Subject: MARK 16:16: Was it perverted? |
Bible Note: Greetings AO! The textual situation is quite a bit more complex than the longer ending simply being absent from two manuscripts. There are actually four versions of the ending of Mark. 1) The first does not have the last twelve verses of the commonly receved text of Mark. To quote Bruce Metzger: They "...are absent from the two odest Greek manuscripts, from the Old Latin codex Bobienss, the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript, about one hundred Armenian manuscripts, and the two oldest Georgia manuscripts. Clement of Alexandria and Origen show no knoledge of the existence of these verses, furthermore Eusebious and Jerome attest that the passage was abent from almost all Greek copies of Mark known to them. The orginal form of the Eusebian sections (drawn up by Ammoninu) makes no provision for numbeing sections fo the text after 16:8. Not a few manuscripts which contain the passage have scribal notes stating that older Greek copies lack it, and in other witnesses the passage is marked with asterisks or obeli, the conventional signs used by copyists to indiate a spurious addition to a document." Source (A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, by Bruce Metzger, pp. 122-123). 2) The second ending is found in several mid to late versions. It says, "But they reported briefly to Peter and those with him all that they had been told And after this Jesus himself sent out by meas of them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishble proclamation of eternal salvation." This addition is then followed by vv. 9-20 in most of the manuscripts containing this ending. 3) The third is the traditional ending (vv. 9-20). It is found in the vast number of witnesses: including, A, C, D, k, X, W, ect... The only problem is that these manuscripts are not as old as those supporting the first manuscript and they contain a different style of writting than the rest of Mark. 4) There was also a longer version which circulated in the fourth century accoding to Jermore. It is only found in one Greek manuscript. Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |