70 – in light of (among other things) 5:2 – is adopted) and 200, could elicit one transmission-stream to include John 5:4 (in the case of Tertullian’s text of John), and another transmission-stream to not include John 5:4 (in the case of P75, À, and B)? 

            I am willing to posit that an anomaly in the autograph of the Gospel of John itself elicited different treatments of John 5:3b-4.  Picture John reading chapter 5 to his listeners from the autograph for the very first time – without 5:3b-4.  Inevitably, someone would ask, “John, why were these sick, blind, lame, and paralyzed people waiting near the pool instead of swimming in its water?”  And I can imagine that John added an explanatory note in the margin, “waiting for the moving of the waters.”

            And then someone asked, “What agitated the pool’s water?”.  And John, realizing that his listeners in Ephesus were oblivious to the background of the pool at Bethesda, added another note – and thus verse 4 came into existence as a second marginal note.  When John died, the autograph was entrusted to the Christian community at Ephesus – and they treated the annotations in three different ways in the next generation:

            In the ancestor of Byzantine manuscripts, the notes were either blended into the main text (as John 21 has been), or else copies just the way they appeared in the autograph, in the margin with symbols to connect them to John 5:3-5.  In the ancestor of Alexandrian manuscripts, receiving the text of the autograph slightly later (being in Egypt, not Ephesus), the notes were assumed to have originated with someone other than John, and were therefore not considered worthy to be included in either the main text or in the margin. 

            Another consideration might have been in play in the mind of the early Alexandrian scribe who decided not to include verse 4:  a desire to protect John from the charge of promoting superstition.  A scribe who thought he knew that water in the pool of Bethesda was agitated by entirely natural forces could easily persuade himself that the marginal note in his exemplar, stating that an angel of the Lord bathed in the pool of Bethesda, could not have been written by an inspired author; in addition, he did not wish to appear to commend Asklepieions.

            The testimony of P and its relatives which have John 5:4 with asterisks commends family P as an excellent representative of the autograph of the text of the Gospels.  The form of verse 4 that appears in Codex P is the form which should be adopted, instead of the readings found in the majority of manuscripts.

            An addition question is sure to be asked:  what should English Bible editors do with John 5:3-4?  I have no objection to the inclusion of 5:3-4 in the main text, or in the margin, with a note stating that the passage appears in the margin, or not at all, in a few early manuscripts.  But to omit it entirely would guarantee that English readers would perpetually ask, as John’s first listeners did, “Why weren’t they all swimming?” or, “Who or what stirred up the waters?”

            Another question may be on the minds of some readers:  Would an inspired author expand on his own narrative in this way, adding marginalia?  I see no reason why not.  Many a Spirit-led preacher reading from a manuscript he wrote has spontaneously clarified himself mid-sermon.  Even Saint Paul, in First Corinthians 1:16, clarified that he had baptized the household of Stephanas (who, according to tradition, was the jailor in Acts 16), right after saying, “I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius.”  I Cor. 1:16 may have originally been a note in the margin added by Paul as he proof-read the letter; no one at Corinth, however, would have doubted its veracity.

 

Video Lecture: Mark 16:9-20: External Evidence

 In Lecture 16 in the series Introduction to NT Textual Criticism, I describe some external evidence pertaining to the ending of Mark (16:9-20.  Subtitles provide a full outline of the lecture.  Here is a sample of part of this 41-minute lecture in which I begin to examine patristic evidence:

            Another part of the evidence has also experienced a high level of misrepresentation:  the patristic evidence.  Two statements from Bruce Metzger’s Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament have been repeated by many other commentators:  first, “Clement of Alexandria and Origen show no knowledge of the existence of these verses.”

             Those who encounter this statement might conclude that these two writers’ non-use of Mark 16:9-20 implies that the passage was not in their copies of the Gospel of Mark.  But Clement barely made any clear quotations from the Gospel of Mark outside of chapter 10.  Similarly, Origen does not use a 54-verse segment of text in Mark 1:36-3:16, or a 28-verse segment in Mark 3:19 to 4:11, or a 41-verse segment of text in Mark 5:2 to 5:43. 

             If Origen did not quote from Mark 16:9-20, then those 12 verses are just one of many 12-verse segments of Mark from which Origen does not quote.  But, there is a passage in Origen’s composition Philocalia, chapter 5, that may be based on Mark 16:15-20.     

 EUSEBIUS AND JEROME

             Second, Metzger stated that “Eusebius and Jerome attest that the passage was absent from almost all Greek copies of Mark known to them.” 

   This statement needs major clarification, especially because it has been misrepresented by some commentators.  Ben Witherington III  erroneously stated, “Eusebius and Jerome both tell us these verses were absent from all Greek copies known to them.” 

   In real life, in the composition Ad Marinum, Eusebius responds to a question from Marinus about how Matthew 28:2 can be harmonized with Mark 16:9:  Matthew says that Christ arose “late on the Sabbath,” but Mark says “early in the morning on the first day of the week.”  Already, we see that Marinus’ text of Mark, just as old as Eusebius’ testimony, included Mark 16:9-20.

            Eusebius mentions two ways to resolve the apparent discrepancy:  First, a person could say that the relevant passage is not found in all copies of the Gospel according to Mark, and that the text in the accurate copies ends at the end of verse 8.  Almost all copies of the Gospel of Mark end there. 

