_________________________________________________________

Contents

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Contributors

List of Abbreviations

Preface

David Alan Black

Chapter 1 — Mark 16:8 as the Conclusion to the Second Gospel

Daniel B. Wallace

Chapter 2 — The Long Ending of Mark as Canonical Verity

Maurice A. Robinson

Chapter 3 — The Last Twelve Verses of Mark: Original or Not?

J. Keith Elliott

Chapter 4 — Mark 16:9–20 as Markan Supplement

David Alan Black

Chapter 5 — The Ending of Mark: A Response to the Essays

Darrell L. Bock

Name Index

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Contributors

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David Alan Black is Professor of New Testament and Greek at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He holds a B.A. from Biola University, an M.Div. from Talbot School of Theology, and a D.Theol. from the University of Basel. His published works include Learn to Read New Testament Greek and New Testament Textual Criticism.

Darrell L. Bock is Research Professor of New Testament Studies and Professor of Spiritual Development and Culture at Dallas Theological Seminary. He holds a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from the University of Aberdeen. His publications include Dethroning Jesus and The Missing Gospels.

J. Keith Elliott is Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism at the University of Leeds. He holds a B.A. from the University of Wales, a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford, and a D.D. from the University of Wales. His publications include The Apocryphal Jesus and Manuscripts and the Text of the New Testament. He is also Secretary of the British Committee of the International Greek New Testament Project.

Maurice A. Robinson is Senior Professor of New Testament at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He holds a B.A. from the University of South Florida, an M.Div. and Th.M. from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. His published works include The New Testament in the Original Greek.

Daniel B. Wallace is Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. He holds a B.A. from Biola University and both a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary. His published works include Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics and The NET Bible. He is also Executive Director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts.

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List of Abbreviations

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AB

Anchor Bible

AC

Apostolic Constitutions

AnBib

Analecta biblica

ANF

Ante-Nicene Fathers

ANTF

Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Textforschung

BDAG

Bauer, W., F. W. Danker, W. F. Arndt, and F. W. Gingrich.

Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed.

BETL

Bibliotecha ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium

CBQ

Catholic Biblical Quarterly

EH

Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History

ESCJ

Etudes sur le christianisme et le judaisme

FilNeo

Filologia Neotestamentaria

GTJ

Grace Theological Journal

HTR

Harvard Theological Review

JBL

Journal of Biblical Literature

JSNT

Journal for the Study of the New Testament

JSNTSS

Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Supplement Series

JTS

Journal of Theological Studies

NICNT

New International Commentary on the New Testament

NIGTC

New International Greek Testament Commentary

NovT

Novum Testamentum

NPB

Nova Patrum Bibliotheca

NTS

New Testament Studies

PL

Patrologia latina

PO

Patrologia orientalis

SNTS

Society of New Testament Studies

TLG

Thesaurus Linguae Graecae: Canon of Greek Authors and Works

TZ

Theologische Zeitschrift

UBSGNT

United Bible Societies Greek New Testament

WUNT

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchen zum Alten und Neuen Testament

ZTK

Zeitscrift für Theologie und Kirche

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Preface

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The papers in this volume originated from a conference entitled “The Last Twelve Verses of Mark: Original or Not,” held April 13–14, 2007, at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. The conference was a sequel to an earlier symposium held on the same campus in April, 2000. At that event, five papers on New Testament textual criticism were presented and later published under the title Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism (David Alan Black, ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002). Not long after the publication of that book it occurred to me that eventually a follow-up conference might be of benefit to students and scholars.

In the spring of 2006 I approached Southeastern's President, Dr. Danny Akin, with the idea of inviting to campus some of the world's leading textual scholars to discuss one of the best known and most problematic textual variants in the Greek New Testament, the famous ending of Mark's Gospel. I suggested that papers be read by Professor J. K. Elliott of Leeds (a thoroughgoing eclecticist), Professor Daniel B. Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary (known for his advocacy of reasoned eclecticism), and Professor Maurice A. Robinson of Southeastern Seminary (who espouses a Byzantine-priority viewpoint). Dr. Akin's enthusiastic response to my request led to the conference eventually being held in 2007 and, ultimately, to the book you now hold in your hands. Originally I did not include myself as a speaker at the symposium. However, upon President Akin's request my name was included in the final program. Hence there are four, not three, main papers, in addition to the able response provided by Professor Darrell L. Bock of Dallas Theological Seminary.

Thus it was that more than 150 students and scholars of the New Testament journeyed from many parts of North America and Europe to the campus of Southeastern Seminary to hear a formal discussion on the question of the originality of Mark 16:9–20. Looking upon the crowd gathered in the Eitel Auditorium (some of whom were live-blogging the event), one could not help reflecting that an interesting and provocative topic had indeed been chosen. The papers here presented speak for themselves. In the first, Daniel B. Wallace argues that Mark intended his Gospel to end at 16:8; in the second Maurice A. Robinson argues that Mark 16:9–20 is original; in the third J. K. Elliott argues that the original ending of Mark was lost; and finally, the present writer argues that Mark 16:9–20 was added by Mark to round off Peter's lectures. In his response Darrell L. Bock summarizes the many issues raised by the conference for the interpretation of the Gospel of Mark as a whole.

The reader will note that while the great majority of variants in the New Testament are of absolutely no account, students and scholars can hardly afford to neglect the one under discussion in this book. We must always ask ourselves the question: How can we best resolve textual difficulties, taking into account all of the evidence that is available to us today? The art and science of textual criticism remains one of the most interesting—and challenging—aspects of New Testament studies today. It is my hope that this volume will help a new generation of students to sift through the evidence—through the claims and counterclaims— and to establish a responsible historical basis for the answer to the question: Are the last twelve verses of Mark original or not?

The editor expresses his deep appreciation to all who participated in the conference program, to those who attended the sessions, to the editors at Broadman and Holman (especially Ray Clendenen) for accepting the papers for publication, and above all to his fellow presenters. The arduous preparation for and implementation of the conference were largely the tireless achieve ments of Professor David Nelson, Dean of Southeastern, and his able assistants. To all of them, as well as to President Akin, profound gratitude is due.

David Alan Black

Wake Forest, North Carolina

CHAPTER 1

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Mark 16:8 as the

Conclusion to the

Second Gospel

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DANIEL B. WALLACE

Comedian George Burns once pontificated on the key to homiletical success: “The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, then having the two as close together as possible.” This essay will abysmally fail at least that third criterion, but I suspect that Mark's Gospel might have succeeded on all three fronts.

The question we are entertaining at this symposium is this: When does Mark's Gospel end? For those who have studied the issue at all, there is an ancillary, though equally relevant question: When does the debate over the ending of Mark's Gospel end? This particular debate will be over tomorrow, but that won't be the end of the story. This conference, in fact, is intended to stimulate your thinking about the issues, getting you to wrestle with the questions far beyond tomorrow. Perhaps that is what Mark intended for his Gospel, too.

Introduction: Presuppositions

Before I get into the details of this notorious textual problem, I need to address the issue of presuppositions for a few minutes. Two of mine are that, of the four Gospels, Mark wrote first and John wrote last. As well, I hold to the Doddian school that John was not at all dependent on the Synoptic Gospels; in fact, he was most likely unaware of their specific contents, possibly even of their existence. This means that both Mark and John were writing, in a sense, a new literary genre that would later be called Gospel. Yet, they are radically different.

There are several ironies here: If Mark wrote first, he created a genre [1] that would be followed by Matthew and Luke, thus giving some vindication to what he had done—since mimicry is a high form of flattery. Yet, Mark's Gospel was the least copied of the four, perhaps because it was almost entirely swallowed up by Matthew, with only the less appetizing parts left out. John, on the other hand, had no real literary followers, yet his is by far the most copied of the Gospels in early Christianity. The irony doesn't stop there. If Mark intended to end his Gospel at 16:8, as I will argue, it's a Gospel that leaves the reader hanging, wanting more. John, on the other hand, not only finishes his Gospel, he keeps on writing after he finished it. He finishes his Gospel twice! After his conclusion in chapter 20, he goes on with an appendix. It's almost as if John is a Baptist preacher who wants to add one more chorus of “Just As I Am” before he can conclude the service. Mark is rather more like a Methodist preacher who cuts his sermon short—giving a sermonette that contains deep thoughts, to be sure, but leaves his congregation with as many questions as answers.

Now, back to presuppositions. All of us have come with a set of them. Some have such strong presuppositions in one area that, regardless of the evidence in another, they are unwilling, or unable, to allow the second realm to cast doubt on the first. I want to bring to the conscious level some of the presuppositions that may be driving your view of this lengthy and difficult textual problem. I hope that you will think through these related disciplines as you wrestle with the question about Mark's ending. There are at least three important presuppositions to address.

First, one's view on source criticism plays a large role in deciding this particular issue. Let me put this plainly: If you hold to the Griesbach Hypothesis, or Matthean priority, you may have some trouble believing that Mark's Gospel ended at 16:8. The reason is not that the textual evidence is compelling for the Long Ending (LE), but a prior commitment about the synoptic problem is. If Matthew wrote first and Mark wrote last, would Mark really reject the rich material in Matthew 28 or Luke 24, and write a truncated Gospel that has no resurrection appearances by Jesus? It's much easier to believe that if Mark is last, he combined snippets from the other Gospels and wrote 16:9–20 than that he decided to excise the post-Resurrection narratives that were in Matthew and Luke.[2]

Perhaps the most scholarly defense of the LE of Mark was written by William Farmer, a man who was already committed to Matthean priority when he wrote The Last Twelve Verses of Mark in 1974.[3] In that monograph, he mentions with approbation the textcritical work of Harry Sturz in a lengthy footnote. Sturz considered the major texttypes to have all originated in the second century, and all independently of one another. His view is known as “the independent texttypes theory.” His method was to determine the archetypal reading of each texttype by examining the best witnesses and determine the wording of the original based on a majority of texttypes—or, more exactly, a majority of the reconstructed archetypes of those texttypes. So, for Sturz, it wasn't a majority of manuscripts that had priority, but a majority of archetypes. Practically, though not theoretically, his views looked very much like the majority text theory. That is why he was one of the editors of the first published Majority Text.[4]

Farmer does not say that he is following Sturz's method in his book, but one gets the distinct impression that he was heavily influenced by it. And in the draft for the second edition of The Last Twelve Verses of Mark,[5] in his conclusion of the external evidence Farmer explicitly speaks against the “text critical tradition of … Westcott and Hort.”[6] In short, Farmer started with the Griesbach Hypothesis—in fact, he was the world's leading Matthean prioritist of the twentieth century—but he recognized that the Short Ending of Mark was a roadblock. So he sought out a text-critical method that would allow him to continue to maintain Matthean priority. At first, this method was most likely not clearly formulated in his mind, but twenty-six years later, he had more consciously and explicitly rejected reasoned eclecticism. Does this mean he had fully embraced Sturz's views? Ironically, the answer is no, because if he had, it would weaken his argument for the LE of Mark.[7] In short, Farmer's source-critical views seemed to drive his text-critical decisions.

A second presupposition that may influence your view of Mark's ending is the whole field of textual criticism. Some of you have already become convinced of a particular text-critical theory, even though you may be uncertain about source criticism. If your views of the text are settled, you may be here simply to get more arguments for your conclusions about this textual problem. The proposed solutions to Mark's ending will probably not alter your theory, but your theory may dictate—or at least heavily influence—your solution to this textual conundrum.

Third, one's presuppositions about bibliology could have a large impact on how he or she views this particular problem. For example, if you believe in the doctrine of preservation—that God has preserved the Scriptures so that there must always be manuscript testimony to the original text—then you will not be open to the view that the original ending of Mark was lost. Now, it is possible that you would be open to the Gospel intentionally ending at v. 8, 7 but if that interpretation is not rock solid, you just might opt for the LE because it puts you on safer bibliological ground.

Note, for example, what Dr. Wilbur Pickering said, when he was the president of the Majority Text Society, concerning the possibility that the ending of Mark was lost:

Are we to say that God was unable to protect the text of Mark or that He just couldn't be bothered? I see no other alternative—either He didn't care or He was helpless. And either option is fatal to the claim that Mark's Gospel is “God-breathed.” … If God was powerless to protect His Word then He wouldn't really be God and it wouldn't make all that much difference what He said…. If God permitted the original ending of Mark to be lost then in fact we do not have an inspired text.[8]

Nearly a century before Pickering made his statement, John Burgon, the famous antagonist to Westcott and Hort, wrote: “I am utterly unable to believe … that God's promise has so entirely failed…. ”[9] He articulated two presuppositions in this one sentence that are relevant for the ending of Mark. First, his belief in divine preservation—and of a peculiar kind[10]—prevented him from even entertaining the possibility that the LE was not authentic. Second, he assumed that there actually are explicit promises in the Bible about its preservation—in spite of the likelihood that none of the texts that are so used are speaking about the preservation of the written word.[11]

If, however, the doctrine of preservation is not part of your credo, you would be more open to all the textual options. I, for one, do not think that the real ending to Mark was lost, but I have no theological agenda in this matter because I don't hold to the doctrine of preservation. That doctrine, first formulated in the Westminster Confession (1646), has a poor biblical base. I do not think that the doctrine is defensible—either exegetically or empirically.[12] As Bruce Metzger was fond of saying, it's neither wise nor safe to hold to doctrines that are not taught in Scripture. I may be wrong in my view of preservation, but this presupposition at least keeps an open door for me for all the options in Mark 16.

My point in this preliminary treatment is to underscore the fact that we all bring a lot of presuppositions to the table that influence how we hear the evidence being presented; indeed, such presuppositions may even keep us from hearing the evidence.

Let me illustrate this point with a personal anecdote. I've mentioned Harry Sturz already. He was my first Greek professor at Biola University. At the time, he was teaching the only year-long college-level course on NT textual criticism offered in the country. As a young impressionable student, I came to embrace his views heartily. And I took several courses from him. When I came to Dallas Seminary, I studied under Harold Hoehner. He taught the Griesbach Hypothesis—that Matthew had written first. That view fit into my preunderstanding of textual criticism well. I also studied with Zane Hodges and learned the majority text position from him. In practice, I was a majority text man, though in theory I held to the independent texttypes view.

I joined the Dallas Seminary faculty and taught both Matthean priority and the independent texttypes theory. I went on to teach at another seminary, and I continued to teach both views. I studied the literature, and saw it only through a particular lens. I read some essays that were devastating to my theories, but I was able to brush them aside. And I thought that my arguments against them were decent.

A few years later, I returned to Dallas for my doctorate.[13] While in the program, I wanted to take the course on textual criticism. Unfortunately, there was no one on faculty who could teach it since Zane Hodges had retired. So, I was asked to lead a doctoral seminar in textual criticism. Thus, when I asked if a class was going to be offered, I was told that it would be as long as I offered it! In retrospect, it's a good thing I didn't ask about a course in Egyptian hieroglyphics!

I had my work cut out for me, because I knew I could no longer give glib answers. I started by reading over 10,000 pages of text-critical material—to quickly get up to speed. I had to think through the entire paradigm. The more I studied, the more I came to the conclusion that Sturz's views were faulty—that the Byzantine text was not equal to the Alexandrian and Western. In short, I became a reasoned eclectic.[14] It was an enormously painful methodological shift for me, since I had held to Sturz's view for seventeen years. Nevertheless, I did not completely reject the Byzantine text, but felt that it still had a place at the table.

Two months after my text-critical foundation had crumbled, I abandoned Matthean priority. In my mind, the two were not connected so much by their interdisciplinary nature as by their similar method of investigation.[15] Both my text-critical and source-critical views had put a premium on the external data—and frankly, on a very mechanical approach to them. But, as Günther Zuntz noted, “At every stage the critic has to use his brains. Were it different, we could put the critical slide-rule into the hands of any fool and leave it to him to settle the problems of the New Testament text.”[16]

I began to read the same journal articles, monographs, and Festschriften in a different light. What had appeared to me to be dangerous and subjective viewpoints because they depended so much on the scholar's ability to get into the head of the scribe or evangelist, now looked like compelling arguments. What changed were not the arguments, but my presuppositions. I came to the deep conviction that evangelical scholars must be in the business of pursuing truth, regardless of where it takes us, rather than protecting our presuppositions. That has been the most liberating conclusion I've drawn in my academic career.

We each have various convictions about interlocking disciplines that affect our take on the last twelve verses of Mark. This means that this symposium will not really settle the issue for most of you. But it also means that it's good to take a step back and reflect on source criticism, your overall text-critical views, and how your bibliology impacts your view of the text. And I want to challenge you to wrestle with these interlocking presuppositions, and to be open to approaches that may be outside your comfort zone.

I don't doubt the integrity or scholarship of any of my colleagues, and I hope they don't doubt mine. But even though we are all looking at the same evidence, we are not all coming to the same conclusion. In part, we certainly do read the evidence differently. In part, we also each bring certain presuppositions to the discussion that impact our view of this textual problem.

With that introduction, I now turn to an investigation of the ending of Mark's Gospel. The overall objective will be to determine the reading that best explains the rise of the others. I will limit my examination to two aspects to the problem. First, I want to consider the external evidence—Greek manuscripts, ancient translations, and patristic writings. I will not only look at the hard data, but try to construct some reasons for why it looks the way it does. There are curiosities concerning Mark's ending that simply cannot be ignored. Second, I will look at internal evidence—though much more briefly. In particular, the focus will be on what the author was likely to have written.[17] Internal evidence is not nearly as subjective as it may at first appear; likewise, external evidence is not nearly as objective as some might think.

The End of Mark's Gospel—External Evidence

As for the external evidence, the raw data can be quite deceiving: at least 95 percent of all Greek MSS and ancient versions have the LE. In fact, that number may be too low. I used to be impressed by the sheer volume of MSS on one side of a textual problem, but our investigation must take us deeper than that. In particular, the major question we need to answer is this: Which is more likely—that scribes would intentionally omit vv. 9–20 or that they would add these verses?

The Long Ending

The LE of Mark is not found in the oldest MSS, but it is found in the majority of MSS. And it is found in all the major texttypes—Western, Caesarean, Byzantine, and even the secondary Alexandrian.[18] Thus, there is a broad geographical spread for these verses.

As well, it is witnessed to by several church fathers, most likely beginning in the late second century with Irenaeus.[19] But there is a curious feature in this patristic evidence. Farmer makes a case that the LE was omitted by Alexandrian scribes because of two reasons. First, there seems to be a discrepancy between v. 9 and the other Gospels' accounts regarding the time of Jesus' resurrection.[20] Second, vv. 17–18, with their promise of drinking poison and handling snakes without harm, caused embarrassment to early Christians. These two texts would have been sufficient reason for certain scribes to omit the entirety of vv. 9–20, according to Farmer.[21]

There are severe problems with both of these arguments, however. Regarding the first issue, if any Gospel was the “odd man out” it would be Matthew, not Mark: Mark 16:9 is actually in agreement with Luke 24:1 and John 20:1 on the time of the Resurrection, while Matthew's wording seems to be at some variance.[22] Mark, Luke, and John all say that Jesus was raised from the dead “early on the first day of the week,” while Matthew says it happened “late on the Sabbath” or “after the Sabbath.” In other words, Mark 16:9 is no more problematic than the Resurrection narratives in the other Gospels on this score. If scribes were prone to omit a verse because of this difficulty, it would have been Matt 28:1, not Mark 16:9.

So, v. 9 is not really the problem that Farmer thinks it is. This leaves vv. 17–18 as the sole reason for excision of all twelve verses by some scribes.

Second, then, regarding the drinking of poison and the handling of snakes, Farmer thinks that these verses would have been so problematic for many Christians that some even took the radical course of omitting all twelve verses from the Gospel. As the dust jacket of The Last Twelve Verses affirms, “Professor Farmer traces the history of the text tradition for omission back to Egypt, and argues that one important factor contributing to their omission was the dangerous teaching they seemed to contain: they appear to encourage Christians to handle deadly snakes and drink poisons to prove their faith….”

But if the locus of embarrassment was the second half of vv. 9–20, we might expect to see scribes deleting just these verses and retaining vv. 9–14. There is, however, no evidence at all that this happened. In fact, one could argue that just the opposite was the case: the early patristic writers allude to the second half of this pericope (vv. 15–20) far more often than they do the first half (vv. 9–14).[23] Farmer gives the evidence himself: at least ten fathers quote from or allude to vv. 15–20 in a steady stream from the second to the fifth century, while no fathers mention the first half of the pericope until the fourth century![24] The trend, in fact, is so one-sided that Eta Linnemann saw this as evidence that Mark 16:15–20 was part of the original text of Mark, but vv. 9–14 were not,[25] an argument similar to what Walter Schmithals would later make.[26]

But the point of all this is simply to note that, contrary to Farmer's supposition that the early scribes excised the latter half of these twelve verses because of offensive language, the evidence shows that precisely the opposite happened: vv. 15–20 are quoted much earlier and more frequently than vv. 9–14. Yet, if as we have seen, v. 9 would cause no unusual turmoil,[27] what shall we make of Farmer's argument? It is evident that he has not really discovered a reason why scribes would omit these twelve verses.

And this contention brings us to the major question that we are wrestling with: Why would the scribes do what they did to this text? The motive for excising the passage is too negligible to explain the short ending. And it almost certainly cannot explain why important, early, and diverse witnesses lack these verses.

If there is no adequate explanation for why some scribes would omit the LE, then the only alternative is that other scribes added it. Can a reason be found for this? Would scribes really be motivated to add these twelve verses? The reason seems so palpably obvious that it is almost needless to mention: If Mark's Gospel ends at 16:8, there are no Resurrection appearances by Jesus to his disciples. The Gospel marches on toward the Resurrection, beginning with Jesus' response to Peter's confession that after his crucifixion he would be raised from the dead (8:31). After his transfiguration, he again tells his disciples that he would die and rise from the dead (9:31). But again, his disciples “didn't understand and were afraid to ask what he meant.” Finally, in 10:34, he again tells them that after his crucifixion he would be resurrected. In each of these scenes, the disciples are slow to get the message. We will come back to this issue later, but for now I only wish to point out that the Resurrection of Christ is prophesied by the Lord to his disciples three times in Mark. Yet, Mark's Gospel remarkably ends without any post-Resurrection appearances that fulfill the prophecy. Is this not reason enough for some early scribes to want to add something to this Gospel—anything!—that would have him appear before the disciples? Indeed, it is not just something but several “somethings” that were added after v. 8.

The Short Ending

Now, let's consider the evidence for the “short” ending—that is, the MSS that conclude the Gospel at 16:8. This discussion won't take much space because there aren't very many of these documents. But MSS should be weighed rather than counted, so we will want to look at their pedigree as well.

On the side of the short ending we have the following:

- Codex Sinaiticus ()—This fourth-century codex is one of the principal witnesses to the Alexandrian texttype.

- Codex Vaticanus (B)—Vaticanus, also a fourth-century codex, is the most important witness to the Alexandrian text.

These two codices are the oldest Greek MSS for Mark 16. They also are the only “primary” Alexandrian witnesses to Mark 16 in Greek.[28] This is a relatively pure form of the text that must be given full consideration when making any textual decisions. Metzger-Ehrman note that “textual witnesses connected to Alexandria attest a high quality of textual transmission from the earliest times. It was there that a very ancient line of text was copied and preserved…. the Christian scholars of Alexandria worked assiduously to preserve an accurate form of text.”[29]

Yet Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus contain several thousand differences in the Gospels alone, suggesting that their common ancestor must be several generations back. In addition, we know that the Alexandrian text-form existed in the second century since nearly a dozen Alexandrian papyri are from that period,[30] and because early versions and patristic writers utilized a Greek Vorlage that must have its roots deep in the second century.[31] This MS, versional, and patristic evidence all points to the early second century as the beginning of the Alexandrian text, and it's a threefold cord that is not easily broken.

Further, although no papyri witness to Mark 16, one might cautiously enlist the support of 75 here. The text of B is closer to that of 75 than it is to any other MS. And 75 is a MS that antedates Vaticanus by at least a century. However, this papyrus only contains portions of Luke and John. Nevertheless, David Parker argued that since “we have no reason to consider the text of B in Matthew and Mark to be inferior to that in Luke and John, …” Vaticanus surely represents a text that already existed in the late second century.[32] It can be added that the text of B, when compared to the text of 75, actually gives evidence of having more primitive readings than 75 does. [33] Therefore, B is not a descendant of 75 but reaches back to their common ancestor. Thus, it is probable that B, even by itself, represents a text that existed early in the second century. In combination with , this likelihood is made stronger.[34] In any event, even Sturz would argue that the reading of and B is a second-century reading.

One other comment regarding Vaticanus is in order: There is a large gap at the end of Mark in this MS. Vaticanus has three columns per page;[35] Mark's Gospel ends at the bottom of the second column. The third column is left blank and Luke starts on the next page. The gap is clearly too small to allow for the LE, though Farmer tries to argue from this lack of evidence that the scribe knew about the LE “but disapproved” of it.[36] A more sober assessment is provided by William Lane. He makes the case that the blank column after the conclusion of Mark is “a wholly singular phenomenon, for in Codex B a new book follows in the next column as soon as possible.” He argues from this that the scribe of B knew of what is sometimes called the “Shorter Ending” or the “Intermediate Ending” (which we will discuss below), and made room for it.[37]

However, even Lane's understanding of the gap in B is in doubt. First, this is not a “wholly singular phenomenon.” Although it is certainly Vaticanus' normal custom to begin a new book at the top of the column following the conclusion of the previous book, this MS breaks that rule on four occasions. Tobit ends with one and a half columns to spare[38]; 2 Esdras (Nehemiah) has only two lines in the first column, followed by the entire rest of the page blank; and Daniel concludes half way down the first column, with the rest of the page blank.[39] All three of these books leave larger blanks than Mark does.

Second, it was recently discovered that the scribes of Vaticanus have indicated knowledge of textual variants by using two horizontal dots in the margin next to a line of text where a variant occurs.[40]There are more than 700 such “umlauts” in the NT of Vaticanus, forty-three of which are in Mark alone. Thus, Codex B marks out half as many variants as the UBS text does! It's almost as if this is an ancient UBS Greek text. This is a remarkable discovery whose implications have yet to be fully explored. But, significantly, there is no umlaut at 16:8.[41] Thus, the non-unique gap at the end of Mark and the lack of an umlaut here both seem to indicate that the scribe knew only that Mark's Gospel ended at 16:8.[42] To put this another way: of the three other gaps in Vaticanus, not one is used to indicate knowledge of textual variation.[43] So, to argue that this must be the case for the gap at the end of Mark is hardly compelling. And the fact that Vaticanus uses umlauts to indicate textual variants and that no umlaut is present at Mark 16:8 adds significant weight to the likelihood that the gap at the end of Mark does not imply knowledge of any other ending.

Codex 304, an otherwise unremarkable twelfth-century Byzantine MS, also ends with in v. 8.[44]

Besides the Greek MSS, there are a few ancient versions that lack vv. 9–20.

The Sinaitic Syriac MS (Syriacs) displays the oldest form of the Gospels in the Syriac language. This MS dates from the fourth century, but it represents a text from the late second or early third century, for the most part following the Western texttype.[45] The Sinaitic Syriac MS concludes the Gospel at v. 8.

Approximately 100 of the Armenian MSS, including almost all of the earliest ones, lack the LE.[46] It has been conclusively demonstrated that the original Armenian text did not have these verses. Even William Farmer admitted as much.[47] The Armenian has roots in the early fifth century. Joseph Alexanian, one of the world's leading Armenian scholars, notes that all extant Armenian NT MSS belong to the second revision, a revision that was based on Greek MSS brought from Constantinople shortly after the Council of Ephesus in 431.[48] As well, he notes that the text-form of the earliest of these MSS is either Caesarean or proto-Byzantine (aka “Early Koine”).[49]Almost all Byzantine MSS extant today have the LE, but the Armenian version demonstrates (i.e., if it is truly Byzantine instead of Caesarean) that this was not always the case.

The two oldest Georgian MSS end at v. 8.[50] This version finds its roots in the fifth century.[51]

One Sahidic MS lacks any material past v. 8. The Sahidic is the oldest version of the Coptic NT, originally produced in the early third century,[52] though, on the surface, whether this lone MS represents that text is more difficult to assess. However, the other Sahidic MSS, as we will soon see, confirm that the Sahidic original did not go beyond v. 8.

In addition to the Greek MSS and versions, there are several early patristic writers who may be witnesses to the Gospel ending at . Origen is silent about the LE, even though he had opportunity to mention these verses.[53] Before him, Clement of Alexandria is also silent about the LE, though he also never quotes from Matthew 28. Regarding the argument from the silence of both Clement and Origen, Parker notes:

Those who wish to argue for the originality of the Long Ending point to the weakness of this argument, and not unreasonably. It cannot be argued that the Long Ending was unknown to or rejected by Clement and Origen. But there is a more important point: neither can silence indicate that the Short Ending was unknown. The presence of evidence for the Long Ending is demonstrable. That there cannot be similar evidence for an absence of text requires us to accept that there is no evidence against the existence of the Short Ending in the second century.[54]

In other words, since this particular textual problem involves the addition of a dozen verses, rather than the alteration of the same, there is simply no way to verify whether Clement and Origen knew of the LE. All we can say is that there is no evidence that they did.

Once we get to the fourth century, however, the situation looks decidedly different. Eusebius mentions MSS that end at v. 8 and those that end at v. 20. In discussing the differences between Matthew 28:1 and Mark 16:9, he says:

This can be solved in two ways. The person not wishing to accept [these verses] will say that it is not contained in all copies of the Gospel according to Mark. Indeed the accurate copies conclude the story according to Mark in the words … they were afraid. For the end is here in nearly all the copies of Mark. [55]

Eusebius thus indicates that most of the MSS in his day—the early fourth century—ended at v. 8; indeed, “the accurate copies conclude” here. That this is his opinion seems to be evident from the fact that the Eusebian Canons made no provision for Mark 16:9–20.[56]

As might be expected, Farmer vigorously debates whether the statement about the accurate copies of the Gospel ending at v. 8 really represented Eusebius's view of things, or whether Eusebius was simply quoting from an earlier source.[57] On the one hand, Farmer is not giving Eusebius enough credit for owning what is clearly stated as his opinion; on the other hand, if Eusebius is borrowing from an earlier source, then this shows that MSS with the short ending were in the majority even before the early fourth century. Farmer, in fact, suggests that Eusebius's statement about the more accurate and more plentiful MSS went back to Origen,[58] a concession that implies that the MSS ending at v. 8 were in a majority at least a century earlier than the time of Eusebius.

At the beginning of the fifth century, Jerome also notes that the LE is found in “scarcely any copies of the Gospel—almost all the Greek codices being without this passage….”[59] His statement has been discounted since it is evidently a paraphrase of Eusebius's statement and since he did include the LE in the Vulgate. There are two reasons, however, why we should accept Jerome's statement as his own opinion. First, he adds information not found in Eusebius—viz., that almost all of the Greek MSS that he was acquainted with lacked the LE. This is an important point because Jerome's major work was the Latin Vulgate. He was very familiar with both Greek and Latin MSS. Yet he qualifies Eusebius's statement to refer only to the Greek MSS. The implication may be that the Latin MSS he knew often—or at least more frequently than the Greek—had the last twelve verses.

Second, Jerome was well acquainted with several MSS of Mark's Gospel. For example, he quotes from some verses that were found between vv. 14 and 15 of the LE, noting that he has found this material “in some exemplars and especially in Greek manuscripts of Mark in the end of his Gospel…. ”[60] Until the twentieth century, the only evidence we had for such verses was Jerome's quotation of them. But when Codex W was discovered, we finally had concrete proof of the verses that Jerome quoted. (These verses are known as the Freer Logion because they are found in Codex W, discovered by Charles Freer.) Jerome had seen this passage “especially in Greek manuscripts” but also in others. He thus makes a quantitative statement about three endings to Mark's Gospel: most of the Greek MSS ended at v. 8; some of the Greek MSS as well as a few others added material between vv. 14 and 15; and a few MSS, almost none of them Greek, included vv. 9–20. All this shows that Jerome was well aware of the variations at the end of Mark's Gospel precisely because he had access to numerous MSS. Thus, just because he was paraphrasing a statement from Eusebius is not sufficient reason to think that the evidence he was describing did not apply in his day.

Jerome's statement has also been discounted because he included the LE in the Vulgate. Why would he do that? Perhaps for the same reasons that it is included in Bibles today—call it antiquity, tradition of timidity, or not wanting to rock the boat too much. In AD 400, a riot broke out in Tripoli when Jerome's translation of Jonah 4:6 was read publicly. He used the word “ivy” (hederem) instead of the traditional “gourd” (cucurbita) to describe the plant that gave Jonah shelter. Augustine wrote to Jerome about the situation, pleading with him to temper how much he tampered with the traditional text. Even though Jerome wrote a defiant letter back, it is likely that there were limits to his alterations. If a riot had broken out over the description of a plant, how much more chaos could result if Jerome had omitted Jesus' appearance to his disciples in Mark 16?[61]

Finally, Victor of Antioch, in the fifth or sixth century, notes that “very many copies” of the Gospel ended at v. 8, and “very many copies” ended at v. 20. He weighs in at this point and says that the more accurate MSS included vv. 9–20.[62] Victor is important because his commentary was extremely popular, becoming the “established commentary on Mark for the later church.”[63]

The patristic testimony thus reveals a very interesting trend: from the earliest discussion on the authenticity of this passage, the fathers indicate that most of the copies of Mark ended at 16:8. Yet, in later centuries, the short ending was increasingly looked on unfavorably, and in the standard commentary on Mark of the Middle Ages the short ending was rejected. Putting this on a trajectory, it takes little imagination to realize that what became the majority reading in the Middle Ages started out as a minority reading.

If this were all there were to the external evidence, it should be enough to convince us that Mark's Gospel did not originally contain the LE. However, there is much more evidence that this is the case. First, there are alternative endings to the Short and Long Endings that made their way into the MSS. Codex Bobbiensis (itk), an Old Latin MS written in c. AD 400, shows evidence of having been copied from a second-century papyrus.[64] This is the most important Latin MS of the Western texttype for the Gospels.[65] This MS does not have the LE, but instead has what is known as the Short Ending (SE) or the Intermediate Ending (IE) after v. 8, as follows: “But they reported briefly to Peter and those with him all that they had been told. And after these things Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.”[66]

This ending is patently secondary. It is simply added to the abrupt ending of v. 8 as a way to conclude the Gospel. But it is a colorless conclusion. Why would it have been added to the Gospel? The obvious answer is that the Gospel MS that the scribe had in front of him ended at v. 8. Thus, Bobbiensis should be added to the witnesses for the short ending.[67] In the least, it does not support the LE.

In several other MSS this Intermediate Ending is added before the LE. The list includes “four uncial Greek manuscripts of the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries (L 099 0112 al), … the margin of the Harclean Syriac, several Sahidic and Bohairic manuscripts, and not a few Ethiopic manuscripts….”[68] In none of these witnesses is the Intermediate Ending added after the LE.[69] Yet the Intermediate Ending is both a conclusion to the Gospel and is implicitly contradictory to the LE, because the Intermediate Ending speaks of Mary telling the disciples that Jesus had risen, resulting in his commissioning of them, while the LE has Mary also telling the disciples of his Resurrection, resulting in their continued disbelief! If the Intermediate Ending were added after the LE, this tension would at least be more relaxed. Yet no MS does this.

The MS situation, therefore, points to three important implications. First, the MSS that added both the Intermediate and Long Endings imply that their ancestors only had the Intermediate Ending. As Metzger observed, “No one who had available as the conclusion of the Second Gospel the twelve verses 9–20, so rich in interesting material, would have deliberately replaced them with a few lines of a colorless and generalized summary.”[70] He rightly concludes that these witnesses should thus be added to those that end in v. 8.

Second, once a reading made its way into the text, it was very hard to dislodge it, even if that reading ended up contradicting what was added later. The fact that the Intermediate Ending is found in eight Greek MSS, all the Sahidic MSS (except for one that ends at v. 8),[71] and several other versional witnesses, is concrete testimony to this principle.

And third, the presence of the Intermediate Ending demonstrates that scribes were not satisfied with the Gospel ending with “for they were afraid.”

Again, we ask the question of motive: Which is more likely—that scribes would intentionally omit vv. 9–20 or that they would add some ending because Mark 16:8 ends without Jesus appearing to his disciples? The Intermediate Ending speaks eloquently to both of these alternatives: scribes were prone to add material, even if it created contradictions, to a Gospel that ended with the fearful women.

In addition to these witnesses, there are several MSS that indicate some doubt about the authenticity of the LE. They do this in one of two ways: First, the scribe may add a note after v. 8, such as that found in Codex 22: “The end. In some copies the evangelist ended here, but in many this also”—referring to vv. 9–20 which follow.[72] Similar notes are found in key members of Family 1 (1 209 1582), as well as in several other codices.[73] Altogether, a dozen MSS have such a note.[74] 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 MSS.[75] That these same scribes nevertheless included vv. 9–20 reveals a basic principle that ancient copyists followed: if in doubt, don't throw it out![76]

As many textual critics have observed, one of the key evidences that a text is unstable is a high degree of variation and displacement. If so, the ending of Mark's Gospel is a poster child for this principle. David Parker points out six different endings for Mark, along with multiple variations within them.[77] I have only scratched the surface of the textual fluctuation in my presentation of the external data.[78]But if we pause for a moment and take it in, the question that we raised earlier surfaces again: Why are there so many differences in the MSS here? The issue is not simply the LE vs. the SE, as Farmer seems to imply. If that were the case, then we might well expect all the MSS to line up in either camp. Instead, some MSS end at 16:8, others add an Intermediate Ending, while others indicate doubts about the authenticity of vv. 9–20. To be sure, the vast majority of MSS include vv. 9–20, but the diversity and age of the witnesses against the LE have to be accounted for.

