A fairly hot topic of discussion when I was in seminary (1980s) was whether the longer ending of Mark's gospel was authentic or a later scribal addition >>>
Perhaps the discussion escalated among Southern Baptists during the 1980s because of the flag under which the Conservative Resurgence marched ahead to battle--inerrancy. Whatever the reason for the arisen interest, there has been continual discussion among textual critics concerning many passages in the New Testament. And to be quite honest, perhaps no passage of Holy Writ draws more unity from the broadest range of textual critics than Mark 16:9-20. That is, the majority of biblical textual scholars--both evangelical and scholarly--fairly well presume that Mark's gospel originally and abruptly stopped at verse 8.
James Snapp, Jr. is minister at the Curtisville Christian Church in Curtisville, Indiana. Brother James remains deeply interested in textual criticism as his webpage shows. James and I have had some lively exchange on my site recently, especially pertaining to the homosexual issue. I have found him to be gracious and courteous but also relentless in pursuing a particular point. I've thoroughly enjoyed and benefited from his contributions on this site.
Below is a summary of his book entitled, Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20 [Annotated]
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Everything you think you know about Mark 16:9-20 is wrong. Well, almost. The text of Mark 16 does end at the end of verse 8 in two manuscripts from the 300’s, in one Syriac manuscript from the late 300’s, and in one Sahidic manuscript from the early 400’s. But these pieces of evidence all descend, like the evidence for the Shorter Ending, from a narrow transmission-stream based in Egypt. The evidence for Mark 16:9-20 is much more widespread. Some of it is earlier than the two Greek copies in which Mark ends at 16:8.
If medieval evidence is set aside, and we consider only evidence from the era of the Roman Empire, then, while those four copies – plus a statement recorded by Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 325) – weigh in against Mark 16:9-20, over 40 pieces of widespread evidence support Mark 16:9-20.
The textual apparatus for Mark 16:9-20 in the UBS Greek New Testament does not adequately represent the evidence. At some points it is flatly incorrect. The apparatus in the fourth edition is quite different from the second edition, but still contains errors, including the following:
- Epiphanius is listed as a witness for non-inclusion, but this is based on nothing but Epiphanius’ list of the numbers of sections into which Eusebius divided the Gospels.
- Hesychius is listed for non-inclusion, but this is based on a misunderstanding (as Hort acknowledged over a century ago).
- Jerome, and manuscripts known to Jerome, are listed as witnesses against Mark 16:9-20 (even though Jerome included the passage in the Vulgate). This is based on part of one of Jerome’s letters in which he abridged and translated part of an earlier composition by Eusebius of Caesarea, without acknowledgement. What we have here is the testimony of Eusebius, efficiently borrowed (to put it diplomatically) by Jerome.
- Manuscripts known to Severus are listed for non-inclusion, but Severus borrowed material from Eusebius too; he even mentions Eusebius’ composition (Ad Marinum) in Homily 77.
Dr. Bruce Metzger’s Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament has misrepresented and oversimplified important pieces of evidence. It does not mention that Codex Vaticanus has a distinct blank space after Mark 16:8, as if the copyist, though using an exemplar that lacked verses 9-20, recollected those verses and attempted to leave space for them. Nor does Metzger mention that the page in Codex Sinaiticus on which Mark concludes is part of a replacement-sheet. The text on these four pages was not written by the copyist who wrote the surrounding pages.
Metzger vaguely described 14 manuscripts with notes about Mark 16:9-20 as “not a few,” and although he says that the notes state that older manuscripts lack verses 9-20, some of these notes actually say that the ancient copies include the passage.
Dr. Metzger wrote that in some other manuscripts, Mark 16:9-20 is accompanied by asterisks or obeli to express caution about the passage, but he was mistaken (due to mistakes by earlier researchers). The presence of this claim in a multitude of commentaries illustrates the abundance of groupthink, and the lack of quality research, that has led to the current consensus that Mark 16:9-20 is a scribal accretion.