            That is what one person might say, rejecting the passage and rendering the question superfluous.  But, Eusebius continued, another view is that both passages should be accepted; it is not the job of faithful readers to pick and choose between them. 

            Granting that this second perspective is correct, the proper thing to do is to interpret the meaning of the passage.  If we draw a distinction in the wording, we would not find it in conflict with the words in Matthew’s account.  We should read the words in Mark, “Rising early in the morning on the first day of the week,” with a pause after “Rising,” for that refers to Christ’s resurrection.   The rest, “early in the morning on the first day of the week,” pertains to the time of His appearance to Mary Magdalene. 

             Three things must be noticed whenever Eusebius’ testimony is mentioned:  First, he does not frame the statement about manuscripts as his own observation; he frames it as something that someone might say.  Second, instead of advising Marinus to reject the passage, Eusebius recommends that he should retain the passage, and he even tells him how to pronounce the passage so as to make it clear that it is harmony with the passage in Matthew 28.

            Third, Eusebius himself quotes Mark 16:9 further along in the same composition.  Once he states that “some copies” of Mark say that Jesus had cast seven demons out of Mary Magdalene, and once, he says that Jesus cast seven demons out of Mary Magdalene “according to Mark.”

            It should also be pointed out that nobody, in the decades after the Diocletian persecution, had the means to survey how many manuscripts existed throughout the Roman Empire to support particular readings.

            What about Jerome?  It should first be acknowledged that Jerome included Mark 16:9-20 in the Vulgate Gospels, which he specifically stated that he prepared on the basis of ancient Greek manuscripts.  Jerome himself was born in the mid-300s, so we may reckon that these Greek manuscripts were older than that.

            Again:  Metzger’s statement is, “Eusebius and Jerome attest that the passage was absent from almost all Greek copies of Mark known to them.”  Let’s test that. 

            The relevant statement from Jerome is found in his composition Ad Hedibiam, from about the year 407, in which, among other things, he responds to a broad question about harmonization-difficulties in the resurrection-accounts in the Gospels.  In the course of his response, he breaks down the question into a series of Questions and Answers, clearly patterned on Eusebius’ earlier work to Marinus.

             Jerome, like Eusebius, says that there are two ways to solve the question.  Jerome, like Eusebius, says that one way is to reject the passage in Mark, on the grounds that it is absent in nearly all of the Greek copies, and because it seems to narrate things that contradict the other accounts.  And Jerome goes on to say that Matthew and Mark have both told the truth, and that when the text is read with a pause after “Jesus arising,” before “on the first day of the week in the morning appeared to Mary Magdalene,” the difficulty goes away.

            Jerome is plainly instructing Hedibia to retain the verses.

            This is how D. C. Parker explained the situation in 1997:  Jerome’s letter to Hedibia “is simply a translation with some slight changes of what Eusebius had written.  It is thus worthless for our purposes.”  And Parker concluded:  “Jerome is no evidence for the Short Ending.”

            John Burgon had said basically the same thing, over a hundred years earlier:  Jerome was saving time and effort by condensing part of Eusebius’ earlier composition in his letter to Hedibia – just as he had acknowledged, in his Epistle 75, that he sometimes dictated to his secretary what he had borrowed from other writers.

             But this is not all:  in 417, in Against the Pelagians, Jerome pictured a champion of orthodoxy explaining where he had seen the interpolation that is now known as the Freer Logion:  he located this interpolation “In certain exemplars, and especially in Greek codices, near the end of the Gospel of Mark” – and then he quotes almost all of Mark 16:14, and then presents the interpolation. 

            How is it that Jerome says that he saw the Freer Logion after Mark 16:14 “especially in Greek codices,” and also say that almost all Greek codices lack Mark 16:9-20?  Because the first statement is drawn from his own experience, while the second one was extracted from Eusebius’ composition, in which it was framed as something that someone might say.

 . 

Minuscule 1424 and the Pericope Adulterae

  

MS 1187's text of John 7:53-8:11
is similar to the text in the margin of 1424.
And they share a large annotation.

          In the super-sparse apparatus of the Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament, a note mentions that although the pericope adulterae (John 7:53-8:11) is absent in the text, the passage is present in the margin.  Unfortunately, that is about as close as readers get to a close examination of the testimony of 1424 and its annotator regarding this passage.

            Similarly in D.A. Carson’s volume on the Gospel of John in the Pillar NT Commentary series, after acknowledging that John 7:53-8:11 is present “in most of the medieval Greek miniscule [sic] manuscripts,” the author states that these verses “are absent from virtually all early Greek manuscripts that have come down to us.”  Displaying a degree of one-sidedness, Carson does not discuss the Old Latin capitula at all, and he states – erroneously – “All the early church fathers omit this narrative.”  It is a challenge to imagine how any scholar can make such a claim, for one would have to ignore well-known references to the pericope adulterae in the writings of Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome, among many others.  Carson – clearly echoing Metzger as he keeps readers in the dark about the reasons for the dislocation of the passage in some manuscripts – is guilty of several other one-sided statements that cumulatively mold the evidence and give readers a false impression.  

            But rather than dwell on such mistreatments of the evidence, let’s focus today specifically on the testimony of minuscule 1424.  This manuscript was housed at the Gruber Rare Books Collection at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago until it was recently returned to Greece.  The entire manuscript has been digitally photographed by CSNTM, and the page-views can be viewed at the CSNTM website.