Why is it that this Gospel, and only this Gospel, has major textual upheaval at the end? The reason can't be due to discrepancies about the Resurrection accounts because whether Mark is in the mix or not, there are still tensions in these accounts. Mark 16:9–20 is hardly the most difficult post-Resurrection narrative to harmonize with the other Gospels. And it can't be because of the promise about handling snakes and drinking poison because this portion of the LE is the most secure, patristically speaking, of the entire pericope. As we have seen, the only alternative is that scribes were uncomfortable with a Gospel ending without any Resurrection appearances.

Which is easier to believe—that scribes cut out rich theological material because they didn't like the abrupt change between vv. 8 and 9, even though that would obliterate any Resurrection appearances by Jesus to the disciples in this Gospel? Or that they felt that the Gospel came to a close too abruptly and needed to have a proper ending in which the Resurrection appearances of Jesus were included? The answer should be obvious: When scribes find small segments of text that are problematic, they do some plastic surgery. But they don't amputate the leg because of athlete's foot!

One final comment is needed on the external evidence. The MSS, versions, and patristic evidence on behalf of the short ending are early and widespread. They represent the Alexandrian (especially the primary Alexandrian), Western, and Caesarean texttypes, possibly even the proto-Byzantine.[79] The short reading is found in the best witnesses of the three most important early versions as well—the Latin, Coptic, and Syriac. There is no obvious connection between all these diverse witnesses, showing that this reading must go back to a much earlier stage in the transmission of the text. Further, as the centuries rolled on, the LE was at first considered inauthentic, then timidly accepted, then finally considered to be part of the original text. Yet even then, many scribes registered their doubts about this ending.[80] If the internal evidence on behalf of the LE looks at all suspect, we should consider the matter closed: Mark's Gospel did not originally have vv. 9–20.[81]

The End of Mark's Gospel—Internal Evidence

Because J.K. Elliot's essay in this volume focuses on internal evidence, I will make my comments here rather brief. Indeed, I will only use very broad strokes.

The key issue for internal evidence is whether it is likely that Mark would have written vv. 9–20 or not. The typical points that are raised here are vocabulary, syntax, style, and context (especially how this passage relates to the immediately preceding text). Several scholars have pointed out the high number of words and phrases used nowhere else in Mark's Gospel except here, and this argument has been countered by showing that Mark elsewhere displays just as high a number of rare words in the same amount of space. Then there is the statistical argument about words and phrases that Mark is fond of, and how such words do not occur in the LE. This is countered by noting that the lack of these same characteristic words can be seen in several other passages in Mark. Sometimes syntax is brought into the mix, and it is largely detrimental to the LE; but frankly, this is an area that still needs more work.[82] There are many syntactical issues that have not even been looked at.

What marks most of these studies is an unprincipled approach that picks bits of data willy-nilly, but never argues on sound linguistic principles as to whether Mark could have written this section. Two recent studies, however, have raised the methodological bar; after a detailed examination, both of them concluded that Mark did not write vv. 9–20.[83]

For my own take on things, I wish to simply highlight a few points about these arguments. First, the most important internal argument is a cumulative argument. Thus, it is hardly adequate to point out that Mark, in other passages, uses seventeen words not found elsewhere in his Gospel, or that elsewhere he does not write for an extended number of verses, or that elsewhere he has other abrupt stylistic changes. The cumulative argument is that these ‘elsewheres’ are all over the map; there is not a single passage in Mark 1:1–16:8 comparable to the stylistic, grammatical, and lexical anomalies in 16:9–20.[84] Let me say that again: there is not a single passage in Mark 1:1–16:8 comparable to the stylistic, grammatical, and lexical anomalies that we find clustered in vv. 9–20. Although one might be able to parry off individual pieces of evidence, the cumulative effect is devastating for authenticity. Further, if the text is already suspicious because of external data, then these linguistic peculiarities are strong evidence of the spurious nature of the LE.

Farmer conceded that the external data were not decisive on behalf of the LE: “… the external evidence… does not produce the evidential grounds for a definitive solution to the problem. It will be necessary to consider the internal evidence bearing on this question before further conclusions can be drawn.”[85] This is a remarkable concession about the external evidence—especially since Farmer never seriously considered the impact that the Intermediate Ending had on the history of the transmission or whether scribes would be prone to add a Resurrection narrative to Mark's Gospel. Had he wrestled with those considerations, his conclusions may have been different. But at least he says that scales should be tipped when the internal evidence has been examined. Yet this is where Farmer's argument is very weak. In my judgment, Farmer did not do an adequate job on the internal evidence to convince us that the LE was truly Markan. He looked at truncated evidence and parried off individual problems, while ignoring the cumulative effect of the entire linguistic argument against his case.

It is not just vocabulary, but syntax, style, and contextual flow that must be taken into consideration. As well, source criticism plays a role: Mark 16:9–20 deviates strongly from the pattern we see everywhere else in the Gospel when it comes to synoptic parallels. By far the best explanation for the Matthean and Lukan Resurrection accounts looking so different from each other is that they had lost their template because Mark ended his Gospel at v. 8.

Second, although some have pointed out a few terms and expressions in the LE that seem to be Markanisms, we might expect this from an ending that was intentionally attached to this Gospel. Obviously, the author of the pericope had read Mark carefully enough to see a problem with how it concluded. That he occasionally picked up some of Mark's vocabulary is not surprising. A modern analogy might be Morton Smith's “discovery” of the Secret Gospel of Mark. Smith went to some lengths to show how this secret Gospel was linguistically in line with Mark.[86] Another scholar, after a careful examination of the evidence, thought the internal evidence conclusively showed that the secret Gospel was penned by Mark.[87]As it turns out, Secret Mark was an elaborate hoax created by Morton Smith himself.[88] If a modern scholar whose native tongue is not Greek could palm off a document as having been written by Mark, surely it is not unreasonable to think that a native Koine Greek speaker could have done something similar.[89] Indeed, Smith's hoax is far more Markan than the LE! But it certainly illustrates that the mere identification of a few Markanisms in a passage is not a sufficient basis for declaring it authentic.

Third, along these lines, as far as I know, no detailed linguistic analysis has been conducted on the Intermediate Ending of Mark or on the Freer Logion. Even though no scholar considers these passages to be authentic, it is instructive that both of them have Markan features—indeed, several Markan features that are not found in the LE![90] If ‘Markanisms’ can occur in these two endings that are obviously not authentic, they can occur in the LE without implying anything about authenticity.

We will have to defer to Professor Elliott for additional details of internal consideration.

Irony in the End—The Case for Mark's Intentional End of His Gospel at 16:8

Finally, I will briefly make a case that Mark intended to end his Gospel with . Again, these points will be in germ form.

Those who object to Mark intentionally ending his Gospel at v. 8 use essentially three arguments:[91] (1) an open-ended book is a modern convention, not an ancient one; (2) it is likely that the last leaf of the Gospel was simply lost before copies were made of it; and (3) books don't end in a .[92]

Regarding the first objection, W. L. Knox said, “To suppose that Mark originally intended to end his Gospel in this way implies both that he was totally indifferent to the canons of popular storytelling, and that by a pure accident he happened to hit on a conclusion which suits the technique of a highly sophisticated type of modern literature.”[93] Or as Robert Stein colorfully put things, “Are [the ancient] ‘less sophisticated readers’ more reliable or less reliable guides for interpreting Mark's Gospel than modern-day literary critics deeply entrenched in Kafka-like existentialism and a readerresponse hermeneutic?”[94]

According to the lost-ending theory, modern literary criticism is viewed as just that—modern. Yet, if there is evidence that Mark's conclusion would have fit into the literary conventions of his day, it may be invalid to assume that all ancient readers were incapable of getting Mark's point.[95]

J. Lee Magness, in Marking the End: Sense and Absence in the Gospel of Mark, demonstrates that suspended endings—that is, endings that leave the reader hanging—can be found in Graeco-Roman literature, in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament. In other words, he shows that such a literary approach is not due to a Kafka-like existentialism, but is rooted in ancient culture. To be sure, such suspended endings were rare, but they nevertheless existed, and they were effective. After canvassing several examples of suspended endings, Magness notes the literary effect of such: “literature which expresses more than it says demands an act of finding[,] which forces readers into a future of which the text is the foundation but they themselves are the builders.”[96] In other words, the readers find themselves as active participants in the story rather than just passive observers. Magness goes on to note that “the power that is generated from the phenomenon is fairly well focused: when readers supply this ending they participate in it and experience it more fully than if the writer had supplied it to them.”[97]

When Magness turns to the NT examples, he finds one in the conclusion to Acts: “Luke is silent on two points in which he and his readers have invested a good deal of attention—the results of Paul's preaching in Rome and the results of Paul's legal appeal. The tantalizing mention of the ‘two whole years’ impels us to ask, ‘What happened then’?”[98]

Just as Markan scholars have found the ending of the Gospel to be unsatisfactory, so also Lukan scholars have complained about Luke's conclusion. William Ramsay said, “No one can accept the ending of Acts as the conclusion of a rationally conceived history.”[99]I can't help but wonder if Luke at least caught what Mark was doing literarily and consciously emulated his style in the book of Acts—intentionally leaving the book open-ended to bring his readers into the narrative. If so, Luke used and respected Mark—both for its content and for its literary technique.

Mark fits this ancient literary technique well: Magness argues that “the suspension of the narration of a post-resurrection appearance makes the impact of that foreshadowed event even greater in the expectant minds of the readers who have followed Jesus in the story.”[100]

Second, the argument that the final leaf of the Gospel would have been destroyed or lost is an old one. Before serious work had been done on the birth of the codex, this argument seemed reasonable enough. But recent research has pointed to the end of the first century as the probable beginnings of the codex-form of books. Before then, rolls or scrolls would have been used.[101] Now, if Mark was the last Gospel to be written, and if it was written in the 80s or 90s,[102] there is a very slight chance that he utilized the new technology when he wrote his Gospel. If so, there is some possibility that before the copying of the MS took place, the last leaf became detached. However, if Mark's Gospel is earlier than this—as virtually all scholars acknowledge, regardless of their view of the synoptic problem—then he would have written his Gospel on a roll, and the first generation of copies would also have been on rolls. And if the Gospel was written on a roll, then the most protected section would be the end, because when someone rolled the book back up, the end would be on the inside. To be sure, some lazy readers might not rewind the book when finished—of course, they would get fined a denarius at their local Blockbuster for such an infraction! But the reality is that this sort of thing was the rare exception, not the rule.[103] Consequently, if Mark was originally written on a roll, it is hard to imagine how the ending could have gotten lost before any copies were made.

The third argument against Mark intending to end his Gospel at 16:8 is that the last sentence is simply . For many years, scholars felt that no book could end with a , so they categorically rejected the possibility that Mark did so. It was not until 1972 that an actual book ending with was found.[104] The discovery was made by P. W. van der Horst, who concluded his article by the observation, “The proof was really not necessary for common sense alone could argue that, if a sentence or paragraph can end with , a book can too.”[105] Coupled with the increasing popularity of narrative criticism, more and more scholars have come to embrace the notion that Mark intended to end his book with .

But this view was again challenged recently by Clayton Croy, who asked in his well-researched book, The Mutilation of Mark's Gospel, “what kinds of sentences end with gar? …such sentences occur most often in certain kinds of literature…. Sentences ending in gar are much less common in narrative.”[106]

As insightful as Croy's work is, it does not make an airtight case. Kelly Iverson took it to task for missing several important pieces of data. Iverson produced numerous examples in narrative literature of sentences ending in .[107] He concludes his article by conceding that -ending sentences were rare in all literature, but adds: “… if Mark consciously and purposefully intended to end his account abruptly, why use a clichéd or even widely used phrase? If Mark's intent was to shock his readers contextually, … why not a stylistic punch with an unusual concluding statement?”[108]

This brings us back to where we began: If Mark wrote first, he created a new literary genre that would later be called Gospel. I suspect that because of the magnitude and uniqueness of Jesus, Mark also wanted to point to him in such a way that got the readers involved in the story. Of all the Gospels, Mark tends to leave it to the reader to form an opinion about Jesus rather telling the reader what he must believe. Throughout his Gospel, the disciples are asking, “Who is this man?” And the reader is drawn into the story, sitting in the boat with the disciples, wrestling with the same question. Mark wants them to work things out for themselves—not in an academic, detached way, but by coming to grips with Jesus of Nazareth.

If the fulcrum of the Gospel is Peter's confession of Jesus as Messiah—a confession in which he is still half-blind because he only sees the Messiah in terms of a militant warrior, not a dying Savior—the scene sets us up for the end. The disciples are slow to get the message. In 9:32, after Jesus' second prophecy about his death and resurrection, Mark tells us that “they did not understand this statement and were afraid to ask him” (). Then the pericope just quits: Mark leaves us hanging. And how he leaves us hanging is with the imperfect verb —“they were continually afraid.” The imperfect tense has an internal perspective; its focus is not on the end of the action or the beginning; instead it takes an inside look. By its very nature, the imperfect is open-ended.[109]

Mark then uses the same imperfect verb in 16:8. Mark 9:32 is a pericope that foreshadows both Jesus' death and resurrection, as well as the disciples' lack of belief in the same. At bottom, the disciples are seen as slow to get the message that Jesus was the suffering servant, and slow to get that they were called to suffer too. Like Peter, they continued to be half-blind. The Gospel then abruptly ends without any of the disciples seeing Jesus. Mark 9:32 may give sufficient hints that this will indeed be how the Gospel ends: they were afraid there when thinking about the Resurrection; they would be afraid again. The point is that if someone did not embrace Jesus in his suffering, he did not get to see him in his glory.

Mark could have narrated what all the readers knew: that the disciples did in fact see Jesus and they believed and understood. But he leaves off this ending precisely to draw the reader into the story. It's as if he's saying, What are you going to do with Jesus? Will you continue to be half-blind, or will you accept his crucifixion as an essential part of what it means for him to be the Messiah?

Although not all readers would have grasped the dramatically abrupt ending to this Gospel, all would have entered into the story—consciously or otherwise—and would have thought about the unstated Resurrection appearances. The absence of appearances in fact heightens the presence of Jesus in the readers' minds.[110]

Conclusion

In sum, I have laid out a few of the major arguments for Mark's Gospel originally not going beyond 16:8. As the reasoned eclectic on this panel, I try to take a balanced look at both external and internal evidence. However, my discussion is weighted far more on the external side because Professor Elliott will supplement the internal side. I also tried to show briefly why Mark may have intentionally ended his Gospel with .

You will read other views on this thorny problem in this volume, and the presuppositions, methods, and conclusions will go in several different directions. If this seems bewildering, at least you should take comfort that Mark 16 is not alone in creating diversity of opinion. Or, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, “If all exegetes were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.”[111]

__________________

1. Robert H. Gundry (“Recent Investigations into the Literary Genre ‘Gospel’,” in New Dimensions in New Testament Study, ed. Richard N. Longenecker and Merrill C. Tenney [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974]), after examining several attempts at locating the Gospels within a literary trajectory, notes the failure of all such attempts: “Supernaturalism in the gospels presents the biggest bugaboo … if aretalogists did not yet apotheosize human beings by attribution of miracles and if study of folklore discovers conservatism on the part of communities, the problem of the shortness of time between the ministry of Jesus and the evangelists' narrations of the supernatural becomes more acute than ever…. The more we deny or doubt the historicity of the materials … in the gospels, the more the questions become difficult to answer. We leave the gospels' literary uniqueness without an adequate historical cause” (112). He then adds, “On the other hand, high estimation of historicity would supply the missing cause. We could then say that the configurations and particulars of Jesus' career shattered literary conventions…. The greater the disparity between literary contents and historical actualities, the greater the likelihood of conformity to established conventions of writing. Conversely, the less conformity to established conventions of writing, the greater the likelihood of agreement between literary contents and historical actualities. The unsuccessfully denied uniqueness of the gospels' literary form therefore derives from the uniqueness of Jesus' life and ministry” (112–13). Gundry only slightly modified his views of the genre of Gospel in his commentary on Mark. See Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 1049–52. More recently, R. T. France has argued that Mark's Gospel belongs to the genre of biography. Yet he cautiously adds, “Just as there is a wide variety among Graeco-Roman ‘biographies,’ so Mark is his own master, not bound to follow a pattern laid down by someone else. His book represents something distinctive within the field of biographical writing, in terms of its subject, its origin, and the use for which it was intended” (R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002], 6).

2. For example, George Salmon “did not accept Markan priority[;] therefore, he thought it inconceivable that Mark's Gospel could have ended with ” (Steven Lynn Cox, A History and Critique of Scholarship concerning the Markan Endings [Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1993], 78). Not all Matthean prioritists, of course, think that Mark ended at 16:8 (cp., e.g., C. S. Mann, Mark: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1986], 672–76; on p. vii he says that he follows the Griesbach Hypothesis), but they have greater difficulty explaining the lacuna in Mark than Markan prioritists do. As David Parker succinctly notes, the adherent of the Griesbach Hypothesis “has some difficulty with the idea that Mark should have ended at 16:8. For it requires him to have rejected all the material contained in Matthew 28 and Luke 24, and to have decided to go against the tradition of recording resurrection appearances” (D. C. Parker, The Living Text of the Gospels [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997], 132).

3. William R. Farmer, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark, SNTS 25 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974).

4. The Greek New Testament according to the Majority Text, 2nd ed., ed. Zane C. Hodges and Arthur L. Farstad; assistant editor, William C. Dunkin; consulting editors, Jakob van Bruggen, Alfred Martin, Wilbur N. Pickering, and Harry A. Sturz (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1985). Of all the editors, only Sturz and van Bruggen were not Dallas Seminary graduates and thus not directly influenced by Zane Hodges. Sturz was the only non-MT editor of the seven.

5. The second edition was never published. Dr. Farmer gave me the draft of the external evidence section in 2000, asking for my critique, shortly before his death that year (December 31, 2000). In his cover letter, he also noted that it was already at the publisher's. Why it was not published I do not know.

6. P. 50 of the prepublication draft. The statement reads, “Our examination of the external evidence, and in particular the manuscript evidence, leads us to the conclusion that scholars working in the text critical tradition of Griesbach, Lachmann, Westcott and Hort, and Streeter, who advocate the theory that Mark 16:9–20 is a later addition to the text of Mark, have an unfinished task that lies before them.”

7. In particular, Farmer has altered some of the language from the first edition of Last Twelve Verses regarding the archetype of the Alexandrian witnesses. Whereas before he said that such an archetype reached back to the late second century, now he says that it goes no further than the late third century (p. 20 and passim). There is no new evidence that convinced Farmer to change his stance, nor is there any new text-critical theory that pushed him in that direction. Indeed, his dependence on Sturz's method seems to be greater in the second edition than the first. Yet Sturz believed that all three major texttypes originated in the second century. Further, Sturz considered the major and earliest witnesses to have priority in determining the archetype's reading. Yet, when Farmer examines the various witnesses for the Alexandrian, Western, and even Caesarean texts, he explicitly disregards this basic approach and appeals to numbers: in Last Twelve Verses, 50–51, Farmer enlists B. H. Streeter's approach of determining the text on the basis of regional archetypes (a view similar, in this point at least, to Sturz's). Streeter, like Sturz, thought in terms of primary witnesses, secondary witnesses, tertiary witnesses, and so on, to each text-form. But as Farmer discusses the external data, he recognizes that the primary witnesses to most of these text-forms support the omission. Significantly, the only region in which there was unanimous support for either reading was that of Italy-Gaul. Here, as Farmer notes, “[t]he primary authority … witnesses for inclusion, as do all the secondary, tertiary, supplementary and patristic witnesses” (50). To put this another way, in the majority of Streeter's regions, the primary witnesses ended Mark at 16:8, while the majority of secondary and tertiary witnesses supported the LE. And the western region unanimously supported the LE (according to Farmer). Yet Farmer would not allow this evidence to suggest either that (a) the LE was a later reading, or that (b) it originated in the West. But the evidence he presented and even the method he ostensibly followed argued against his case.

8. Wilbur N. Pickering, “Mark 16:9–20 and the Doctrine of Inspiration,” 1 (a paper circulated to members of the Majority Text Society, September, 1988). Pickering added that he was unaware of anyone who thought that Mark's Gospel intentionally ended at v. 8. Perhaps if he had realized that this was, in fact, the predominant view at the time he wrote, he might have been a bit less dogmatic in his declarations. Pickering's view is, in a sense, just the flip side of Dean John W. Burgon's about the doctrine of preservation. He said, “I am utterly disinclined to believe—so grossly improbable does it seem—that at the end of 1800 years 995 copies out of every thousand, suppose, will prove untrustworthy; and that the one, two, three, four or five, which remain, whose contents were till yesterday as good as unknown, will be found to have retained the secret of what the Holy Spirit originally inspired. I am utterly unable to believe, in short, that God's promise has so entirely failed, that the at the end of 1800 years much of the text of the Gospel had in point of fact to be picked by a German critic out of a waste-paper basket in the convent of St. Catherine; and that the entire text had to be remodeled after the pattern set by a couple of copies which had remained in neglect during fifteen centuries, and had probably owed their survival to that neglect; whilst hundreds of others had been thumbed to pieces, and had bequeathed their witness to copies made from them” (The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, ed. E. Miller [London: George Bell & Sons, 1896], 12). I say this is the ‘flip side’ of Pickering's point because Burgon was not arguing for the preservation of the Long Ending in this diatribe as much as arguing that the critically-reconstructed text of Westcott and Hort was based on manuscripts that had been unknown and unused. Nevertheless, both were speaking about preservation as a doctrinal presupposition.

9. Burgon, The Traditional Text, 12. Italics added. See full context of quotation in note 8.

10. Burgon linked inspiration to preservation and preservation to accessibility. Thus, for him, as for many if not most majority text advocates, it necessarily follows from inspiration that the original text must be found in the majority of manuscripts at all times. I have dealt with the internal contradictions of this view elsewhere. See Daniel B. Wallace, “The Majority Text Theory: History, Methods, and Critique,” in The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis, ed. Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 308–10; in particular, it is noted that “the Majority text position is based on a corollary (accessibility) of a corollary (preservation) of a particular dogmatic stance (verbal inspiration),” 308.

11. More recently, and in a significant scholarly journal, Matthew D. McGill asked the question, “Could a part of God's Word, inspired by the Holy Spirit, be lost?” (in “A Textual and Structural Analysis of Mark 16:9–20,” Filologia Neotestamentaria 17 [2004]: 27–43; quotation from 35). The belief in some sort of doctrine of preservation continues to persist, even when it has been demonstrated to be indefensible exegetically and empirically.

12. See Daniel B. Wallace, “Inspiration, Preservation, and New Testament Textual Criticism,” GTJ12 (1992): 21–51.

13. In 1982, when I was considering doctoral programs, I visited Bruce Metzger at Princeton Seminary. He told me that he was not allowed to take any more doctoral students because Princeton had a mandatory retirement age. Because studying with him was no longer an option, I looked elsewhere for my doctorate. If I couldn't study with Metzger, I reasoned, I should most likely concentrate on Greek grammar. I knew of Buist Fanning's reputation, having studied with him in my master's program at Dallas Seminary; that decided the direction of my studies. Ironically, here I am, debating a point about textual criticism when I am the least qualified person in this volume!

14. Credit needs to go to Darrell Bock as one who was instrumental in my shift. He simply made a quick comment, in passing, about how any text-critical theory has to be grounded in history if it is to be viable. It was indeed the historical question that Sturz's view, along with the majority text theory, did not seem capable of answering.

15. See Gordon D. Fee, “A Text-Critical Look at the Synoptic Problem,” NovT 22 (1980): 12–28.

16. G. Zuntz, The Text of the Epistles: A Disquisition upon the Corpus Paulinum (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), 12.

It should be noted that I did not simply replace one set of presuppositions with another, but had accumulated several unresolved issues over the years that I did not have satisfactory answers for when I held to Matthean priority and the independent texttypes theory.

17. Technically, internal evidence includes an examination of both the intrinsic probability (what the author is likely to have written) and transcriptional probability (what the scribes were likely to have done with the text they copied from). But in larger portions of text, intrinsic evidence becomes much more important and decisive; consequently, we will examine only that aspect under internal evidence. Further, since the transcriptional evidence is strongly related to patristic data for this problem, we will subsume the transcriptional under external.

18. Today, the Caesarean text-form is strongly disputed, but for convenience' sake we will consider it to be a legitimate texttype.

19. It is possible also that Justin Martyr (d. AD 165) alludes to Mark 16:20 in Apol 1.45 (compare his with Mark 16:20—). But he does not mention Mark in this reference. Nevertheless, since he is speaking about the disciples spreading the gospel, and since the wording is virtually identical with what is in Mark 16:20, it is possible that Justin knew of the LE. Some also take a statement in Papias to be a possible reference to the LE (so Salmon, etc.). Papias relates a story in which Justus Barsabbas once drank poison without harm (Papias 3.9; 5.1). But to connect this to Mark 16:18 as the source for Papias's statement is gratuitous, especially since that sort of miraculous story would naturally have circulated in nascent Christianity, as can be seen by many other similar stories in the patristic and apocryphal literature.

20. Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 21–22. The focus of the discrepancy was the time of Jesus' Resurrection and his appearance to Mary. This discrepancy is discussed by Eusebius in Quaestiones ad Marinum, in Nova Patrum Bibliotheca (NPB), vol. 4.219–309, esp. 255–57; ed. Cardinal Angelo Mai (1847); more accessible is the quotation by Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 4, which gives the translation by John W. Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to St Mark (Oxford: James Parker, 1871), 265–66 (Mai's Greek text is reproduced in Burgon, 41–44).

21. Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 65–72. He discusses various ways in which the ancient church dealt with the troublesome verses. First is containment: Farmer quotes from the Apostolic Constitutions (ANF 7: 479–81) as an illustration of ecclesiastical regulation of the sign gifts so as to maintain order in the service (but nothing is said in this passage about picking up snakes or drinking poison). Second is allegory: Farmer quotes the apologist in The Apocriticus of Macarius Magnes, who responds to Porphyry's taunt (or, more accurately, “the pagan philosopher who popularized Porphyry's work” [Farmer, 68]) that candidates to the priesthood should drink deadly poison because to refuse to do so would be “to confess that they do not believe in the things Jesus said.” To this the apologist says that the “deadly drug” must not be taken too literally (cp. The Apocriticus of Macarius Magnes, trans. T. W. Crafer; Translations of Christian Literature, Series 1: Greek Texts [London, 1919], 85–88). The third option was simply to omit copying the verses. Farmer goes to some length to suggest that the Alexandrian scribes would in fact have done this because of their offense over these verses, but he has no statement to this effect, only inference (Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 70–72).

22. The primary issue that Eusebius wrestled with was the apparent discrepancy between Matthew's statement on the time of the Resurrection () and Mark 16:9 (). Although ad Marinus discusses two potential discrepancies, this one is obviously the more prominent (and is the only one that Farmer mentions in his summary on p. 22). But if Mark 16:9 contradicts Matt 28:1, then so do Luke 24:1 and John 20:1, for both of these Gospels also speak of the Resurrection as occurring ‘early on the first day of the week’ ( in Luke 24.1; in John 20.1). Indeed, this particular question is followed by another by Marinus, which specifically pits Matthew against John regarding the Resurrection and Jesus' appearance to Mary (see Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 5).

23. Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, lists Justin Martyr as possibly alluding to v. 20; Irenaeus as quoting from v. 19, claiming it to be from Mark (Against Heresies 3.10.6); a third-century text attributed to Hippolytus (preserved in Apostolic Constitutions 8.1) as interpreting vv. 17–18; Vincentius (AD 256) as referring to vv. 15–18; Acta Pilati as quoting vv. 15–18; Aphraates, the ‘earliest known Father of the Syrian church,’ as citing vv. 16–17 in a sermon (AD 337); Epiphanius (c. 374–6) as referring to v. 19; the Apostolic Constitutions (c. 380) as quoting from vv. 15–18 (cp. AC6.15 especially); Nestorius and Cyril as quoting from Mark 16:20; and Gregory of Nyssa as citing v. 19 (Last Twelve Verses, 31–34). On the other hand, he lists Eusebius as recognizing that some MSS had vv. 9–20, Ambrose (d. 397) as quoting from vv. 9–20 (although in the unpublished revision, Farmer only cites quotations from vv. 15–20 by Ambrose [p. 22, n. 57]), Chrysostom (d. 407) as referring to v. 9, Jerome (d. 420) as including vv. 9–20 in his Vulgate, and Augustine (d. 430) as discussing vv. 9–20 (70–72).

It might also be pointed that if Justin Martyr is alluding to Mark 16:20 and Papias is alluding to Mark 16:18, then there are thirteen patristic writers through the first five centuries who allude to/quote only the second half of the pericope.

For a more complete discussion of the patristic data, see Joseph Hug, La Finale de L'Évangile de Marc (Mc 16, 9–20) (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1978), 188, 192–207. Less critically, but with a helpful layout, see Cox, History and Critique, Appendix A: “The Fathers' Use of the Longer Ending,” 217–22.

24. Unless, of course, one counts the Diatessaron as a “father.”

25. Eta Linnemann, “Der (wiedergefunde) Markusschluß,” ZTK66 (1969): 255–87. Her view was based on more than the patristic evidence, but also looked at internal features of the passage in question. Her thesis was strongly criticized by Kurt Aland, “Der wiedergefundene Markusschluß? Eine methodologische Bermerkung zur textkritischen Arbeit,” ZTK67 (1970): 3–13.

26. Walter Schmithals, “Der Markusschluß, die Verklärungsgeschichte und die Aussendung der Zwölf,” ZTK69 (April 1972): 379–411. Schmithals's argument is that these verses would have been a source that Mark used, and thus they would have been dated earlier than the Gospel itself.

27. After all, the Resurrection accounts in all four Gospels have several tensions with each other, regardless of whether Mark's Gospel included vv. 9–20 or not.

28. See Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994), 15*.

29. Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 278.

30. The NT papyri from the second century include 52 (100–150), 90,104 (second century), 66 (c. AD 175–225), 46,64+67 (c. AD 200), 77, 98 (second century?). As for texttype, as far as can be determined, all of these MSS are Alexandrian (Philip W. Comfort and David P. Barrett, The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts [Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 2001], 629, only dispute 98, noting that there are ‘several differences’ from the text of NA^27, but by my count there are three differences, only one of which seems to be due to a different Vorlage than the text found in NA^27 here).

These eight manuscripts are the extent of those that the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung has identified as possibly or definitely from the second century. In addition to these, there are a few other candidates. Comfort-Barrett, Earliest New Testament, argue for at least half a dozen other manuscripts as possibly from the second century. Comfort and Barrett's method, however, is generally to take the earliest date possible. Nevertheless, the date they suggest for 4 (second century) is probably correct in light of some recent work done by T. C. Skeat of the British Library, and the date they offer for 32 (late second century) is quite possible. In addition, renowned papyrologist Herbert Hunger considered 66 to be from no later than the middle of the second century (“Zur Datierung des Papyrus Bodmer II (66),” Anzeiger der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 4 [1960], 12–33). The original editors of 75 also thought this manuscript should be dated late second to early third century (see Metzger-Ehrman, Text, 58). All of these, except perhaps for 32, belong to the Alexandrian text.

31. The Sahidic version, an early third century version (see discussion below), is a primary Alexandrian representative; Clement of Alexandria (d. after 215) and Origen (d. 254) are primary witnesses to the Alexandrian text.

32. Parker, Living Text, 137. Contra Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 30.

33. C. L. Porter, “An Evaluation of the Textual Variation between Pap75 and Codex Vaticanus in the Text of John,” in Studies in the History and Text of the New Testament in Honor of Kenneth Willis Clark, vol. 29 of Studies and Documents, ed. Boyd L. Daniels and M. Jack Suggs (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1967), 71–80.

34. For a landmark study on the significance of the relation of 75 to B, see Gordon D. Fee, “66, 75 and Origen: The Myth of Early Textual Recension in Alexandria,” in New Dimensions in New Testament Study, ed. R. N. Longenecker and M. C. Tenney (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), 19–45; reprinted in Eldon Jay Epp and Gordon D. Fee, Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism, Studies and Documents, vol. 45, ed. Irving Alan Sparks (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 247–73.

Farmer acknowledged that the evidence was sufficient that some MSS of Mark in the second half of the second century must have ended at 16:8 (Last Twelve Verses, 31, 74, and passim). Inexplicably, in the unpublished revision of this work, Farmer now alters the date to a significantly later period: “This suggests an origin for the text tradition for omission sometime early in the fourth century, possibly as early as some time during the second half of the third century….” (20 of draft). But a line-by-line comparison with the published Last Twelve Verses revealed essentially nothing new; indeed, Farmer continued to show minimal acquaintance with the text-critical literature of the last half-century in the revision, a criticism that Birdsall had already leveled against the first work (J. N. Birdsall, “Review of William R. Farmer, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark,” JTS26 [1975]: 151–60).

35. Except in OT poetic sections where it has two columns per page.

36. Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 59. He does admit, however, “Why the space left blank is more than necessary for the shorter ending or less than needed for the longer ending is not entirely clear” (58). At most, the reason why there is more space for the shorter ending is simply because almost every book in Vaticanus ends with some space at the end of the column. Further, every book begins at the top of a column.

37. William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974): 602n1.

38. Although the text of Tobit in Vaticanus is significantly shorter than Tobit in Sinaiticus, the additional material in the latter is spread throughout the book rather than at the end. There are approximately 1600 more words in the Sinaiticus version than in the Vaticanus version. The main verses that are longer in are Tobit 1.8, 18; 2.2, 3, 10; 3.6, 10, 17; 5.3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 17; 6.4, 13, 14; 7.1, 10, 12, 13; 8.19, 21; 9.5, 6; 10.6, 8, 11, 14; 11.16, 17; 13.13, 17; 14.2, 4, 7, 8, 15. In light of the fact that these are distributed throughout the book and comprise hundreds of more words, it is unlikely that the scribe of Vaticanus is leaving space for such variants (for only a small fraction of the variants could possibly fit in the space provided). The situation is paralleled to some degree by the D text of Acts, which is 8.5% longer than the Alexandrian text; here again, the additions are distributed throughout the book. Yet there, no extra column is found in Vaticanus. Some other explanation for the long gap at the end of Tobit thus must be sought for. This is also seen in 2 Esdras (Nehemiah), for no unusually lengthy textual variant—at the end or anywhere in the book—occurs.

It could be countered that after 2 Esdras, the Psalms begin and thus a new section of the OT created the gap; and since they are laid out in two columns they would have to begin on a new page. So, also, Daniel: the NT begins on the next leaf. The same could be said for the gap after John in Sinaiticus (see below). But this argument does not work for Tobit, nor does it work for the large gap at the end of Philemon in Sinaiticus (unless the distinction between Paul's letters and Acts is in view). Further, if the “Western” order of the Gospels were the original order once the books were collected, as some have suggested, then Mark would have ended the Gospels section in the earliest canonical collection. The gap in Vaticanus could be a vestige from an earlier codex in which the Western order was followed. (The same argument could be used for Sinaiticus, since the cancel sheets on which Mark 16 and environs were written were in a different hand—expanded in Mark, cramped in Luke; the original hand of would have left some room at the end of Mark, but clearly not enough for the LE.) All in all, the reasons for the gaps are anything but clear, which makes arguments based on the supposition that the scribes of and B knew of the LE or even the Intermediate Ending tentative at best.

39. Although there were two distinct recensions for Daniel, a blank page would not even be close to adequate to allow for the alternative recension. Further, it cannot be argued that room was made for “Bel and the Dragon,” since this story is found in Vaticanus.

40. J. Edward Miller, “Some Observations on the Text-Critical Function of the Umlauts in Vaticanus, with Special Attention to 1 Corinthians 14.34–35,” JSNT26 (2003): 217–36. Miller builds on Philip Payne's work of seeing the “umlaut” in combination with a horizontal bar to indicate textual variation (see especially P. B. Payne, “Fuldensis, Sigla for Variants in Vaticanus, and 1 Cor 14.34–5,” NTS41 [1995]: 240–62). But Payne did not see the umlauts by themselves as clearly indicating this.

41. The reasons for the variants being indicated is still not entirely clear. It is possible that the scribe knew of other variants, but chose only to list these. It is also possible that the scribe was indicating only those variants that were true competitors. These umlauts need to be explored more fully for what they are and are not telling us.

42. James Snapp (“The Authenticity of Mark 16:9–20” [unpublished paper, 2006]) notes that “has not merely a blank column but an entire blank page following the four Gospels. This may be merely an aesthetic touch to separate the Gospels. On the other hand, if a scribe had desired to leave room for Mark 16:9–20 as a freestanding text rather than as part of the Gospel of Mark, he could easily have selected just this location for it” (24). This hypothesis seems to be an unfounded speculation, for this would be the only place in a Greek MS in which the LE was placed (or made room for) at the end of the Gospels (although there is one Armenian MS that does this). Further, there is more than a column and a half at the end of Acts in Sinaiticus: Does this mean that the scribe was aware of a different ending for Acts? And after Philemon, there is an entire blank page. It seems that Snapp's first hunch—that the large gaps in were aesthetic markers to distinguish different genre—fits the data better.

43. Although two of the three gaps have been explained as due to genre shifts, this is certainly not evidence that the gap must mean knowledge of a variant in Mark 16. The gap at the end of Tobit lacks sufficient explanation, and the possibility exists that Mark could have been the final Gospel for Vaticanus's exemplar, with the gap there being residue from an earlier format.

