Well, as fun as it is to work through these things, and as satisfying as it DOES feel when you're done, most of us don't have hours to spend deciphering random squiggles where the scribe went WHOOPS! because he had alzhimers. Moreover, there are dozens of manuscripts that bear on the passage -- so why show one particular 10th century cursive?
Below i've pasted in Metzger (stolen from bible-researcher.com so I don't have to type it out) on this passage.
Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart, 1971), pages 122-126.
16:9-20 The Ending(s) of Mark. Four endings of the Gospel according to Mark are current in the manuscripts. (1) The last twelve verses of the commonly received text of Mark are absent from the two oldest Greek manuscripts (
א and B), from the Old Latin codex Bobiensis (it k), the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript, about one hundred Armenian manuscripts, and the two oldest Georgian manuscripts (written A.D. 897 and A.D. 913). Clement of Alexandria and Origen show no knowledge of the existence of these verses; furthermore Eusebius and Jerome attest that the passage was absent from almost all Greek copies of Mark known to them. The original form of the Eusebian sections (drawn up by Ammonius) makes no provision for numbering sections of 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 indicate a spurious addition to a document.
(2) Several witnesses, including four uncial Greek manuscripts of the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries (L
Y 099 0112), as well as Old Latin k, the margin of the Harelean Syriac, several Sahidic and Bohairic manuscripts, and not a few Ethiopic manuscripts, continue after verse 8 as follows (with trifling variations): "But they reported briefly to Peter and those with him all that 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." All of these witnesses except it k also continue with verses 9-20.
(3) The traditional ending of Mark, so familiar through the AV and other translations of the Textus Receptus, is present in the vast number of witnesses, including A C D K W X
D Q P Y 099 0112
f 13 28 33
al. The earliest patristic witnesses to part or all of the long ending are Irenaeus and the Diatessaron. It is not certain whether Justin Martyr was acquainted with the passage; in his
Apology (i.45) he includes five words that occur, in a different sequence, in ver. 20. (
tou logou tou iscurou on apo ierousalhm oi apostoloi autou exelqonteV pantacou ekhruxan).
(4) In the fourth century the traditional ending also circulated, according to testimony preserved by Jerome, in an expanded form, preserved today in one Greek manuscript. Codex Washingtonianus includes the following after ver. 14: "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 spirits [
or, does not allow what lies under the unclean spirits to understand the truth and power of God]. 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.' "
How should the evidence of each of these endings be evaluated? It is obvious that the expanded form of the long ending (4) has no claim to be original. Not only is the external evidence extremely limited, but the expansion contains several non-Markan words and expressions (including
o aiwn outoV, amartanw, apologew, alhqinoV, upostrefw) as well as several that occur nowhere else in the New Testament (
deinoV, oroV, proslegw). The whole expansion has about it an unmistakable apocryphal flavor. It probably is the work of a second or third century scribe who wished to soften the severe condemnation of the Eleven in 16.14.
The longer ending (3), though current in a variety of witnesses, some of them ancient, must also be judged by internal evidence to be secondary. (a) The vocabulary and style of verses 9-20 are non-Markan. (e.g.
apistew, blaptw, bebaiow, epakolouqew, qeaomai, meta tauta, poreuomai, sunergew, usteron are found nowhere else in Mark; and
qanasimon and
toiV met autou genomenoiV, as designations of the disciples, occur only here in the New Testament). (b) The connection between ver. 8 and verses 9-20 is so awkward that it is difficult to believe that the evangelist intended the section to be a continuation of the Gospel. Thus, the subject of ver. 8 is the women, whereas Jesus is the presumed subject in ver. 9; in ver. 9 Mary Magdalene is identified even though she has been mentioned only a few lines before (15.47 and 16.1); the other women of verses 1-8 are now forgotten; the use of
anastaV de and the position of
prwton are appropriate at the beginning of a comprehensive narrative, but they are ill-suited in a continuation of verses 1-8. In short, all these features indicate that the section was added by someone who knew a form of Mark that ended abruptly with ver. 8 and who wished to supply a more appropriate conclusion. In view of the inconcinnities between verses 1-8 and 9-20, it is unlikely that the long ending was composed
ad hoc to fill up an obvious gap; it is more likely that the section was excerpted from another document, dating perhaps from the first half of the second century.
The internal evidence for the shorter ending (2) is decidedly against its being genuine. Besides containing a high percentage of non-Markan words, its rhetorical tone differs totally from the simple style of Mark's Gospel.
Finally it should be observed that the external evidence for the shorter ending (2) resolves itself into additional testimony supporting the omission of verses 9-20. 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 four lines of a colorless and generalized summary. Therefore, the documentary evidence supporting (2) should be added to that supporting (1). Thus, on the basis of good external evidence and strong internal considerations it appears that the earliest ascertainable form of the Gospel of Mark ended with 16.8. At the same time, however out of deference to the evident antiquity of the longer ending and its importance in the textual tradition of the Gospel, the Committee decided to include verses 9-20 as part of the text, but to enclose them within double square brackets to indicate that they are the work of an author other than the evangelist.
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..A more correct inference would seem to be that the scribe knew that the gospel did NOT end at 16:8, ...but...was producing a copy which could be ended according to the wishes of others. That the scribe considered the form of the gospel which ended with 16:8 as the authentic one, is by no means clear. He only knew that the text..up to 16:8 was largely undisputed, ad that what if anything was to follow 16:8 was a matter of dispute. By not copying anything beyond 16:8 he met the essential requirement of those who felt the gospel needed either an ending or some word of explanation following 16:8. By including the ornament and subscription kata markcon afterward, the scribe was 'finishing' his work. It could 'go out' of the scriptorium in this form. Buy any purchaser or user easily could have had the ornament and subscription erased and, in the space allowed, he could have ended the gospel according to his own decision or he could have used it without alteration. The advantage of this form of the text is that it allows for some further treatment of a disputed matter. It is certainly copied in such a way that an ending may be added if desired. Whe the space left blank is more than necessary for the shorter ending or slightly less than needed for the longer ending is not entirely clear. ...All this is in keeping with a situation in which the longer ending is known, but disapproved, and where it is felt prudent to allow for something further to be written in the space left blank."
(ibid. pg 58-9)
A few things on this guy (and Scrivener, and Burgeon, et. al. who happen to try to defend the long ending based on Vaticanus' omission:
One has to admit that we have no clue whatsoever why there is an open column in Vaticanus. It is an interesting theory that perhaps the copyist knew of a longer ending. Yet, why was it not copied in? As an Alexandrian manuscript it would have had a corrector as well (as evidenced by the multiple hands on the text). Now, Farmer says that the scribe was playing it safe and conservatively by ending at 16:8 -- I'm not sure what to say to that. It's a leap of logic and cannot be substantiated. It's legitimate to suggest that the column was left free because the scribe was aware of a longer ending (this I can concede as a POSSIBILITY). It's quite another to assign an entire complex of motivations to a scribe during a time in history when there few qualms with amending a text and correcting it to a better version.
Yet in my opinion this is all subsidiary. We
know that the ending was disputed in the early church. We
know the Armenian and Georgian differ from certain OL mss and codex W and codex L...I don't much care what one particular scribe MIGHT have been thinking. What matters in terms of fact is that the manuscript lacks the passage, and there for is a positive attestation to the fact that the shortest ending is original.