            When we examine the relevant page of minuscule 1424, we see that at the end of 7:52, above the line, there is a symbol that looks vaguely like the letters O and C connected by a horizontal line.  In the text, 8:12 begins at the beginning of the next line.  The O––C symbol also appears in the outer margin of the page (although the horizontal line is broken), accompanied by the text of the pericope adulterae in a form that is very similar to the text of the pericope adulterae in Codex Λ, which resembles the text that is presented in the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform in italics, beginning with Καὶ ἀπῆλθον ἕκαστος εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ, without πειράζοντες in verse 4, and without τω δακτύλω in verse 6, and when the page ends, the pericope adulterae has been presented up to a point halfway through verse 9.  Alongside the pericope adulterae in the outer (left) margin is a stack of asterisks; three are clear and there appear to be two more beneath then, albeit unclear.

            On the following page, verse 9 resumes, not at the top of the page, but in the lower margin.  A ⁒ symbol appears in the far left inner margin, above a stack of two asterisks (※) alongside the margin-text.  In 1424’s margin-text, in verse 9, ὁ Ις appears after κατελείφθη and μόνος does not appear.   In verse 11, the text does not have the words οἱ κατήγοροί σου.

            And now for the interesting part.  After 8:11 ends, there is a note (very faintly written at some points, and with lots of contraction, so this transcription is tentative):  ταυτα εν τισιν αντιγράφοις ου κειται ουδε [’Απολιναρίου·  Εν δε τοις] αρχαιοις όλα κειται·  Μνημονευουσι της περικοπης ταυτης και οι αποστολοι εν αις εξεθεντο διαταξεσιν εις οικοδομην της εκκλησίας.   

            This is essential the same note that is found in Codex Λ (039) which accompanied John 7:53-8:11 there.  It means:  “This is not in some copies, nor in those [copies] of Apollinarius.  In the ancient [copies] it is all present.  And this pericope was recollected by the apostles, which affirms that it is for the edification of the church.”
            That last sentence refers to Apostolic Constitutions 2:24, which was produced around 380.    This portion of Apostolic Constitutions, designed to prove the premise that “Our Lord Came to Save Sinners by Repentance,” includes the following statement, after mentioning Jesus’ statement in Luke 7:47:

 “And when the elders had set another woman which had sinned before Him, and had left the sentence to Him, and had gone out, our Lord, the Searcher of the hearts, inquiring of her whether the elders had condemned her, and being told, ‘No,’ said unto her, ‘Go your way therefore, for neither do I condemn you.’  This Jesus, O you bishops, our Savior, our King, and our God, ought to be set before you as your pattern.” 

This portion of Apostolic Constitutions can be traced to an earlier source:  the Syriac Didascalia.  In its seventh chapter (or in some formats, near the end of the sixth chapter), following a discussion on the Prayer of Manasseh, the author of the Syriac Didascalia states:

            “For if thou receive not him who repents, because thou art merciless, thou sinnest against the Lord God, because thou dost not obey our Lord and God in acting as He acted; for even He to that woman who had sinned, her whom the elders placed before him and left it to judgment at His hands, and went away; He them who searcheth the hearts, asked her and said to her, ‘Have the Elders condemned thee, my daughter?’  She saith to Him, ‘No, Lord.’  And our Saviour said,  ‘Go, and return no more to do this, neither do I condemn thee.”  In this therefore let our Saviour and King and God be to you a sign, O Bishops!” (Gibson’s translation)

            The Syriac Didascalia is generally assigned to the first half of the 200s, which makes this reference pretty much as old as the oldest witnesses for non-inclusion of the pericope adulterae.

The note that appears in 1424, confirming that the entire passage is not in some copies but is all present in ancient copies, and so forth, is not only shared by Codex Λ but also in minuscule 1282 (on Image 0214b at CSNTM, at the foot of the page).  In MS 1282, on this page and the one that follows, a stack of obeli accompanies the text of John 8:3-11 (but not 7:53-8:2) in the outer margin.  (In the upper margin, the chapter-title “#10 – About the Adulteress” appears in red ink.)  Minuscule 1443 has a similar format – John 7:53-8:11 is included in the text, and 8:3-11 is accompanied by a stack of obeli in the margin – but does not appear to have the note.  Minuscule 1187 also has a similar format – John 7:53-8:11 is included in the text, and 8:3-11 is accompanied by a stack of obeli in the margin, and in the lower margin of 1187 5, there is the note.

The note also appears (with minor differences) in minuscules 20 (which has the pericope adulterae after John 21), 215, 262, and 1118.  This points to a common source, for these manuscripts, along with Codex Λ, feature the Jerusalem Colophon.  (Tommy Wasserman, using information from Maurice Robinson and other resources, has confirmed this in a detailed essay.)

The presence of the both the Apollinarius Colophon  and the Jerusalem Colophon in the same manuscript indicates that the “ancient copies” referred to in the Apollinarius Colophon – in which the entire pericope adulterae is stated to be present – are the same manuscripts referred to in the Jerusalem Colophon (or, the prevalent form of it) “the ancient exemplars from Jerusalem preserved on the holy mountain.”

In addition, the close similarity of the text of the pericope adulterae in Codex Λ and in the margin of 1424 and in the text of 1187 suggests that the possibility of a historical link between these three manuscripts should be explored.  Both Λ and 1424’s margin do not have τω δακτύλω in verse 6, and in 1187, τω δακτύλω is not in the main text of verse 6 either; it is added as a correction in the side-margin.  (This variant-unit is not covered in NA27.)