44. Two other Greek MSS lack vv. 9–20, but their testimony must be completely discounted because the leaf that would have contained these twelve verses is missing. Codex 2386 (an eleventh-century Byzantine codex) lacks the leaf that vv. 9–20 would have been on, and thus should not be counted on behalf of the Short Ending. See Kurt Aland, “Bemerkungen zum Schluß des Markusevangeliums,” in Neotestamentica et Semitica: Studies in Honour of Matthew Black, ed. E. Earle Ellis and Max Wilcox (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1969), 157–80, especially 159–60; idem, “Der wiedergefundene Markusschluß?” ZTK67 (1970): 3–13, esp. 8–9. Codex 1420 (a thirteenth-century MS) is also listed by J. K. Elliott as having a page missing at this point” (“The Text and Language of the Endings to Mark's Gospel,” TZ27 [1971]: 256), a point repeated without further qualification in the reprint of this article in J. K. Elliott, The Language and Style of the Gospel of Mark: An Edition of C. H. Turner's “Notes on Marcan Usage” Together with Other Comparable Studies (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993), 204. Das Markusevangelium 1.2 in Die synoptischen Evangelien, Text und Textwert der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments in ANTF 27, ed. Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998; from here on, called Markusevangelium, ANTF 27) only lists 1420 as lacking v. 14; it makes no comment about vv. 9–20 nor whether the leaf was missing (410). Remarkably, the 768-page tome, Textkritik des Markusevangeliums by Heinrich Greeven and Eberhard Güting (Münster: Lit, 2005) does not discuss the problem of Mark 16.9–20.

45. Metzger-Ehrman note that, together with the Curetonian Syriac MS, “the form of text that they preserve dates from the close of the second or beginning of the third century. When the two manuscripts are compared, it is seen that the Sinaitic Syriac represents a slightly earlier form of text than does the Curetonian…. In general, the Old Syriac version is a representative of the Western type of text” (96–97).

46. Elliott gives the number at eight (“Text and Language,” 256), which is apparently based on the apparatus of S. C. E. Legg, Euangelium secundum Marcum (Oxford: Clarendon, 1935), which, in turn, was presumably based on Frédéric Macler, Le texte arménien de l'evangile d'après Matthieu et Marc (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1919). Metzger (Textual Commentary, 102) gives the number at ‘about one hundred,’ citing Ernest C. Colwell, “Mark 16[.]9–20 in the Armenian Version,” JBL55 (1937): 369–86, as his basis. Colwell gives the number at 99 (371), but adds that another 33 marked vv. 9–20 as doubtful (376–77). In addition, four MSS place these twelve verses elsewhere (e.g., the end of Luke, end of John, or after ‘according to Mark’ at the end of the Gospel [378]). Colwell also notes that “out of 29 MSS earlier than the thirteenth century, only three include our passage and one doubts” (377).

47. Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 39.

48. Joseph M. Alexanian, “The Armenian Version of the New Testament,” in Contemporary Research, 157.

49. Ibid., 166.

50. The oldest Georgian MS, the Adysh Gospels (AD 897) and the Opiza Codex (AD 913) lack the LE. The third oldest, the T'bet MS (AD 995) has the LE. For the initial work, see Robert Pierpont Blake, The Old Georgian Version of the Gospel of Mark, PO 20.3 (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1928).

51. The Georgian version was a translation of the Armenian, but has traces of the Old Syriac in it as well as readings akin to what is found in family 1. What is important to note is that the Georgian, like the Armenian and Old Syriac, seems to follow a tradition that is independent from the Diatessaron. Further, the later Georgian MSS begin to show signs of Byzantine intrusions. See J. N. Birdsall, “The Georgian Version of the New Testament,” in Contemporary Research, 173–87, esp. 180–82.

Three Ethiopic MSS have also been alleged to lack the LE. But see Bruce M. Metzger, “The Ending of the Gospel according to Mark in Ethiopic Manuscripts,” in New Testament Studies (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980), 127–47.

52. Metzger-Ehrman, Text, 110. This dating for the Sahidic version is doubted by Frederik Wisse, “The Coptic Versions of the New Testament,” in Contemporary Research 133–34, who argues for the second half of the third century for the origins of the Coptic Bible.

53. One would think that he might have appealed to Mark 16:9–20 in his debate with Celsus about the Resurrection appearances (Against Celsus 2.56–70), though Farmer disputes this (Last Twelve Verses, 27–29).

54. Parker, Living Text, 136–37.

55. Ad Marinus, NPB 4.255ff.; translation is found in Parker, Living Text, 134.

56. There is additional evidence that this was Eusebius's opinion, though it is much later and its reliability has to be questioned: Several MSS of f^1 have a note to the effect that Eusebius “canonized” the Short Ending. See n. 74 for data.

57. Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 7: “The import of all this is that if Eusebius is giving expression to his own critical judgment in saying that these questions from Marinus proceed from a misunderstanding of the text of Matthew, then the recorded discussion of the discrepancy between Matthew and Mark preserved in Mai's text in which reference is made to the existence of manuscripts which end at must be older than Eusebius, and must have come to him as a twofold solution which was worthy of perpetuation in spite of the fact that Eusebius himself, on the basis of his own convictions, regarded the question as misconceived from the start.” The problem with Farmer's statement is that Eusebius represents at least a portion of the response to Marinus as his own opinion (viz., that the most accurate and most numerous copies of Mark ended at v. 8). Farmer does not distinguish the interpretive solution from the textual data that it is based on. Clearly, Eusebius rejects the first but accepts the second.

58. Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 36.

59. In Jerome's letter to Hedibia, in Epistola 120, PL22.980–1006. The translation (which is Burgon's) is conveniently found in Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 23.

60. Jerome, Against Pelagius 2.15; translation is supplied by Parker, Living Text, 128.

61. In addition, it is possible that Jerome followed Eusebius's advice of accepting both readings as what is “to be received” (Eusebius, ad Marinum, NPB 4: 255–56: “But another, on no account daring to reject anything whatever which is, under whatever circumstances, met with in the text of the Gospels, will say that here are two readings [as is so often the case elsewhere]; and that both are to be received,—inasmuch as by the faithful and pious, this reading is not held to be genuine rather than that; nor that than this” [Burgon's translation found in Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 4]). Obviously, in this instance, to accept the LE does not alter the Short Ending, so it would be possible to accept both without making any decision about authenticity.

62. Whether this scholium is actually from Victor or is from a later hand is difficult to assess. Farmer notes that if it is from a later hand then it may reflect the situation in the seventh or eighth century (Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 25). He also notes that Victor is a “hostile witness” to the Short Ending, and thus “on actual count the number of copies of Mark circulating in his day which did not contain these verses may have exceeded the number which included them” (ibid., 26).

63. Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 24. Hort dismissed this scholium as from a later writer, noting that it was probably produced in “the sixth or some later, perhaps much later, century” (B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, vol. 2 [London: Macmillan, 1881], 35). For a critique of Hort, see Snapp, “Authenticity of Mark 16:9–20,” 15–16.

64. Metzger-Ehrman, Text, 102.

65. Ibid.

66. Translation in Metzger, Textual Commentary, 103. Besides itk is likely that ita also lacked the LE. This is the second most important Itala witness (Metzger-Ehrman, Text, 102). However, it is missing some leaves, requiring a reconstruction of its contents for chapter 16. Nevertheless, based on lines of text and letters per line, it has been determined that the MS either ended at v. 8 or had only the Intermediate Ending. Cp. C. H. Turner, “Did Codex Vercellensis (a) Contain the Last Twelve Verses of St Mark?” JTS29 (1927–28): 16–18. The significance of this MS is that it is European and in conjunction with Bobbiensis speaks not only of the widespread nature of the short reading but also its early date outside of Egypt.

67. Kurt Aland, “Bemerkungen zum Schluß des Markusevangeliums,” 157–80, argued that the Intermediate Ending was early and/or done in a remote location. Hence, it did not have the impact on the MS tradition that the LE did.

68. Metzger, Textual Commentary, 103. Altogether, the MS testimony for the Intermediate Ending is both diverse and early: L 083 099 274mg 579 l1602 itk syrhmg copsamss,bomss ethmss. Lane adds l961 to this list (Lane, The Gospel of Mark, 602).

69. Technically, as Lane notes, “MS 274 has the shorter ending after Ch. 16:20, yet critical signs indicate an awareness that the shorter ending belongs after verse 8 and before the longer ending” (Lane, The Gospel of Mark, 602n3).

70. Metzger, Textual Commentary, 105.

71. For what it is worth, the Sahidic MSS are considered to be primary Alexandrian witnesses (Metzger, Textual Commentary, 15*). Farmer argues extensively that the scribal practices on classical texts in Alexandria would have transferred over to Christian scribes, and that Eusebius, the Armenian version, etc. would have been strongly influenced by such. In this way, he attempts to make a connection that is otherwise not at all apparent. But he does not comment on the Sahidic MSS, yet these are primary Alexandrian witnesses (unlike Eusebius, the Armenian and Georgian versions, etc., which are not even Alexandrian). If the Alexandrian impulses to excise any ending past v. 8 were so strong, how could such impulses not have affected the Sahidic version?

72. Translation provided by Parker, Living Text, 127.

73. MSS 15, 20, 199, 205, 215, 1110, 1192, and 1210.

74. Listed on 407 in Markusevangelium, ANTF 27. The Greek text found in the f^1MSS, with slight variations, is as follows: . It may be significant that these MSS claim that Eusebius considered the Short Ending canonical, but apparently not the long. The only MSS that have the statement about Eusebius are 1, 205, 209, and 1582.

75. MSS 138, 264, 1221, 2346, and 2812, listed on 407 in Markusevangelium, ANTF 27. Parker, Living Text, 127, adds 137 to this list. It should be noted that we are only discussing the Greek MSS here; the versional witnesses have not been completely examined. But of the approximately 200 Armenian MSS that Colwell examined, 99 lacked the LE, 33 indicated that vv. 9–20 were doubtful, and four placed the LE elsewhere (see data in n. 47).

76. Contra Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 43, who states (without further argument) that the scribes who indicated some doubts about the LE nevertheless considered such verses to be authentic. This seems to contradict even the principle that he enlisted from Eusebius earlier in his work—viz., that the SE and LE should both be accepted since the MSS were not uniform (Eusebius, ad Marinum, NPB 4:255–56).

77. Parker, Living Text, 124–28. In all fairness, Parker includes the scholia and asterisks as well as text for what he calls an “ending.” Strictly speaking, scholia and asterisks are not part of the text but are notes about the text. The actual number of endings to Mark's Gospel should thus be reduced to five: (1) conclusion at v. 8; (2) the Intermediate Ending; (3) the Intermediate Ending, followed by the Long Ending; (4) the Freer Logion wedged between vv. 14 and 15 of the LE; and (5) the LE following immediately after v. 8. At the same time, it should be noted that some Armenian MSS place the LE at the end of Luke or the end of John, so in addition to the endings that Parker has noted, one might also recognize that the LE is, like the pericope adulterae, a floating text.

78. In particular, we have not discussed in any detail the Freer Logion, found only in Codex W.

79. Remarkably, Farmer says, in his unpublished revision of The Last Twelve Verses, that “the Georgian and Armenian manuscripts… all stand in the Alexandrian textual tradition” (33). The sometimes careless and uninformed statements in Farmer's work prompted Birdsall to not mince words in his critique, saying that Farmer was “ill acquainted with most of the text-critical work of the last fifty years” and that the book “is marred by a remarkable lack of documentation and reference, as well as by the slender acquaintance which he shows with the implications of our present knowledge of the documents and history of the New Testament text” (J. N. Birdsall, “Review of William R. Farmer, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark,” JTS26 [1975]: 151–60; quotations on 153, 158). Unfortunately, the unpublished revision did not improve one's confidence in Farmer's acquaintance with the literature.

Metzger-Ehrman (Text, 323, 325, n 41) are also blunt in their assessment of Farmer's analysis of the external data: “The late William R. Farmer attempted to account for the absence of the last 12 verses of Mark in certain early witnesses on the supposition that, during the second century, Alexandrian scribes, being uneasy with the references in verse 18 to ‘picking up snakes’ and ‘drinking poison,’ decided to adopt techniques of Alexandrian Homeric scholars and consequently deleted all 12 verses in certain Greek manuscripts…. But this explanation is unsatisfactory: (1) Farmer misunderstood the work of Alexandrian philologists, who did not ordinarily delete lines from the Homeric epics but merely athetized with an obolos the line or lines deemed to be inauthentic; (2) no convincing explanation is given for why all 12 verses should have been deleted rather than only two phrases in verse 18 that Farmer thought were embarrassing to members of the Alexandrian Church; and (3) it is entirely unrealistic to suggest that the abbreviated Alexandrian text could account for the short text in such widely scattered versions as those preserved in the earliest Latin, Syriac, Sahidic, Armenian, and Georgian manuscripts. Not by the wildest stretch of one's imagination can it be argued that all these reflect the influence of the hypothetical suppression of the passage in Alexandria.”

80. This is all the more remarkable since there would have been great reticence to leave any Gospel without resurrection appearances.

81. Farmer (Last Twelve Verses) suggested that no one see had enough influence to promote the LE sufficiently that it would have made its way into the majority of MSS extant today. In the unpublished revision, he modifies this view to the effect that Rome may well have been “a metropolitan center in which some ecclesial effort was made to control the natural proliferation of textual change” (37n100). Here he has most likely put his finger on the place of origination of the LE. But he dismisses this possibility: “there is no evidence that that ecclesial control was strong enough to influence other scriptoria in metropolitan centers in the West like Milan or Lyons.” One wonders how Rome, which was admittedly influential far beyond its borders, could not have influenced other Western centers.

82. Internal arguments for the inauthenticity of the LE can be found in J. K. Elliott, “The Text and Language of the Endings to Mark's Gospel,” TZ27 (1971): 255–62; Metzger, Textual Commentary, 104–6; Cox, History and Critique, 147–205 (Cox looks at the LE in terms of form, redaction, and literary criticism); James A. Kelhoffer, Miracle and Mission: The Authentication of Missionaries and Their Message in the Longer Ending of Mark, WUNT 112 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2000), 65–122 (Kelhoffer especially focuses on syntactical anomalies); Travis B. Williams, “Bandaging Up the Red-Headed Stepchild: Reexamining the Style of the Longer Ending of Mark,” paper presented at the southwestern regional conference of the Evangelical Theological Society, March 23, 2007 (this paper in particular lays out a proper method for attacking the linguistic problem; to Williams' credit, he is critical of both sides of the debate in how they have handled the data); and many others. Internal arguments for the authenticity of the LE can be found in John A. Broadus, “Style of Mark xvi. 9–20, as bearing upon the question of genuineness,” Baptist Quarterly 3 (1869): 355–62; Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses; Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 79–109; Bruce Terry, “The Style of the Long Ending of Mark,” http://matthew.ovc. edu/terry/articles/mkendsty.htm. (Although Terry makes a decent case, unfortunately he interacts with virtually no one, but simply speaks of the arguments against the LE. This allows him to not examine in detail what these arguments really are, keeping them almost at the level of hearsay.)

83. Kelhoffer, Miracle and Mission, and Williams, “Bandaging Up the Red-Headed Stepchild.”

84. In particular, Terry's treatment of the cumulative argument is weak, even though he is able to show quite successfully that many of the anomalies in 16:9–20 can be found scattered throughout the rest of Mark. He speaks about literary peaks, such as the Resurrection accounts would be, as narratives that would alter an author's style; but he does nothing to show that such peaks significantly altered the style of Matthew, Luke, or John in the way that Mark 16:9–20 is different from the rest of Mark. Further, if such literary analysis was applied to the Intermediate Ending or the Freer Logion, it could be argued just as cogently that the lack of Markanisms in these texts were due to the nature of the Resurrection accounts.

85. Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 74–75. In the unpublished revision, his language was much more certain. Rather than calling the last section of the external evidence a “tentative conclusion,” he simply labeled it “conclusions.” And he adds that “the Greek manuscript evidence, in balance, weighs strongly in favor of inclusion, as does the versional and patristic evidence when considered as a whole” (50).

86. Morton Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), passim; see also Scott G. Brown, Mark's Other Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith's Controversial Discovery, ESCJ 15 (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2005), 163–214 (Brown is persuaded by the linguistic evidence that Secret Mark is authentic).

For other decent treatments on Mark's style, see John Charles Doudna, The Greek of the Gospel of Mark, JBL Monograph 12 (Philadelphia: Society of Biblical Literature, 1961); and especially, Elliott, Language and Style (which includes essays by C. H. Turner, G. D. Kilpatrick, Nigel Turner, and J. K. Elliott).

87. Brown, Mark's Other Gospel, 220–30.

88. See Stephen C. Carlson, The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of Secret Mark (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2005).

89. At the same time, it should be noted that Smith was far more successful than the ancient author, since the evidence for his forgery has come not from linguistic evidence but from external and circumstantial evidence. Kelhoffer makes an excellent case that “the LE's author composed this passage to improve Mark's ending in conscious imitation of the NT Gospels” (Miracle and Mission, 65), and that “The LE's numerous Markan words and phrases reflect an effort to imitate the style of the work which this author augmented” (121). Thus, the author was intentionally appending this ending to Mark, but doing so on the basis of material from the other Gospels. To some degree, of course, the style of Luke, Matthew, and John would overlap that of Mark (especially if Matthew and Luke had used Mark to write their Gospels), so the converse might also be true: the author of the LE, by using Matthew and Luke, would end up writing a narrative that bore some resemblance to Mark.

90. For example, in the Freer Logion, there are three imperfect verbs, while there are none in the LE. In Mark 1:1–16:8 there are 293 imperfects. The ratio of imperfects to words in the Freer Logion is the same as the rest of Mark. As well, the Freer Logion uses vocabulary that is distinctive of or frequent in Mark (such as , etc.)—words that are not found in the LE.

91. Among the scholars who do not think Mark intended to end his Gospel at v. 8 are Griesbach, Lachmann, Alford, Westcott and Hort, Gregory, Bultmann, Streeter, Schlatter, Cullmann, Dodd, Hengel, Moule, Metzger, Stein, Gundry, Elliott, and Evans—to name a few! For a more complete list, see N. Clayton Croy, The Mutilation of Mark's Gospel (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003), 174–77.

92. An alternative to the idea that the ending was lost or that the Gospel concludes at 16:8 is that John 21 is the actual ending that Mark wrote. According to Evan Powell, The Unfinished Gospel (Westlake Village, CA: Symposium, 1994), someone in the early church placed that chapter at the end of John to make peace between the factions of the Peter-party and the John-party (on the assumption that John's Gospel elevates John over Peter and Mark's Gospel elevates Peter over John). Powell further suggests that these two Gospels were the first ones written. Although the thesis makes for interesting reading, it is hardly a study of plausible history.

93. Wilfred Lawrence Knox, “The Ending of St. Mark's Gospel,” HTR35 (1942): 22–23.

94. Robert Stein, “The Ending of Mark” (penultimate draft of a paper presented at the annual Institute for Biblical Research conference, Washington D.C., 2006), 16.

95. To be sure, I suspect that most readers would not have understood what he was after. But what the average reader understands and what the author intends are two different things. We have plenty of examples within the NT of authors being misunderstood; but reader inability does not nullify the author's meaning. See, e.g., 1 Cor 5:9–10; 2 Pet 3:15–16. Multiple illustrations in the ministry of Jesus could also be mentioned.

96. J. Lee Magness, Marking the End: Sense and Absence in the Gospel of Mark (Atlanta: Scholars, 1986), 17.

97. Ibid., 47.

98. Magness, Marking the End, 84.

99. William M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and Roman Citizen (reprint; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1982), 321–22 (cited also in Magness, Marking the End, 84) [italics added].

100. Magness, Marking the End, 121.

101. Cp. Colin H. Roberts and T. C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex (London: Oxford University Press, 1983).

102. The earliest recorded instance of the codex-form was by Martial, c. AD 84–86 (Roberts-Skeat, Birth, 24). However, the new book-form was so far from a raging success that Roberts and Skeat conclude that “Martial's experiment was still-born” (29).

103. F. G. Kenyon (“Papyrus Rolls and the Ending of St Mark,” JTS60 [1939]: 56–57), though acknowledging that Mark's Gospel would have been a roll instead of a codex, argued that “since the title [of a document] was habitually written at the end, this seems to be evidence that the roll was normally left with its end outside” (57). However, Kenyon actually supplies the very reason why this would not be the case, for he notes that labels would often be affixed to the beginning of such rolls, but they would often become detached; hence, “it was an obvious precaution to inscribe the title on the roll itself….” (ibid.) What makes much greater sense, though, regarding such a precaution, is that the title would be in the most protected portion of the MS. Since the titles were usually put at the end (a practice that continued in codices, though for no other reason than emulation of the habit on rolls), the evidence seems to go against Kenyon's suggestion. Stephen Pfann of the Jerusalem Institute once told me that of all the Dead Sea Scrolls, only one was not properly rolled up, with the end still being on the outside. This, at least, suggests that Kenyon's suggestion is contradicted by the evidence. More recently, N. T. Wright has suggested that the Dead Sea Scrolls actually may be evidence for a lost ending: “A glance at any edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in particular at facsimile photographs, will reveal that even the scrolls which are preserved almost in their entirety are in many cases damaged at both ends” (N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003], 619). However, what he did not take into account was that all MSS—whether in roll or codex form—are subject to deteriorate over time. The problem that his hypothesis has for Mark's Gospel is that he presupposes that before the Gospel was even copied, it would have become significantly frayed. Wright suggests that some scholars might argue for an intentional ending at v. 8 because that would allow them to deny evidence for the bodily Resurrection in the earliest Gospel (ibid.). But Wright cites no one who actually holds to this position.

104. P. W. van der Horst, “Can a Book End with a ? A Note on Mark XVI.8,” JTS23 (1972): 121–24, citing Plotinus, Ennead 5.5.

105. Van der Horst, “Can a Book End with a ? ”, 124.

106. Croy, Mutilation, 48.

107. Using the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, Iverson was able to discover several such instances. With extensive tables and data, his brief article lays out much of the data (Kelly R. Iverson, “A Further Word on Final (Mark 16:8),” CBQ68 [2006]: 79–94). At the same time, it is incomplete since the only sentences he examined were those that ended in a period. For an older use of TLG, but one that examined sentences ending in a question mark, see Cox, History and Critique, 149–57, 223–28. Altogether, Cox found more than 1500 instances of sentences ending in . One could also add sentences ending in the (semi-) colon, since such are often represented in translation by a full stop.

108. Iverson, “Final ,” 93. Iverson (87) noted that “the most impressive parallel” was in Gen 18:15, where Sarah at first laughed at the angel's announcement that she would conceive in her old age; but when Abraham confronted her, she denied her response, “for she was afraid” ().

109. See Buist M. Fanning, Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990) for a full treatment of verbal aspect; he speaks of the present and imperfect tenses as having an internal perspective (103, passim). Cp. also Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 500–501, 540–53.

110. So, Magness, Marking the End. Much more could be said about the open-endedness of Mark's Gospel and the clues that he gives along the way in this direction. But due to space considerations, we will have to leave it here.

111. The actual quotation from Shaw speaks of “economists” instead of exegetes.

CHAPTER 2

_________________________________________________________

Amid Perfect Contempt, a Place for the Genuine[1]

The Long Ending of Mark

as Canonical Verity

_________________________________________________________

MAURICE A. ROBINSON

Priority must always be given tangible, objective data, and to external evidence, over subjective theory or speculative opinions. Facts must control theory, not vice versa.

— K. A. Kitchen[2]

“Imaginary gardens with real toads in them”

The ending of Mark is a flash-point in NT criticism. Textual critics and commentators over the past 150 years have debated the various possible endings of the Gospel according to Mark.[3] Many scholars hold that this question represents the most serious textual and exegetical problem facing the interpreter of the Second Gospel.[4] Although some might consider the Markan ending less significant than text-critical issues involving other New Testament passages, the presence or absence of a highly visible twelve-verse segment engenders a high level of concern, particularly when the passage in question has appeared unchallenged within the main text of nearly all Bibles and manuscripts over the past 1,600 years.[5] That a text-critical problem exists at this point is certain; the question of its significance and resolution may be less notable and consequential than the endless discussions over the past centuries have made it appear.

The text-critical issues involved are fairly easy to state in terms of external evidence and proposed theories of accounting for the phenomenon.

A Short Ending at 16:8 (MSS /01, B/03, 304, sys).[6]

- Perhaps the original ending authored by Mark became “lost,” such loss being reflected in the MSS cited above or their common archetype.

- Perhaps the evangelist deliberately ended his Gospel at 16:8.

- Perhaps the evangelist circumstantially was forced to stop at 16:8.

An Intermediate Ending following 16:8 (itk alone, with additional modifications to verse 8; also present in tandem with the Long Ending in MSS L/019, /044, 083, 099, 274mg, 579, L-1602).

- Perhaps this was the original Markan Ending (apparently not held by anyone)[7].

- Perhaps created to resolve the abruptness caused by an ending at 16:8.

- Perhaps an existing one of many artificially created but now lost alternate endings.

A Long Ending concluding at 16:20 (all remaining continuous-text MSS, lectionaries, and most versional witnesses).

- Perhaps authored by the evangelist and intended as the conclusion of his Gospel.

- Perhaps authored by someone else in an attempt to conclude the Gospel in an appropriate manner.

- Perhaps a piece of “floating tradition,” or an extract from an unknown document that became attached as the Long Ending (hereafter LE) in order to provide some sort of conclusion.

A Long Ending with a lengthy expansion following 16:14 (MS W/032, with the so-called Freer Logion, also known from a mention in Jerome). The Freer Logion reads as follows:

And they excused themselves, saying, “This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under Satan, who does not allow the truth and power of God to prevail over the unclean things of the spirit…. Therefore reveal thy righteousness now”—thus they spoke to Christ. And Christ replied to them, “The term of years of Satan's power has been fulfilled, but other terrible things draw near. And for those who have sinned I was delivered over to death, that they may return to the truth and sin no more, in order that they may inherit the spiritual and incorruptible glory of righteousness which is in heaven” (translation by Metzger, Textual Commentary, in loc.).

- Perhaps the Logion was added in an attempt to clarify or mollify the disciples' unbelief.

From the nineteenth century onward, critical scholarly opinion tended to favor the “lost ending” hypothesis.[8] During the latter third of the twentieth century, the critical viewpoint mostly has shifted to deliberate termination at 16:8 as reflecting authorial intent.[9] The view that the LE should be accepted as original within the text of the Second Gospel obviously has not garnered a strong scholarly consensus as have the options so persuasively presented by opposing text-critical, interpretative, or content-based theories.

It is of no benefit merely to list names and count scholarly noses; people will tend to favor scholars considered authoritative, while rejecting all contrary assertions.[10] Yet it cannot be claimed that the scholarly voices on any particular side of the issue are unbiased and without presuppositions; even the present writer has presuppositions and biases that could affect his judgment. However, certain factors at least mollify the influence of any a priori opinions that might be brought to the discussion. For example:

- The various endings of Mark are themselves “orthodox,” without any particular heretical or heterodox emphasis.

- These endings were used theologically and liturgically throughout church history without serious controversy.

- Most of the content of the more extensive endings could be known and established from other portions of Scripture.

“All these phenomena are important”

Very little new evidence of significance has been discovered since the known endings were debated by Burgon, Scrivener, and Westcott-Hort in the nineteenth century.[11] No papyri yet exist for this passage; the oldest manuscripts remain /01 and B/03; and the patristic evidence mostly remains unchanged.[12] The only subsequent discovery that had any real bearing was that of W/032, which contains the LE plus an expansion previously known from Jerome's late fourth/early fifth-century comments (the so-called “Freer Logion”).[13] In reality, twenty-first-century scholars continue to deal with issues raised during the nineteenth century, albeit in a redirected manner.[14] Yet the presumed complexity regarding the ending of Mark remains an ongoing fascination, driving scholarly imagination for more than 150 years, with little or no end in sight.[15]

On the basis of external evidence, the present writer has no difficulty in defending a reading supported not only by the Byzantine Textform (which he obviously prefers),[16] but also by the wide range of MSS that represent the Western, Caesarean, and even the Alexandrian texttype ( and B thus represent “Alexandrian exceptions” to the overall situation of that texttype).[17] Were the LE not absent from codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, the few manuscripts that contain both the Long and Intermediate Endings, and the limited adverse versional and patristic testimony would not be sufficient to maintain the controversy. To illustrate: strong Alexandrian support exists ( B C L , over 30 minuscules, vgmss mae sypalmss slav) for the generally rejected spear-thrust narrative at Matt 27:49—testimony far stronger than in support of the short ending of Mark. Equally, the modern eclectic editors accept the Byzantine reading in 1 Cor 15:51b despite the “stronger” manuscript, versional, and patristic support given to alternatives by favored Alexandrian and Western witnesses at that location (46 Ac; D ar b d ftxt [o] vg; A* C F G 0243 33 1241 1739 fmg g arm geo^1; Origengr1/2 Didymus Cyril1/2 Jerome; Marcion, Tertullian, Ambrosiaster, Hilary, Ambrose, Augustine). In each case, the combination of witnesses favoring a non-Byzantine variant is stronger than that which exists in relation to the Short Ending of Mark — and yet such readings remain rejected.

“There are things that are important beyond all this fiddle”

Although the external evidence basically settles the issue for the present writer, an advocate of a particular reading should go beyond decisions reached on the basis of external testimony. Further compelling reasons should be drawn from internal evidence in order to supplement and support the conclusion established by the weight of the primary external data. To this extent, Paul L. Danove is correct: “An analysis of the alternate endings that does not include references to interior criteria … cannot establish an adequate basis for determining which alternative is the most probable ending.”[18] While exception can be taken to Danove's absolute declaration, an advocate of a given variant should offer external and internal reasons for acceptance of a preferred text.[19] This is now the primary thrust of the present paper, involving some significant but often overlooked items within the realm of external evidence, followed by specific internal considerations.

“Elephants pushing”: Patristic Testimony

Most discussions concerning the patristic evidence relative to the Markan ending focus on the speculations of the fourth and later centuries, whether by Eusebius or (in repetition) Jerome, or Victor of Antioch. Yet the opinions of later patristic writers should not negate earlier patristic testimony that supports LE inclusion.[20] Particular in this regard are the second-century testimonies of Justin Martyr and (explicitly) Irenaeus. Under almost any other circumstances, these citations should outweigh patristic speculations of some two centuries later.

Justin Martyr

Justin did not specifically identify a text as being from the LE of Mark (or equally, from the LE within Tatian's Diatessaron). Nevertheless, Justin evidenced a familiarity with the LE, stating (Apology 1.45) that the disciples, “having gone forth, preached everywhere” (). This three-word combination appears only in Mark 16:20, and differs from the common Greek text in Mark solely in relation to the order of the last two words.[21] The collocation of these three terms occurs nowhere else in the NT or Septuagint, and the chance that Justin could have been alluding to an unknown extrabiblical source is highly unlikely.[22] Frederic H. Chase has noted that Justin is

weaving a quotation into his own words … as if it were a word occurring in an authority quoted by him … Justin is characteristically weaving together words and ideas derived from [Mc.] xvi. 15 … and words and ideas derived from v. 20…. The section [the LE] was known to and was used by, Justin, before the middle of the [second] century.[23]

In addition, Martin Hengel has noted that “Justin uses no other written sources for the Gospel material which he includes than the Canonical Gospels”;[24] this would appear to seal the point.

Irenaeus

Later in the second century, Irenaeus intentionally quoted from both the beginning and end of the Gospel of Mark in order to declare the relative boundaries of that Gospel. Regarding Mark's conclusion, Irenaeus stated,

At the end of his gospel, Mark says, “And so the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was received into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father.”[25]

That this quotation is genuine and not a later interpolation is clearly accepted, even by Westcott and Hort.[26] Irenaeus' unambiguous testimony regarding the closing words of Mark's Gospel thus becomes a significant point of evidence, declaring the LE to be a component part of the Second Gospel in a period long predating that of , B, Eusebius, and Jerome.[27]

In this light, the shortest reading may not always be original, but may have arisen either through accident or design (other areas of analysis appear to demonstrate that point).

“Case after case could be cited”

Regarding accident, I offer an example from our seminary library. Bar-coded labels at one time were prepared for each book that listed the call number, author, and title. These were limited only by the available space on the label. As a result, various pamphlets produced by the Center for Hermeneutical Studies in Hellenistic and Modern Culture appear on our barcode labels as coming from the “Center for Hermeneutical Studies in Hell”! [28]

Regarding intentional shortening, I turn to the twentieth-century American poet Marianne Moore (1887–1972).[29] Moore's free verse poem entitled “Poetry” originally appeared in a “long” 40-line version (July 1919).[30] Later, the poem was reworked (1925) into a quite different 13-line “intermediate version.”[31] Even later, the “longer version” was restored (1932), with only minor differences from the original. Yet in her final edition (1967), Moore truncated the poem into a “short version” encompassing only the first three lines of her longer edition, even then lacking two phrases found in the longer version's opening lines. In Moore's “Poetry,” one finds the various endings of the Gospel according to Mark paralleled: the 40-line “long form;” a quite different 13-line “intermediate form;” and a 3-line “short form”—each with its own share of “variant readings,” and each created by the author herself. In Moore's case we know the entire transmissional history; with Mark we have “only hints followed by guesses.”[32]

“A high sounding interpretation can be put upon them”

Not only are the various versions of Moore's “Poetry” analogous to the Markan ending issue, but commentators upon Moore favor the differing versions of that poem in accord with their interpretative fancy. Some favor the “longer version;”[33] some favor the “intermediate version;”[34] and even the “short version” has its advocates.[35]Moore's 1967 Complete Poems includes the epigraph, “Omissions are not accidents.”[36] Moore's shortening of “Poetry” clearly was intentional; yet, had the publishing history of Moore's “Poetry” been unknown, many Moore scholars might have presumed the threeline version to be original, followed by later supplementary material, which might have been presumed to reflect a weak first expansion and subsequent polished extension of the original. Naturally, the critics would be quite wrong.[37]

Of course, had the earlier long version of Moore's poem not initially existed, the later versions would have been more difficult to interpret. A similar consideration could apply to the various Markan endings. As Moore stated elsewhere, it is “one of / those things into which much that is peculiar can be read; / complexity is not a crime, but carry / it to the point of murkiness and nothing is plain.”[38]

“When dragged into prominence”: Rationale for Omission of the Long Ending

Should the LE be considered original to the Markan autograph (minimally defined as the initial canonically transmitted form of the text of that book), the various alternative conclusions that exist among the manuscripts still require investigation.

The Short Ending at 16:8

The absence of both the Long and Intermediate Endings in codices Sinaiticus (/01) and Vaticanus (B/03) leaves what appears to be a puzzling and incomplete conclusion.[39] Whether this occurred due to accident (an archetypal lost leaf) or intent (authorial decision to end with 16:8), the result is problematic.[40] Had the LE been original (say advocates of the Short Ending), then no compelling reason would exist for total removal; in contrast (say they), were the Short Ending original, a later creation of some sort of conclusion would seem necessary to some readers.

Of course, the scribe of Vaticanus, after 16:8 on the final leaf of Mark, has left blank the last third of the second column and all of the third column, apparently because he was familiar with the Intermediate or Long Ending, or both. As Westcott and Hort note,

In B, the scribe, after ending the Gospel with v. 8 in the second column of a page, has contrary to his custom left the third or remaining column blank; evidently because one or other of the two subsequent endings was known to him personally…. The omitted words … were in existence … when the extant MS was written, and were known to its scribe.[41]

It is possible that the Vaticanus scribe found one or both of the longer endings in an exemplar; a question of which to include may have resulted in leaving the lengthy blank space.[42]

Something also appears peculiar in Codex Sinaiticus: a cancelsheet replacement occurs in that MS at the same location. Milne and Skeat, however, calculate from the preceding and following pages that Sinaiticus did not originally contain the LE (although their data allows the Intermediate Ending to remain possible).[43] Equally, the scribe of Vaticanus and (at least) the replacement corrector of Sinaiticus deliberately may have excluded any particular ending, even while the scribe of Vaticanus allowed the option for possible later insertion of one or the other longer endings.[44] Should Sinaiticus and Vaticanus deliberately have omitted the LE (as opposed to the “archetypal lost leaf” hypothesis), one should explore possible reasons for such omission. Various options now are discussed.

“I too, dislike it”: Apparent Contradictions versus Other Canonical Narratives

The deliberate excision of the LE could find a rationale in Eusebius' response to the questions of Marinus (essentially repeated in Jerome's response to Hedibia,[45] as well as in comments appearing in Victor of Antioch). To some fourth-century readers, certain LE matters involving chronology, location, and events were in apparent contradiction to statements appearing in the remaining canonical Gospels.[46] While Marinus specifically questioned one apparent contradiction (between Mark 16:9 and the account in Matt 28:1),[47]other more problematic matters could be cited.[48] Such is the case even among modern writers. Issues involving disbelief within the LE as an apparent contradiction against the remaining three Gospels are noted in detail by James Snapp Jr.:[49]

Where does the author of the LE get the idea that Mary Magdalene saw the Lord, and reported to the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that the disciples — not just Thomas, but the entire group — had not believed her, and that Jesus rebuked the Eleven (not just Thomas) for refusing to believe those who had seen Him after He had risen? Not from John. Not from Luke. And certainly not from Matthew, who concludes one scene in 28:10 with Jesus telling the women to tell His brothers to go to Galilee, and begins another scene in 28:16 with the eleven disciples going to Galilee. There's no hint in Matthew that they did not believe the women's report…. Our meticulous and imitative author, … instead of affirming his sources, … created a fresh new event in 16:11 — the disciples' rejection of Mary Magdalene's report that she had seen Jesus alive — and another fresh new event in 16:14 — Jesus' rebuke of the disciples for their refusal to believe those who had seen Him after He had risen.[50]

To this could be added the fact noted by many commentators and stated with clarity by Delbert Burkett, who noted the aggravated discontinuity between Mark's resurrection narrative and the Gospel of Matthew, in that

Mark looks forward to a Galilean resurrection narrative (Mark 14:28; 16:7), which the longer ending does not provide…. [A] scribe may have concluded that the longer ending was not the original ending of Mark and so omitted it.[51]

Apparent contradictions by themselves, however, might not constitute sufficient ground for removal of the LE or the substitution of an alternative ending.[52] Other factors, however, might increase the cumulative case so as to impel some scribes at various times and locations to eliminate or replace the problematic LE.[53] At least two of these issues should be examined further.