Various commentators’ analysis of the internal evidence is likewise flawed. Metzger’s statement that “thanasimon and tois met autou genomenois, as designations of the disciples, occur only here in the New Testament” has been parroted by commentators who did not notice that it is nonsensical: thanasimon does not refer to the disciples; it is the word used in Mark 16:18 for “deadly thing.” Metzger’s appeal to the presence of some once-used words in Mark 16:9-20 is frequently presented by commentators as proof that Mark is not the author; Dr. Bruce Terry’s observation that Mk. 15:40-16:4 (another 12-verse section) contains a greater number of once-used words seems to have been ignored or overlooked, even though it clearly shows that such a feature is not valid evidence against Marcan authorship.
The sudden non-transition between verse 8 and verse 9 is treated as evidence that Mark did not write verse 9. Cumulative, the restatement of the day and the time, the reintroduction of Mary Magdalene, and the disappearance of her companions form considerable evidence against the idea that Mark wrote verse 9 as a continuation from verse 8. But the same considerations apply to the second-century copyist who is supposed to have written Mark 16:9-20 to conclude the Gospel of Mark: why didn’t this person wrap up the scene that otherwise abruptly stops at verse 8?
This person is supposed to have used copies of Matthew, Luke, and John to cobble together verses 9-20 as a pastiche. But why didn’t he utilize John 21? Why, after seeing in Mt. 28 that the disciples believed the women’s report sufficiently to go to Galilee, did this person state that the disciples did not believe the women? Why, after reading in Luke 24 that Jesus appeared to the eleven disciples as the two travelers were reporting about their encounter with the risen Christ, did this person present the two travelers’ report, and Christ’s appearance to the eleven, as if these events occurred at two different times? Why, after reading the triune baptismal formula in Mt. 28:19, did this person avoid mentioning it?
And, if this imagined pastiche-maker depended on Matthew, Luke, and John, where did he gather the details (in v. 10) that those who had been with Jesus were mourning and weeping, or (in v. 13) that the eleven disciples did not believe the two travelers, or (in v. 14) that the risen Jesus rebuked all eleven disciples because of their unbelief and hardheartedness, or (in verses 17-18) that Jesus specifically prophesied that believers would speak with new tongues, take up serpents, and, in the event that they ingested something deadly, be immune to it?
The pastiche-theory is extremely complicated! It requires a person who attempted to complete the Gospel of Mark without attempting to complete the scene in 16:8. It requires a person who sifted through Matthew, Luke, and John looking for material to use, without using any sustained verbal parallels. It requires a person who tried to mimic Mark but introduced plenty of words not found in Mark 1:1-16:8. It requires a person who depended on Matthew, Luke, and John, but described events that would never be naturally deduced from them, while including several details which none of them mention.
There is a less complicated solution: Mark 16:9-20 was written by someone who had never seen the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John. The parallels between Mark 16:9-20 and the other Gospels are the natural effects of a scenario in which independent writers have written about the same events.
In Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20, after reviewing over 70 pieces of external evidence, as well as internal evidence, I propose that as Mark was finishing his Gospel-account in Rome in the mid-60’s, a sudden emergency caused him to unintentionally stop as he was writing 16:8. The task of completing the text devolved to his colleagues. Instead of composing a conclusion, they attached a brief composition about Christ’s post-resurrection appearances which Mark had previously written for the church. Only then, after that composition was included in the autograph, did copies of the Gospel of Mark begin to be copied and circulated in the early church. Later, a meticulous copyist in Egypt recognized the final portion as a distinct composition, and separated it from the rest of the text, reckoning that it was not a proper part of the Petrine Remembrances. This led to the omission of the passage in the Alexandrian text-stream.
Someone might think, “But therefore verses 9-20 are not original.” Not so. The involvement of co-authors or redactors during the production-stage of a book of the Bible has never been the standard by which the original text has been defined. Do we rip out Jeremiah 52 because 51:64 says that Jeremiah’s words are finished? No. Nor do we reject parts of Proverbs that were not written by Solomon. Even though it has been proposed that John 21 was not added by John, and that Second Corinthians 10-13 was placed where we find it by someone other than Paul, and that Mark 16:9-20 was not added by Mark, as long as such occurrences took place during the production-stage of the text (that is, when it was still being composed, before copies were distributed for church-use), these proposals – while they may validly influence how we interpret the passages to which they pertain – do not make those passages less original, less inspired, or less canonical than any other passage.
James Snapp, Jr.
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