           So, the next time you see 1424 listed as a witness for non-inclusion of John 7:53-8:11, remember that while that is true, it is also true that a marginal note in 1424 (shared by five other manuscripts) affirms the use of the passage in Apostolic Constitutions (c. 380, echoing a source from the early 200s) and also affirms that in ancient manuscripts, the whole passage is present, and that the ancient manuscripts being referred to were (or were thought to be) cherished copies at a holy mountain.

            

Norman Geisler, Bart Ehrman, and the Parrot Problem

            Have you ever read a commentary on a passage in the New Testament that involves a textual variant, and you say, “Hmm; let’s see what this other commentator says,” and the other commentator says almost the exact same thing?  It’s as if one of them borrowed the other writer’s words, or as if they are slightly rephrasing what was written by an earlier author.

            For example, consider what Bart Ehrman wrote in Misquoting Jesus (also published as Whose Word Is It?) on page 48, where the author is illustrating scriptio continua – but can’t spell the jargon – and uses the example, “lastnightatdinnerisawabundanceonthetable” – and you think, “That sounds a lot like what J. Harold Greenlee wrote on page 62 of Scribes, Scrolls, and Scripture.  What an amazing coincidence!

            Or consider what Bruce Metzger wrote on page 47 of his influential handbook The Text of the New Testament, referring to a phenomenon observed in Codex Vaticanus:  “Unfortunately, the beauty of the original writing has been spoiled by a later corrector, who traced over every letter afresh, omitting only those letters and words which he believed to be incorrect.”  Years ago, Steven Avery, a KJV-Onlyist, pointed out in an online forum that one might conclude that Metzger had read page 203 of Frederic Kenyon’s much earlier work, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, and recollected its contents:  “Unfortunately, the beauty of the original writing has been spoilt by a later corrector, who, thinking perhaps that the original ink was becoming faint, traced over every letter afresh, omitting only those letters and words which he believed to be incorrect.”

            

And one could also compare Metzger & Ehrman’s The Text of the New Testament, in the 2005 edition, and notice that their description of minuscule 33 is rather similar to the description given by Kirsopp Lake, a prominent scholar of the previous generation, in his book called The Text of the New Testament.  And one could notice that in both books, minuscule 1739 is “of extreme importance,” and in both books, minuscule 565 is “one of the most beautiful of all known manuscripts,” and in both books, 579’s text is “extremely good,” and other remarkable similarities.   

            Does this sort of thing still happen?  And, are there cases where errors have been perpetuated in this way?  Let’s look at what Dr. Norman Geisler, a leading evangelical apologist, wrote about Mark 16:9-20.  His statements are still circulated online at the Defending Inerrancy website.    

            On page 378 of When Critics Ask, Dr. Geisler addresses a question about Mark 16:9-20.  He begins with a statement about the 1984 edition of the NIV, which is no longer true since this feature in the NIV was altered in the 2011 revision.  Then he makes several claims:

(1)  “These verses are lacking in many of the oldest and most reliable Greek manuscripts, as well as in important Old Latin, Syriac, Armenian, and Ethiopic manuscripts.”

            This is typical of many commentaries which are echoing Bruce Metzger, who wrote that the ancient manuscripts Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, and one Old Latin manuscript (Codex Bobbiensis), one Syriac manuscript (the Sinaitic Syriac), many Armenian manuscripts, two Georgian manuscripts, “and a number of manuscripts of the Ethiopic version” do not contain Mark 16:9-20.  Geisler has merely blurred the data that he got from Metzger – and in the process he turned two manuscripts into “many,” as well as obscuring the important detail that he is referring to minute minorities of Latin and Syriac manuscripts. 

            Geisler also has failed to update his description of Ethiopic evidence.  In 1980, Metzger released the article The Gospel of St. Mark in Ethiopic Manuscripts, in New Testament Tools & Studies, Volume X of New Testament Studies – Philological, Versional, and Patristic.  In that article, Metzger retracted his earlier claim and concluded that all existing Ethiopic manuscripts of Mark 16 include verses 9-20.  Metzger mentioned this material in a footnote in his Textual Commentary.  Unfortunately Geisler never got that information, and no one has told him, so he is still teaching his readers a false claim about the Ethiopic manuscripts.

            This sort of mistake can be observed in a tall stack of commentaries which are nothing but echoes of Metzger where text-critical subjects are concerned.  The authors did not want to plagiarize, so they took all kinds of liberties in their descriptions of the evidence.  The resultant mess is not quite as misleading as those times when Bart Ehrman claimed that the story of the adulteress (John 7:53-8:11) originated in the Middle Ages, but it’s still pretty bad.

(2)  “Many of the ancient church fathers reveal no knowledge of these verses, including Clement, Origen, and Eusebius.  Jerome admitted that almost all Greek copies do not have it.”

           Once again, Geisler is performing reverse ventriloquism.  The first edition of Metzger’s influential handbook  The Text of the New Testament was the basis for those two sentences.  Metzger wrote:  “Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Eusebius show no knowledge of the existence of these verses; other Church Fathers state that the section is absent from Greek copies known to them (e.g., Jerome, Epist. cxx. 3, ad Hedibiam, “almost all the Greek copies do not have this concluding portion”).