Sign Gift Concerns

Beyond apparent internal contradiction, a more pressing issue involves the specific sign gifts stated to accompany those who believe. After the legitimization of Christianity under Constantine, a possible area of concern involved perceived difficulties if certain “sign gifts” might be claimed in support of some revived form of prophetic leadership, particularly neo-Montanism.[54] It would be no wonder were certain of the orthodox to have an interest in eliminating an appeal to continuing prophetic signs and wonders, lest a claim of advanced prophetic revelation become destructive of orthodoxy.[55] In view of these considerations, removal or replacement may have been viewed as the optimal solution. Attention thus is directed to the Intermediate Ending.

“The autocrats among us”: The Creation of the Intermediate Ending

The Intermediate (or “Shorter”) Ending is acknowledged to be non-Markan, and secondary to the canonically transmitted form of that Gospel. Vocabulary and style as well as external evidence agree on this point. For whatever reason, the Intermediate Ending was created to provide a reasonable conclusion to the abrupt “for they were afraid” of 16:8.[56] The question is whether the Short Ending at 16:8 (which in some manner preceded the creation of the Intermediate Ending) resulted from deliberate exclusion of the LE, or whether the Short Ending reflected the canonically transmitted autograph.[57]

The Intermediate Ending reads as follows:[58]

But they reported all things having been communicated concisely to those around Peter. Now after these things, even Jesus himself sent forth by means of them, from the East even to the West, the sacred and incorruptible proclamation of the eternal salvation. Amen.

This Intermediate Ending by itself is found only in Old Latin MS k (Codex Bobbiensis);[59] it appears in tandem with the LE in MSS L/019, /044, 083, 099, 274mg, 579, and L-1602, and in the versional syhmg copsamss copbomss and ethmss.[60] All these witnesses date from the fourth century and later, with Old Latin k being the earliest (fourth/ fifth century).[61] The Intermediate Ending lacks patristic support, and its limited versional support does not pre-date the fourth century. The Greek MSS containing the Intermediate Ending tend to reflect the Alexandrian texttype, suggesting an Egyptian origin (its presence in the single Old Latin MS and several Ethiopic and Bohairic MSS—the latter following the Intermediate Ending with the LE—may reflect borrowing from an Egyptian source).

Old Latin k, however, performs “creative embellishment” within the entire Markan Resurrection narrative. Mark 16:8, for example, is edited to eliminate an apparent contradiction by removing the phrase “and they said nothing to anyone.” In addition, 16:3 in that MS is amplified thus:

But suddenly at the third hour of the day there was darkness over the whole circle of the earth, and angels descended from the heavens, and as he [the Lord] was rising … in the glory of the living God, at the same time they ascended with him; and immediately it was light. Then the women went to the tomb … [62]

This embellishment parallels the expansions typical of the apocryphal Gospel of Peter, which at this point includes a “speaking cross” accompanying the two men who “descended from heaven in a great brightness,” bringing Jesus out of the tomb.[63]

Some of the Intermediate Ending material appears mingled with elements of the LE in a Coptic “postscript” to the Egyptian Gnostic treatise, Pistis Sophia, which begins in mid-sentence:

… the righteous. They came forth three by three to the four regions of the heavens. They preached the Gospel of the Kingdom in the whole world while the Christ worked with them through the word of confirmation and the signs which followed them and the marvels. And in this way the Kingdom of God was known upon the whole earth and in the whole world of Israel, as a witness to all peoples which exist from the places of the East to the places of the West.[64]

Although this contemporary postscript certainly has an Egyptian connection,[65] few seem to have noted the similarities between this and the longer Markan endings, perhaps because the postscript is not part of the Pistis Sophia itself.[66] The postscript does suggest familiarity with both the Intermediate and Long Endings of Mark; this quite possibly is due to MSS that contained both endings simultaneously. Horner comments on this phenomenon:

The sentence about the journeys of the Apostles written on the blank leaf bound in with the rest of the volume has no perceptible connection with our text [i.e., the Pistis Sophia] and may possibly be the work of some one who, suddenly coming across it in some other document and wishing to preserve it, seized upon this leaf as the only piece of parchment available.[67]

The “some other document” may have been a copy of Mark that contained both the Intermediate and Long Ending, with elements of both endings combined by the author of the postscript or already present in the source manuscript; such would fit what is already known from existing Greek manuscripts.[68]

In light of the joint inclusion of both the Intermediate and Long Ending in various Greek MSS, it is possible that the Intermediate Ending was not created solely to provide a conclusion to the abrupt 16:8, but rather to provide an alternate conclusion to the known LE. The present writer suggests a plausible option, involving liturgical and lectionary concerns. From early times, the Greek Orthodox Church has read the LE for Matins on the Feast of the Ascension.[69] As the Sunday readings were developed for the Synaxarion, Mark 15:43–16:8 was assigned to the liturgy reading for the Third Sunday after Easter.[70] Continuous-text manuscripts were used for liturgical purposes long before the creation of separate lectionary manuscripts, and in some localized quarters (Egypt in particular) the abrupt negative tone concluding that lection may have struck harshly upon those hearing such an ending publicly read, particularly when the lection involved the announcement of the Resurrection itself. The doubtful nature of such a liturgical conclusion may have provoked in some circles a pious adjustment in the form of the Intermediate Ending.[71] Such would allow an already lengthy lection to conclude on a positive and evangelistic note without overextending the text unnecessarily. The Intermediate Ending thus would provide an appropriate conclusion to 16:8 without assuming an actual absence of the LE itself in any particular MS.[72]

This could explain why all Greek NT MSS that contain the Intermediate Ending also include the LE. The comments in later MSS that contain both endings perhaps reflect (or misunderstand) earlier issues involving liturgical concern.[73] That such a scenario could exist is demonstrated by liturgical alterations existing elsewhere within other continuous-text manuscripts.[74] The insertion of the Intermediate Ending in a small number of Greek MSS (also in many Ethiopic and Coptic MSS) between 16:8 and the LE thus appears to testify to a lectionary-related purpose, and does not suggest any doubt regarding the LE itself.

“We do not admire what we cannot understand”: Style and Vocabulary Issues

Numerous discussions concern the alleged “non-Markan” style and vocabulary of the LE.[75] Various studies support the opposite contention also—in particular those of John W. Burgon,[76] John A. Broadus,[77] William R. Farmer,[78] and (recently) Bruce Terry.[79] Even James Kelhoffer (who rejects Markan authorship of the LE) claims that the supposed “unknown author” of the LE deliberately imitated Markan style and vocabulary at various points.[80] As Delbert Burkett states, “Someone in the early church thought that 16:9–20 served as an appropriate continuation of 16:1–8. That someone may well have been Mark himself.”[81]

Without reviewing all previous claims and replies, the present writer includes a few observations drawn from his own study (see chart below, and also see also the detailed chart at the end of this essay):[82]

Total words in the LE:

166

LE words occurring elsewhere in Mark

— in an identical form:[83]

106 (63.8%)

— in parallel parsing or declensional forms:

39 (23.5%)

— in parallel compounded or non-compounded forms:

9 (5.4%)

Words in LE with some related parallel elsewhere in Mark:

154 (92.7%)

Except for , the supposed non-Markan words of the LE are rare even within the remaining three Gospels. At most, the general rarity of these particular words is as appropriate to Mark as to any other Gospel.[84]

“When they become so derivative as to become unintelligible”

The LE does use certain words in a peculiar manner: Elliott, for example, declares,

The verb … is not a Markan word. It is however found three times in this longer ending…. Mark does not use the simple form of this verb.[85]

Certainly, occurs exclusively within the LE; elsewhere in Mark only compounded forms with are used. Yet it is fallacious to conclude that Mark could never use the uncompounded form when such might suit his particular purpose.

Compare a parallel situation: the LE uses only the compounded forms of (prefixed by and ). Elsewhere in Mark the uncompounded form occurs 20 times. Elliott's approach theoretically should claim the uncompounded form as “Markan,” while the compounded form would be labeled a stylistic proclivity of the author of the LE. However, Mark in one (and only one!) location does use a compounded form (—5:37). Had this usage not existed, the LE opponents would have added this to their vocabulary and style differences as part of their LE “non-Markan” vocabulary.[86]

Similarly, Elliott and others have claimed that the two occurrences of in the LE are “also non-Markan.”[87] Yet within Mark three instances of the nominal and adjectival forms of the same root appear (, Mark 6:6; 9:24; , 9:19). Obviously, cognate usage involving parallel root forms remains an authorial component and demonstrates that many of the supposedly “non-Markan” terms found in the LE do fall within a reasonable expectation regarding Markan usage. Far too many problems arise from excessive claims regarding vocabulary and style involving a limited portion of text.[88]

Style and vocabulary remain ephemeral, particularly when dealing with a limited portion of text and matters involving the Synoptic Problem.[89] As a parallel example, objections have been raised to the Johannine authenticity of the final chapter of the Fourth Gospel, despite its Johannine vocabulary and style and the unanimity of the external manuscript, versional, and patristic evidence for its authorial integrity and original canonical inclusion. Gilbert van Belle makes a further point when commenting on the lack of Johannine characteristics within the Fourth Gospel:

The absence of Johannine characteristics in some narrative parts of the Fourth Gospel … does not prove that these passages belong to a source…. Five miracle stories (2:1–12; 4:46–47.50–54; 5:1–9; 6:16–21; 9:1–2.6–7) contain only a few Johannine characteristics…. In most cases, the absence of Johannine characteristics is meaningless, because the characteristics do not appear in any narrative material in John…. U. Schnelle rightly remarks: “Extensive literary-critical or tradition-historical theories based on stylistic criticism cannot rest simply on words that occur once, twice, or three times in the whole of the Gospel.”[90]

Such issues apply equally to the style and vocabulary controversies surrounding the LE. James Snapp Jr. calls attention to the peculiar inconsistency wherein various scholars can posit a supposed “lost ending” of Mark that was drawn upon and utilized by Matthew—a purely conjectural hypothesis with no manuscript evidence. Yet the same scholars inform their readers that the existing LE must be rejected on the basis of two MSS plus internal vocabulary and stylistic criteria, despite its strong external support and internal Markan elements.[91] Such factors demonstrate the proverbial truth that “Cavil, if it do not find an hole, will make one.”[92] Ross J. Purdy pertinently assesses the real problem in relation to New Testament textual criticism [TC]:

The state of affairs is one in which we find an expectation that everyone can be an armchair text critic and employ canons arbitrarily. Practically, this works out in every translation coming out with different readings for different reasons. To me, that is not science and it is not critical. There is a fundamental fatal failure in the philosophy of TC.[93]

Staccato Style and the Long Ending

The LE has been criticized for its condensed and awkward narrative elements. Yet Mark does the same elsewhere. As B. H. Streeter stated, regarding the whole of Mark's Gospel, “Mark reads like a shorthand account of a story by an impromptu speaker.”[94] Bernard Orchard applies Streeter's comment directly to the LE, suggesting its “Markan originality” and canonical validity, lacking only Petrine authority for that section.[95] The same abbreviated style is also seen in Mark's 31-word summary of the lengthy Temptation narrative found in Matthew and Luke (exact parallels underlined; similarities italicized where appropriate):[96]

And immediately the Spirit throws him out into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, being tested by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels ministered to him.

While the Markan summary statement contains elements found in Matthew or Luke, Mark's account is no mere abridgment of either (too much is left out). Mark also adds elements not found in either parallel location (the intensifying for and the new informational detail ). Short summary abridgment, with some elements altered or added clearly reflects “Markan style”—at least within the demonstrable range of that author, including the LE.

“One must make a distinction”:

Vocabulary-Related Considerations

In the nineteenth century, John A. Broadus and John W. Burgon independently compared the style and vocabulary of the LE with that of various undoubted Markan portions.[97] Broadus examined the 12 verses preceding the LE (15:44–16:8) and found 17 words, phrases, or stylistic usages “not elsewhere employed by Mark.”[98] Burgon examined Mark 1:1–12 and 1:9–20. In the first segment he found Markan themes that recur in the LE;[99] in the second segment he found structural and vocabulary parallels to the LE.[100]More recently, Bruce Terry examined Mark 15:40–16:4 in the same manner, finding some 20–22 items used once in Mark within that portion, with some 13 words hapax to Mark.[101]

The present writer has experimented with two passages, one uniquely Markan, and the other with parallels but containing some unique Markan elements.

1. A uniquely Markan segment: The seed growing secretly (Mark 4:26–29) occurs only in Mark.[102] Of the 62 words that comprise this parable, 7 words are peculiar to Mark (11.2%), along with some short phrases .

2. A segment with parallels plus Markan elements: The arrest in the garden (Mark 14:42–52) is paralleled in the remaining Gospels, but Mark's version contains the unique account of the youth fleeing naked. Of the 202 words that make up this pericope, 15 are hapax within Mark (7.4%), with 3 or 4 uniquely Markan phrases also present.

Both passages should be compared to the LE, which contains 166 words, approximately 15 being unique (9.04%). The percentage of unique words stands midway between the limits of the Markan sample passages above, and suggests that far less is gained from vocabulary and stylistic analysis than often is claimed. Appeals to “Markan style” or “Markan vocabulary” thus appear problematic, and rest upon data more coincidental and transitory than substantial. Such comparisons do not disprove Markan authorship of the LE, nor suggest that the LE is based upon derivative tradition. The LE may best be regarded as a Markan summary of resurrection appearances, provided as a fulfillment testimonium.

“That which is on the other hand, genuine”: Thematic Considerations

Beyond inconclusive matters of vocabulary and style, thematic aspects of the Gospel according to Mark should be considered.[103]Since the opening statement of Mark 1:1 presents “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” as Mark's primary theme, one would expect its ending to demonstrate a fulfillment of that claim. Without the LE, no such fulfillment exists: Jesus is shown to be the Son of God with power and majesty only in the LE, culminating with Christ's ascension and heavenly enthronement at the right hand of God. In fact, the pattern of promise/prediction and fulfillment permeates the Gospel of Mark. As N. Clayton Croy remarks,

Mark's consistent habit is to demonstrate the reliability of Jesus' words by narrating their fulfillment, even when that narration is incidental to the flow of the main story. In Mark 7:29, for example, Jesus tells the Syrophoenician woman who comes seeking healing for her daughter, “You may go—the demon has left your daughter.” The reader can trust Jesus' words; the pericope can conclude. But it doesn't. Mark 7:30 says, “So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.” Similarly, in Mark 10:46–52, Jesus heals blind Bartimaeus. In verse 52a Jesus says, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Surely Jesus' words will come to pass. Yes, we know they come to pass because Mark tells us they do in 52b: “Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.”[104]

Like the other Synoptics, Mark contains OT prophecy and Jesus' prediction of his session at the right hand of God; yet the fulfillment is not recorded by Matthew or Luke, but remains only a future event (Matt 22:44; 26:64; Luke 20:42; 22:69). The LE, however, follows Mark's pattern, and makes the cycle complete: OT prophecy (Mark 12:36), Jesus' prediction (Mark 14:62), and the actual fulfillment (Mark 16:19).[105]

Two other LE items reflect completion of themes found within the Gospel of Mark. The first involves an “Elijah motif,” while the other involves various parallels and antitheses between narrative portions of Mark's Gospel and the LE.

“Literalists of the imagination”: The Elijah Emphasis

Warren A. Gage has noted that many themes and patterns within Mark “extend into the disputed verses at the end of the book … strongly supporting their authenticity.” Gage further contends that Mark presents Jesus as a “New Elijah.”[106] This thematic emphasis bears directly on the LE, since Mark 16:19 parallels Septuagintal language relating to Elijah's ascension into heaven.[107] As Gage notes,

The number of references to Elijah/Elisha is remarkable within the short compass of this shortest of the Gospels…. The prominence of the Elijah theme to Mark is further suggested by the fact that references to Elijah frame the beginning and ending of the Gospel, as well as the passage at the center [Mark 9:12–13].[108]

Gage also cites allusional parallels to the Elijah narratives that transcend the nine named occurrences of Elijah in Mark.[109]The claims of Gage thus parallel those of Wayne Meeks relative to the Moses theme within the Gospel of John.[110] If, as most scholars agree, Meeks's claim regarding the Moses theme in John is valid, so also should Gage's claims regarding the Elijah theme in Mark be accepted. If so, Gage's point becomes absolute: a true ending of Mark (whether the LE or some speculative “lost” ending) would require Christ's ascension in order to complete the “Elijah motif” within that Gospel. In addition, the passing of Elijah's mantle to Elisha as a sign of power finds a corresponding parallel in the LE sign gifts promised to Jesus' followers who remain behind after his ascension.[111]

“In all its rawness”: Related Parallels between Mark 1 and Mark 16

The present writer has explored additional parallels between the undoubted portions of Mark and the LE. The first set involves parallels between the opening and closing portions of Mark (assuming the LE as the intended conclusion). The following linguistic and thematic parallels exist between the commencement of Jesus' public ministry in Mark 1:32–39 and elements found in the LE at the conclusion of his earthly ministry:[112]

Parallels between Mark 3, Mark 6, Mark 7–8, and Mark 16

Although the chiastic-like parallels and antitheses between the opening of Mark and the LE might impress, more can be claimed. The same thematic elements found in the LE recur elsewhere within Mark. These parallels should be considered in light of their cumulative effect as they might bear upon the authenticity of the LE. Certainly such parallels are more than coincidental: they refect existing structural and thematic elements that appear throughout canonical Mark, and which find their culmination in the LE.[113] Consider, for example, the disciples' first commissioning in Mark 3:14–15 in comparison to the disciples' final commissioning in the LE:

Another set of parallels relates to the subsequent commissioning of the disciples in Mark 6:7–13:

A further set of parallels exists in the segment concerning Christ's ministry in Mark 7:24–8:38. The following linguistic, thematic and sequential parallels exist between this portion and the LE:[114]

“In defiance of their opinion”: Compositional Concerns involving the LE

Many who reject the LE have claimed it to be a later compilation drawn from the other canonical Gospels. Certain elements of the LE do parallel material appearing in Matthew, Luke, and even John.[115]However, a claim of derivative compilation cannot stand once the unparalleled “additional” material found within the LE is considered. This material is not derived from the remaining canonical Gospels nor from any known non-canonical material; independent uncompiled authorship remains primary in this regard. A summary compiler of pre-existing narrative would closely follow the sources, even if abridging; additional unverifiable material would not be created or included. This concept particularly is intensified when some of the additional material appears to involve apparent contradictions that relate to the source material being summarized. Among the additional material within the LE not paralleled in the remaining Synoptics occur the following problematic elements:

- Mary Magdalene appears alone (yet cp. John);

- The gathered disciples were “mourning and weeping”;

- The disciples disbelieved the initial report of eyewitnesses to the risen Lord;

- Jesus appeared “in another form” to the two who were walking (Luke has “their eyes were held from recognizing him”);

- The two were walking “into a field” (Luke says “on the road to Emmaus”);

- The report of these two was disbelieved by the eleven;

- Jesus reproached the eleven for unbelief and “hardness of heart” because they had rejected the reports of those who had seen him;

- Belief and baptism appear linked in regard to salvation;

- Five sign gifts are promised those who believe;

- Christ's ascension is followed by his session at the right hand of God;

- The Lord confirms the mission of the disciples by the signs following.

Were an independent writer attempting to summarize the Resurrection appearances found in the remaining three Gospels (or even those cited in Acts 1 and 1 Corinthians 15), closer parallels would be present and the problematic non-harmonious material would not have appeared.[116] MS 2145 provides an excellent model of what a true summary narrative should resemble. Although the LE appears normally in this MS, a summary of the LE appears on the two leaves that precede the Markan title page, reading as follows:[117]

Christ having risen, he was seen by Mary, from whom he had cast out the seven demons. That (woman) spoke to the disciples, but they disbelieved. Later he was seen on the road by the two. Then [he appeared] to the eleven, and he reproached their unbelief. And he sent them to proclaim and to baptize and to do signs. And after these things, he was taken up. And this end has the gospel according to Mark.

The summary is short, accurate, and reasonable. It conveys the sense of the LE, but without most of the more controversial additional material. It paraphrases more than copies, and does not reflect direct verbal assimilation. Only 21 words at most (12%) are common to the original LE source; of these, only 3 two-word phrases and one five-word phrase derive from the LE.[118] A few other words are slightly altered from what appears in the LE.[119]

In contrast, the LE often presents an embellished and less similar context than appears in the presumed source gospels from which these summaries allegedly were derived. The unparalleled LE material should not have appeared within a summary document; such affects the question of source and motive in LE composition, particularly in light of the normative pattern for a summary document as demonstrated in MS 2145. This in itself further suggests that the Intermediate Ending was not intended to serve as an abridgment, but as a substitute for the LE, possibly (as noted above) for lectionary purposes.[120]

“Above insolence and triviality”: Fifteen Points of Summary and Conclusion

1. The LE can be supported and defended as canonically original in accord with the consensus established from theological, thematic, historical, and transmissional considerations.

2. The LE is as likely to have been written by Mark as by anyone else.[121] This has been demonstrated positively by the Markan elements of vocabulary and style that appear within the LE (Burkett, Kelhoffer) and negatively by the display of alleged “non-Markan” material within unquestioned portions of Mark (Burgon, Broadus, Farmer, and the present writer).[122] When undoubted Markan portions can be shown to be “less Markan” than the LE, and when the LE can be shown to contain “Markan elements,” the various arguments from vocabulary and style lose much of their force.

3. Speculative reconstructions regarding “lost original” endings of Mark lack external documentary support and are purely ephemeral.[123]

4. A Markan intention to end at 16:8, expecting the reader(s) to supply what is “missing” on the basis of subjective reflection, and thereby intuitively filling in gaps in light of a community-based “resurrection faith” or some such concept, requires a sophisticated postmodern viewpoint not typically found within ancient classical literature (even the short Fables of Aesop required moralia to explain the point).[124]

5. A correspondence exists between the “Son of God” theme at the beginning of Mark and the ascension/enthronement motif that concludes the LE.

6. An “Elijah” theme permeates Mark's Gospel, and requires the LE (or something very much like it) in order to complete the cycle by inclusion of an ascension narrative.

7. Conceptual and verbal parallels and antitheses that relate to the LE appear throughout discrete portions of Mark (1:32–39; 3:14–15; 6:7–13; 7:24–8:38).

8. Mark consistently demonstrates the overt fulfillment of promises and prophecies. A conclusion of Mark (whether at 16:8 or in the Intermediate Ending) that failed to demonstrate total fulfillment of Resurrection and session predictions would be destructive of Markan style and purpose.[125]

9. The bulk of versional testimony (some quite early) supports the LE. Such evidence, coming from widely scattered locales, overrides any limited versional testimony that would call the LE into question.

10. Explicit patristic citation from the second century (Justin, [Tatian], Irenaeus) outweighs patristic speculation of the fourth and later centuries, whether by Eusebius, Jerome (in repetition), Victor of Antioch, or Hesychius.[126] The same applies to modern writers who appear more willing to speculate than to accept the general transmissional evidence that is nearly unanimous in support of the LE, apart from the limited questioning that occurs primarily during the fourth century.

11. Stronger external evidence exists in support of the Alexandrian insertion at Matt 27:49 and the Alexandrian/Western readings at 1 Cor 15:51b (among other variant units) than for LE omission, even though those non-Byzantine readings are readily rejected by modern eclectic critics. The LE should not be rejected on the basis of lesser testimony, particularly when early patristic sources (in conjunction with the bulk of the manuscript evidence) support the contrary.

12. Similar arguments claiming non-authenticity are urged in regard to the final chapter of John and the supposed “lost beginning” of Mark.[127] The strongest case for the swift rejection of such hypotheses remains the utter lack of supporting manuscript, versional, or patristic evidence. Had , B, or other major witnesses omitted such passages, the text-critical issue would have become a matter of major dispute; equally, had the absence of the LE in and B not been known, much of the current dispute quickly would evaporate. The conjoint testimony of these two MSS remains the eclectic touchstone, even when opposed by most other evidence normally deemed to be in sympathy with the modern eclectic viewpoint.

13. Possible reasons for LE excision can be suggested, particularly when omission occurs in two closely related fourth-century Greek manuscripts and scattered versional manuscripts. Presumed contradictions, theological concerns, and matters of internal consistency remain primary in this regard.

14. The remaining unmutilated Greek manuscripts, versions, and fathers overwhelmingly support the LE.[128] It is present in all Greek MSS save two,[129] and spans all existing texttypes (Byzantine, Western, Caesarean, and Alexandrian).[130] Even the two Greek MSS omitting ( and B) have textual peculiarities in this location (the blank space in B; the cancel-sheet in ).

15. Finally (and ultimately), the bulk of the evidence, whether external or internal, points to the validity of the LE not only as authentic to Mark, but also ecclesiastically recognized and canonically accepted from at least the mid-second century to the time of the Enlightenment.[131] As James Snapp Jr. noted to me in personal correspondence: “The witnesses for its inclusion are superior not only in number but also in terms of age, geographic scope, and attestation among texttypes.”

Such factors as stated above support the continued canonical acceptance and promulgation of the LE as the only fitting conclusion to Mark's Gospel, despite what controversy might be raised regarding precise matters of authorship. A. C. Headlam (in a differing context) speaks of those who are “continually building up elaborate and farfetched theories to explain away what is obvious and natural.” He then declares,

The reverse is the case. The simple and natural explanation is the orthodox one, it takes the facts simply as they are. It has far the most evidence in its favour…. You will find long and elaborate theories constructed to explain away simple facts…. You will find every explanation but the natural one given of various passages. We will find a great deal that is clever and ingenious. But it is all of the nature of apologetics. The whole trend of investigation and discovery has been against the position adopted by those writers.[132]

In reality, Frederik Wisse is correct when speaking of NT textual issues where eclectic critics claim later addition or interpolation affecting the vast majority of MSS:

We are dealing with nothing more than educated guesses which lead nowhere and needlessly clutter the scholarly literature…. The burden of proof and the weight of the textual evidence are such that one can only suggest the possibility of an interpolation as a last resort.[133]

With this, the present investigation fittingly concludes, leaving the LE of Mark firmly in its traditional location within the Second Gospel, and—most probably—written by St. Mark himself.

__________________

1. Some phrases found in the title and various subheadings are taken from the public domain version of Marianne Moore's poem, “Poetry,” as published in Others 5:6 (July 1919): 5. The rationale for this particular theme is presented later in this essay.

2. K. A. Kitchen, Ancient Orient and Old Testament (London: Tyndale, 1966), 28.

3. Mark is named as the author of the Second Gospel by reliable early tradition (see Papias, as noted in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3:39.15, and Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 3:9–12). “Mark” throughout this paper thus refers to the author of the Second Gospel, as well as to the Second Gospel itself.

4. Typical are the chronologically separated comments of A. T. Robertson, Studies in Mark's Gospel (New York: Macmillan, 1919), 129 (“This is the chief textual problem in the Gospel of Mark and, one may add, in the New Testament itself”); and James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark, Pillar NT Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 497 (“The ending of Mark … presents the gravest textual problem in the NT”).

5. A similar controversy surrounds the 12-verse narrative regarding the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53–8:11). No other passages of similar length are at issue from a textcritical standpoint.

6. Isolated or later versional MSS are not included in these tabulations. MSS 1420 and 2386 also terminate at 16:8. However, as pointed out by James A. Kelhoffer (“The Witness of Eusebius' ad Marinum and Other Christian Writings to Text-Critical Debates concerning the Original Conclusion to Mark's Gospel,” ZNW92 [2001]: 98n80), “a page is missing after Mark 16:8 in 1420 and in 2386,” and therefore these MSS cannot be cited in support of the Short Ending. Regarding MS 2386, see also Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London: United Bible Societies, 11971; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 21994) in loc. The early ending at 16:8 in the Old Syriac Sinaitic MS (sys) is offset by the presence of verses 17–20 in one fragment of the Old Syriac Curetonian MS (syc).

7. Paul L. Danove (Linguistics and Exegesis in the Gospel of Mark: Applications of a Case Frame Analysis. JSNTSS 218; Studies in New Testament Greek, 10 [Sheffield: Academic Press, 2001], 72n10), errs in declaring that Kurt Aland “argues for the originality of the Shorter Ending based in part on the empty space left after the ending of Mark in Codex Vaticanus.” Cf. Steven Lynn Cox, A History and Critique of Scholarship concerning the Markan Endings (Lewiston, NY: Mellen Biblical Press, 1993), 142–43, who points out that Aland considered both the Intermediate and Long Ending as non-original to the Gospel of Mark, although each had an early but separate geographical origin. See directly on this point Kurt Aland, “Bemerkungen zum Schluss des Markusevangeliums,” in E. Earle Ellis and Max Wilcox, eds., Neotestamentica et Semitica: Studies in Honour of Matthew Black (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1969), 175.

8. Despite misunderstandings based on their reliance upon MSS and B, Westcott and Hort actually held that the original ending of Mark most likely was lost; further, they consider the concept that Mark deliberately intended to end his Gospel at 16:8 “untenable” (51). See Brooke F. Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort, “Notes on Select Readings,” in their Introduction to The New Testament in the Original Greek: With Notes on Selected Readings ([repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988], 46–47, 49, 51, particularly 46–47: “It is incredible that the evangelist deliberately concluded either … with , or … with a petty detail of a secondary event, leaving his narrative hanging in the air…. The least difficult explanation … is by the loss of a leaf”).

9. This shift is documented in N. Clayton Croy, The Mutilation of Mark's Gospel (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003), chapters 2 (“A Sea Change in Scholarly Opinion,” 18–32) and 3 (“The Reasons for the Shift,” 33–44). Even so, as noted by Cox (History and Critique, 210), there remains “some reluctance by the church and critical scholarship in accepting Mark 16:8 as the intended ending of the Second Gospel.”

10. Cp. John A. T. Robinson, The Priority of John (London: SCM, 1985), 10: “One must always beware of the tendency of the critical establishment to close ranks against anything that disturbs its fundamental presuppositions.”

11. See John W. Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to S. Mark: Vindicated against Recent Critical Objections and Established (Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1871; repr., Collingswood, NJ: The Dean Burgon Society, 2002); Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, and Co., 11861, 21874, 31883; London: George Bell and Sons, 41894 [rev. by Edward Miller]); Westcott and Hort, “Notes on Select Readings,” 28–51. The external evidence is delineated in J. K. Elliott, “The Text and Language of the Endings to Mark's Gospel,” Theologische Zeitschrift 27 (1971): 255–62; and William R. Farmer, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 3–75, with the most complete listing of Greek continuous-text manuscript evidence appearing in Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, eds., Text und Textwert der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments. IV. Die Synoptischen Evangelien. 1. Das Markusevangelium (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998), 406–7.

12. The Sahidic MS P. Palau Rib. 182, made public in 1972, also ends at 16:8; Greek MS 2427, formerly considered an important parallel to Codex Vaticanus but containing the LE, has been shown to be a nineteenth-century forgery.

13. Jerome, Contr. Pelag. 2:15.

14. Croy (Mutilation, 29) notes that the discussion continues primarily because of the interpretative issues involved: “There was no manuscript discovery that demanded a reappraisal of Mark.”

15. The following volumes provide comprehensive surveys of the many theories proposed: Cox, History and Critique; James A. Kelhoffer, Miracle and Mission: The Authentication of Missionaries and their Message in the Longer Ending of Mark, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament; 2 Reihe, 112 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 2000), 5–47; and Mark M. W. Waterman, The Empty Tomb Tradition of Mark: Text, History, and Theological Struggles, Theology, History, and Biblical Studies Series, 1 (Los Angeles: Agathos, 2006), 36–83. See also the extensive bibliography in Craig A. Evans, Mark 8:27–16:20, Word Biblical Commentary 34b (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001), lviii-lix, 540–43.

16. See Maurice A. Robinson and William G. Pierpont, eds., The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform 2005 (Southborough, MA: Chilton Book Publishing, 2005).

17. According to texttype, the MSS and versional witnesses that include the LE can be classified roughly as follows (teste NA^27 and UBS^4): Alexandrian: C L 083 099 33 157 579 892 1241 2427 L-1602 bo; Western: D aur c dsupp ff^2 l n o q vg syc; Caesarean: W f^1 f^13 28 565 700 armmss; Byzantine: A Byz Lect syp syh sypal (the MSS containing both the Intermediate and Long Ending are basically Alexandrian in character).

18. Danove, Linguistics and Exegesis, 73n14.

19. See Maurice A. Robinson, “The Case for Byzantine Priority,” in Robinson and Pierpont, Byzantine Textform 2005, 545: “Final judgment on readings requires the strong application of internal evidence after an initial evaluation of the external data has been made.”

20. Jerome's statement to Hedibia (Jerome, Ep. 120) that the LE “is met with in only a few copies, almost all the codices of Greece being without the passage” needs to be tempered by Metzger's cautious observation: “Such disparities of proportion of evidence [in comparison with existing MSS] … may of course be due to the limitations of Jerome's knowledge”; Bruce M. Metzger, “St. Jerome's Explicit References to Variant Readings in Manuscripts of the New Testament,” in Ernest Best and R. McL. Wilson, eds., Text and Interpretation: Studies in the New Testament Presented to Matthew Black (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 188 (the quotation from Jerome appears on 182). Kelhoffer (“The Witness,” 98) similarly states, “The possibility is to be acknowledged, of course, that this author's [Eusebius'] claim to knowledge of a more ‘accurate’ textual tradition … may constitute something of a rhetorical device … Later Christian authors made strikingly similar claims about the best MSS … in order to defend the authenticity of the Longer Ending.” Such comments should urge caution when evaluating the claims of various fathers who speak of “nearly all the copies” or whatever copies might be considered “accurate.”

21. The order of these words in the LE (Mark 16:20) is . That Justin's phraseology stems from the LE of Mark is acknowledged by C. S. Mann, Mark, Anchor Bible 27 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1986), 674. Kelhoffer, Miracle and Mission, 47n181, declares absolutely: “It can … be demonstrated that Justin Martyr (Apol. I.45.5) … reflects knowledge of Mark 16:9–20.”

22. Westcott and Hort (“Notes on Select Readings,” 39) attempt to minimize the evidence from Justin by claiming that his collocation of these words was not unusual, but that “they were natural and obvious words to use and to combine.” Were this the case, one must wonder why neither the NT nor LXX, nor other writers seem to have thought it “natural and obvious” to combine such words in their various writings. Westcott and Hort thus appear to overstate their claim.

23. Frederic Henry Chase, “Note on [Mark] xvi. 9–20,” in his The Old Syriac Element in the Text of Codex Bezae (London: Macmillan and Co., 1893), 154, 156. The bracketed “[Mark]” in the title and “[Mc.]” in the quotation are original to Chase.

24. Martin Hengel, The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Collection and Origin of the Canonical Gospels (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2000), 225n109.

25. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 3:10.5, as quoted in Mann, Mark, 674. Irenaeus continues (ANF 1:426) by stating that the conclusion of Mark is “confirming what had been spoken by the prophet,” with a citation of Ps 110:1. For a discussion of Irenaeus' quotation of the opening and closing verses of Mark, see Maurice A. Robinson, “Two Passages in Mark: A Critical Test for the Byzantine-Priority Hypothesis,” Faith and Mission 13 (Fall 1996): 66–111.

26. Westcott and Hort, “Notes on Select Readings,” 39. The quotation is also mentioned in a Greek scholium in MS 1582.

27. Kelhoffer (“The Witness,” 103n97) points out that “Irenaeus never reflects an awareness of MSS that omit Mark 16,9–20 and assumes that the passage rightly belongs in fine … Euangelii.”

28. One example of this phenomenon appears on the back cover of our library's copy of Longer Mark: Forgery, Interpolation, or Old Tradition, Protocol of the Eighteenth Colloquy: 7 December 1975 (Berkeley: Center for Hermeneutical Studies in Hellenistic and Modern Culture, 1976).

29. The University of Chicago's Web site states: “The legalities of quoting poetry and music lyrics—even just a line or two—are very strict and complex” <www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/cmosfaq/cmosfaq.Documentation.html>. In particular, problems exist involving quotation of Moore's poetry: “Some authors' estates, such as those of H. D. [Hilda Doolittle] and Ezra Pound, are supportive of scholarship and rarely object to reasonable quotation or to requests to print extracts from authors' writings. But other estates, such as those of James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, and Marianne Moore, have shown themselves to be wary of or hostile to scholarship and hence difficult in the matter of permissions” <www.utpjournals.com/product/jsp/333/copyright1.html> (ironically, Hilda Doolittle and Ezra Pound were among Marianne Moore's closest friends). Due to the legal issues involved, the present essay limits Moore quotations to material clearly in the public domain (published during or before 1923).

30. Robin G. Schulze, Becoming Marianne Moore: The Early Poems 1907–1924 (Berkeley: University of California, 2002), 205–6, 468–78, provides a photofacsimile of the original 1919 poem as published (205), and also provides a complete collection of variant readings and differing textual formats of this poem as it appeared in 1921, 1924, 1925, 1932 and 1968. Bonnie Honigsblum (“Marianne Moore's Revisions of ‘Poetry,’” in Patricia C. Willis, ed., Marianne Moore: Woman and Poet [Orono, ME: The National Poetry Foundation, University of Maine, 1990], 203–18) presents charts detailing all published editions of “Poetry,” including “Three Typed Manuscripts … with Author's Handwritten Revisions.”

31. Schulze, Becoming Mariaane Moore, 207; Honigsblum, “Marianne Moore's Revisions,” 207. The internet blurb for Schulze's book states, “For Moore, no text was ever stable or finished; each opportunity to publish offered an opportunity to revise…. Textuality is not a fixed, static product but an ongoing, fluid process” <www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/8804.html>.

