The problem you have here is the gospels are the story of Jesus up until His Ascension. So Mark 16 is looking back upon the promise which was fulfilled early on in the church and began at Pentecost. So in reality my point still stands. There is no EPISTLE declaring tongues were still in operation after 1 Corinthians.
hope this helps !!!
From your post, I am getting another urge to make a statement about arguing from silence. The bottom line is that logically, nothing can be "proved" from silence on any particular, and that is silence is because a negative thing.
I may as well say state that I believe in unicorns (or "crypto-biology") because no biology book mentions them. in making a statement like that, I am elevating the unverifiable and subjective over concrete evidence.
Simply put, it is irrational thought. That anyone glues a plywood veneer of piety and/or Scripture to it does not make it logical, no matter how hard one wants to make his case
But we all know that unicorns do not exist, and we also know that everything that comes after Mark 8:16 most likely did not come from the writer of the rest of Mark.
To explain this further requires a brief understanding of textural criticism (meaning evaluation of the existent documents and their transmission to us today). The term "textural criticism"may be confusing, and thought of as disparaging the Bible. It is not; instead, it is an evaluation of the authenticity of this document, or that document, and there are several different criteria used.
While it is not definitive, age is important. The closer to the date of the autogrpha, the better.
It is the shortest and the earliest of the four Gospels, presumably written during the decade preceding the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Most scholars agree that it was used by Matthew and Luke in composing their accounts; more than 90 percent of the content of Mark's Gospel appears in Matthew's, and more than 50 percent in the Gospel of Luke. Although the text lacks literary polish, it is simple and direct; and, as the earliest Gospel, it is the primary source of information about the ministry of Jesus.
"Mark, The Gospel According to." Encyclopædia Britannica.
Deluxe Edition. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2008.
The following , while not mentioning the represents "added ending" to Mark provides a valid reason for not accepting the latter verses of mark as authentic.
THE ORAL AND THE WRITTEN GOSPELS.—
We may fairly take the following conclusions as established. That the apostles of Christ felt it to be their main duty to preach Christ, not to write about Him; that they were disposed to speak rather than to write, by character, by habit, by all the influences of their time and race: That, consequently, the original Gospel was rather an oral tradition than a written book: That this oral tradition was historic, setting forth in a lively and natural way the things which Jesus said and did: That it was the theme and substance of their Discourses and of their Epistles: That the constant delivery of this oral Gospel was a Divine expedient for teaching them what of all they remembered concerning Christ was most potent on the hearts and minds of men, and so for securing a more perfect written Gospel when the time for writing had come: That in the four written Gospels—four and yet one—we have a record of the deeds and words of Christ in the fullest accord with the message originally delivered by the apostles: And that whosoever believes in the blameless life and beneficent ministry of Christ, in His death for our sins, and in His resurrection as the crowning proof of life everlasting, holds a true and adequate Gospel.
(S. Cox, D.D.)
Exell, J. S. (n.d.). The Biblical Illustrator: St. Mark (pp. v–vi). London: James Nisbet & Co.
In other words, Exell argues that all four of the Gospels teach the life of Christ, and that the other Epistles, (excepting Revelation) teach the DOCTRINES of Christ. Thus, he is making an argument about purpose, not content.
So according to the logic of purposeful writing of EACH of the 4 Gospels, NONE of those later verses in Mark have anything to do with the actions of Jesus while on earth, nor is He mentioned there.
Therefore, the evidence of what is written, and written by 4 different authors is a heavy weight of documented evidence from which there is no escape. What exists as a pattern in all 4 of the Four Gospels is a greater evidence than what does not exist--meaning the teaching about snakes, etc. in the preponderance of early Mark documents.
So what you wrote, and I highlighted
So Mark 16 is looking back upon the promise which was fulfilled early on in the church and began at Pentecost. is actually an unintentional refutation of your thesis because it focuses on the purpose of why Mark and the other Gospel writers wrote as they did.
So while it MAY seem that I am violating the "argument from silence", I am not doing that. Instead, I am arguing from the pattern of what exists, the purpose of the Gospels In the final analysis, what exists if far more persuasive than the absence of the teaching about tongues either in the Gospels, or in the other Epistles.
To use another analogy, in comparing the purpose of the Gospels with the purpose of the Epistles, you are essentially making a comparison of apples and lug nuts.