           Unfortunately Geisler is uninformed about the corrections that Metzger made in later editions.  After erroneously stating that Eusebius shows no awareness of Mark 16:9-20, Metzger realized his mistake and quietly adjusted the sentence in the later editions of his book, removing the name “Eusebius.”  Yet the Defending Inerrancy website promoted by Geisler (and others) is still spreading an error about Mark 16:9-20 and Eusebius, even though the Greek text of Eusebius’ composition Ad Marinum, in which Eusebius uses Mark 16:9 several times, is now available with an English translation.

(3)  “Many manuscripts that do have this section place a mark by it indicating it is a spurious addition to the text.”

            This claim is based on Metzger’s statement that “In other witnesses the passage is marked with asterisks or obeli, the conventional sigla used by scribes to indicate a spurious addition to a literary document.”  But has anyone ever tried to list those “many manuscripts” that allegedly have special marks by Mark 16:9-20 to signify that the passage is spurious?  More on that in a minute.

            I have researched the ending of Mark in detail, and my position is that these twelve verses were in the text when the Gospel of Mark first began to be copied and circulated for church-use.  Most of what Metzger wrote about this passage is remarkably vague and selective.  His comments need significant clarification and supplementation, and when that is provided, the text-critical contest looks very different.            

            But my purpose today is not to show that Mark 16:9-20 is genuine Scripture; I’ve already written about that.  My point is that when text-critical subjects such as Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 are involved, most commentators are basically parrots, not independent researchers.  I am sad to say that this is especially true of evangelical commentators.  The failure of their fellow scholars to correct the inaccurate text-critical claims in commentaries and in books written by apologists is evidence that either their peers do not care about the subject, or else are themselves equally oblivious to the facts of the case.

            When commentators perpetuate another author’s mistakes like this, it is almost impossible to undo the damage.  Metzger’s false claim that some Ethiopic manuscripts end the text of Mark at verse 8 is still being spread not only by Norman Geisler but also by Matt Slick at the CARM website, and by James White at the Alpha & Omega Ministries website.  And in the fourth (2005) edition of Metzger’s handbook, The Text of the New Testament, co-edited by Bart Ehrman, even though on page 120 it mentions that Metzger showed that all known Ethiopic manuscripts of Mark 16 support verses 9 through 20, on page 322 of the very same book, there’s the claim that “a number of manuscripts of the Ethiopic version” omit verses 9-20! 

            Commentators such as Larry Richards, who claims that “many ancient Greek manuscripts” end Mark’s Gospel at 16:8, could not name any of them except for Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and minuscule 304 – because there aren’t any more than those three. 

            Writers such as N. T. Wright and Craig Evans, who claim that “a good many of the manuscripts” or “Many of the older manuscripts” have asterisks alongside Mark 16:9-20 to indicate that the passage is doubtful, could not name those manuscripts if their lives depended on it – because there aren’t any.  (Dan Wallace attempted to list them and that was an epic fail.  Two small groups of manuscripts have special notes accompanying the passage, but the closest that any Greek manuscript comes to simply having an asterisk is minuscule 138, which has an asterisk in the margin, but that manuscript has the usual catena-comment on the passage, and the asterisk is just a proxy for a Eusebian section-number.)  And writers such as Ben Witherington III mislead their readers with false claims about Eusebius and Jerome – because the writers did not consult the patristic writings directly, and instead just digested what Metzger wrote, and regurgitated it, all mixed up, into their readers’ laps.

            But these commentators were not liars.  They were sloppy, lazy parrots who depended on obsolete resources.  Evangelical commentators and apologists have a text-critical parrot problem.  Let the reader beware.

Fact-checking Wallace: GA 2346, 2812, and 137

            In two earlier posts, we saw that minuscules 138, 264, 1221 do not contain an asterisk at Mark 16:9 to convey scribal doubt about Mark 16:9-20, contrary to a claim spread by Daniel Wallace.  Another manuscript which Wallace says has an asterisk accompanying Mark 16:9-20 is GA 2346.  For some time, digital photographs of 2346 have been available to view at the website of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts.  Mark 16:9 is on Image #376264.

GA 2346:  Mark 16:9 begins in
the ninth line of Scripture-text. 

            David Hester offered an analysis of the evidence in 2346 in his 2015 book Does Mark 16:9-20 Belong in the New Testament?, observing what you, too, can plainly see by consulting the photographs at CSNTM:  there is no asterisk in 2346 accompanying Mark 16:9-20.  Instead, there is a dot-lozenge between Mark 16:8 and 16:9, and in the left side-margin nearby are the symbols (τελος for “stop” and αρχη for “start”) which typically signify the beginnings and ends of lections.  At the top of the page, the rubric for the third Heothinon appears – “The third resurrection-gospel,” along with the incipit-phrase to be used by the lector when reading Mark 16:9 – “When Jesus rose early.” 

            The lack of an asterisk accompanying Mark 16:9 in 2346, and the presence of ordinary lectionary-related features in 2346, are just as obvious when consulting the reproduction of the relevant page in 2346 in the 1918 volume The Gospel Manuscripts of the General Theological Seminary (reproduced here, digitally enhanced). 