32. Paraphrasing a line from T. S. Eliot, “Four Quartets: The Dry Salvages.”

33. Elizabeth Gregory, “Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads,” in Quotation and Modern American Poetry (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), cited electronically at <www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/moore/poetry.htm>.

34. Donald Hall, “On ‘Poetry,’” in his Marianne Moore: The Cage and the Animal (New York: Pegasus, 1970): “The middle version is the one I like best … it does not, as the longer version does, seek to define what poetry ought to be.” On the other hand, Bonnie Costello Marianne Moore: Imaginary Possessions [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981] complains that in the middle version, “the famous ‘imaginary gardens with real toads in them’ is removed and in its place is the phrase ‘enigmas are not poetry’” (both sources cited electronically as per the previous note).

35. R. P. Blackmur (“The Method of Marianne Moore,” in his The Double Agent: Essays in Craft and Elucidation [Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1962 repr.,] 152) notes that “the idea … may be as readily inferred in the earlier version as it is inescapably felt in the later…. We cut away immediately all that does not belong … and find ourselves possessed of a new point of view.” Sister Therese, S. D. S. (Marianne Moore: A Critical Essay, Contemporary Writers in Christian Perspective [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969], 23) states “The three salvaged lines do retain the essence of the poem, … and perhaps do gain in impact because of the narrow setting.”

36. Marianne Moore, Complete Poems (repr., New York: Macmillan, 1991), vii.

37. Costello (Moore, op. cit.) pointedly asks, “Could we divine the earlier version from its vestige? … A short poem is no more genuine than an expansive one.”

38. Marianne Moore, “In the Days of Primitive Colour,” The Lantern 27 (Spring 1919): 35; photo-reproduced in Schulze, Becoming Marianne Moore, 242.

39. Croy (Mutilation, 171–72) notes that, if 16:8 is considered the original ending, “we are forced to believe that Mark has committed grammatical and/or stylistic gaffes at the … conclusion of his Gospel…. We are forced to believe that Mark was either inept, perverse, or astonishingly modernistic as a narrator…. We must explain how Mark hit on a narrative technique that was unknown in antiquity but appeals to the modern literary mind, why he fails to narrate events that he has predicted, and why he pulls the rug out from under the reader in the last verse. This series of improbabilities … suggests [otherwise].” Yet Croy himself aggravates the problem by insisting “that the thesis of mutilation … is the most plausible explanation of all the data” — adding to his hypothesis the speculation that a longer beginning of Mark equally was “lost” (113–36, 165–66).

40. Larry Hurtado (Mark, Good News Commentary [San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983], 272) states, “If Mark did end his Gospel here [16:8], it would be an unusually clever and subtle device, so clever and subtle that perhaps no one detected his intent until modern scholarly research succeeded!”

41. Westcott and Hort, “Notes on Select Readings,” 29–30. Hort overreached in claiming that this scribe “found neither of them [the two longer endings] in the exemplar which he was copying”—perhaps, but not necessarily. Vaticanus' blank column and a third is noted by Burgon, Scrivener, Farmer, and others; however, that fact is mentioned nowhere in Metzger, Textual Commentary, in loc., nor in Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 322–27.

42. Had the scribe intended to leave space sufficient for only the Intermediate Ending, the remainder of the second column would have been adequate (assuming the subscription to be written in the lower margin, as at the end of Luke and Philippians). The third blank column is explicable only on the basis of the scribe's knowledge of the LE or the combined Intermediate and Long Endings.

43. H. J. Milne and T. C. Skeat, “The Transition from Mark to Luke,” in their Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus (London: British Museum, 1938), 9–11. While Milne and Skeat claim non-inclusion of the LE in the original form of Sinaiticus, their own data allows for the possible presence of the 34-word/172-letter Intermediate Ending in whatever original leaves stood in that MS prior to replacement by the cancel-sheet.

44. More than enough room exists in Vaticanus' blank space for the Intermediate Ending. However, the space is insufficient to contain the entire LE. Burgon (Last Twelve Verses, 87) clearly erred in claiming the blank space left in Vaticanus as “abundantly sufficient to contain the twelve verses.” See Maurice A. Robinson, “The Ending of Mark in Codex Vaticanus: A Feasible Solution,” paper presented to the Southeastern Regional Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, Collegedale, Tennessee, March 1993, where calculations suggest that the scribe of Vaticanus apparently misestimated the word count of the LE due to a mental haplographic leap from in 16:10–11 to the identical sequence of letters in 16:12–13, thus excluding 16:11–12 from his estimate.

45. In his letter to Hedibia (Ep. 120), Jerome notes that the LE could be rejected “especially since it seems to narrate what is different from and contradictory to the other evangelists” (quoted from Metzger, “St. Jerome's Explicit References,” 182).

46. Kelhoffer (“The Witness,” 80) notes that “the importance of answering such questions is easily recognized at a period when the four NT Gospels had been collected and alleged discrepancies in Scripture were … scrutinized by critics.”

47. Marinus asked “How is it, that, according to Matthew [xxviii. 1], the Saviour appears to have risen ‘in the end of the Sabbath;’ but, according to Mark [xvi. 9], ‘early the first day of the week’?” (quoted from Burgon, Last Twelve Verses, 44, punctuation sic). Jerome responds to essentially the same question (Kelhoffer, “The Witness,” 53), while Victor of Antioch notes that Mark 16:9 opens with a “statement which seems inconsistent with Matthew's narrative” (62).

48. Westcott and Hort (“Notes on Select Readings,” 47) list several apparent contradictions as part of a “jarring moral discontinuity.”

49. Related comments regarding apparent contradiction when mentioning apostolic disbelief are noted by Chrys C. Caragounis, The Development of Greek and the New Testament: Morphology, Syntax, Phonology, and Textual Transmission, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 167 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 246: “According to Mark's longer ending and Luke, all of the disciples refused to believe … whereas according to Matthew, only some of the disciples doubted, … and according to John 20:25–27 only one disciple, Thomas, refused to believe.”

50. James Snapp Jr., comment posted on an Internet text-critical discussion list, 26 Feb 2007 <groups.yahoo.com/group/textualcriticism/message/2962>. Snapp does not consider the LE to be what Mark intended to write as the conclusion of his Gospel account, but “a freestanding composition that Mark's survivors attached to Mark 1:1–16:8 before the initial release of the book” (James Snapp Jr., comment to the Internet text-critical discussion list, 12 Jan 2007 <groups.yahoo.com/group/textualcriticism/message/2841>). Snapp offers a three-part summary of external and internal considerations on the website <www.curtisvillechristian.org/Markone.html>, with a c.130pp. monograph-length study available from <www.textexcavation.com/snapp/PDF/snapporiginmk.pdf>.

51. Delbert Burkett, Rethinking the Gospel Sources: From Proto-Mark to Mark (New York: T. & T. Clark International, 2004), 263.

52. Farmer (Last Twelve Verses, 65) claims that “such discrepancies and difficulties … could never by themselves account for the omission of the whole of Mk. 16:9–20. Such a radical action … requires an objectionable exegetical surd that … striking at the vital centre of the church';s life, threatens its very existence” [emphasis original].

53. Some modern apologists (e.g., David Robert Palmer) have concluded that the LE is “impossible to harmonize” with the remaining canonical Gospels. Palmer claims that some of these “other contradictions involving the ending of Mark … do not show themselves until … a harmonization of the gospels” is attempted, stating specifically that Mark 16:12–13 “contradicts what Luke 24:33–35 says;” also, that Mark 16:9 (“he appeared first to Mary of Magdala”) appears “impossible to reconcile with the other accounts” that claim “Jesus first appeared to the other women … and then to Mary of Magdala” (Palmer, posted on the tc-alternate-list, 22 Jan 2007 <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TC-alternate-list/message/1141>).

54. Farmer (Last Twelve Verses, 65) suggests that a deliberate excision of Mark 16:9–20 may have occurred in reaction to “the kind of threat, for example, that was represented in such second-century sectarian phenomena as the Montanist movement.”

55. Farmer (Last Twelve Verses, 65–74) considers sign-gift abuse as motivating “a third way of dealing with these problems … to suppress the verses by omitting them from some copies” (70). Farmer states pointedly, “Mark. 16:9–20 contains promises of Jesus to which the church has never succeeded in accommodating itself, except by unconscious repression” (65); thus, “it is possible to see how the practice of ending Mark with could have arisen, and … how manuscripts with this reading could have become current in some locales and remained in circulation until difficulties fed by those verses no longer posed a threat to the order, peace and well being of the church” (70–71).

56. As stated by Wilfred L. Knox (“The Ending of St. Mark's Gospel, HTR35 [1942]: 15, “The usual ‘form’ of popular stories … demands that you must round off your incident properly, leaving nothing to the imagination.”

57. Burgon (Last Twelve Verses, 123–25) swiftly passes over the Intermediate Ending as a peculiarity having no value. This becomes the weakest part of Burgon's volume, primarily caused by the knowledge of the Intermediate Ending in his day only in MS L/019 (in a footnote Burgon acknowledges an inability to comprehend Scholz' comment regarding MS 274, which has the Intermediate Ending in the margin).

58. Greek text from NA^27; English translation by the present writer.

59. Elliott, “Text and Language,” 256. Elliott there further suggests that “Lat. [vt. a] may also have originally contained the shorter ending only” (brackets original).

60. Elliott's MS 0112 is now known to be part of MS 083 (along with 0235); NA^27, Appendix 1, “Codices Graeci et Latini,” 695, lists the contents of 083+0112+0235.

61. MS 083 is of the sixth/seventh century; 099 of the seventh; L/019 and L-1602 of the eighth; /044 of the ninth/tenth; 274 of the tenth; and 579 of the thirteenth century.

62. Translation in Metzger, Textual Commentary, in loc. The common text of Mark 16:3–4 reads “And they said to themselves, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?’ And having looked up they observed that the stone already had been rolled away, yet it was very large.” The expansion in Old Latin k occurs after the women's question, basically eliminating any need for the LE.

63. Ibid. For the Greek text and translation of the Gospel of Peter, see Andrew E. Bernhard, Other Early Christian Gospels: A Critical Edition of the Surviving Greek Manuscripts, Library of New Testament Studies 315 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2006), 49–83. Cp. Erwin Preuschen, Antilegomena: Die Reste der außerkanonischen Evangelien und urchristlichen Überlieferungen (Gieszen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1905), 19–20.

64. Carl Schmidt, ed., Pistis Sophia, The Coptic Gnostic Library, Nag Hammadi Studies 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 385 (Coptic text), 386 (English translation; italics original). The passage begins in mid-sentence as shown. Helpful alternative translations of this passage (without the Coptic text presented) appear in G. R. S. Mead, ed., Pistis Sophia: A Gnostic Miscellany. Being for the Most Part Extracts from the Books of the Saviour, to which Are Added Excerpts from a Cognate Literature (London: J. M. Watkins, n. d. [1921]), 325; and George Horner, ed., Pistis Sophia (London: SPCK, 1924), 199.

65. Although apparently written originally in Greek (Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, s. v., “Pistis Sophia”), the manuscript reflects a form of Gnosticism current in late fourth century Egypt. Cp. Philip David Scott-Moncrieff, Paganism and Christianity in Egypt (Cambridge, 1913), 175: “The scheme [of Pistis Sophia] betrays here and there marked signs of Egyptian influence, and the fact that the work was sufficiently important to be translated into the native tongue shows without doubt that the sect which inspired it was an Egyptian branch who dwelt in Egypt.”

66. Mead notes (Pistis Sophia, xxiv) that the postscript is “somewhat in the style of the Mark-conclusion.” George Horner (ed., The Coptic Version of the New Testament in the Northern Dialect, Otherwise Called Memphitic and Bohairic: With Introduction, Critical Apparatus, and Literal English Translation, 5 vols. [Oxford: Clarendon, 1898] 1:482), when discussing the Intermediate Ending found in two Coptic MSS, notes that “The reference to the rising and setting [i. e., the ‘East and West’] occurs also in the … paraphrase of the Pistis Sophia” (brackets original).

67. Horner, Pistis Sophia, xxviii. There is no reason to suspect a Gnostic source for the postscript. Of course, on the basis of possession, the copyist of the postscript likely considered the Pistis Sophia as somehow authoritative.

68. All Greek MSS that contain the Intermediate Ending also contain the LE. Even with Bobbiensis, the scribe's exemplar might not have concluded at 16:8, but may have contained both longer endings, with the scribe simply selecting the first (the Intermediate Ending regularly appears between 16:8 and 16:9 in the MSS in which the main text contains both readings) and reediting 16:8 to eliminate the apparent conflict between that verse and the Intermediate Ending.

69. The Liturgy reading for that day (Thursday of the Sixth Week after Pascha) is Luke 24:36–53, along with Acts 1:1–12. See the tables in The Orthodox Study Bible (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1993), 771–80. The LE also is read during Easter week as the third “Gospel of the Resurrection.”

70. Readings for major feast days were developed first, followed by readings for Sundays and Saturdays. Later, weekday readings were added. The Menologion finally added readings for saints' days and special occasions.

71. Burgon (Last Twelve Verses, 191–211) discusses early lectionary practice in relation to the LE and the lection concluding at 16:8. The Intermediate Ending does not come under consideration due to Burgon's swift dismissal of such as a simple anomaly on 123–25 (as mentioned earlier in note 57).

72. A similar scenario exists in regard to the omission and/or relocation of the Pericope Adulterae among manuscripts of the Fourth Gospel. See Maurice A. Robinson, “Preliminary Observations Regarding the Pericope Adulterae based upon Fresh Collations of nearly all Continuous-Text Manuscripts and all Lectionary Manuscripts containing the Passage,” Filología Neotestamentaria 13 (2000): 35–59.

73. The comments appearing in the MSS that contain both the Intermediate and Long Endings are the following: “This also is carried somewhere” (L syhmg); “In some manuscripts these things appear” (099 sams); “In other manuscripts these things are not written” (L-1602); “In some of the manuscripts until here [16:8] the evangelist has completed, to which point also Eusebius Pamphilius noted in his canons; but in many other copies also these things appear” (f^1); “Now also these things are carried after the ‘for they were afraid’” (L 0112).

74. See Maurice A. Robinson, “Incipit/Explicit: Lectionary Influence on the Continuous-Text Manuscripts belonging to the Byzantine Textform,” paper presented to the 55th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, Atlanta, Georgia, November 2003, 35: “Such crossovers tend to spread only among a limited minority of [continuous-text] manuscripts in any given case…. Where such minority incursion appears, … the direction of influx seems to be primarily from the lectionary … over to the continuous-text manuscripts.” Phrases typically added due to lectionary requirements include the name “Jesus,” “Let him hear who has ears to hear,” “At that time,” and the like. Other passages (e. g. the Bloody Sweat of Luke 22:43–44) are relocated within some lections—even to different Gospels. Some passages (e. g., the doxology of the Lord's Prayer in Matt 6:13) are not spoken by the laity but spoken or whispered by the priest.

75. See, for example, Elliott, “Text and Language,” 255–62; also, Danove, Linguistics and Exegesis, 70n6, 71nn7, 8; and Craig A. Evans, Mark 8:27–16:20, 546–47.

76. Burgon, Last Twelve Verses, 136–90.

77. John A. Broadus, “Exegetical Studies: Style of Mark xvi. 9–20, as bearing upon the Question of Genuineness,” Baptist Quarterly 3 (1869): 355–62.

78. Farmer, Last Twelve Verses, 83–103.

79. Bruce Terry, “The Style Of The Long Ending Of Mark,” 9pp. bible.ovc.edu/terry/articles/mkendsty.htm. Terry examines stylistic features of the LE in comparison with the unquestioned portions of Mark as these relate to categories of “juncture, vocabulary, phraseology, and miscellaneous” (par. 2).

80. Kelhoffer (Miracle and Mission, 49, 73, 121) states, “Numerous parts of 16:9–20 bear a striking resemblance to Mark 1:1–16:8…. Such perceptiveness to the subtleties of the style of 1:1–16:8 bespeaks an author who had read Mark very closely…. The LE's numerous Markan words and phrases reflect an effort to imitate the style of the work which this author augmented.” Kelhoffer (65–122) provides a complete discussion of LE stylistic imitation, not only of Mark, but (theoretically) of the other canonical Gospels.

81. Burkett, Rethinking, 254. In terms of Synoptic relationships, Burkett further notes, “Even if the Gospel of Mark served as the source for Matthew and Luke, it might still be based on earlier sources, such that it reflects … the style of pre-Markan sources” (255).

82. The Byzantine Textform is the basis for tabulation, but the data do not differ significantly within the NA^27/UBS^4 eclectic text. Markan style would be enhanced, however, were the NA/UBS text used for comparison, since occurs in that text at Mark 1:28, while otherwise absent from the Byzantine Textform. The NA/UBS comparison base would require removal of from the accompanying chart as well as a minor adjustment in the quantity and percentage of tabulated agreement. I thank James Snapp, Jr., for calling this to my attention.

83. While form alone does not necessarily reflect syntactical use, identity of form does suggest commonalty of expression by a given author, and cannot exclude authorial originality.

84. Burkett (Rethinking, 254) astutely observes that opponents of the LE “assume that all of this material [1:1–16:8] reflects Mark's style and further that Mark's style is fully reflected in this material.” In so doing, “implicitly they presuppose that Mark was an author who composed all of this material, not an editor who compiled most of it from earlier sources.”

85. Elliott, “Text and Language,” 258.

86. In Mark 5:37, the uncompounded form of occurs in MSS A K Π 33 1241. Since Elliott does not cite the compounded forms in the LE as “non-Markan,” it must be presumed that he accepts the compounded in 5:37 as original to Mark.

87. Elliott, “Text and Language,” 259.

88. Elliott (“Text and Language,” 262n20) suggests that the various tallies of “non-Markan” terms within the LE are “low” and represent “an undercount.” In contrast, the present writer suggests that overcounts in this matter are more frequent, and in most writers these exist primarily to embellish an a priori view of LE non-authenticity based primarily on its absence from MSS and B.

89. Burkett (Rethinking, 255) claims in contrast that the LE reflects “five of the features of Markan style” (the use of and as adverb; he also adds “possibly” the use of ).

90. Gilbert van Belle, “Style Criticism and the Fourth Gospel,” in Patrick Chatelion Counet and Ulrich Berges, One Text, A Thousand Methods: Studies in Memory of Sjef van Tilborg, Biblical Interpretation Series 71 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 303. The citation is from Udo Schnelle, Antidocetic Christology in the Gospel of John: An Investigation of the Place of the Fourth Gospel in the Johannine School (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 156.

91. James Snapp Jr. comment posted to the Yahoo textual criticism discussion list, 11 Jan 07 <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/textualcriticism/message/2837>.

92. “The Translators to the Reader,” Preface to the Authorized Version, 1611, par. 1.

93. Ross J. Purdy, message posted on the “tc-alternate-list,” 25 Oct 2006 <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TC-alternate-list/message/665>.

94. Burnett Hillman Streeter, The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins, rev. ed. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1936), 163.

95. B. Orchard, “Mark and the Fusion of Traditions,” in F. Van Segbroeck et al., eds., The Four Gospels 1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck, 3 vols. (Leuven: University Press, 1992), 799. Orchard suggests that Mark's record of the impromptu narrative declared by Peter was cut short by Peter's imprisonment and/or martyrdom, at which point “Mark himself felt obliged to take responsibility for the so-called Long Ending, … and so to publish the text in its completed form.”

96. Some words are both underlined and italicized due to differences between the Matthean and Lukan accounts in relation to the Markan wording. No particular view regarding Markan priority or the Synoptic Problem is implied; the concern involves only the longer and summarized forms of a parallel incident within the Synoptic Gospels.

97. Broadus, “Style of Mark,” 355–62; Burgon, Last Twelve Verses, 136–90.

98. Broadus, “Style of Mark,” 361.

99. Burgon, Last Twelve Verses, 173–175.

100. Ibid., 142–45, 181–84. Burgon, however, considers vocabulary and stylistic examination “untrustworthy,” “coarse,” “delusive,” “clumsy,” and “vulgar.” Burgon only “condescends” to use this method simply because his opponents make such an appeal.

101. Terry, “Style of the Long Ending,” 3. Terry acknowledges at least 20 unique items; the count of 22 is “depending on textual variants.”

102. This passage remains unparalleled within the Synoptic tradition, but certain of its elements may reflect a Markan analogy to the Matthean wheat and tares parable.

103. Cox (History and Critique, 89) when criticizing Farmer's vocabulary-based analysis, states, “It is … difficult to understand why Farmer limited his ‘internal evidence’ to such a linguistic comparison. One must wonder why Farmer did not make a theological comparison between the longer ending and Mark 1:1–16:8.”

104. Croy, Mutilation, 58–59, emphasis original. Croy further notes (69n39) that the same promise/prediction and fulfillment motif applies to the cursing of the fig tree, Mark 11:12–14, 20–22.

105. Apart from the LE, this fulfillment is recorded only outside of the Gospels: Acts 2:33–34; Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1; Heb 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2; 1 Pet 3:22; cp. the hints in Rev 5:1, 7.

106. Warren Austin Gage, “Jesus as the New Elijah and the Textual Question regarding the Ending of the Gospel of Mark” (unpublished, 2001; forthcoming as a chapter in a book). Gage is professor of Old Testament Exegesis at Knox Theological Seminary, Florida.

107. Gage, “Jesus as the New Elijah,” 1. On p. 9, Gage calls attention to the verbal parallels between the two ascension accounts: Mark 16:19, “after he spoke to them, he was received up into heaven”; LXX 2 Kgs 2:11, “and they were talking … and Elijah was received up … into heaven” (emphasis original). Kelhoffer (Miracle and Mission, 111) also compares the ascension language of the LE with identical words describing Elijah's ascension in both 2 Kgs 2:11 and 1 Macc 2:58.

108. Ibid. Gage includes (1–2) the allusions to Malachi 3:1 and 4:5 at the beginning of Mark's Gospel; the placing of Elijah ahead of Moses in 9:4; and the question whether Elijah will come down to rescue Christ from the cross in 15:36, where the latter text “anticipates the conclusion of the Gospel wherein Jesus is translated into heaven in a manner remarkably like Elijah (16:19).”

109. Mark 1:6, 12–14; 3:22; 4:41; 7:24–25; 12:1–7; 14:12–14; 15:25, 31–39.

110. Wayne Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology (Leiden: Brill, 1967).

111. Gage, “Jesus as the New Elijah,” 9.

112. Although the material preceding Mark 1:32 also contains parallel elements, the quantity of such words and incidents increases in the current passage. Burgon (Last Twelve Verses, 182–184) saw in Mark 1:9–20 “verbal coincidences” that possess “argumentative weight and significancy,” as well as “essential parallelism” (emphasis original). He considers such “a profounder phenomenon” because of its clearly chiastic nature. Burgon concludes (184), “It is surely not an unmeaning circumstance … that the Evangelist should at the very outset and at the very conclusion of his Gospel, so express himself!”

113. Echos of the LE also appear in 1 Peter; these may be of significance, considering the early tradition associating Mark and Peter (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3:39.15). See in particular 1 Peter 3:22 and Mark 16:19 .

114. Other items appearing in Mark 7–8 parallel events within the unquestioned final portion of Mark (16:1–8). Apart from the mention of Peter in 16:7, these parallels are excluded from the present comparison.

115. Burkett (Rethinking, 255) errs, however, in claiming “The stylistic argument against the longer ending … stands or falls with the theory of Markan priority.” Contrary to this position (held by many), the present writer suggests that one's view of the Synoptic Problem should not drive what is basically a text-critical issue; neither should such drive various claims that involve style, vocabulary, and thematic emphases.

116. This factor would seem to negate Kelhoffer's “pastiche” theory regarding the composition of the LE.

117. Kurt Treu, Die Griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments in der UdSSR (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1966), 92–95. Literal translation by the present writer. Treu's Greek format has been altered in regard to punctuation and capitalization, and by adding breathings, iota subscript and movable -v. MS 2145 is a vellum manuscript of the four Gospels copied by a scribe named John, completed on 23 Feb 1144.

118. These are the following, according to verse sequence: (9) ; (10) ; (11) ; (12) ; (14) ; (16) ; (17) ; (19) .

119. For example, where the original LE source has (widely separated) .

120. Note that the only LE words in common with the Intermediate Ending are the non-essential and as well as the phrase . Compare this to the 12% words held in common with the LE in the summary of MS 2145.

121. Burkett (Rethinking, 256) pointedly states, “What evidence we have points in the direction of a common editor for Mark 1:1–16:8 and 16:9–20…. Since the editor looks like Mark, he probably was Mark…. If Mark did create the longer ending, then it would be the original ending of the Gospel.”

122. Farmer's position is qualified: “The least difficult course remains to view these verses as belonging to the autograph of the gospel, though not entirely from the evangelist's hand. He apparently was working with received tradition, probably written in Greek.” See William R. Farmer, “A Note on J. N. Birdsall's Review of The Last Twelve Verses of Mark in The Journal of Theological Studies, April 1975,” in his Occasional Notes on Some Points of Interest in New Testament Studies (Dallas: SMU, Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, 1980), 19.

123. Kitchen (Ancient Orient and Old Testament, 20) warns against “drastic and wholesale reconstructions” that are at “variance with the existing documentary evidence.” As Kitchen notes, “The fact that … scholars are habituated to these widely known reconstructions, even mentally conditioned by them, does not alter the basic gravity of this situation which should not be taken for granted.” Unfortunately, as lamented by Jacob Neusner (Are There Really Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels? South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 80 [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993], 28n11), “In a theological field, every possibility endures; facts do not intervene, and tests of validation and falsification do not apply.”

124. N. T. Wright (“Early Traditions and the Origin of Christianity,” Sewanee Theological Review 41 [1997/8]: 136) has stated, “I tried for some years to believe that Mark was really a postmodernist who would deliberately leave his gospel with a dark and puzzling ending, but I have for some time now given up the attempt. Grammatically, the gospel could have ended with ‘for they were afraid’ (ephobounto gar); structurally, it could not have ended without the story of the risen, vindicated Jesus.”

125. Cp. Croy, Mutilation, 58–59, 69n39, quoted earlier.

126. For the latter, see Kelhoffer, “The Witness,” 101–2.

127. See Croy, Mutilation, “Frontal Damage,” 113–36. Whatever Croy's hypothesis might be, it is no longer a matter of NT textual criticism. Yet Croy claims the real textual problem in Mark 1:1 is “falsely reduced to the presence or absence of the words ‘Son of God,’” even while claiming the “lost beginning” hypothesis in the total absence of external evidence.

128. Farmer (“A Note,” 17) states, “The attestation for inclusion is not only stronger according to known text types by number, it is stronger by the earliness of the date of the external witnesses and by their geographical distribution” [emphasis original].

129. The twelfth-century MS 304 generally cited in favor of omission is interwoven with a commentary as opposed to having a continuous text. The absence of a Markan ending beyond 16:8 in that MS may more likely involve commentary-based oversight rather than deliberate excision or non-presence in a continuous-text exemplar. The present writer inspected this MS on microfilm, and would not choose to cite this MS as a valid witness for a Markan ending at 16:8. Burgon (Last Twelve Verses, 283) writes regarding this MS: “The text of S. Mark is here interwoven with a Commentary which I do not recognize…. I am led to suspect that the contents of this MS. will be found to correspond with what Possinus published and designated as ‘Tolosanus.’”

130. One should note that, within the LE, each texttype possesses its own distinctive pattern of readings; this indicates a separate divergence from a much earlier archetypal form of that passage, whether Western, Byzantine or something else. The question to be answered is how the Alexandrian MSS—apart from and B—were enabled to create a characteristically “Alexandrian” form in the LE (where or B were not extant) that typifies the “Alexandrian” pattern paralleled in the remaining portions of Mark where and B are present, without the LE itself requiring earlier incorporation within a presumed pre-fourth century archetypal Alexandrian base text.

131. David Silversides (“Review of God's Word in Our Hands: The Bible Preserved for Us,” in Quarterly Record [Trinitarian Bible Society], Issue 577 [Oct-Dec 2006]: 50–51) addresses the primary theological issue surrounding this point: “The original inerrant text has been providentially preserved, not somewhere within all the manuscripts that have been, or may yet be, discovered throughout history, but in those manuscripts that have a pedigree among the professing people of God through the ages.”

132. A. C. Headlam, “The Dates of the New Testament Books,” in W. Sanday, F. G. Kenyon, F. C. Burkitt, F. H. Chase, A. C. Headlam, and J. H. Bernard, Criticism of the New Testament, St. Margaret's lectures, 1902 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902), 177.

133. Frederik Wisse, “The Nature and Purpose of Redactional Changes in Early Christian Texts: The Canonical Gospels,” in William L. Petersen, ed., Gospel Traditions in the Second Century: Origins, Recensions, Text, and Transmission, Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity 3 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), 40–41, 53.

CHAPTER 3

_________________________________________________________

The Last Twelve Verses of

Mark: Original or Not?

_________________________________________________________

J. K. ELLIOTT

Any of us who are writers like to impress our intended readers, first by grabbing their attention immediately with a brisk, appropriate opening paragraph. Similarly, we like to conclude our writings with a satisfying climax or summary that our audience feels rounds off our narrative or arguments. The same applies to the biblical authors.

Matthew starts off in grand style with the genealogy; Luke has an elegantly crafted introductory sentence of four verses in length. Both Matthew and Luke have extensive infancy narratives, which set the scene for their stories of the ministry of the incarnate Jesus. John uses the Prologue, possibly a composition already in existence at the time he began writing, in order to emphasize his belief in the preexistence of Jesus. All of those make splendidly appropriate openings. Matthew ends his Gospel with the risen Jesus' stirring words from the mountain top, dispersing his followers. Luke and John have a satisfying selection of post-Easter appearances that reinforce in a positive way the announcement that the tomb is empty but that he has risen. John has even concocted two endings. John 20 reaches its conclusion in a satisfactory way, but later the author seems to have added chapter 21 as an appendix, again with its own convincing conclusion.

By contrast with these three evangelists, Mark seems rather blunted at both ends. His introduction is very brief, v. 1 looks like a short title, and then immediately after Old Testament citations we are suddenly introduced not to Jesus but to John the Baptist before being taken straight into the baptism story. We shall return to this later. Mark's ending is disputed. Do we end at v. 8? Do we proceed to v. 20, noting the strange jump from v. 8 to v. 9, even if—or especially if—Mark was responsible for those last twelve verses? Verse 8 ends bizarrely, and that is especially significant if this was the intended conclusion to the Gospel. The section following vv. 1–8 does not logically join on; in fact vv. 9ff seem to parallel vv. 1ff. Those problems are raised by the textual evidence too. Some MSS have vv. 9–20, others do not. And what do we do about the so-called shorter ending? And what about the longer text in W with the socalled Freer Logion after v. 14? The whole textual situation looks very unstable.

In this volume we are looking at the way (or ways) in which one of the evangelists, Mark, closed his Gospel. But I am going to extend my investigation by looking at the opening verses of Mark as well. I shall turn to that beginning section a little later.

But, first, we need to remind ourselves that the beginnings and ends of ancient books were particularly vulnerable. That applies to (sc)rolls and to books in codex format. Obviously an unbound codex was liable to be damaged at both ends, but so, too, was a roll—especially if its ending was occasionally exposed when it was not rewound to the beginning after each consultation.[1] The disputed ending of Mark may be compared with the various endings of Revelation (where there are nine different readings, seven involving Greek MSS), or Romans and the disparate textual support for its alternative endings. Each of these books has suffered and it may well be that we have lost all traces of their original conclusions. The irretrievable loss of some verses is an eventuality we may have to accept. As far as manuscripts are concerned, many otherwise complete MSS have lost their beginnings and endings. Two obvious instances are Sinaiticus that has lost the beginning of the Old Testament, and Vaticanus where the opening to Genesis has disappeared as has the end of the New Testament. Outside the Bible, there are numerous instances where manuscripts of literary texts are accidentally truncated. The means to restore such damaged texts were not always to hand, even when the mutilations were conspicuous.

We shall turn now to look at the external evidence for the ending of Mark at 16:8, as well as at the linkage of vv. 8–9. Then we shall examine the internal evidence for the Markan authorship of 16:9–20. This means that we shall look at the language and style of those verses, then their theological content. We shall then pose certain questions: How did Mark lose its original ending and thus circulate in some witnesses ending at v. 8? Was it deliberate or accidental? If vv. 9–20 are secondary we need to ask when they were added.

External Evidence

Only two early Greek MSS (actually the earliest we have containing the whole of Mark) and one other, medieval, Greek MS,[2] from among the thousand or so extant witnesses that contain Mark's Gospel, end Mark at 16:8, and yet it is on the authority given to these two early Greek Bibles that most critical editions of the Greek New Testament and most modern English versions reach their climax to Mark with the cliff-hanging but inconclusive v. 8 that ends with the particle .

The proverbial man in the street may say that these witnesses could just be unusual copies. And, he may go on to suggest that, surely, democratic principles require our siding with the majority of witnesses that include vv. 9–20.

Most scholars, however, would say that we are dealing not with any two MSS, but with Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, splendidly produced and evidently prepared as deluxe editions. Possibly these were written in response to Constantine's request for fifty Greek Bibles for his new capital. What is certain is that they represent attempts to define the Christian canon, as it had by then developed and to show this collection between one set of covers. Those editions did not spawn imitators.[3] Generally, what continued to be copied by the church were the Gospels alone, or the Pauline corpus for example; and it was not until the Middle Ages that we again find complete New Testaments being produced. Whole Greek Bibles, Old Testament and New Testament, were not fashionable. One may therefore suspect that not only were these fourth-century witnesses, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, peculiar in their scale and contents but that their texts too were untypical. As far as the endings of Mark are concerned, the examples set by Sinaiticus () and Vaticanus (B), and possibly the other forty-eight copies also prepared for Constantine,[4] were not followed. I do not wish to impugn B or even with generic unreliability or to suggest they were maverick copies. B in particular seems to have an ancient pedigree[5] yet we cannot ignore its or 's distinctiveness here at the end of Mark.

But, in reading an apparatus of a critical edition of the Greek New Testament, it is not obvious that these MSS are not straightforward in this matter. Let us take B first.

It is essential to remember that B, uncharacteristically, leaves a blank column following his truncated ending of Mark. Such a gap is exceptional in the New Testament half of this manuscript.[6] Elsewhere in B the text of each successive book starts at the top of the next column. It is almost as if the scribe hesitated here. Perhaps his exemplar had the so-called longer ending of Mark, i.e., vv. 9–20, and he had instructions not to include it. His hesitation made him leave the gap to allow for second thoughts, even though, as we are often told, the missing verses could not in practice have been inserted in such a gap (the end of one column and the whole of the blank column) if the same sized handwriting was to be employed.[7] A similar situation is observable in those MSS that include the last twelve verses but who decided (or a later reader decided) to indicate the same hesitation by marking this longer ending with asterisks, obeli or a wavy line or with a note.[8] A splendid Armenian MS in London (Arm. MSS add. 21932), like most early Armenian MSS, lacks the longer ending, but this one has 16:7–8 written in uncharacteristically huge letters that have the effect of using up spaces which had been calculated and left for the inclusion of much more text, presumably vv. 9–20—and this is yet another indication that, regardless of what the scribe chose to do, he was at least alert to the fact that here there was indeed a choice to be made.

A critical apparatus typically fails to note these scribal warning signs either in a MS that chose to omit the verses, or to add them, albeit with hesitation.

Now to Aleph. Here again the evidence is not entirely unambiguous. There are three scribes of this MS—A, B and D. Most of the New Testament was written by scribe A, but occasionally a section was written by scribe D. There are examples of D's work at folio 74,2 and 7 in Matt; 84,3 in 1 Thess; 84,6 in Heb; 89,1 for only Rev 1:1–5. D also wrote parts of Genesis, Tobit, Judith, 4 Maccabees, and Psalms.[9] As far as we are concerned, the bifolium containing the end of Mark and the beginning of Luke is in the hand of D, who wrote smaller than scribe A did. Milne and Skeat[10] give the average for D throughout Sinaiticus as 692 letters per column and for A as 630–640. This replacement leaf contains the usual four columns per page thus making sixteen columns by D in total here. There are ten columns of Mark and six given to Luke. Column ten at the end of Mark is only partly utilized and the rest of that column is blank. The six columns of Luke are unusually cramped compared with D's usual letter count per column elsewhere. The last six columns of Mark are stretched out, although the opening four columns by D in this replacement are not stretched out; in fact, column four has the second highest letter count of all sixteen columns. The letter count for the last six columns containing Mark is reduced to 598, 556, 605, 598, 560, followed by the concluding column containing the colophon.

Possibly, something went wrong at the beginning of Luke that required the text up to Luke 1:56 to be redone. Skeat argued that the reason for the rewriting was that scribe A had written part of Luke twice, a dittography, hence the rewriting required Mark to be stretched. But why did the stretching of Mark not start until column five? That section obviously includes the ending of Mark, whatever was in the exemplar and whatever A had written in the now discarded pages. As published, Aleph has Mark end at 16:8.

A unique omission in , due to homoioteleuton, occurs here: Mark 15:47–16:1 is omitted and that amounts to about five lines of text. Our question is whether 16:9–20 could have been fitted in columns five to ten. Again, as with our calculations regarding Vaticanus, the answer is “possibly,” although it would have been very tight, especially if the omitted words from 15:47–16:1 had also been reintroduced. The sixteen columns of this bifolium could not easily hold Mark 14:54–Luke 1:56 in D's hand if 16:9–20 were included. It is even less possible in A's hand. Luke cannot be written in less than six columns to reach the point at which scribe A's text continues. The stretching at the end of Mark and the cramping at the beginning of Luke suggest the original calculations by scribe D were unrealistic. Mark 16:9–20 contains somewhere between 966 and 973 letters. That would require one-and-a-half columns in the writing of scribe D and slightly more in scribe A's writing. All we may conclude is that the strange calculations suggest that the scribes were aware (as was the scribe of Codex Vaticanus) that the ending of Mark was disputed.