            If anyone still imagines that the dot-lozenge after Mark 16:8 in 2346 is not part of the lectionary-apparatus, let his doubts be dissolved via a consultation of

            ● the twelfth line of text in CSNTM Image 376496, where a dot-lozenge accompanies the beginning of John 1:43 (with τελος and αρχη in the margin),

            ● the ninth line of text in CSNTM Image 376499, where a dot-lozenge accompanies the beginning of John 2:12 (with τελος and αρχη in the margins), and   

            ● the first line of CSNTM Image 376511 – where a dot-lozenge accompanies the beginning of John 4:5, which is the beginning of chapter 5, the rubric of which appears at the top of the page, along with its incipit.

The next manuscript which Wallace claims to have an asterisk accompanying Mark 16:9-20 is GA 2812.  I described the relevant features of this manuscript in 2016, in the post Whatever Happened to the Zelada Gospels.  As I pointed out at the time, the Gospels-text in 2812 is accompanied in the margins by the Catena in Marcum (attributed in this case to Peter of Laodicea instead of Victor of Antioch).  A comet-symbol appears next to Mark 16:9, serving the same purpose as a footnote-number; in this case the symbol was intended to draw the reader’s attention to the note which accompanies the same symbol in the margin next to the end of Mark 16:20.  (The comet-symbol also appears at the foot of the page, probably to help guide readers to the next page to find the note about the marked passage on the preceding page.)  There we find the same part of the Catena in Marcum (already encountered in GA 138) that begins with Παρὰ πλείστοις ἀντιγράφοις οὐ κεῖται, and proceeds to advocate the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20, mentioning the presence of verses 9-20 in many accurate manuscripts, including the trustworthy Palestinian exemplar. 

For convenience I present here the Greek text of the note, line for line, as it is written in the margin of 2812:

Παρὰ πλείστοις ἀντιγράφοις οὐ

κεῖνται ταῦτα ἐπὶφερόμενα εν τῳ

κατ[α] Μαρκον ευαγγελιῳ ὡς νόθα νομί-

σαντες αὐτά τινες εἶναι.  Ἡμεῖς δε ἐξ ἀ-

κριβῶν ἀντ[ι]γράφων ὡς ἐν πλείστοις

εὑρόντες αὐτὰ, κατ[ὰ] τὸ Παλαιστι-

ναῖον εὐαγγέλι[ον] Μάρκου ὡς ἔχει ἡ ἀ-

λήθεια, συντεθείκαμ[εν] κ[αι] την ἐν

αὐτῶ ἐπὶφερομένην δεσποτικὴν

ἀνάστασιν μετὰ τὸ ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ. 

Those who may want examples of the use of the comet-symbol as a mark intended to draw readers’ attention to marginalia in 2812 may consult:

The page which has Mark 6:25, where the comet-symbol appears halfway through Mark 6:25, and in the margin at the beginning of the comments about the passage,

The page on which Mark 9 begins, where the comet-symbol appears at the beginning of a note about the Transfiguration in the lower margin,

The page which has Mark 13:24, on which the comet-symbol accompanies a brief note at the foot of the page, 

A page with the chapter-list for Luke, where the comet-symbol accompanies a numeral (150) in the left margin),  

           Let’s cover GA 137 today, too.  Wallace stated, “Parker, Living Text, 127, adds 137 to this list,” that is, the list of manuscripts which, he said, have an asterisk at Mark 16:9-20 to indicate scribal doubt.  Wallace was referring to David Parker, whose description of the testimony of GA 137 and 138 in his book The Living Text of the Gospels is as concise as it is inaccurate:  “Asterisks:  137 138.” 

            Page-views of GA 137 can be viewed at the website of the Vatican Library.  Unlike the page-views of GA 138, the photographs of GA 137 are in color.  The text of Mark in GA 137 is accompanied by the Catena in Marcum; the identity of the commentary can easily be made by consulting the note at the beginning of Mark 16 and confirming that it begins with Μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν ἤλθεν ὁ ἄγγελος, καὶ τὸν λίθον ᾗρεν διὰ τὰς γυναῖκας, and that is how the marginalia begins at the foot of the page on page-view 309.

            (It should be noticed that the commentator, in the course of the comment on 16:1ff., utilizes Mark 16:9:  on page-view 310, beginning in the commentary that appears directly above the Scripture-text (Mark 16:3), the commentator (or the author from whom he has gotten an extract) mentions that in certain copies, the Gospel of Mark says that Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene.) 

            On page-view 310, Mark 16:9 begins in the seventeenth line of text – the same line in which Mark 16:8 ends.  Between the end of verse 8 and the beginning of verse 9, written slightly above the text-line, there is a small red cross-symbol, resembling a “+” sign.  It is hard to imagine how such an ordinary symbol could ever be confused with an asterisk.  It serves the same purpose as a footnote-number, referring the reader to a note in the margin.  The note (accompanied by another red “+”) appears at the foot of the page two pages later, on page-view 312.  It is the same note – part of the Catena in Marcum – that we encountered in 138 and 2812, beginning with Παρὰ πλείστοις.    

            Thus, out of the five manuscripts which Dan Wallace described as if they have an asterisk next to Mark 16:9-20 to convey scribal doubt about the passage – 138, 264, 1221, 2346, and 2812 –  none of them really fit that description, and neither does 137.  Minuscules 137, 138 and 2812 have a note about the passage (part of the Catena in Marcum) which supports the inclusion of the passage, and 263, 1221, and 2346 have ordinary marks – not asterisks – that are part of the lectionary-apparatus, and which recur elsewhere in the manuscripts.

  

_______________

For David Parker’s statement see The Living Text of the Gospels, page 127, © David Parker 1997, published by Oxford University Press.