Scribe D of Sinaiticus was also very likely to have been one of two scribes of Codex Vaticanus—although not the one who wrote the end of Mark. But, nevertheless, this tells us that we are dealing with two MSS from the same scriptorium. One thus sees that the two pandects, if we may use that word of Greek MSS, were connected. Some have argued that this means we are concerned effectively with only one MS witness to the text of Mark ending at 16:8 rather than with two independent early Greek manuscripts.

Thus the Greek external evidence is not crystal clear in its witness as far as and B are concerned. However, there are MSS that have the shorter plus the longer endings[11] and those MSS may be included as added witnesses to the fact that vv. 9–20 were not regarded as the authoritative and original ending to Mark. (I know of no one who defends the Markan authorship of the shorter ending.)

But the early versions support more strongly a text of Mark that ends at 16:8.

Versions

1. The fourth-century Latin MS Bobbiensis (k) is textually the oldest witness to the Latin Bible, with a text going back to the early third century. Vv. 9–20 are absent, and are replaced by the shorter ending. (It is therefore not surprising to see there is nothing from this ending quoted by Tertullian or by Cyprian in North Africa.) Lvt (k) differs from NA from Mark 15:45 onwards, e.g., at v. 16:1; the additions to v.3; and the absence of v. 8b.

2. The Sahidic Coptic usually ends at 16:8. See especially the Sahidic Barcelona fifth-century MS PPalau Rib. inv. Nr. 182.

3. Most early Armenian MSS lack the longer ending. In fact it has been calculated that some 99 of the 220 registered Armenian MSS lack the verses. The same is true of the oldest Georgian witnesses.

4. The Sinaitic Syriac is also an important witness for the omission.

5. The Byzantine lectionary system seems to have developed into a settled form by the eighth century—only after that time do most lectionaries contain a reading from the longer ending. Certainly the Georgian and Armenian lectionaries, which are dependent on the Jerusalem, not Byzantine, lectionary system, lack this pericope.

Fathers

Eusebius gives us our clearest evidence that most NT MSS known to him ended Mark at v. 8. Jerome repeats Eusebius' observation, although Jerome's Vulgate contains the longer ending; Jerome was also aware of a text we know as the Freer Logion (found in MS W within the longer ending).

We need to recall that Mark was not popular in the second century; hence this Gospel was seldom cited. Westcott and Hort[12] and Cox[13] and others list fathers who knew 16:9–20, of whom the most significant is Irenaeus. In AD 180 he knew 16:19 to be from Mark. But many other fathers did not quote from the longer ending and may therefore not have known it. That is of course an argument from silence.

This external evidence shows quite clearly that from the earliest times we have reliable information that Mark's Gospel circulated in different forms with differing endings.

To summarize, then, in the second century there is evidence that the longer ending was known and quoted; in the fourth century we have evidence that scribes were aware of a problem, the ending at v. 8 was known, as were the shorter ending and the longer ending; by the sixth century there is evidence of the shorter and longer endings together.

So what was it that caused the hesitation over verses 9–20, or their omission? Why do most printed editions and modern versions go with the minority of witnesses, and exclude vv. 9–20?

The answer is that the contents and theology of vv. 9–20 are uncharacteristic of Mark elsewhere. And also there is a significant difference in the language and style in those verses, compared with the rest of his Gospel. Let us look first at the grammar and vocabulary.

Internal Evidence

Language

This is not the place to indulge in a detailed analysis of the language, style and vocabulary of the longer ending. In 1971 I wrote a study of these features[14] and it is flattering to see that that piece is still quoted with approval. Obviously, I could expand and nuance what I wrote then as a mere tyro.[15]

The following strike me as the most important features that are peculiar to the longer ending or are alien to Mark 1:4–16:8:

- vv. 10, 11, 13. 20: is used as a pronoun.

- vv. 10, 12, 15: is found as a simple verb. Elsewhere Mark uses it only compounded. I accept the v.l. giving the compound in 9:30. In the bulk of Mark is used in the present and in the aorist: here in the longer ending is in the aorist.

- v. 10: is used uniquely here of the disciples.

- vv. 11, 14: is not a Markan word.

- vv. 11, 16: is not a Markan word (n.b. in 16:14).

- v. 12: is non-Markan.

- v. 14: is non-Markan. At 12:6 Mark has where the Matthaean parallel (Mt. 21:37) has .

- vv. 17, 20: is Johannine not Markan. + anarthrous is not usual in the New Testament.

- v. 18: = ‘and if’ is non-Markan (at 5:28; 6:56 = ‘even’).

- v. 18: + accusative is only here in Mark. At 5:23 the verb is followed by the direct dative where the Matthaean parallel has + accusative.

- v. 19: is unique.

- vv. 19, 20: : this Christological title occurs only here. At 11:3 = “master.”

- v. 19: : only here in Mark.

- v. 20: this extended genitive absolute is rare, and here three words peculiar to the Epistles occur within the construction: .

(Note how many of the features listed above occur more than once in this longer ending. It is self-deceiving to pretend that the linguistic questions are still “open.”[16])

Then, of course, there is the issue of the ending of the paragraph with . Much of the argument about this feature is well-known.[17] The jury may still be out, but I am not inclined to think Mark intended his writing to end in this way and with a particle to boot, even though Vaticanus and Sinaiticus seem to have been prepared to let the Gospel end with . Whatever the scribes allowed, albeit with hesitation, I conclude that no author would have chosen to end a piece of writing, sentence, paragraph and even less a book, with a postpositional particle, and so we must decide that, originally, a continuation of v. 8 existed (alongside a possible Easter appearance) until the final page of the original Gospel of Mark was irretrievably lost.[18]

Just an aside: In assessing differences in language in this section, we ought to ask if we should expect authors to be consistent in such matters throughout. Could we perhaps find another passage in Mark of a length comparable to 9–20 and examine if its language and style are equally dissimilar to the rest of Mark? But I doubt if another similar passage betraying such anomalies exists. Yes, obviously, some stories have a higher than average run of different, distinctive vocabulary, but that is often explicable by the requirements of the context. But the nature of the differences between 16:9–20 and Markan usage elsewhere is, as we have demonstrated, more than mere vocabulary.

Turner subjected the whole of Mark (excluding the longer ending) to a closely detailed linguistic analysis. Nowhere does he have to except any pericope because it stands out as markedly different. Mark's fingerprints, i.e., his distinctive style, are recognizable throughout. (We shall shortly turn to Mark 1:1–3 where I detect a significantly high level of non-Markan features, but that is a special case.)

Contents & Theology

Now to turn to the contents. Those have struck many commentators as peculiar, too. For instance, the opening words suggest that it is Jesus who is the subject in the preceding context and Mary is introduced as if for the first time. These verses hardly continue and explain what is written in vv. 1–8. The listing of the Resurrection appearances in a scanty manner in these verses looks more like a summary of Luke and John rather than a catalogue such as is found in the (earlier) 1 Corinthians 15; and it follows a Jerusalem tradition, pace Mark 16:7, which looks to a Christophany in Galilee. The reference to signs following believers looks more Johannine than Markan. “Tongues” are nowhere else in our Gospels. Drinking poison without harm is nowhere else in the New Testament; this detail seems to belong better in the New Testament apocrypha. The picking up of snakes differs from Luke 10:19. Some of these anomalies can be argued over but cumulatively they tell against Markan authorship.

The Longer Ending is not counted in the Eusebian canon numbers. The canon tables do not allow for Jesus' appearance to Mary Magdalene found in Mark and John. In some MSS attempts were made to extend the numbering system, without the canon table. These later insertions allow the numbers to reach beyond 233 with the new numbers in some manuscripts alongside vv. 9, 11, 12, 13 and 14.[19]

The evidence of the differences in language in the Longer Ending and indeed the problems of the theological contents of it seem to demand an author different from Mark, the author of 1:4–16:8. For readers who are apprehensive about dismissing vv. 9–20 as a later accretion, it may be worthwhile exploring if Mark could have incorporated these traditional verses into the Gospel himself, possibly (according to David Black[20]) at a later stage. After all, Luke seems to have taken over half a dozen canticles in chapters 1 and 2 that were probably in existence in Jewish circles prior to the composition of the Gospel. Some of them may even have already been used by John the Baptist's disciples in telling of his nativity and then were commandeered and incorporated by Christians when they too began telling of their Lord's birth.

Paul also borrowed hymns that were already in use in the early church, e.g., the kenosis hymn in Philippians 2:5–11; the “Christ hymn” in Colossians 1:15–20, and the hymn in 1 Thessalonians 5:16–22. The author of the Pastorals also uses a hymn in 1 Timothy 3:16. So there are adequate precedents in other New Testament writings to show that such things occurred (and we could also easily find similar literary borrowings within the Old Testament). But is Mark 16:9–20 one such literary composition taken over with approval by Mark to conclude his Gospel?

If it was, then the language, style, vocabulary, and even the theology are different from the undisputed words of the original author, as we have demonstrated. But it is rare (even unknown) for a NT author to lift, lock, stock and barrel, a narrative passage as opposed to a saying, a hymn, or a canticle, such as we are asked to believe Mark did when he found 16:9–20. It is an inferior piece of writing, plodding and grey, compared with Mark's racy, simple, and colloquial writing elsewhere. If he did find such a passage already in existence, he certainly did not refashion it in his own style.

I am unwilling to credit Mark with the incorporation of this allegedly previously composed ending into his new Gospel. There is no evidence he has taken over any other comparable portion. Obviously, like all the evangelists, he used materials from the oral tradition. Matthew and Luke took over texts from Mark, but they rewrote them and left their own literary fingerprints on them. I am disinclined to believe that it was Mark, the innovative composer and creative theologian, who took over, unrevised, a paragraph such as vv. 9–20, especially as it may well have disagreed with his own theological stance.[21]

If I am right, then we are left with the argument that it was a later—probably second century—editor who found this paragraph and, despite its imperfections for such a purpose, used it (in time for Irenaeus to know it as part of Mark's Gospel) to round off a dissatisfyingly incomplete Gospel—especially if that Gospel was by then being used to complete a fourfold Gospel canon.

Western Gospel Order

Another point that may be relevant is that in some early MSS Mark appears not as the Second Gospel to which we are accustomed but at the end, that is in the fourth position. This is the so-called Western order—Matthew, John, Luke, Mark—intended to put the writings by the two apostles before the two written by friends of the apostles. We find that sequence in MSS W, D, X,[22] “several” of the older Greek minuscules,[23] Gothic, Syriac Peshitta, Old Latin MSS. For them, of course, 16:9–20 forms the climax of the whole collection.[24] Is the summary of the Easter events found in 16:9–20 particularly significant coming in that sequence, summarizing the preceding four Gospels' accounts? May one even suggest that the addition of the longer ending occurred first when the Gospels were collected together and originally published in that sequence? If Mark really was circulating in a form that ended at 16:8 its ending would look even more inappropriate as the conclusion to the four-fold collection.[25] The longer ending would then be made the finale to all four Gospels and not just to Mark; its stories of the differing doubters about Jesus' resurrection and its stirring message on Jesus' lips are presumably intended as an appropriately hortatory climax to all four. Once added, this ending was kept even when Mark was placed in a different position among the Gospels.

Concerning Mark's Intent

Before we turn to possible reasons why Mark lost its original ending, let us first ask if Mark really intended his work to end at 16:8. Many commentators and scholars are prepared to defend the version of Mark ending at 16:8 as a viable literary and theological composition. The retired Lady Margaret professor in Cambridge, Morna Hooker, recently published two little monographs.[26] In these she showed the effectiveness of the ways in which each of the four evangelists opened and closed their Gospels. She tried to demonstrate that Mark's original intended ending was 16:8, which she sought to prove was a proper and significant conclusion. On such a theory, the women's silence must be understood to be temporary and positive.

If Mark was subtly leaving his Gospel with a cliff-hanging ending, emphasized by his deliberate use of the provocative , then that subtlety was lost on his immediate followers and into the next century. Because his purposes were misunderstood early on, certainly before AD 180, the alternative endings we know today were tacked on. If Matthew and Luke used Mark they also found Mark's ending deficient and added different Easter appearances to conclude their accounts. It seems they did not have anything to use in Mark beyond v. 8.[27] Similarly, later scribal copyists of Mark also clearly found a Mark that ended at 16:8 dissatisfying—and wrong.

A sophisticated author could conceivably end his work in such an apparently truncated way in the knowledge that his audience were aware of what happened next, probably that these women, having regained their confidence did, indeed, do as the angel commanded and told the disciples. But to my eye Mark is not that sort of sophisticated author.[28]

The message that the women disobeyed the angelic command out of fear is a bizarre climax. Such an ending leaves unfulfilled the expectation that Peter and the other disciples will see the risen Jesus in Galilee. Are we to assume that the continuation of the story containing this promised Christophany was so well known that Mark felt he could withhold it? I doubt it: it is not in the nature of this Gospel that Mark points us forward without giving us the completion. His emphasis on Jesus' divine foreknowledge of forthcoming events in the passion narrative is a significant part of his Christology—for examples, his predictions about the preparations in the upper room, the double cock crowing, the desertion of the disciples after the arrest, the betrayal by one of the twelve and so on are all fulfilled in the stories that follow. In all these cases Jesus knows what is to happen and inevitably these things come to pass.

The other Gospel writers show no reluctance to report the announced Christophany. Why should they? Even Paul, who shows little interest in or knowledge of what Jesus said and did during his ministry, is actively aware of the earliest traditions about the end of Jesus' career and its continuation. Post-Easter stories belong to the earliest stratum of the Jesus story, and had been in existence for a generation before Mark wrote. It would be odd if he were the only one to be reluctant to include such incidents. It would be even odder if, by ending at 16:8, he gave the impression that the Resurrection message was not passed on!

Once the original ending beyond v. 8 was lost, an alternative ending that seemed to meet with general approval was concocted—that is to say, the ending known to us in the majority of our MSS. Only then could Mark's composition be accepted unreservedly and read satisfyingly.

Concerning Others' Intentions

Although we have suspected that the original ending to Mark's Gospel was vulnerable to accidental shortening, it is worth asking if the shortening of the now lost ending could have been deliberate.

Could it be that a motive for the deliberate suppression of the original ending of Mark was indeed the very fact that it contained an appearance to Peter, as promised in 16:7? As we have it in the longer, spurious ending, Mary is specified as the first to witness to and believe in the resurrected Jesus. The summaries following emphasize that, by contrast, others, including Peter, are all doubters.

There seems to have been a reluctance from the beginning to tell of Jesus' Christophany to Peter, especially if it was independent of a general appearance to the Eleven or if it occurred first. But some echoes of the tradition have survived. In Luke, Cleopas and his companion are keen to relate to the disciples that they have just witnessed the risen Christ in Emmaus, only to be informed that these two, otherwise unknown, followers, were not the first to see him; they are told that he has “already appeared” to Simon (Peter) but the episode itself is not included. Paul, despite his rivalry with Peter expressed through his letters,[29] is also aware of this private Christophany first to Peter (1 Cor 15:5). Obviously, an appearance of the risen Christ to Peter was so well known that reference to it could not have been expunged entirely from the tradition, but it is mysterious that no record of the encounter has survived.

We do not need to be seduced by modern preoccupations with Mary Magdalene and associated alleged conspiracy theories to note the significance that she is credited in this non-Markan ending (16:9) with a private, first, Christophany. That information thus superseded a story of Jesus' appearance to Peter.

There seem to have been rival claims concerning Peter's supremacy. We see this theme of questioning Peter's primacy emerge elsewhere. The idealized Beloved Disciple and Peter are portrayed strangely in the Easter stories of the Fourth Gospel, where the issues are: Who wins the race to the tomb? (The Beloved Disciple); Who looks inside first? (Peter); Who believes first? (The Beloved Disciple). And just who is this rival to Peter anyway, this “beloved” but anonymous, disciple? John's story of the first Easter morning matches the Gospels' uncertainty about the Christophany to Peter; all this is peculiar, given his prominence. (We recall the saying about the keys of the Kingdom in Matthew 16:18–19, and the rehabilitation of Peter in John 21.) The overall picture is ambivalent.

Why, then, is there no surviving story of a Christophany to Peter? My suggestion is that there had been and it stood in the original ending to Mark's Gospel but, because of the later reluctance to credit him with this revelation, that ending needed to be removed.

I leave these interesting speculations to one side now, but merely repeat the questions if the original ending to Mark contained an appearance to Peter and if it was that which was the motive for its deliberate suppression.

Concerning Accidental Removal

Let us now approach the reason why some MSS have Mark end at 16:8 from a different angle. If vv. 9–20 had been written by Mark or even if a different, now lost, ending was there, some have asked how the ending may have been accidentally removed. Burgon and others, reluctant to accredit the loss to mere wear and tear or to carelessness, latched on to the little word (presumably intended to indicate the end of a church lection) found in some MSS alongside 16:8.

It was therefore said that a scribe, coming across this word at the end at v. 8, thought that he had reached the end not of a lection but of the whole Gospel, and therefore expunged everything written beyond that point. Such an argument strikes me as weak and unnecessary. It is unlikely scribes would have been so deceived or beguiled by such a meaning for when they could see more was to come.

Additional Considerations

Let us now briefly examine the problems I have detected in the first three verses of Mark and which are more fully expounded in an article.[30] First we must note that here there are no complete MSS of Mark that lack the opening verses (although we recall that there are no very early MS witnesses to this Gospel).

The problems are as follows:

1. Punctuation. Where do we print a full stop in these opening verses? It could occur after v. 1 or v. 3 or v. 4.

2. Textual. The text is uncertain, especially in v. 1.

3. Theological. Is the “beginning of the Gospel” the coming of John the Baptist, the forerunner? In the other Gospels Jesus' pre-eminence is emphasized before John is introduced.

4. Language and style.

- v. 1: The names occur together only here in Mark.

- occurs eight times in Mark, seven of these refer to the divine plan in Jesus' teaching. The one exception is 1:1 where it refers to the messianic action. Of the other seven, only at 1:14 is qualified (by or v.l ): that seems particularly appropriate, if this is indeed the first mention (and on Jesus' lips). The qualification in v. 1 is unique.

- always follows its main clause elsewhere and proves something stated; it is not used in anticipation. Even if v. 1 runs on, that rule cannot be made to apply. If v. 1 is a title ending with a full stop then is, uniquely, at the beginning of a sentence.

- elsewhere is used temporally. Possibly v. 1 runs onto v. 4 but that is unlikely.[31]

- The quotation from the Old Testament is not only unusually extensive for Mark but this is the only citation from the narrator. Elsewhere a citation is within speech. And this is the only citation introduced by the words

- If it is an independent verse, v. 1 is verbless. Such a practice is exceptionally rare in Mark.

Thus there is a very high density of un-Markan usage—far higher than in 16:9–20, as it happens!

We also ought to note that the citation from Isa 40:3 found in Mark 1:2–3 is in the Matthaean parallel (Matt 3:3). The rest of Mark's citation is found in Matthew 11:10 and paralleled in Luke 7:27. If Mark 1:2–3 were original and read as such by Matthew (and Luke) it is odd that they then unravelled Mark's citation, putting it into two different contexts, one Markan, the other Q.

If these arguments are correct, then we have corroborative evidence that Mark's Gospel was damaged at both ends (although not necessarily simultaneously nor, initially, in the same manuscript).

Let us also return to Kelhoffer. What he tried to do was to investigate where 16:9–20 could have come from, assuming, rightly, that it was not Markan nor traditional material in existence prior to AD 65, found by Mark and used by the evangelist to conclude his own writing. Arguing that it was added to a truncated Mark in the mid-second century, he investigates what its context could have been. He sees these verses almost as floating material, comparable to some of the second century apocryphal fragments that have been discovered. The difference here is that the fragment has been attached to what was soon to be accepted as a canonical Gospel, and as such it has remained. It did not survive independently of Mark. Kelhoffer looks in particular at the miracles referred to in 16:17–18. Those are seen as uncharacteristic of a first-century writing such as Mark, but are entirely compatible with secondcentury Christianity, and he finds many parallels in that century's literature.

Kelhoffer has been rightly commended for locating a plausible context for this passage. I find his arguments overwhelmingly convincing. Kelhoffer says that the ending was no hastily compiled epitome, although we must make it clear that it was inappropriately cobbled on as a conclusion that can scarcely be said to develop or belong to vv. 1–8.

Thus 16:9–20 may be compared with additions to some Old Testament writings, e.g., the apparently later additions to Ruth, or to the Psalter, or to Deuteronomy. Those contrast with the abrupt ending to Ezra and the unfinished nature of Jonah, which serve as examples of texts that cry out for additions. Several pieces of literature in antiquity were revisited, edited, shortened, lengthened and (in the case of Acts) reissued in a second edition. What we thus witness with ancient literature shows that texts that were read and used were subsequently liable to reediting.

Conclusion

The textual problems at the end of Mark and indeed the fluid text in much of the New Testament as a whole make talk of inerrancy, as narrowly defined by some, indefensible. Realistically applied to the New Testament the term must allow for errors in the transmission of the text. Unfortunately, the misuse of this word is bandied around rather like the use of “infallibility” when applied to ex cathedra pronouncements by the Pope.

We may argue that the original authors of the biblical texts were themselves inspired but to pretend that their words were transmitted unchanged is stretching credulity to its breaking point. Further, to argue that a particular strand of the MS tradition, typically the text represented by the Textus Receptus, or the Majority text, uniquely preserves, through “providential care,” those inspired words in their entirety ignores the scientific results of textual criticism as practiced in the past century or more, and such preconceived conclusions alienate academic discussion that depends on open and free inquiry. My work on MSS makes it clear to me that the New Testament is nowhere free from accidental and deliberate error and that the text certainly was never transmitted free from blemishes. It is our task as text critics to identify these secondary accretions, wherever they may occur and in whatever MSS.

The Münster Institut speaks of the Ausgangstext, a reconstruction as close as scholarship enables one to get to the possible original, authorial wording but one that explains the starting place from which subsequent existing corruptions arose. This they are trying to do in their Editio Critica Maior at present containing only the Catholic Epistles. As with other printed critical editions, I have my reservations about the resultant text they produce, but it is differing from NA^27—although not enough in my estimation. However, they are arriving at their text independently of any preconceived assessment about the Byzantine text or of any MS, Egyptian or otherwise. As a thoroughgoing text critic, I think that that seems a step in the right direction.

Inerrancy is not coterminous with canonicity. When the fathers promoted certain texts as authoritative for Christians to read, they would accept, e.g., the Gospel of Mark or the Epistle to the Romans. They did not require a particular form of Mark or Romans. They never stated that in commending Mark they had in mind only the version of Mark running up to 16:8 or to 16:20. The Mark accepted as canonical was the form of the text the person, individual church, or monastery happened to possess. We noted earlier that certain MSS containing the Longer Ending do so with a health warning, an obelus, marginal note, or other sign; antiquity was reluctant to omit verses deliberately, especially if the text in question was seen as a part of Jesus tradition. Church usage recognized the Longer Ending since it was of great antiquity, and once it was eventually included in Gospel MSS, it was read in public services. This was pious inclusiveness. Moreover, we cannot nowadays forget that for most of its history the Gospel of Mark was interpreted and used by those who assumed (wrongly, we might say) that vv. 9–20 were part of Mark's original composition.

On the other side, to denigrate the text found in or B as if these are particularly corrupt specimens fails to recognize that at the very least the users of those MSS in antiquity read them as their form of canonical Scripture. My own approach to textual criticism allows that the correct, original text (or, better, the Ausgangstext) has been preserved, by sheer chance, somewhere in our 5,000 surviving Greek witnesses. Sometimes it may well be found in the majority of Byzantine MSS but at other times in or B (as in the case of the ending of Mark), or at other times in an occasional minuscule or a unique majuscule. I am, however, reluctant to accept conjectural emendation, and that is why I am cautious in my proposal about the secondariness of Mark 1:1–3, although I am prepared to admit that such a necessity may exist on occasions. The opening of Mark may well be one such occasion.

The word “canonical” does not imply “original” and it certainly does not involve appeals to divine protectionism, inerrancy, or inspiration (whatever those words are said to mean). Such judgments are made about texts by a certain brand of church tradition. The Bible may well be a collection of inspired writings or an inspired collection of writings (i.e., writings not intended by their authors to be so, but deemed to be so by later Christians) but whether those definitions can help to decide on the rough and tumble of textual variation is improbable. The sooner that the language of inerrancy is dropped in the context of textual criticism the better it will be for scholarship.

Obviously, most of our surviving witnesses contain vv. 9–20 and, as such, these verses have been accepted as canonical Scripture, i.e., recognized by the church as definitive for Christian theology and practice. Bridget Gilfillan Upton, in Hearing Mark's Endings,[32]makes a case for all three major endings to Mark. For her each was designed to have an effect on an audience that was hearing them read. She is not concerned with originality but merely to show that each ending known in the MS tradition was usable and could be effective rhetorically—and, of course, the users of the differing MS traditions were obliged to work with the form of Mark that they happened to possess.

But her work does not prove that any one of these texts was the text published by its author. Even the shorter ending would have been accepted as canonical where it appears in a MS. Let us take another example. The saying about the man working on a Sabbath found after Luke 6:4 in Codex Bezae (D) is a logion not accepted as authentic to Luke, but the owners of D would not have known that. There we are dealing with a saying found in a canonical text; other ipsissima verba may not occur in a text that became canonical Scripture. Paradoxically therefore, it may happen that a non-authentic saying attributed to Jesus may occur in a canonical Gospel and therefore by definition itself became canonical and authoritative, whereas an authentic saying may have survived only in a church father's writing or in apocryphal New Testament texts. The pericope of the adulteress is a floating piece of Jesus tradition (perhaps even an authentic story, and certainly as historically accurate as some other similar episodes), but it is probably a piece of an apocryphal text that never belonged to the original form of Luke or of John. Because it is now found in some MSS of the New Testament, it was not only preserved but branded as a part of canonical Scripture, Holy Writ. Mutatis mutandis, the same applies to the differing forms of Mark's Gospel.

I conclude with two citations:

- Samuel Tregelles[33]: “… [T]he remaining twelve verses, by whomsoever written, have a full claim to be received as an authentic part of the second Gospel, and that the full recognition of early testimony on this question does not in the least involve their rejection as not being part of canonical scripture.”

- Raymond Brown[34]: “…[W]hile New Testament books are canonical, no particular Greek text should be canonized; and the most one can claim for a critically prepared Greek New Testament is scholarly acceptance” (italics mine).

__________________

1. See C. H. Roberts, “The Ancient Book and the Ending of St Mark,” JTS40 (1939): 253–57.

2. These are Sinaiticus ( 01), Vaticanus (B 03) and the twelfth century minuscule 304 (which had presumably been part of a four-Gospel codex). We exclude the twelfth century 2386 that at one time appeared in the apparatus (e.g., UBS^1) in support of Mark ending at 16:8. This MS merely has its last page of Mark missing; it may be used as an example of how the accidental shortening of Mark could have occurred at this exact place.

3. So much for Farmer's opinion that Alexandrian MSS like those two were particularly influential. See W. R. Farmer, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark, SNTS 25 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974).

4. If Sinaiticus was held back and not sent to Constantinople, then we must say that only Vaticanus was sent (and we therefore must speak not of forty-eight but of forty-nine MSS). Other pandects did not survive and we cannot know if they too lacked the last twelve verses of Mark. There is no reason why the text of the fifty sent to Constantinople was identical in each MS, and the probability is that they are unlikely to have agreed with each other textually. Different exemplars would have been employed by the various scribes of each of the fifty copies.

5. See C.-M. Martini, Il problema della recensionalità del codice B alla luce del papiro XIV (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1966), AnBib 26. B has much in common with the third century 75, and is unlikely itself to have been due to a recension. This groundbreaking study is ignored by Farmer, who seems to have been influenced by the intemperate opinions of John W. Burgon, the Anglo-Catholic Dean of Chichester, who implies B was maliciously flawed in his The Last Twelve Verses according to the Gospel of Saint Mark (Oxford: Parker, 1871).

6. In the OT the gap after Nehemiah is explicable: Psalms, written in two not three columns per page, follows; the two-and-a-half column gap after Daniel is the end of the OT; only the gap of one column following Tobit is comparable to that after Mark. Codex L has a blank where the Pericope Adulterae could appear.

7. The issue is not clear-cut. One of my students has demonstrated that it is possible to insert vv. 9–20 into the space available; he was concerned not with the average letters per column but the maximum text possible. Several years ago there was much discussion about this topic in the papers circulated by the Majority Text Society, of which I am admitted as a passenger, so I was informed. I have various documents on this issue, written by Mike Arcieri, Thomas Edgar and Maurice Robinson in early 1990s.

8. Verses 9–20 are preceded by a critical note in MSS 20 and 22; asterisks follow v. 8 in 137, 138; cp. also 156, 187, 1221. See Joseph Hug, La finale de l'Évangile de Marc: Mc 16, 9–20 (Paris: Gabalda, 1978) = Études bibliques.

9. See the Table of Concordance pp. 94–112 of H. J. M. Milne and T. C. Skeat, Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus (London: British Museum, 1938).

10. Milne and Skeat, Scribes and Correctors, 9–11.

11. The shorter ending is found between v. 8 and vv. 9–20 in L 083 099 274mg. 579 l 1602. L has the shorter ending in the column following 16:8 and then has a decoration; following a critical comment comes the longer ending. None of these witnesses is older than the 7th century.

12. B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek (London: Macmillan, 1881), “Notes on Select Readings,” 39–41.

13. Steven Lynn Cox, A History and Critique of Scholarship concerning the Markan Endings (Leviston, Queenston, Lampeter: Mellen Press, 1993).

14. J. K. Elliott, “The Text and Language of the Endings to Mark's Gospel,” TZ27 (1971): 255–62, reprinted as chap. 11 in J. K. Elliott, ed., The Language and Style of the Gospel of Mark: An Edition of C.H. Turner's ‘Notes on Marcan Usage’ together with other Comparable Studies (Leiden: Brill, 1993) = Supplements to Novum Testamentum 71.

15. James A. Kelhoffer (Miracle and Mission [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000] = WUNT112: 65–121) has built on my study and expanded it considerably. Farmer (Last Twelve Verses, 83–103) also has a study of the language although he has rightly been criticized for ignoring vital features, e.g., he says nothing about or and rather disingenuously attributes non-Markan features to the source used by Mark.

16. For an unnecessarily cautious view about the validity of the linguistic arguments see M. D. McDill, “A Textual and Structural Analysis of Mark 16:9–20,” FilNeo XVII (2004): 27–43.

17. P. van der Horst, “Can a Book End with a ? A Note on Mark XVI.8,” JTS23 (1972): 121–24.

18. As far as the verb in v. 8 is concerned, the imperfect is followed by a direct object four times elsewhere in Mark (6:20; 9:32 11:18, 32) and that is normal in the NT and LXX, but there is no firm example of the imperfect in Mark where is used absolutely. (At 10:32 v.l. by D and others omit the clause containing this verb.) At 16:8 we await a motive for the women's fear. An English rendering that would indicate the interrupted sentence could end as follows: “… because they were fearful of.”

19. S. C. E. Legg, Novum Testamentum Graece: Evangelium secundum Marcum (Oxford: Clarendon, 1935), after xvi 9.

20. David Alan Black, Why Four Gospels? (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2001), 30.

21. For instance, the teaching that believers will be granted miraculous powers and that signs will prove the truth of the preaching is against Mark 8:11–13.

22. Early MSS A B C have Mark second in sequence.

23. According to B. M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), appendix 2 II 1.

24. See T. C. Skeat, “A Codicological Analysis of the Chester Beatty Papyrus Codex of the Gospels and Acts (P 45),” Hermathena 155 (1993): 27–43, reprinted as chap. B5 in J. K. Elliott (ed.), The Collected Biblical Writings of T. C. Skeat (Leiden: Brill, 2004) = Supplements to Novum Testamentum 113, 141–57, esp. 146–47, Skeat argued that the Western order was that originally found in the Alexandrian MS 45; cp. id., “Irenaeus and the Four-Gospel Canon” NovT 34 (1992): 194–99 reprinted as chap. A6 in id., ibid., 73–78, which argues that Irenaeus knew the Gospels (in a codex) in that order. Also, in “The Oldest Manuscript of the Four Gospels?” NTS43 (1997): 1–34 reprinted as chap. B6 in id. ibid., 158–92 Skeat is prepared to conjecture that the earliest Western order was originally also in 4-64-67, despite their fragmentary nature.

25. Christian-B. Amphoux (“La ‘Finale longue de Marc’: Un epilogue des quatre évangiles” in C. Focant, ed., The Synoptic Gospels: Source Criticism and the New Literary Criticism [Leuven: Peeters, 1993], 548–55 = BETL110) emphasizes the particular links between the longer ending and the language found in some of the distinctive variants by D in Luke as well as the sequence of the summary scenes in the longer ending and the order of the Gospels in D.

26. Morna D. Hooker, Beginnings: Keys That Open the Gospels (London: SCM, 1997) and Endings: Invitations to Discipleship (London: SCM, 2003).

27. On the basis of Markan priority there is no evidence that Matthew and Luke were dependent on Mark's Easter narratives. Both have different Easter stories. We cannot use Matthew or Luke to make claims about what they may or may not have read in their copies of Mark in chap.16. If Mark was composed in AD 65 then its ending may have been lost before Luke and Matthew in the 70s-80s found it. Mark M.W. Waterman (The Empty Tomb Tradition of Mark: Text, History and Theological Struggles [Los Angeles: Agathos, 2006]) is another recent scholar who argues that Mark did not intend to go beyond 16:8 because his main interest was in the empty tomb. He lists (in his chap. 3 and in the Ap pendix) scholars who have accepted this position and the other main theories about the endings of Mark.

28. N. Clayton Croy (The Mutilation of Mark's Gospel [Nashville: Abingdon, 2003]) is particularly good at exposing the weaknesses in arguments that 16:8 was Mark's intended conclusion. He shows that it was the result of new critical methodologies, such as “reader-response” theories and the like, that anachronistic attempts to recruit Mark as a sophisticated author were made.

29. E.g., in Galatians 2.

30. J. K. Elliott, “Mark 1:1–3—A Later Addition to the Gospel?” NTS46 (2000): 584–88. See C. F. D. Moule, The Birth of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (London: Black, 1981), 131–32n1.

31. Croy (Mutilation, 124–30) shows how in later MSS this word served as a “marker” to show where a new reading began.

32. B. G. Upton, Hearing Mark's Endings (Leiden: Brill, 2006) = Biblical Interpretation Series 79.

33. S. P. Tregelles, An Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament (London: Bagster, 1854), 258.

34. R. E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 52.

CHAPTER 4

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Mark 16:9–20 as

Markan Supplement

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DAVID ALAN BLACK

At the outset, I must confess that I do not consider myself a textual scholar.[1] When I organized the conference that resulted in the publication of this book I did not include myself on the docket. Subsequently President Akin invited me to speak, an opportunity that led to this contribution.

Let me tip my hand at the beginning:

1. I am absolutely convinced that the Longer Ending (Mark 16:9–20)[2] is original based on the external evidence, and that it deserves the canonical status it has enjoyed throughout church history. I therefore have consistently preached and taught these verses as the inspired Word of God. In fact, I have even been known to go so far as to quote the Markan version of the Great Commission in public (16:15).[3]

2. In my judgment, the internal evidence, while interesting and controversial indeed, holds no satisfactory solution to the problem. What it does reveal is that the Longer Ending is different in some ways from the rest of the Gospel of Mark.

3. How can one best account for these differences? There's the rub, and it is at that point that I hope to make a helpful contribution to the discussion. I believe the best answer to this question is provided by taking the Synoptic Problem into account. Once again, I will show you my cards. I will argue that Mark originally ended his Gospel narrative (comprised of the actual words of Peter) at 16:8 and then later supplied the last twelve verses himself as a suitable conclusion. Of course, this view is based on a certain solution to the Synoptic Problem, a topic that will occupy a major portion of this paper.

As for the external evidence, we may be fairly sure of the following facts. First, we need not despair that we have “lost” the ending of Mark. You may feel that the Longer Ending does not belong in the Bible, but few would argue that the original reading is not to be found among the existing manuscripts. Secondly, as I mentioned above, the external evidence points to the originality of the last twelve verses. This reading is as ancient as the omission is, as the Greek witnesses, ancient versions, and patristic testimonies combine to indicate. Finally, the Longer Reading is more widespread than its counterpart in terms of geographical distribution of texttypes. As anyone knows who has read my book New Testament Textual Criticism,[4] I hold that none of the texttypes is superior or inferior to the others, and that each has been preserved for our use in resolving textual issues. Why try to balance the stool on two legs when God has given us three?

Now I suppose that when we consider the testimony of the so-called earliest and best manuscripts (Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus), we must be careful not to dismiss out of hand the shorter reading. However, as I have frequently argued elsewhere, these vaunted manuscripts are no longer to be considered “pure” in the Westcott and Hort sense,[5] and even the editors of the UBSGNT have relegated the readings of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus to a footnote when they deemed it necessary.[6] I might also note that Vaticanus actually contains a blank column after 16:8 that could possibly contain verses 9–20, suggesting that its scribe was aware of the existence of the longer reading.

As for the much-debated internal evidence, we know that the main objection to the Markan authorship of the longer reading is based on vocabulary, in particular the observation that 16 words used in this passage are not used elsewhere in the Gospel of Mark. It is often assumed that Mark was prevented by some unknown reason or other (a pogrom perhaps?) from finishing his Gospel, or else that the original ending was lost at an early date. I need not comment in detail about these arguments, since others have shown that they are overstated.[7] My main objection to using internal data to argue for or against the originality of any disputed passage of Scripture is its highly subjective nature. My view is that the external alone is probative in places of textual variation; the internal evidence, while important, is at best corroborative.