Fact-checking Wallace: GA 264 and 1221

            In the previous post, we saw that although Daniel Wallace has claimed (in Perspectives on the Ending of Mark:  4 Views, published by Broadman & Holman) that five manuscripts – minuscules 138, 264, 1221, 2346, and 2812 – contain a simple asterisk alongside Mark 16:9-20 to convey scribal doubt about the passage, 138 contains a note – part of the Catena in Marcum – that affirms the legitimacy of the passage, and the asterisk it displays is merely a marker for the unnumbered section of text that begins at verse 9.  We also saw that 138 contains diple-marks – marks intended to convey that the text they accompany are Scripture – alongside Mark 16:9-20.

            Today, let’s take a look at the next two manuscripts in Dr. Wallace’s list of manuscripts which, he claims, contain a simple asterisk next to Mark 16:9-20 to convey scribal doubt:  264 and 1221.  

             Page-views of GA 264 can be accessed at the Gallica website; it is at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and is catalogued as Greek MS #65. 

            Alongside Mark 16:9 (on fol. 127, numbered on the page as 117), there is an asterisk, sure enough.  There is also a rubric at the top of the page (accompanied by a dot-lozenge), stating that the fourth [sic] Gospel-reading for the morning (an alternative way of referring to the Heothina-series) is on the page.  The asterisk appears at the beginning of the lection identified in the rubric. 

            Similarly, when we turn in 264 to the page that contains Mark 11:12, there is a rubric at the top of the page, consisting of the title for the thirty-third chapter of the book – “About the Withered Fig Tree.”  And, in the outer margin of the page next to the beginning of the thirty-third chapter (i.e., Mark 11:12), there is an asterisk.

            Similarly, when we turn in 264 to the page that contains Luke 18:2, there is a rubric at the top of the page, beginning with the title for the sixty-first chapter of the book – “The Unjust Judge.”  And in the outer margin of the page next to the beginning of the sixty-first chapter of the book (i.e., Luke 18:2), there is an asterisk.

            Similarly, when we turn in 264 to the page that contains Luke 19:29, there is a rubric at the top of the page, consisting of the title for the sixty-eighth chapter of the book – “The Colt.”  And in the outer margin of the page next to the beginning of the sixth-eighth chapter of the book (i.e., Luke 19:29), there is an asterisk.

            Similarly, when we turn in 264 to the page that contains Mark 14:12, there is a rubric at the top of the page, beginning with the title for the forty-fifth chapter of the book – “The Passover.”  And in the outer margin of the page next to the beginning of the forty-fifty chapter (i.e., Mark 14:12), there is an asterisk.

            I leave it to my readers to discern whether these asterisks were (a) intended to convey doubt about the genuineness of Mark 16:9, and Mark 11:12, and Mark 14:12, and Luke 18:2, and Luke 19:29, or (b) part of the lectionary apparatus, intended to show the lector the beginning of the section which was mentioned in the rubric at the top of the page.

 Page-view 111
of Minuscule 1221

            What about GA 1221?  This manuscript is in the library at St. Catherine’s Monastery near Mount Sinai, catalogued as Greek manuscript #184.  Its online page-views at the Library of Congress’ website, though black and white, are crisp and clear. 

            Even if only the portion of 1221 that contains the Gospel of Matthew had survived, we could reasonably deduce that when this manuscript was pristine, it contained Mark 16:9-20, because in the upper margin of the last page of Matthew, there is a rubric for the first selection in the Heothina-series of eleven readings about the resurrection – the third of which is Mark 16:9-20.  A manuscript with any part of the series denoted would have the rest as well.  But no deduction is needed, because the beginning of Mark 16:9 is plainly displayed on page-view 111. 

            There is no asterisk accompanying Mark 16:9-20 in GA 1221.  At the top of the page, there is the rubric for the third Heothinon, along with its incipit:  “The third reading about the resurrection – ‘At that time, Jesus rose from the dead early.’”  At the beginning of the lection named in the rubric, we find a dot-lozenge.  In addition, on each side of the dot-lozenge, there is the τελος-symbol signifying the end of the preceding lection, and the αρχη-symbol signifying the lection’s beginning. 

            Other such uses of the dot-lozenge can be found in 1221 at the following places; you can consult the pictures of the pages with these passages by following the embedded links:

                        ● Before Mark 2:13 (the beginning of chapter 6, for which the rubric appears in the lower margin),

Close-up:  a dot-lozenge
separates Mk. 16:8 and 16:9 in 1221,
between "stop" and "start" symbols.

                        ● Halfway through Mark 5:24 (the beginning of chapter 13, for which the rubric appears in the lower margin),

                        ● Halfway through Mark 6:7 (the beginning of chapter 14, for which the rubric appears in the upper margin).  

                        ● In Luke 1:24,

                        ● Before Luke 1:26 (which is especially notable because the τελος-symbol and  αρχη-symbol appear here the same way they appear between Mark 16:8 and 16:9),

                        ● Before Luke 1:57,

                        ● At the beginning of Luke 2:1 (the beginning of chapter 1, for which the rubric appears in the upper margin),

                        ● At the beginning of Luke 2:21,

                        ● Halfway through Luke 2:22,

A dot-lozenge separates
Luke 1:25 and 1:26 in 1221,
between "stop" and "start" symbols. 