With this in mind, let's now have a look at a scenario that might help us to understand how the ending of Mark came down to us in both a shorter and a longer version. As I said earlier, my favored solution to the problem of the ending of Mark is based on my approach to a related but separate issue: the Synoptic Problem. Since Matthew and Luke are paralleled up to Mark 16:8, it is practically certain in my view that Mark supplied the longer reading himself. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First I must show you “my” solution to the Synoptic Problem.[8]

The Four Phases in the Development of the Gospels

In a nutshell, it is this. The Holy Spirit guided first Matthew, then Paul and his companion Luke and Peter and his companion Mark, and afterwards John the apostle, to hand on to the church during their own lifetime the gospel given them by Jesus. My chief debt in arriving at this conclusion is to the late Bernard Orchard of the Gospel Research Institute, Ealing Abbey, London, whose approach is a variation of the well-known Two Gospel Hypothesis held by William R. Farmer and his circle. Although it was Dr. Orchard who originally suggested the title “Two Gospel Hypothesis” to Farmer at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting in New York some twenty years ago in order to distinguish it from the more elementary Griesbach Hypothesis, he did not realize until recently that in Farmer's International Bible Commentary the Two Gospel Hypothesis would minimize the significance of the patristic evidence for the apostolicity and historicity of the Gospels, evidence that in his view is crucial, and indeed a prerequisite, for any attempt in settling the Synoptic Problem. In fairness to everyone concerned and to enable other scholars to distinguish his position from the Two Gospel Hypothesis as propounded by Farmer and his colleagues, he has called it the Fourfold Gospel Hypothesis, based on a term used by Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 3.2.8) as well as on Vatican II's Dei Verbum (§18), because with the support of the patristic evidence it satisfactorily demonstrates the relationships between the four accounts of the one gospel of Christ and thereby reveals the chronology of the life and Messiahship of Jesus.

In its original sense the “gospel” was not a literary product but the message of salvation that Jesus Christ brought as God's eschatological bearer of good news and that the early church understood, in keeping with the situation after Easter, as the word of salvation about Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and exalted at the right hand of God. Later this proclamation of salvation was committed to writing in books known as “Gospels,” to record and attest Jesus' words and works, his death and Resurrection, and to present them to the acceptance of faith.

The fact that these new writings had a special and unique purpose brought with it the creation of a special literary genre.[9] Thus Mark's Gospel opens with the words: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (Mark 1:1), meaning that the good news of what God has done in and through Jesus Christ would now be proclaimed to all the nations (cp. Mark 13:10). While neither Matthew nor Luke begins in the same way as Mark, their basic message is identical. In Matthew Jesus proclaims “the gospel of the kingdom” (Matt 4:23; 9:35; 24:14), and in Luke the verbal form (“to proclaim the good news”) is used to describe this activity (Luke 8:1; 16:16). Although the primary message of John's Gospel is identical to that of the Synoptics, neither the noun nor the verb appears. However, in 1 John (1:15; 3:11) the related term (“message”) is used, which may have been the Johannine designation for what we know as the Gospel according to John.

Since the Enlightenment, biblical criticism has been engaged with the Synoptic Problem and has offered a striking number of tensions and indeed “contradictions” between these Gospels. But these investigations of the Synoptic Problem entailed and still entail the danger of obscuring the common structural elements of the four canonical Gospels. Here Christian antiquity affords a healthier perspective. Thus, for Irenaeus the fourfold canon of the Gospels represented a profoundly significant fact, foreseen and willed by God. He therefore spoke of the tetramorphon Gospel (Adv. Haer. 3.2.8)—the “tetramorphic” or “fourfold” Gospel. By this he meant that each of the four Gospel accounts, and all of them together, have a common message as documents of faith in the service of faith. The differences between them, significant though they are, do not obscure their basic message of salvation through Christ.

In the Spirit-directed process of inscripturating this fourfold Gospel there were four main phases—four turning points at each of which a suitable gospel statement was found to be necessary for its proper growth.[10] These stages were the following:

1. The Jerusalem Phase (Acts 1–12) under the leadership of Peter.

2. The Gentile Mission Phase (Acts 13–28) under the leadership of Paul.

3. The Roman Phase requiring joint action by Peter and Paul.

4. The Johannine Supplement.

Let us discuss these four stages in chronological order.

The Jerusalem Phase, AD 30–42 (Acts 1–12)

According to the divine plan of salvation, the Messiah was not to appear until the times and circumstances were right. Among these prerequisites were:

1. The existence of the Septuagint, an excellent Greek version of the sacred writings of the Jews (the Old Testament). After the Resurrection of Christ, the Septuagint became the Bible of the Christian church and a powerful instrument for conveying to the whole world the knowledge of the true God that had already been given to the Jews.

2. The Diaspora (dispersion) of the Jews along with their synagogues in all the main centers of the Roman Empire that had Greek as its common language, making the spread of the Jewish religion and way of life available to all educated and interested persons.

3. The Pax Romana (Roman Peace), which gave Christianity the opportunity to take firm root during the lifetime of the twelve apostles, whose function it was, as the principal witnesses of the Lord's life, death, and resurrection, to proclaim all that he had taught them.

These prerequisites having been met, the nascent church in Jerusalem was ready to missionize in the name of the risen Christ. The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and the 120 in the upper room on the Day of Pentecost gave them confidence to go forth and preach all they had learned from Jesus. Their first task, under the direction of Peter, was to agree on the minimum organization necessary to undertake the world mission; and the Acts of the Apostles reveals to us that from the very beginning the Jerusalem church enjoyed the good order that came from a right understanding of the mind of Christ. The twelve apostles were the supreme authority by virtue of being the eyewitnesses personally selected by Jesus to control the expansion of the church, which was a living organism entirely independent of the theocratic state of Judaism and responsible to no one but God himself. And while esteeming the temple of God because of its historical associations, they were obliged to set up their own house churches (e.g., the church in the house of John Mark's mother), where they were able to celebrate the uniquely Christian ceremony of the “breaking of bread” bequeathed to them by Jesus.

The apostles' insistence on exact adherence to their teaching about Jesus led to the immediate emergence of a fellowship (based on baptism into Christ) that distinguished them from all other citizens of Jerusalem. Jesus himself, together with his Father and his Holy Spirit—the one Triune God—was now the object of worship in the apostolic community of the church of Jerusalem. But this “alien body” of followers of Jesus had to justify its existence in the face of the fierce hostility of the unconverted Sadducees, Pharisees, Levites, and high priests.

As soon as the first wave of converts had been baptized and their instruction organized by the Twelve, their thoughts turned to the practical question of how to unify and consolidate their teaching about Jesus. The apostles realized that they had somehow to promulgate those passages of the Holy Scriptures “from Moses and all the prophets” (Luke 24:27) that Jesus had explained to Cleopas on the road to Emmaus. It also became clear to them that their main apologetic task would be to demonstrate to the Jewish authorities that Jesus had literally fulfilled all the prophecies about the Messiah. These considerations were the original motivation for the composition of the Gospel of Matthew.

The Acts of the Apostles provides us with the necessary background information to enable us to see that the Gospel of Matthew was the ideal instrument to refute the calumnies about Jesus that the high priests were circulating. It met all the apologetic needs of the Jerusalem church in the years immediately following the resurrection when its doctrines were under attack—namely, Jesus' ancestry as a Son of David, his being born of a virgin, his birth in Bethlehem, his commendation by John the Baptist, his miracles, his teaching with authority in the temple, his coming to fulfill the Law of Moses and not to destroy it, his suffering like the Servant of Isaiah, and finally his rejection by his own nation and his miraculous Resurrection from the dead.

All of the above facts had long been foreshadowed in the sacred writings of the Jews. How, then, was all this and a great deal more to be reduced to the compass of one commercial scroll of 30 feet (10 meters), the standard length of a book, if the disciples were to travel “light” in compliance with their Master's explicit instructions? The assistance of the Holy Spirit was indeed necessary if the essentials of the life and teaching of a man of Jesus' eminence were ever to be completely sketched. Christian tradition tells us that the Twelve entrusted this important work to the apostle Matthew; and so, not long after the resurrection, Matthew set to work. His purpose seems to have been to compile schematically the Master's teachings without special regard to their chronological order, as his Gospel was meant to be a handbook for teaching and administration in the church. Perhaps the greatest problem that he faced was that of reducing the immense mass of material available to the Twelve in the form of their personal reminiscences of the Lord into a manageable quantity by deciding which stories to include and which to omit. Matthew did not take this challenge lightly; and in order to produce a work worthy of proclaiming the Lord's glory he made skillful use of all five of the literary forms that were then the hallmark of good writing in the Hellenistic world—the proverb (or maxim), the narrative, the parable, the anecdote (known as the chreia or short story), and the reminiscence (the apomnemoneuma or longer story).

The use of these Greek literary forms is an important indication that Matthew composed his work in Greek.[11] In any case, since Greek was the common language of communication throughout the Roman Empire and beyond, and with the Septuagint as the successful precedent, the Greek tongue was the obvious medium for the effective presentation of the universal gospel message.[12] However, though highly educated, Matthew shared the difficulty of anybody expressing himself in a foreign language and so betrayed his Palestinian origin in the style of the original Greek text, which contains many signs of his Semitic mother tongue and thinking.[13]

With the help of the Holy Spirit and the rest of the Twelve, Matthew then arranged the selected material in three main sections:

1. The origin of Jesus down to the opening of his public ministry in Galilee (1:1–4:17).

2. His Galilean ministry (4:18–18:35)—containing the bulk of his teaching—to which is attached a brief interlude in Transjordan (chapters 19–20).

3. All the Jerusalem events of his public mission, including the Passion, death, and Resurrection narratives (chapters 21–28).

Matthew's account of the infancy of Jesus is mostly apologetic, its aim being to prove that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, and that he was the Son of David by legitimate adoption by Joseph. The main part of the teaching of Jesus is given in a series of carefully crafted sermons or discourses designed to give the reader the clearest possible idea of the way in which the Messiah, depicted as the Redeemer of the world, set out his implementation and supplementation of the old Law. Thus the great Sermon on the Mount (chaps. 5–7) is constructed to give the reader the full power and beauty of the new spirit infused by Jesus into the old letter of the Law of Moses. Further teachings are arranged in a series of four additional discourses: the missionary discourse (chap. 10); the parables discourse (chap. 13); the community discourse (chap. 18); and the eschatological discourse (chaps. 24–25).

In short, then, the Gospel of Matthew was the manifesto of the mother church of Jerusalem, and it is therefore the fundamental document of the Christian faith. It was the chronicle that each of the apostles needed to take with him to his own distant field of evangelization and also the one that Paul was to take with him on his own missionary journeys and from which he appears to quote in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5.[14] A savage persecution of the church, begun by Herod Agrippa I in AD 42, was the impetus for the dispersion of the apostles now possessing in the Gospel of Matthew the necessary instrument to support and confirm their preaching while at the same time preserving their theological unity. The first phase was completed, and the second phase of the church's expansion was about to begin with the mission of Paul.

The Gentile Mission Phase, AD 42–62 (Acts 13–28)

At the very beginning the apostles and their disciples had been content to preach only to Jews and “God-fearers” (pagans who believed in the truth of Judaism). But three events that occurred during the first phase were portents that laid a foundation for the expansion of what was soon to follow:

1. The dispersion of the disciples during the persecution and martyrdom of Stephen, which first brought missionaries to Antioch (Acts 11), who converted a number of pagans in that wealthy city.

2. The conversion of Paul, God's chosen vessel for the conversion of the Gentiles, on the road to Damascus (Acts 9).

3. The reception of the centurion Cornelius and his family into the church by Peter with the approval of the Jerusalem church (Acts 10–11), without the obligation to be circumcised or to keep the food and marriage regulations that prevented Jews from associating with Gentiles.

Understandably, in the first phase the apostles were far too busy with the problems of the nascent church of Jerusalem to initiate a concerted drive to win over to Christ the Greek-speaking world of the Roman Empire; their immediate concern was quite properly their fellow Jews. However, the rapidly increasing numbers of converts at Antioch finally persuaded the Jerusalem apostles to send Barnabas there to investigate the new development, and he in turn decided to invite Paul to join him in instructing these new followers of Jesus, who were soon to be labeled “Christians” by the general public. A severe famine (AD 45–46) led the Christians of Antioch to send Barnabas and Paul on their famine relief visit to Jerusalem with a large sum to relieve the brothers' distress (Acts 11:25–30; 12:24ff). The Holy Spirit had intimated to Paul to use the opportunity to compare privately his teaching with that of the Twelve on the requirements of the church regarding the admission of Gentile converts. This was an urgent matter, as there was a powerful group of Pharisaic Christians in the mother church who wanted all converts to be compelled to submit to the full rigor of the old Law of Moses. Paul's meeting with Peter, James, and John is recorded in his letter to the Galatians (2:1–10),[15] and its outcome was a comprehensive understanding between him and those whom he calls the “pillars,” including an agreement to observe their respective fields of ministry and a decision not to ask Gentile converts to take on the obligations of the Mosaic Law.[16]

Shortly after Paul's return to Antioch, the Holy Spirit called him and Barnabas to set out on their first missionary journey to the districts of southern Galatia. Paul's astounding success (cp. Acts 14–15) quickly aroused the hostility of the strict Pharisees of Jerusalem, who sent a delegation to remonstrate with him. A fierce debate then took place in Antioch, and since neither side would bend, Paul had no option but to go up to Jerusalem and argue for the freedom of the Gentiles before the pillars (Acts 15:1–6). He was, of course, certain about the outcome, since previously they had already acknowledged his complete orthodoxy. The recognition of Gentile freedom from the Law of Moses at the Council of Jerusalem (AD 49) then marked another milestone in the progress of the church (Acts 15:16–35).

During his third missionary journey Paul came to recognize the paramount need to integrate into one harmonious body the Jewish Christians with their Mosaic-Pharisaic traditions and the Greek and Roman converts. In his great letter to the Romans he had, in fact, already produced the necessary theological synthesis (Romans 9–11). His missionary experience had proved that the Gospel of Matthew, which he was faithfully using as a follow-up to his oral teaching, did not answer all the questions of his Asian and Greek converts. This made him acutely aware of the need for a presentation of the Gospel nuanced to suit the mentality of the Hellenistic world.

He was now faced with a twofold task, firstly to produce a version of Matthew's Gospel that would meet the spiritual needs of the Greek world, and secondly to make sure that the modified version would be acceptable to Peter and the other pillars. Before he came to the end of his third missionary journey Paul had chosen the man he needed for this difficult and delicate undertaking—his friend Luke, a physician, who joined him on the latter stages of his voyage back to Jerusalem. While there Paul found himself disenchanted by the reserved attitude of the elders, who looked askance at what they regarded as the too-easy terms on which Paul was admitting Greeks into the church. The Holy Spirit was now urging him to look toward Rome, and so he was longing to go there (Acts 19:21). As it so happened, Paul's hope did not materialize immediately because of his detention by the Romans for more than two years in their headquarters in Caesarea. Nevertheless, this enforced stay in Palestine turned out to be a blessing inasmuch as it provided Luke with sufficient time to check the details in Matthew's account of the life and ministry of Jesus, to interrogate many of those who had known him some thirty years before, and to prepare a new Gospel document closely modeled on Matthew's.

Through hindsight we can determine the assignment that Luke had received from Paul by comparing the Gospels of Luke and Matthew and noting Luke's deviations. In the first place, Luke carefully followed the main structure of Matthew throughout and generally adhered to the order of its various sections and anecdotes, though he also made highly interesting changes. For example, his story of the birth of Jesus is totally different from Matthew's, which (as we have noted) was almost entirely apologetic in tone and content. Luke, however, provided a straightforward narrative that stems either directly or indirectly from Mary herself. When he came to the Galilean ministry he added certain details to each of those stories from Matthew's Gospel that he decided to adopt. Indeed, in one way or another he absorbed nearly everything that Matthew had written, and yet managed to add a good deal of extra material. This Luke did by omitting a number of stories that he regarded as duplicates (e.g., the famous Lukan omission of Matt 14:22–16:12) and by inserting into the heart of the Matthean text at the end of the Galilean ministry (cp. Matt 19:1–2) a section of no less than nine long chapters, his central section (9:51–18:14), comprising (1) the excerpts that he had extracted from Matthew's great discourses in order to lighten the content of his own version of them, and (2) additional sayings and parables that he had collected. (It is perhaps worth noting here that Luke's central section roughly corresponds with the conjectural document known as “Q,” which many modern scholars consider to be one of the sources of Matthew and Luke.)

All the time he was composing, Luke kept his eye on the audience and readership for which Paul needed this Gospel, in particular on the Greeks' scientific bent, their desire to know names and dates and times, and their interest in the emancipation of women. Moreover, he made it his aim to reveal an aspect of Jesus that would impress the Gentile reader, namely by exhibiting him as a hero blessed by God, one too good for this world yet one who after his glorification was still bringing blessings to the world that he had rescued by his sacrificial death.

Luke completed his task in time to accompany Paul on the journey by sea to Rome, but there were two reasons for holding up the publication of his Gospel. In the first place, it was not a firsthand account since neither Luke nor Paul had been eyewitnesses of the ministry of Jesus, but was in the main a work of historical investigation; and if it was to have credibility it would need the support of an eyewitness such as Peter. In the second place, an even more serious possibility was that the publication of this manifesto for Paul's Gentile converts would result in another eruption from the Circumcision Party, which was still very active and was to remain so until the destruction of the temple in AD 70. Therefore Luke's Gospel could not be published until this peril had been defused.

The Roman Phase, AD 62–67

The situation was then as follows. The Gospel according to Matthew had been in circulation for some twenty years throughout the Christian world both inside and beyond the Roman Empire; and Paul was due to arrive in Rome as a prisoner of Caesar sometime in 61 or 62 (cp. Acts 28:30). Luke accompanied Paul, bringing with him a document that he had been compiling during Paul's detention in Caesarea, in fact a substantial adaptation of the Gospel of Matthew. Paul's former disciple Mark, however, who had left him earlier in his first missionary journey at Perga and had later gone with Barnabas to Cyprus, had since become Peter's devoted assistant (cp. 1 Pet 5:12–13). Nevertheless, the letters of Paul to the Colossians and to Philemon, traditionally said to have been written from Rome during Paul's detention (which ended not later than AD 63), reveal that he remained in intimate contact with both Mark and Luke (cp. Col 4:10, 14; Phlm 24).

Paul was well aware of the importance attached by the secular Greek and Roman world to the testimony of actual eyewitnesses. But whereas the Gospel of Matthew had issued from the Jerusalem community, many of whom had known Jesus personally and could corroborate the witness of the Twelve preserved in that Gospel, neither he nor Luke had known Jesus while he walked on earth. Of course, Paul had been given a vision of the glorified Christ, but he was still dependent on the Twelve for information about his earthly life.

As far as Luke was concerned, he also had to rely entirely on the tradition he had received from the apostles and from the Gospel of Matthew, to which he added his own personal researches into the events of the life of Jesus, gleaned from material supplied to him by many surviving witnesses whom he had succeeded in interrogating (cp. Luke 1:1–4). In order to get Luke's work recognized as a true account and one worthy to be read in the Christian assembly either alongside or in place of Matthew's Gospel, Paul needed to get it endorsed by an apostolic eyewitness. Furthermore, although Paul's primary concern was to secure the publication of Luke's Gospel in the churches he himself had founded, he was also aware that once published it would inevitably find its way into the churches of the other apostles. Therefore, it was necessary for him well in advance to establish the fact that Luke had not erred in any particular and to avoid any discourtesy to the apostles affected.

At the time of Paul's captivity in Rome, Peter happened to be there as well; and as he was the prime eyewitness of the public ministry of Jesus, Paul approached Peter to ask his advice about the best procedure. Peter realized that Paul needed the public assurance that Luke's book was in complete conformity with Peter's own recollections of Jesus, and was happy to compare Luke's treatment of the events at which he himself had been a participant or had witnessed with Matthew's parallel account. Peter's plan was to give a series of speeches in the Roman location that he had designated for his weekly worship celebration. His secretary Mark helped him to prepare these talks, which were bound to excite the interest of the most influential Christians in Rome, including members of the Praetorium, the headquarters of the Roman Army and the equivalent of our Pentagon. The news that Peter was going to give a series of lectures on the life of Jesus drew a great throng. Since it was the custom for public men to have their speeches recorded by shorthand writers, Mark arranged for shorthand writers of Greek to take down Peter's words just as he uttered them.[17]

On the appointed days, Peter, with Mark in attendance, went to the rostrum armed with the scroll of Matthew and the new scroll prepared by Luke. That these two Gospels were originally inscribed on scrolls and not on codices is certain because they are each just about the length of an ordinary commercial scroll, that is, about thirty feet in length. A scroll was written on the inner side in narrow columns at right angles to its length. When rolled up it was tied with a cord and put into one of a series of pigeon holes that constituted the bookcase of an educated man. To handle such a scroll required both hands, the right hand unrolling and the left rolling up until the reader arrived at the particular column he wanted to refer to.

Peter's intention was to refer only to those incidents in the life of Jesus of which he had been an eyewitness or could personally vouch for, and therefore he would say nothing about the birth and Resurrection narratives or about the central section in which Luke had gathered a collection of Jesus' sayings. The simple fact that Peter was prepared to devote so much attention to this new work of Luke shows that he believed it to be worthy of adoption in its entirety by the church.

Peter, aided by Mark, decided to divide for his own immediate purpose the Gospels of Matthew and Luke lying before him into five parts, that is, into five discourses (didaskalias) of 25–40 minutes each, in the following manner:[18]

1. Beginning of ministry: Mark 1:2—3:19 = Matt 3:1ff; Luke 3:1ff

2. Early Galilean ministry: Mark 3:20—6:13 = Matt 5:2ff; Luke 6:20ff

3. Later Galilean ministry: Mark 6:14—10:1 = Matt 14:1ff; Luke 9:7ff

4. Post-Galilean ministry: Mark 10:2—13:37 = Matt 19:1ff; Luke 9:51ff

5. Passion narrative: Mark 14:1—16:8 = Matt 26:1ff; Luke 22:1ff

Further study of the text of Mark indicates that Peter delivered his recollections to his audience by word of mouth, checking with each Gospel in turn as he went along. By conscious prearrangement his disciple and secretary Mark handed him the scroll first of Matthew, and then at the appropriate point exchanged it for the scroll of Luke, thus alternately following the text first of the one then of the other, as it were “zigzagging” from one Gospel to the other.

Peter, of course, would have known the Gospel of Matthew almost, if not entirely, by heart, and therefore he tended to follow it more closely, but adding Luke's extra details wherever he could. He also adopted Luke's rearrangement of the early part of Matthew's Galilean ministry. His treatment is also noteworthy for the introduction of so many vivid little details that reveal him to be an eyewitness, such as Jesus' being asleep on the cushion in the stern of the boat (Mark 4:38) and the figure of two thousand swine who drowned themselves in the lake (Mark 5:13).

At the end of his fifth discourse Peter had covered all the main stories Matthew and Luke had in common (except for the centurion's slave), from the baptism of John to his personal discovery of the empty tomb. There, at the conclusion of the earthly ministry of Jesus, he ended his discourses, having exhausted his reminiscences, since Paul had had his own personal visions of the risen Christ and did not require Peter's corroboration in this respect.

Those who had listened to Peter were delighted with everything they had heard and requested from Mark copies of what he had said. The tradition relates that when Peter was shown the transcript of his discourses he “exerted no pressure either to forbid it or to promote it” (Eusebius, EH6.14.5–7). This indicates that Peter saw no particular advantage in promoting his own lectures, since in Matthew there was already a complete Gospel available to his listeners. In the light of this public approbation, Paul was able to publish the text of Luke's Gospel in the churches of Achaia and Asia Minor without further delay or question.

From the above it is clear that Peter was personally responsible for the text of our Gospel of Mark, and that it was composed not only after Matthew and Luke, but also with their aid. However, despite the fact that it was highly prized by the church as the personal reminiscences of Peter, it did not enjoy a universal circulation because it was not intended to supersede either Matthew or Luke. Indeed, it is rarely quoted by the early fathers, and the first commentary on it dates only from the fifth century. We have seen that its process of composition was quite unlike that of Matthew or Luke, and that Peter had no intention of making it into a third Gospel.

How, then, does one explain how the last twelve verses (Mark 16:9–20), which describe the Resurrection, were added to the Gospel? For the fact is that while some manuscripts record these verses, others either omit them altogether or give a much shorter ending. The most plausible explanation is that after Mark had satisfied the immediate demand of those who wanted copies of the five discourses, which ended at Mark 16:8, the matter rested there until after the martyrdom of Peter and Mark's decision to go off to establish the church of Alexandria (AD 67–69). As an act of piety to the memory of Peter, Mark then decided to publish an edition of the text that would include the necessary sequel to the passion and death of the Master. The attentive reader will observe that these verses form a summary catalogue of references to the Resurrection stories of both Matthew and Luke, and were most likely added by Mark himself to round off the final discourse. But as the private edition of Mark, which lacked these verses, had already been in circulation for some years, the textual tradition has remained divided to this day.[19]

The Johannine Supplement

Christian tradition names John the son of Zebedee, the apostle and beloved disciple, as the Fourth Evangelist, and there is no solid reason to reject it. John wrote in Greek like the other Evangelists and, in fact, knew all three Synoptic Gospels, making use especially of Luke. Although the final chapter (21) seems to be an afterthought, the manuscript tradition shows that the author published the whole Gospel as one work. The date of publication, evidently from Ephesus, was possibly just before the death of John at the end of the century.

The purpose of John was to supplement in several ways the account about the ministry of Jesus provided by the Synoptic Gospels:

1. John thought it proper to set his Gospel in an eternal perspective by commencing with the heavenly existence of the Son of God (John 1:1–18).

2. While Matthew assumes Jesus to be the Messiah (Matt 1:1), he does not explain that Jesus asserted his claim at the commencement of his ministry at the cleansing of the temple because his plan was to place all the Jerusalem activities of Jesus in the last sections of his Gospel (Matthew 21–28). John makes it clear that Jesus staked his claim in categorical terms at the beginning (John 2:1–25).

3. John alone makes it clear that the public ministry of Jesus extended over two years (three Passovers) and possibly longer, and that only part of it was spent in Galilee. The Galilean ministry was really an interlude forced upon Jesus by the hostility of the high priests. Nonetheless, John records that Jesus made some four visits to the Holy City to bring about the recognition of his Messiahship before the final visit that resulted in his passion and death.

4. John alone records that during those visits a number of intimate dialogues took place that uniquely reveal the mind and heart of Jesus and his relationship to his Father and to the Holy Spirit.

To sum up, it is John's intention to confirm and deepen the faith of his readers in Jesus as the consubstantial Son of God, and thereby to ensure that by their faith they may obtain eternal life (20:30). The forerunner of Johannine thought is clearly the world of Jewish thought, and not Gnosticism with its timeless dualism of substance.[20] Nevertheless, the whole Gospel is permeated by a quiet but unmistakable polemic against Judaism, particularly against those Jews who deny that Jesus is the Son of God and of heavenly origin.

Conclusion

Matthew is the fundamental Gospel and the most important, but each was written and published in response to a particular need of the church in a particular historical situation. The real significance of Mark lies in the fact that it was Peter's guarantee that Luke was fit to be read beside Matthew in the churches of both Peter and Paul. Mark is therefore to be viewed as the bridge between Matthew and Luke, that is, as an enabling document for Luke to be used freely in all the churches to which the authority of Peter, the chief eyewitness, extended; and it stands as a recognition of the equality of the Gentiles in all the churches.

We are now also able to see why the church from a very early date, perhaps as early as the second century, placed Mark's Gospel between those of Matthew and Luke. For by doing so, it signaled the church's acceptance of the tradition that the principal function of Mark was to introduce Luke to the Christian public and to confirm its equality with Matthew. The middle position of Mark had nothing to do with the chronological order of the Gospels, for Luke was written before Mark was even thought of; but its publication was delayed until its merits had been approved by Peter, who actually spoke the words that Mark recorded for him and for the church.

Thus we may sum up the relationships between the Gospels as follows:

1. Matthew was composed to meet the urgent needs of the primitive church of Jerusalem (the church set up by Peter and the original apostles), which needed a manifesto defending its integrity and its right to exist in the earliest days.

2. Luke was written at the request of Paul to meet the urgent need of his churches to have their own manifesto to prove their full equality with Jewish Christians.

3. Mark was the result of the collaboration of Peter and Paul to make sure that the spiritual and doctrinal unity of the universal church was not impaired as a result of the appearance of Luke beside Matthew in the churches of both.

4. The Gospel of John made it clear that the primary objective of Jesus throughout his public ministry was the winning over of the spiritual authorities in Jerusalem.

As for the Longer Ending of Mark, we need not doubt that it is part of Holy Scripture, even if it is Mark's supplement to Peter's account of the life of Jesus.

A Non-Academic Postscript

The longer ending of Mark reminds us that Mark's Gospel is highly evangelistic. Its message is “the gospel,” as 1:1 reminds us, and it is integrated by the Person of whom it speaks. It gives believers of all ages a commission that is factual and inescapable—“Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature” (16:15). Jesus calls us to deny the comforts and pleasures we take for granted every day. His disciples saw how he refused the things they cherished—physical pleasure, popular approval, prestige—and accepted willingly the things they sought to escape—poverty, humiliation, sorrow, even death. In ministering to the sick, comforting the sorrowful, and preaching the gospel to the poor, Jesus showed us no service was too small and no sacrifice too great when it is done in his name.

If Acts 1:8 is any guide, missions ought to take place locally (Jerusalem), regionally (Judea and Samaria), globally (uttermost parts of the earth), and (we might infer from the mention of Samaria) cross-culturally. Thus, dividing our missions efforts into “North American” and “international” seems a false dichotomy. Every Christian ought to be a North American missionary. And every one of us ought to be an international missionary. The key is a love for the lost, wherever they live. Perhaps it is time to consolidate various missions boards that focus on specific regions or peoples into one global missions entity that would foster church planting locally, regionally, and throughout the world by supporting the efforts of local congregations. Once our lives catch on fire with the love of Jesus, we will inevitably be on mission.

Let us make every one of our churches a Great Commission congregation and forget the methods. Our Lord Jesus is not a system. He's a Person, and evangelism is simply bringing another person to face with this Person. If you become radical about the gospel, you'll be radical about everything else in your life. It takes no special training or education. The early Christians were uneducated nobodies, ignorant fishermen. Even an educated man like Paul wasn't impressed with book learning. Let us not shy away from being so thrilled with Jesus that we appear to be drunk to others. When confronted with the Person of Jesus Christ, we can respond in no other way.

__________________

1. An (apocryphal?) story is told of a lady on Interstate 10 just outside Phoenix, Arizona. She was driving to her home in Charlotte, North Carolina. She stopped at the rest area and went into the rest room. The first stall was occupied so she went into the second stall. She wasn't there long before the lady in the first stall said, “Hi, how are you?” The lady from Charlotte replied, “Fine. And how are you?” “I'm fine,” said the lady in the first stall. “Where are you going?” “I'm going to Charlotte, North Carolina,” came the reply. There was a long pause, and then the lady in the first stall said, “Let me hang up and call you back. Some fool in the next stall is answering all my questions!” When one considers the qualifications of the other speakers at this conference, I consider myself no more than the “fool in the next stall.”

2. This paper will not discuss two optional endings that in my view are highly unlikely candidates for originality: (1) the “shorter ending” (printed in the NRSV and NASB), and (2) the reading of Codex W that adds, in addition to the longer ending, an extra interpolation after verse 14.

3. A Google of the huge IMB Web site disclosed only four (4) references to Mark 16:15 in its entire site. In these places the verse is cited almost in passing. See, e.g., http://www.imb.org/MissionsPartner/ttn.asp.

4. D. A. Black, New Testament Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994). See also the work I edited, Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002).

5. For example, see my studies on Matthew 5:22a (“Jesus on Anger: The Text of Matthew 5:22a Revisited,” Novum Testamentum 30 [1988]: 1–8), Mark 6:20 (“The Text of Mark 6:20,” New Testament Studies 34 [1988]: 141–45), John 3:13 (“The Text of John 3:13,” Grace Theological Journal 6 [1985]: 49–66), and Ephesians 1:1 (“The Peculiarities of Ephesians and the Ephesian Address,” Grace Theological Journal 2 [1981]: 59–74).

6. See, for example, John 10:18 and John 20:31. The evidence for Mark 16:9–20 is much like that for John 10:18, where Bruce M. Metzger in A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994), 231 writes, “A majority of the Committee judged that its external attestation was too limited in extent, representing, as it does, only a single type (the Egyptian).” To be sure, this is the exception, not the rule. Elsewhere one of our conference speakers has correctly referred to “the reluctance of the editors to deviate too far from these hypnotic MSS [Aleph] and B” (J. K. Elliott, “A Second Look at the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament,” BT27 [1975]: 328).

7. See esp. Bruce Terry, “The Style of the Long Ending of Mark,” accessed at http://matthew.ovc.edu/terry/articles/mkendsty.htm.

8. Much of what follows is reprinted from my Why Four Gospels? The Historical Origins of the Gospel (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2001). Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

9. Cp. Francis Watson, Text and Truth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 89n7: “The title euangelion kata…indicates that, for their readers, the gospels did not constitute a ‘sub-type’ of an existing genre but a new genre. This would of course not be a creatio ex nihilo: the Gospels may employ many of the conventions of the Hellenistic bios, without erasing the difference implied by the substitution of euangelion for bios in their titles.”

10. For a more detailed discussion, see B. Orchard, The Evolution of the Gospels (London: Ealing Abbey, n. d.), 1–17, to which this section is indebted.

11. Eusebius (EH3.39.15–16) quotes Papias (ca. 60–139), bishop of Hierapolis, as follows: “This too the Elder used to say: Mark, having become the recorder of Peter, indeed wrote accurately albeit not in order whatever he (Peter) remembered of the things either said or done by the Lord. For he had neither heard the Lord nor was a follower of him, but later, as I said, of Peter, who used to deliver his teachings in the form of short stories , but not making as it were a literary composition of the Lord's sayings, so that Mark did not err at all when he wrote down certain things just as he (Peter) recalled them. For he had but one intention: not to leave out anything he had heard nor to falsify anything in them. This is what was related by Papias about Mark's (Gospel). But about Matthew's this was said: So then Matthew composed the sayings in a Hebrew style , and each recorded them as he was able.” On the meaning, see J. Kürzinger, “Das Papiaszeugnis und die Erstgestalt des Matthäusevangeliums,” Biblische Zeitschrift 4 (1960): 19–38; idem, “Irenäus und sein Zeugnis zur Sprache des Matthäusevangeliums,” New Testament Studies 10 (1963): 108–15. Kürzinger explains that in the first century dialektos commonly meant both “language” and “style,” so that the phrase in EH3.39.16 could mean either “in a Hebrew language” or “in a Hebrew style,” depending on the context. In the present instance, it is clear from the context that the “Elder” had been explaining some problems in the style and/or content of Mark, since it possessed neither the Jewish style of Matthew nor the normal literary style of a Greek biography such as Luke. The absence of the definite article in the phrase is further support of the view taken here. Cp. The Order of the Synoptics, 198–99 (= Excursus 2, The Origin of the Notion of an “Aramaic” Gospel of Matthew). Origen, mistakenly thinking that Papias was referring to the language in which Matthew was written, stated that Matthew was “composed in Hebrew characters.” This error was to be perpetuated by later writers.

12. Cp. M. Müller, The First Bible of the Church: A Plea for the Septuagint (Sheffield: Academic Press, 1996). On the most important differences between Classical Greek and the Koine of the New Testament, see D. A. Black, Linguistics for Students of New Testament Greek, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 156–62.

13. The more common Semitic expressions that are found in the New Testament are discussed in D. A. Black, “New Testament Semitisms,” Bible Translator 39 (1988): 215–23.

14. See B. Orchard, “Thessalonians and the Synoptic Gospels,” CBQ7 (1945): 377–97. For the use of Matthew in 1 Corinthians, see D. L. Dungan, The Sayings of Jesus in the Churches of Paul (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), 139ff.

15. Cp. B. Orchard, “The Problem of Acts and Galatians,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 28 (1944): 154–74.

16. See D. A. Black, “Weakness Language in Galatians,” Grace Theological Journal 4 (1983): 15–36; id., Paul, Apostle of Weakness (New York: Lang, 1984), 53–83.

17. E. Randolph Richards has shown in his thesis (The Secretary in the Letters of Paul [Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1991], 26–29) that not only Latin but also Greek professional shorthand writers for viva voce verbatim recording were in regular employment in Rome at that time, so that Mark would have had no difficulty in getting Peter's words fully and accurately recorded, just as he uttered them. Cp. B. Orchard, “The Making and Publication of Mark's Gospel: An Historical Investigation,” Annales Theologici 7 (1993), 369–93.

18. M. Hengel has independently concluded that the Gospel of Mark was originally delivered in the Christian assembly in Rome, and that the authority of Peter lies behind Mark's account; cp. his “Literary, Theological, and Historical Problems in the Gospel of Mark,” in The Gospel and the Gospels, ed. P. Stuhlmacher (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 233–34.

19. Cp. W. R. Farmer, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974).

20. See D. A. Black, “El Grupo de Juan: Helenismo y Gnosis,” in Origenes del Cristianismo, ed. A. Piñero (Cordoba: Ediciones el Almendro, 1991), 303–23.

CHAPTER 5

_________________________________________________________

The Ending of Mark:

A Response to the Essays

_________________________________________________________

DARRELL L. BOCK

The essays in this book reveal the variety of views on the ending of Mark along with a few additional topics, showing the complexity of the issue. My simple responsibility is to interact with all of these options, to sort through them in reaction. My response has five sections: (1) observations about method, (2) external evidence, (3) internal evidence, (4) other raised issues, and (5) conclusion. You deserve to know that my view on this issue is that I hold to the shorter ending of Mark as original, and that the next most likely option is that the original end went missing very early on. Thus I see the longer ending as original as being unlikely, as I do also the idea that Mark added that ending later. My response will lay out the reasons for these conclusions, but first I want to note what all the essays agree on, because that is an important starting point. Then I will turn to make some crucial observations about methods, claims, and rhetoric in debating views.

Each of the contributors agrees on these points:

1. The variants we possess for the short and longer ending of Mark are both very old. This is one of the reasons we have the discussion that we do.

2. What is taught in the longer ending for the most part is taught elsewhere in the New Testament. This observation is important because it means the presence or absence of this text does not impact the core of Christian teaching at all. The best I can tell, only the issue of snake handling and drinking poison is at stake and that could be inferred from other texts as well (such as the incident with Paul in Acts 28).

3. Everyone desires to work with hard evidence. Maurice Robinson's paper opens with a quotation from Kenneth Kitchen that argues for working with evidence, not theories. Kitchen says, “Priority must always be given tangible, objective data, and to external evidence, over subjective theory or speculative opinions. Facts must control theory, not vice versa.” I think all of the presenters would affirm this. The only question might be whether internal evidence also can be tangible, a point important to Mark 16 because each side appeals to a degree to internal evidence by either pointing out the unsatisfactory nature of the short ending or by asking if one can explain the shorter ending's appearance as secondary if the long one originally existed. Alas, here is one of our forks in the road and it is internal, not external in nature. This leads to the issue of method and some opening observations that such a debate and difference requires.

Observations about Method

It is here we need to begin our response in substance because sometimes we are not clear about where the evidence starts and stops (forming the dots), and where “connecting the dots” (i.e., interpreting and making judgments) begins. Sometimes we differ on what are dots and what are dot connectors. In addition, sometimes the evidence brings us to forks in the road. Depending on which route we take, our resulting view may well change. The decision about those forks almost always involves judgments about how to best put the evidence together (thus they are dot connectors, not dots), but they themselves are often confused with the hard facts. Three such potential forks in this discussion on Mark's ending are one's view of the Byzantine family of texts, one's take on the synoptic problem, and how one weighs internal versus external evidence (in fact, if internal evidence is really hard evidence at all). These key forks impact the approach to this question at a macro-level and involve factors pulled in from evidence outside of what we deal with in thinking only about Mark's ending. The point of this macro-observation is that we all reconstruct. Everyone is in the business of connecting the dots. Different views result from people who with all sincerity connect the dots in different ways leading to different views.

This leads to method and rhetoric. Here a quotation from Wilbur Pickering that appears in Dan Wallace's paper offers a warning about how to have such discussions and how not to proceed:

Are we to say that God was unable to protect the text of Mark or that He just couldn't be bothered? I see no alternative—either He didn't care or He was helpless. And either option is fatal to the claim that Mark's Gospel is “God-breathed” … if God was powerless to protect His Word then He wouldn't really be God and it wouldn't make all that much difference what He said…. If God permitted the original ending of Mark to be lost then in fact we do not have an inspired text.[1]

Statements like this are unfair to the discussion by prejudging it with a priori rhetoric. I have a way I must conceive of God as acting and anything else is an affront to one's understanding of God, representing a denial of the deity. Note the oppositional choice. One is either for God, inspiration, and a God-breathed book conceived of as presented or else one has a view that God does not care, is helpless, is unable to protect the text, is powerless, is not God and what he or she says does not matter. It is this kind of unnuanced, oppositional thinking about such issues that does not advance discussion. Fortunately that tone is not found in these essays, but I mention it because all too often in looking at such a question this type of opposition is the approach.

Such statements also have a real danger of creating a brittle fundamentalism, where if one view changes on an issue like this an entire paradigm so shatters that one is likely to adopt a view that radically opposes Christianity. One need only look at the opening chapter of Craig Evans' Fabricating Jesus to see the impact of people who were given a narrow set of options and were not given room to explore with nuance such questions.

One more point needs to be made as prolegomena. Although our various presenters have perspectives on these issues, they hold them not as raw presuppositions, but as tested presuppositions. The question under discussion is which set of tested presuppositions along with the evidence tied to this particular problem forms the most coherent whole. Each view will probably score points here and there; a problem as complex as this one is not easily resolved. If it were straightforward, then it would not likely be a problem! So the issue is trying to resolve who has the most comprehensive solution to our problem, and even that solution may well not be problem free. Any solution to a difficult problem like this one is likely to leave loose ends untied.

Now readers may also have presuppositions, even tested ones. A question all of us must ask is this: If our presuppositions come under enough pressure will we be open enough to the evidence and the variety of ways people have connected it to be willing to change? In addition, one other question might also be worth asking. If I will not change my view because of what I hear or see, will I at least be open to acknowledge the issues are more complex than I might have previously appreciated? The second question may well be as important as the first.

I have started here to issue a warning of sorts, not to make more of this problem than is present. This warning has two requirements:

1. We must be open to the text and its history while avoiding prejudgments about what the outcome should be. This is why we discuss external and internal evidence to try to understand what has happened that has created a situation where two readings so old have emerged.

2. We should beware of a brittle fundamentalism that sets up this kind of a question in such a way that when it breaks, it shatters into a thousand pieces like a broken windshield. “Either/or” thinking often plagues both conservatives and liberals in a question like this, leaving out some “both/ and options” that also could well be in play. It is crucial to remind ourselves that the way we think the text should work is not necessarily the way it is. So what we think inspiration requires may not equal the way inspiration works. To see how it works, we must also consider and assess the phenomena of the text, all the while noting that everyone reconstructs to connect the dots.

External Evidence

There is an adage when it comes to textual criticism that manuscripts are not to be counted but weighed. Put in clearer terms, the issue is not how many manuscripts we have but where and especially when we have them. This is because fully 85% of the manuscripts we have come from the eleventh century and beyond.[2] So we need to pay attention to when manuscripts appear with evidence. The other essays have detailed that evidence, but the idea that discussion for the shorter ending is hypnotized by Aleph and B is misleading. There exists significant corroborative evidence that not only were both endings old, but that a significant variety of witnesses show that the shorter ending was widespread in the earliest period.

A second key point is that in this case the manuscript evidence must move beyond Greek manuscripts to other versions and to the church fathers. This textual problem is unlike most textual issues where words, word order, or phrases are in view. Here we have whole sets of verses missing. This means that we do not have the usual problems of dealing with translation philosophy or paraphrasing that come with those other types of textual problems. Evidence for the presence or absence of units containing many verses is easier to find. So in this case, the evidence of the fathers is less ambiguous and, as a result, much more significant.

So the external evidence is that when it comes to Greek manuscripts we have the two major Alexandrian full manuscripts (Aleph, B) attesting to the shorter ending. We also have 304.

Geographic distribution is important when we turn to the versional evidence. There is yet another ending present, which gives evidence that vv. 9–20 was lacking. It is known as the Intermediate Ending and reads, “but they reported briefly to Peter and those with him all they had been told. And after this Jesus himself sent out by means of them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.” The short reading (ending at v. 8) is present in the Armenian (Caesarean or early Byzantine) and Georgian (a translation of the Armenian) versions, as well as one wing of the Syriac, the Old Syriac Sinaitic (Western). Robinson argues that this is offset by its presence in the Syriac Curetonian. This version is especially difficult to treat because its early history is mediated through the Diatessaron. The Curetonian, however, is probably a later edition.[3] The old Latin k also lacks the ending, offering the intermediate addition to the short ending, noted above. In addition, the earliest Byzantine lectionaries lack the longer ending, as Elliott has pointed out, noting the longer ending starts to appear in the eighth century. So we are dealing with more than Aleph and B. Now it is true the longer ending also has evidence in this period, even dominating evidence as we get into later periods, but that evidence is more evenly divided as we get earlier.

The fathers, in my judgment, are extremely important for this case. Perhaps the two fathers most concerned to give the “state of the discussion” in their time when it came to manuscripts were Eusebius and Jerome. Both note that the bulk of Greek manuscripts they were aware of did not possess the longer ending, as both Wallace and Robinson note. This is important evidence dating back to the fourth and early fifth centuries. The window back to this period is not tendentious, as there was no clear reason for Eusebius to make such a point if the longer ending were there, so appeals to rhetoric or to exposure to a part of the actual evidence, though worth noting and possible, do not really explain the point. One has to explain why Eusebius and Jerome would cast doubt on an ending that supplies what many sense the short ending lacks, adequate testimony to the Resurrection.[4] Irenaeus was the first to give clear evidence for the longer reading among the fathers and ten fathers from the second to fifth centuries cited the text, at least from portions of vv. 15–20. The fifth- to sixth-century father Victor of Antioch notes the division among manuscripts at that time giving the same description of “very many manuscripts” to each reading.

This evidence, as broad as it is, has a corollary. It challenges efforts to dismiss the short reading by arguing there are other locales where Aleph and B are rejected as giving the original reading. This claim ends up ignoring the versional and patristic evidence that clearly indicates this omission is early.[5]

Our point is not to claim that the longer ending lacks support—it clearly also has ancient support, as Robinson's contribution to this volume shows. Nonetheless, our point is that external evidence is divided here and the farther backward we travel the weaker the evidence is for the longer ending.

One other point about the external evidence also needs noting. It is that the gap in B at the end of Mark cannot be said to leave space for the longer ending even as this manuscript attests to the short ending. Vaticanus (B) leaves no text critical umlauts in the margin to point to a textual variant here. This is the scribe's normal way to signal such a point. Elliott's appeal to the impact of the Western order on the question, namely that the fourfold Gospel collection ended in this collection with Mark and that a non-Resurrection declaration at the end of such a unit might have led to an ending being supplied is also possible for some of these texts. So not much can be made of this, especially the claim that the space gives room for such. At the best such an ending would have to have been squeezed in, which makes this not the most likely suggestion. Even more, there are no other gaps in B that indicate textual variation. Three other such gaps do not indicate this conclusion so why argue that is the point here?

So that is a summary response on external evidence. It shows that early on both readings existed—on that everyone agrees. In fact, the farther back one goes into the manuscript evidence we possess, the stronger the case is for the short reading. But this leaves us with a dilemma. Where do we go from that point? If we do not think internal evidence can take us anywhere concrete, then we are stuck because of the division of the external evidence, which itself is hardly decisive or “objective” in that we have the mix of issues already noted that does not lead to a clear conclusion.

On the other hand, most textual critics see internal evidence as a factor to weigh along with the other evidence. Admittedly such factors require more judgment and belong in the “connect the dots” category versus some of the harder (“dot”) data external evidence gives us, but we should not think that external evidence is free of judgment that involves connecting the dots. We need to consider internal evidence in this case carefully because the external evidence is divided and because internal issues sometimes can clarify the discussion.[6]

Internal Evidence

Internal evidence is crucial not because it is more subjective, but because it raises excellent questions about how we respond to Mark, the best evidence of which is the very need to discuss whether Mark 16:8 gives an adequate ending to this Gospel. Two key questions dominate this section. First, why would someone create an ending at 16:8, if vv. 9–20 were original? In addition, why does external evidence persist, if we had vv. 9–20 at the start? Or to ask it another way, why do we have multiple versions of the ending of Mark?

One idea that has been popular over time is to argue that we simply have lost the original ending. This is Elliott's position—and I believe it is the second most likely solution to our question. However, the best I can tell, this view requires several corollaries. First, this ending would have become lost very early on, leaving no traces behind in our extant manuscript tradition. Is that likely? We are not probably speaking then of a loss because of repeated use, but a loss that happened so early no trace of it was left. One can also note that in a roll, which is likely to have been used by original Mark, normally the ending is protected because the outside portion is at the start, much like a VHS tape is rolled back to the start of a movie.[7] It would almost require that no copies of Mark were made before the ending was lost. Second, given that there is no hard evidence for such an explanation, it is hard to know what to do with something that is certainly possible, but is it likely? The real reason one resorts to such an explanation is that those who hold it find it hard to really believe that Mark ended his Gospel without any Resurrection appearances. So we are back to the very tension that may well be responsible for our situation.

Robinson's essay in good, solid fashion takes on my question directly about how did we get to v. 8, if we had 9–20 originally. The explanation is that a variety of issues might have led to the longer ending being dropped by some, namely, the surface contradictions the text possesses and theological emphases that raise questions, such as the emphasis on signs and on snake handling. However, it must be noted that this explanation is not entirely satisfying. This is because usually when we get such problems it is not entire units that are altered, but the objectionable features are simply corrected in a direction that harmonizes or else the objectionable features only are omitted. Neither of those approaches appears here.

I also find the setup to this discussion in Robinson's piece not very persuasive at all. In the examples appealed to from the later move to a shorter reading at Southeastern's library, we are not dealing at all with a parallel as the custom of using short titles produced the short (and humorous) reading leaving a book in Hades. The appeal to a shortened form of poetry is even less apropos, as here we are dealing with the same author handling his own work and engaging in a form of literary play.

Robinson's explanation of a liturgical need to keep the text short is also not convincing. The liturgical unit of Mark 15:43–16:8 is not long (13 verses). So why cut it off at v. 8? Robinson notes another reading involving Luke 24:36–53 with Acts 1:1–12 that runs to almost 30 verses. So length is not an issue here in explaining a cutoff at v. 8. It also is not clear that the original Eusebian canons included the longer ending.

Finally, Robinson's appeal to Markan terminology appearing in the longer ending is also not quite to the point being made in the claim that the longer ending reflects a non-Markan style. Here it is the combination of lexical terms, grammar, and style, especially used in repeated ways in a short space that is the point. This is a quite powerful argument, since cumulative features are the point. This is why additional appeals to structures across the space of the book or supposed chiasms also do not work, especially when the beginning of Jesus' public ministry is said to start in Mark 1:32, not 1:21.

To Robinson's credit, he understands the importance of this issue of being able to explain how the short ending emerged if vv. 9–20 were original and his explanations have a plausibility to them, but in the end, they do not seem as likely as that the reason we have an ending at v. 8 (as well as other alternatives) is that vv. 9–20 were not originally there.

So what are we to make of vv. 9–20? First, Elliott has noted the stylistic, grammatical, lexical issues these verses display that makes one question whether Mark is responsible for these verses. These stylistic points work against the suggestion of Black that Mark was responsible for both the short and longer endings. To that we wish to add, that the section at a macro-level looks like it is mostly made up of a combination of elements from the other Gospel endings plus facts known from Acts. Here is how the elements potentially connect:

Vv. 9–11 Mary Magdalene's role: Matthew 28:9 and John 20

Vv. 12–13: Luke 24:13–35

V. 14 Role of the Eleven: in all Gospels but closest to Luke 24:36–37

V. 15 Preach and baptize in the same order as Matthew 28:19

V. 17 Signs: Acts 2, 10, 19 and Hebrews 2:3–4

V. 18 Surviving snakes: Acts 28:1–6

V. 19 Ascension: Luke 24:49–53; Acts 1:9–11

V. 20 Signs: See also v. 17

The truly new features[8] include: (1) weeping and mourning over Jesus' death in v. 10, which was common Jewish practice; (2) the idea of the two walking “into a field” or, perhaps better, “into the open country” (The term in question here is , which BDAG notes often means into the countryside as opposed to a city or village, which is exactly what a walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus would involve.[9]); (3) the report of the two being disbelieved; and (4) five sign gifts being specified. So there is not much here that is really unique to this text and all the key teaching themes do appear elsewhere in other canonical books.

All of this raises questions about the alternative explanations, but there still remains the need to explain if it is at all likely for Mark to end in such an open ended manner. If one cannot really explain how v. 8 works at a literary level, then these other options (either the longer ending or a missing text), despite their problems, become more likely. Does a short ending cohere with Mark's setting and purpose? Is it really credible to believe that Mark would leave out Resurrection appearances and have the women silent and fearing at the end of his story, especially when he often states and makes a point of fulfillment as Robinson correctly notes? Moreover, is it the case that a grammatical ending with is problematic or that such an ending reads Mark more like a postmodern than an ancient?

Fortunately, there is a solid monograph that tackles this question in full. It is J. Lee Magness's Marking the End: Sense and Absence in the Gospel of Mark.[10] Magness's volume as well as a few key periodical articles tackle all three of the common objections to an ending at v. 8. The idea of endings of sentences to works with is tackled by two essays: P. W. van der Horst, “Can a Book End with a ? A Note on Mark XVI.8”[11] and Kelly R. Iverson, “A Further Word on Final (Mark 16:8).”[12] Magness's work clearly shows that open-ended accounts are not rare in the ancient world, so that the claim that such readings are modernist or postmodern lacks acquaintance with such ancient examples. Magness's work proceeds from ancient works to the Old Testament then to the New Testament before looking at how Mark works with the motif. Examples of narrative ending with an open ending in the New Testament include how Israel is handled at the end of Acts (if not Paul's fate) and the story of the Prodigal Son.

Magness's case for Mark is that the evangelist has developed themes involving the concepts of fear and silence.[13] In Mark, silence is not necessarily the function of ignorance or misunderstanding, but of knowledge and awe (see exorcism accounts and remarks about confessing Jesus as Messiah in public). More than that, fear is an appropriate response to the display of divine power. So Magness argues that the silence of the women is not to be seen as absolute and the fear reflects a response to something divine, made clear by observation and instruction. To this I would add that scenes where fear arises because of God's power call for a choice, to either keep one's distance from God or have faith. Mark 5:15 shows a community that asked Jesus to leave their midst after displaying his authority and power in the healing of the demoniac. Mark 4:41 records the fearful disciples asking themselves who Jesus could be after they have witnessed him calming the seas. In Mark 5:36, he tells Jairus not to fear but to believe. In Mark 6:19–20 Herod fails to act against John for a time because the ruler knows John is righteous. In Mark 9:32, Jesus predicts his death and Resurrection, an important point to note in Mark as he does teach the Resurrection in these promises. As a result of this prediction, the disciples fear and fail to ask Jesus any questions. In Mark 10:32, there is fear as the group approaches Jerusalem for the final time. In Mark 11:18, the Jewish leaders fear Jesus and are unable to act against him also being wary of the multitude's attitude toward him (11:32–12:12). So in Mark fear can paralyze or lead into faith. The choice is with the one who fears.

It is here that Mark ends. Mark presents the fact of resurrection on its own. He has affirmed it as promised by God's Word and Jesus' own teaching. So Mark leaves the reader with a choice. The women's initial response was a fear that stunned them—how will today's reader then respond to the evidence? Of course, by the time Mark writes it is clear what the women decided. They believed and proclaimed, or else the church would have never had its gospel message. Here is Mark's point powerfully made. God's act and Word are enough. When one fears at the possibility of resurrection one should not be paralyzed into doubt and inaction, but belief and proclamation. The ending fits with Mark's readers. For Jesus is no longer appearing to people physically. The message calls for faith without a direct sign from beyond.

Mark is not alone in this message. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19–31 has very much the same point. When the now deceased rich man asks for someone to be sent from the dead to his brothers to warn them of how they should respond, the point is made in reply that they have Moses (i.e., the Scripture). When the rich man insists, the reply comes that if one does not believe the Word even a resurrection will not convince someone. The Word and recognition of God's power and promise should be good enough. That also is Mark's powerful close. The reader confronted with resurrection is left with a choice—and has for support the knowledge that ultimately the women and the church after them had faith and proclaimed the truth that Jesus had risen.

There is a powerful corollary in this that should not be missed and was not raised in any of the essays but arises from an issue I want to challenge in David Parker's work, The Living Text of the Gospels.[14] He wishes to suggest that Mark's Short Ending may be a more radical ending, lacking appearances because he or others may well have held to a Christianity that did not insist on a physical resurrection. Three key remarks make the point: “Does the tone of the Long Ending, with its censure of unbelief, even suggest that the lack of resurrection appearances in Mark had led to a claim that belief in them was not necessary to the Christian faith?”[15] He sees Mark as having an ambivalent ending, which is not the case at all, if we have read these themes and their context correctly. For Parker, the Short Ending of Mark provides “no such security” in validating the Resurrection. In fact it does the “reverse, for the women's silence means that, within the story, we have no means of knowing that any of it happened.”[16] Now this is a postmodern reading of Mark, because it makes Mark's Gospel function without any historical context at all as a kind of free floating literary piece, when in fact it was used (and not rejected) by a church that obviously proclaimed a risen Jesus. Parker's other remark is about the new book Mark becomes without the Longer Ending: “This new book offers radical theological interpretations which had been wholly stifled by the ecclesiastical pieties of the Intermediate and Longer Endings.” In fact, there is no reason to suggest a book with Mark's Short Ending opens such doors to alternative readings of Christianity, or especially this Gospel. To do so is to ignore everything about the history of its use in the church, not to mention Jesus' predictions that Mark sets forth which would be unfulfilled if Parker's explanation were to hold. So there is no evidence Mark's reading is as radical as Parker wishes to make it.

In sum, I take the internal evidence to be key. It is more likely that the original existence of the short reading explains why we have the longer reading and the other variant endings of Mark than the other way around. More importantly, a close look at this question caused us to take a close look at Mark and to appreciate the Short Ending for what it was attempting to do, to call people who might fear a claim of resurrection and not embrace it in faith—to take a properly generated fear at the possibility of God's power and then to do the right thing with it.

Other Issues Raised in the Essays

The essays in this volume have raised many other key points that it would be wrong to ignore. This section is a little like the “matters arising” on a board agenda. These points are not so central to the particular issue in most cases, but are important enough to note. So I comment on them in turn.

One of the issues we deal with in treating the ending of Mark is that Mark was the least utilized of the four Gospels in the early church. Elliott's treatment of this complicating factor is on target. A primary reason for this is relatively simple—most of Mark is found in Matthew or Luke.[17]

The key “matter arising” comes from the outline of canonical development that Black's essay raises. There are numerous key elements here that need interaction.

Black is correct to note that the strongest piece of evidence for Matthew being our first Gospel is the unanimous testimony of the early church. This normally is powerful evidence especially when numerous options exist and the word is as unanimous as this testimony is. Nonetheless, there are features in this remark that give us pause. The key one is that the testimony is fairly consistent that the Matthew being discussed was a Hebrew version. Black suggests that what is present here is a reference to Hebraic style, not language, but that is not how Eusebius sees the situation when he speaks of Hebrew in discussing the tradition (Ecclesiastical History 3.39.16; 5.10.3; 6.25.4). The normal way to translate the terms in question is as Hebrew language. The moment we note we are discussing something in Hebrew, then we are not discussing the Greek Matthew that is in our canonical texts. This feature compromises the deductions made from the Fathers' claims.[18]

More significant is the impression of Black's entire model that the Gospels are widespread and consistently being used by other key players as the canon is being developed. This view seems quite questionable for a number of reasons.

1. The fact is we have very little citation of the Gospels or of Jesus' teaching in the rest of the canon. Interestingly the one citation we get in the Pastorals is from Luke, not from Matthew, which is the dominant Gospel in his outline.

2. The situation is even more interesting in the apostolic fathers. Although some like Massaux have argued for widespread use of Matthew, other studies ranging over a century suggest that it is very difficult to prove direct citation of much of the Gospel in the fathers, when the possibility of oral tradition is kept in view and when actual wording is carefully checked.[19]

3. This leaves us with little hard evidence either that Paul used Matthew or “commissioned” Luke, as Black presents. Especially unlikely is that Mark checked what he did against Matthew or that he even used it at all, especially given what Mark lacks. The explanation that Peter only shared events in which he was involved in Mark does not adequately explain why teaching he surely was present at is not included.

These observations are important because all too often we have simply assumed that the central role of the Bible in many Christian communities today is the same role it has had from the beginning (with the added proviso that as soon as such works were written in the first century they spread quickly and instantly through the church). However, the evidence appears to indicate that the process of thinking in terms of a unified Scripture operating like a canon took some time to develop. Only by the end of the second century do we see it really beginning to set in. It is one thing to argue some works were written and quickly became authoritative and another to see the collection of works beginning to function as a more unified canon. These are somewhat distinct steps and issues. The evidence suggests that given regions may well have had access to particular books (many a Gospel or two and perhaps some letters of Paul) early on, but a more widespread collection in a specific locale looks to be a later development. Only when the apologists begin to write in the middle of the second century do we begin to see specific works named and cited and considered to be functioning as a unit. Our understanding of the earliest church period has to deal with a tradition and theology that was being passed on in an oral fashion for the most part, with some writings that became seen as Scripture also working alongside.[20]

In sum, the kind of model that stands underneath Black's claims about Mark writing and then reissuing his Gospel in a longer form later so he is responsible for both the short and the longer ending is not convincing, given evidence already noted about the lack of Marcan style in the Long Ending, the compiled feel of that section and the unlikelihood that the relationship between Matthew, Mark, and Peter was as close as he suggests.

Conclusion

Our response has tried to work through the forks in the road. As is obvious, there are judgments here. The problem of Mark's ending is complex. All the elements of textual criticism are in play: external evidence, internal evidence, the views of the versions and fathers, and what Mark himself was trying to do. We have argued that given the nature of our external evidence that points to both endings as old, internal factors indicate that Mark ended at 16:8 with an openended attempt to say to listeners that once the message is heard, it becomes the hour of decision. Mark's ending matches the circumstances of his readers: the Resurrection is proclaimed and the only remaining issue is what will the one who hears about the Resurrection do with a risen Jesus. Mark's ending assumes that the women did emerge from their silence and fear to believe and proclaim. That is precisely where Mark wants his readers to go, even in a context like Mark's where suffering for such a decision can be anticipated. Behind this call stands the promise embodied in the Word and the action of God. We can embrace them.

These essays, all of them, have been a fine way into this discussion. They guide us through the evidence and the various takes that are possible from it. One final point needs to be made. Whatever view one has on this issue, there is no central teaching of the Christian faith at stake in which view is chosen. Obviously, if the Long Ending is taken as original, then everything presented there is taught. The choice of the Short Ending poses more problems in that the possibility is that part of the Word may go missing. Yes, that is a possibility, but the other side of the coin is that much of what goes missing is asserted elsewhere in texts in which originality is not in dispute. As instructive and interesting as this problem is, we should not make more out of the debate than what it deserves. The long and the short of it is this: whatever choice we make, it should not significantly alter our faith.

__________________

1. W. Pickering, “Mark 16:9–20 and the Doctrine of Inspiration” (a paper circulated to the Majority Text Society, September, 1988 and noted in Dan Wallace's essay).

2. David Trobisch, Paul's Letter Collection (Bolivar, MS: Quiet Waters Publications, 2001), 4.

3. Kurt and Barbara Aland, Der Text des Neuen Testaments (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgeschellschaft, 1982), 202. Wallace cites Metzger-Ehrman for the same point. The English translation of this edition is a revised version from 1989. Its point is also the same.

4. Surely this omission would be of far more concern than whether the longer ending refers to a charismatic dimension of signs, which the NT is comfortable attesting to elsewhere or in the mention of snake handling, which Acts 28 shows was seen as taking place at least in the apostolic period. As for the remarks about the incomplete textual pool, this point is true but does not cancel out the fact that Eusebius and Jerome seem to indicate that the textual evidence they have (and they are outside of Egypt) indicates that most texts lack such a reading. Even if rhetoric or hyperbole are present, they still express that the evidence Eusebius and Jerome were aware of points to the preponderance of the short reading. It is not clear to me why Jerome is merely seen as repeating Eusebius. He seems to have been very aware of the manuscript status of the time. Wallace's essay cites the Eusebian text. He also notes that Jerome makes points Eusebius does not; namely, he speaks only of Greek manuscripts largely lacking the longer ending. He also notes that Jerome knows of the Freer Logion ending at the end of v. 14 as shown in W, indicating he had worked with manuscripts at the end of Mark.

5. I have not noted the lack of citation of this material from many of the earliest fathers and apologists, especially Origen and Clement of Alexandria, because it is hard to know what to make of such silence. However, I need to express my doubts about the claim that Justin Martyr cites Mark 16:20 in Apology 1.45. That section of Justin is summarizing vast amounts of material and the three word phrase appealed to as evidence is in a distinct word order and the most unusual term used, , is more common in Luke than in Mark, where 16:20 is the only place it is used. Given that Acts shows the gospel as going out everywhere, this looks like a summary of information from readily available material using a term common to Luke and Acts. Justin is also quite clear when citing the Gospels, often calling them apostolic memoirs when he does so.

6. In saying this, I may be seen as identifying with reasoned eclecticism as a text critical method—and I do generally work this way on a case by case basis giving weight to what appears to be the most compelling combination of evidence and likelihood (recognizing I am connecting dots like everyone else). However, in this case I would argue that all of us are brought to this point because of the divided nature of our early external evidence.

7. The codex became the popular means of transmitting highly regarded Christian texts, but this emerged later than the first century. See Larry Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 43–93.

8. Most of Robinson's claims about the unique features of Mark 16:9–20 are exaggerated. For example, the disciples disbelieve the report of the women in Luke 24:10–12, so that is not unique. Neither is the idea that Mary had a unique encounter with Jesus. Jesus appearing “in another form” is a variation on their not being able to identify him physically at first, for their eyes surely saw something initially. Jesus rebukes the lack of faith in Luke, which is why he opens up the Scripture in 24:44–47. The combination of Jesus' ascension and right hand session is found in Acts 2. The disciples' confirming Jesus' Resurrection summarizes Acts.

9. BDAG, 15. This means that even this point may not be new.

10. I cite the Wipf and Stock 2002 edition, published out of Eugene, Oregon. This is a re-release of the 1986 monograph that had the title, Marking the End: Structure and Suspension in the Ending of Mark's Gospel.

11. P. W. van der Horst, “Can a Book End with a ? A Note on Mark XVI.8,” JTS23 (1972): 121–24.

12. K. R. Iverson, “A Further Word on Final (Mark 16:8)”, CBQ68 (2006): 79–94. Iverson argues that sentences ending in though rare are not as uncommon as one might think and even involve narrative, which had been claimed as lacking such constructions.

13. Maguess, Marking the End, 98–102.

14. D. Parker, The Living Text of the Gospels (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 145–47.

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid., 146.

17. In an aside, I would note, however, that the idea that Mark 1:1–3 is also not original to Mark is one I do not find likely. The different handling of John the Baptist has all the looks of a Q Mark overlap where Luke chose to use Q because of the way Luke introduces his Gospel with the infancy material. The claim that Luke emphasizes Jesus before introducing John the Baptist is a little complex, since Luke starts with John the Baptist but does so to set up Jesus' superiority to John. I also find unlikely the Mary versus Peter Resurrection priority that Elliott posits in the Resurrection tradition, a view he correctly called speculative. I would appeal here to the fact that normally women were not witnesses in the period, so that the cultural likelihood is that there is the historical list and a culturally relevant list of witnesses. The women head the first, and Peter leads the second. I also note that although Peter is a key lead figure for Matthew, his Gospel also has the appearances to the women. This undercuts the idea that there was a contest for who the Lord appeared to first. Elliott does ask a good question when he wonders why we have no detailed account of an appearance to Peter. This is a curious feature about our tradition, but it also is evidence of how conservative the canonical tradition is since no such account was “invented,” something one might expect if invention were as prevalent as some argue.

18. One could also note that the earliest tradition does not attach the name gospel to what Matthew wrote in these Hebrew texts. Papias refers to (or sayings).

19. Edouard Massaux, Influence of the Gospel of Saint Matthew on Christian Literature Before Saint Irenaeus: The First Ecclesiastical Writers (Mercer, Ga: Mercer University Press, 1991). This is a massive three volume study. However, his results are challenged by a pair of studies a century apart: The Oxford Society of History's 1905 study, The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (now available through Kessinger Press) and Andrew Gregory and C. K. Tuckett's edited survey, The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Both of these detailed studies show how difficult it is on the basis of wording to know which Gospel is being cited or even if a Gospel versus oral tradition is being used.

20. This is a model I have developed and presented evidence for in The Missing Gospels (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006) as I have challenged the claims of alternative Christianities and the model of Walter Bauer and his followers.

_________________________________________________________

Name Index

_________________________________________________________

Aland, B. 19, 44, 129

Aland, K. 13, 19, 25, 42, 44, 129

Alexanian, J. M. 20

Amphoux, C. 92

Arcieri, M. 84

Barrett, D. 15

Berges, U. 63

Bernhard, A. E. 56

Birdsall, J. N. 16, 20, 28, 75

Black, D. A. xi, 91, 111, 113, 121, 133, 138

Blackmur, R. P. 49

Blake, R. 20

Bock, D. 8

Broadus, J. A. 30, 60, 65, 75

Brown, R. E. 102

Brown, S. G. 32

Burgon, J. 6, 11, 22, 23, 30, 44, 51, 52, 55, 58, 59, 60, 65, 68, 75, 77, 83, 96

Burkett, D. 53, 54, 60, 61, 62, 72, 74

Burkitt, F. C. 78

Caragounis, C. 53

Carlson, S. C. 32

Chase, F. H. 47, 78

Colwell, E. C. 19, 26

Comfort, P. 15

Costello, B. 49, 50

Counet, P. 63

Cox, S. 3, 13, 29, 37, 42, 43, 44, 66, 87

Croy, N. C. 33, 36, 37, 43, 44, 50, 66, 67, 76, 94, 97

Danove, P. L. 42, 45, 59

Doudna, J. C. 32

Dungan, D. L. 112

Dunkin, W. 4

Edgar, T. 84

Ehrman, B. 7, 14, 15, 19, 20, 24, 28, 51, 129

Elliott, J. K. 19, 29, 32, 33, 39, 44, 55, 56, 59, 61, 62, 80, 88, 92, 96, 105, 138

Ellis, E. 19, 42

Fanning, B. M. 8, 38

Farmer, W. R. 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, 13, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 44, 51, 54, 60, 66, 75, 77, 83, 88, 106, 120

Farstad, A. 4

Fee, G. 9, 16

France, R. T. 2

Gage, W. 67, 68

Greeven, H. 19

Gregory, A. 139

Gregory, E. 49

Gundry, R. H. 2, 33

Güting, E. 19

Hall, D. 49

Headlam, A. C. 78

Hengel, M. 33, 47, 118

Hodges, Z. 4, 8

Holmes, M. W. 7

Honigsblum, B. 48, 49

Hooker, M. 93

Horner, G. 57

Hort, F. 4, 6, 24, 33, 43, 44, 47, 51, 52, 87, 105

Hug, J. 13, 84

Hurtado, L. 51, 132

Iverson, K. R. 37, 135

Kelhoffer, J. A. 30, 32, 41, 44, 46, 48, 52, 60, 67, 73, 74, 76, 88, 98

Kenyon, F. G. 36, 78

Kilpatrick, G. D. 32

Kitchen, K. A. 40, 75, 125

Knox, W. L. 33, 55

Lane, W. L. 16, 17, 25

Legg, S. 19, 90

Linnemann, E. 13

Longenecker, R. N. 2, 16

Magness, J. L. 34, 35, 38, 134, 135

Mann, C. S. 3, 46, 47

Martin, A. 4

Martini, C. M. 83

Massaux, E. 139

McDill, M. D. 89

McGill, M. 7

Mead, G. 57

Meeks, W. 68

Metzger, B. 7, 8, 14, 15, 19, 20, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 33, 41, 46, 51, 52, 56, 92, 105, 129

Miller, E. 6

Miller, J. 18, 44

Milne, H. J. M. 51, 84

Moore, M. 40, 48, 49, 50

Moule, C. F. D. 33, 96

Müller, M. 111

Neusner, J. 75

Orchard, B. 64, 106, 108, 112, 113, 117

Parker, D. 3, 15, 16, 21, 23, 26, 27, 136, 137

Payne, P. 18

Petersen, W. L. 78

Pickering, W. 4, 6, 126

Pierpont, W. G. 20, 44, 46

Porter, C. L. 16

Powell, E. 33

Purdy, R. J. 63

Ramsay, W. M. 34, 35

Richards, E. R. 117

Roberts, C. H. 35, 81

Robertson, A. T. 41

Robinson, J. A. T. 43

Robinson, M. A. 44, 46, 47, 52, 59, 84, 125, 129, 130, 132

Sanday, W. 78

Schmidt, C. 57

Schmithals, W. 13

Schnelle, U. 63

Schulze, R. G. 48, 49, 50

Scott-Moncrieff, P. D. 57

Silversides, D. 77

Skeat, T. C. 15, 35, 51, 84, 85, 92

Smith, M. 31, 32

Snapp, J. 18, 24, 53, 60, 63

Stein, R. 33

Streeter, B. H. 4, 5, 33, 64

Sturz, H. 4, 5, 7, 8, 16

Tenney, M.C. 2, 16

Terry, B. 30, 60, 65, 105

Tregelles, S. P. 102

Treu, K. 73

Trobisch, D. 128

Turner, C. H. 25, 32, 90

Turner, N. 32

Upton, B. G. 101

van Belle, G. 62, 63

van Bruggen, J. 4

van der Horst, P. W. 36, 89, 135

Wallace, D. xi, xii, 7, 38, 126, 129, 130

Waterman, M. 44, 93

Watson, F. 107

Westcott, B. 4, 6, 24, 33, 43, 44, 47, 51, 52, 87, 105

Wilcox, M. 19, 42

Williams, T. B. 30

Wisse, F. 20, 78

Wright, N. T. 36, 75

Zuntz, G. 9

Table of Contents

Contributors

List of Abbreviations

Preface

Chapter 1 — Mark 16:8 as the Conclusion to the Second Gospel

Chapter 2 — The Long Ending of Mark as Canonical Verity

Chapter 3 — The Last Twelve Verses of Mark: Original or Not?

Chapter 4 — Mark 16:9–20 as Markan Supplement

Chapter 5 — The Ending of Mark: A Response to the Essays

Name Index