                        ● At the beginning of Luke 2:42 (where, again the dot-lozenge is bracketed by a τελος-symbol and  αρχη-symbol – and then appears another, smaller dot-lozenge), and 

                        ● At the beginning of Luke 3:1 (the beginning of chapter 5, for which the rubric appears in the lower margin).

            Obviously, the dot-lozenge in 1221 between Mark 16:8 and 16:9 is not an asterisk, any more than the other dot-lozenges are – and, like the others, it has nothing to do with expressing scribal doubt. 

            Next:  Fact-checking Wallace about GA 2346, 2812, and 137.

Fact-checking Wallace: GA 138

            “Second, the scribe might simply place an asterisk or obelisk in the margin, indicating doubt about these verses.  Such a symbol is found in at least five manuscripts.”  So goes a claim made by Daniel Wallace in his chapter of Perspectives on the Ending of Mark:  4 Views.  Wallace was describing two ways in which “some doubts about the authenticity of the LE” [“LE” meaning Mark 16:9-20, the Longer Ending] are indicated by copyists – the first way being the inclusion of a note.  

            Wallace’s statement runs parallel to a claim popularized by the late Bruce Metzger in his A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament:  “Not a few manuscripts which contain the passage have scribal notes stating that the older Greek copies lack it, and in other witnesses the passage is marked with asterisks or obeli, the conventional signs used by copyists to indicate a spurious addition to a document.”

            Metzger’s vagueness is remarkably unhelpful; the members of the jury are left to wonder about how many manuscripts constitute “not a few,” and the little detail about the identity of those “other witnesses” – manuscripts without notes, but with asterisks or obeli – is not provided.

            Dr. Wallace, however, gave specifics:  in a footnote, Wallace listed the five manuscripts to which he referred:  “MSS 138, 264, 1221, 2346, and 2812, listed on 407 in Markusevangelium, ANTF 27.  Parker, Living Text, 127, adds 137 to this list.”

            With the addition of minuscule 137, the list of manuscripts which are claimed to have a simple asterisk accompanying Mark 16:9-20 to express scribal doubt about the passage reaches a total of six.  Page-views of all six of these manuscripts are online.  Let’s have a look!  Today we will consider the first manuscript in the list, GA 138.

Use this embedded link
to see the page-view with
Mark 16:9 in GA 138
at the Vatican Library.

            GA 138 is at the Vatican Library, catalogued as Vat. Gr. 757.  It is a commentary-manuscript in which the text is written segment by segment, with the commentary interspersed between segments of text.  The text of chapter 16 of Mark begins on page-view 156, where 16:1-5 is presented as a segment of text (accompanied in the margin by diple-marks), identified in the margin as section #231.  (These sections are the Eusebian Sections, used in the Eusebian Canons.)  It is followed by commentary.  On the next page, after the rest of the commentary on 16:1-5, the text of 16:6-8 is presented (accompanied in the margin by diple-marks, and identified as sections #232 and #233).  This, too, is followed by commentary (some of which is based on Eusebius’ comments in Ad Marinum). 

            On the next page, as the commentary continues, the left margin of the writing is disrupted, but no text is lost; it appears that the copyist was avoiding a flaw in the parchment.  On the ninth line, the text of Mark 16:9 begins.  In the outer left margin there is a single asterisk, and diple-marks accompany the text of Mark 16:9-14. 

            After 16:14, the commentary continues, and when one examines the last five lines of the commentary on Mark 16:9-14, one finds the portion of the Catena in Marcum (a commentary, much of which consists of a compilation of extracts from various authors such as Origen and Chrysostom, attributed to Victor of Antioch) in which the commentator responds to a claim which was mentioned (but not approved) by Eusebius of Caesarea in his composition Ad Marinum, to the effect that verses 9-20 are not often encountered.  The commentator’s note begins in Greek with the words Παρὰ πλείστοις ἀντιγράφοις οὐ κεῖται: 

“In many copies, the rest does not appear there in the Gospel of Mark, for certain persons have thought it to be spurious.” [Or perhaps this last phrase means, “and because of this, certain persons have thought it to be spurious.”] “But we, from accurate copies – having found it in many of them, corresponding to the Palestinian Gospel of Mark  – have, as truthfulness requires, also included the account of the resurrection of the Master, after ‘for they were afraid.’”  

            (If one were to take in hand John Burgon’s 1871 book The Last Twelve Verses of Mark Vindicated, and turn to Appendix E, one would find this entire note, in Greek, with an apparatus indicating textual variations extracted from an assortment of manuscripts that contain the Catena in Marcum.)               

            After that, the text of Mark 16:15-18a (θανάσιμόν τι) completes the rest of the page.  On the next page, Mark 16:18b-20 is written (with diple-marks in the margin), followed by commentary.

            Plainly, GA 138 does not have “a simple asterisk.”  GA 138 contains the Catena in Marcum, including the note that affirms the presence of Mark 16:9-20 in many copies and in a Palestinian manuscript of Mark that was considered particularly accurate.  The asterisk in the margin alongside the beginning of Mark 16:9-20 is a side-effect of the non-inclusion of the passage in the Eusebian Canons; it does not express scribal doubt; it denotes the beginning of the section for which there was no Section-number.           

            Next:  Fact-checking Wallace about GA 264 and 1221.

____________

Quotations from Perspectives on the Ending of Mark: 4 Views © 2008 Broadman & Holman Publishers, All rights reserved.

A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament is © 1971 by the United Bible Societies.  All rights reserved.