Mark 16:9-20

[James Snapp Jr]

As we begin this discussion about Mark 16:9-20, let's define a few terms:

Abrupt Ending: the ending at the end of Mark 16:8. In Greek, this verse ends with a very short sentence, “ephobounto gar.”

Alexandrian Text: a form of the New Testament text that was used in Alexandria, Egypt. This is the primary basis for most modern translations.

Byzantine Text: a form of the NT text that was used in Byzantium (Constantinople). The Textus Receptus, which, in the Gospels, very closely resembles the Byzantine Text, was the base-text for the KJV and NKJV.

Caesarean Text: a form of the Gospels-text that was used at Caesarea in the 200's. Its best Greek representatives are a cluster of MSS known as family-1, allied with a branch of the Armenian version and the Old Georgian version.

Codex: a handmade book. (plural = codices)

Codex Sinaiticus: a Greek Bible, damaged in some portions, produced c. 350 at Caesarea. (For a long time this codex was kept at St. Catherine's Monastery, near what many believe to be Mt. Sinai.)

Codex Vaticanus: a Greek Bible, damaged in some portions, produced c. 325, probably at Caesarea. (This codex is one of many kept at the Vatican Library.)

Diatessaron: a text consisting of the blended-together contents of all four Gospels, minus the genealogies, made by Tatian in about A.D. 172.

Exemplar: a MS from which a copyist copies the text to make a newer copy.

Freer Logion: an extra verse in Codex Washingtoniensis (a Gospels-manuscript produced around 400) between Mk. 16:14 and 16:15. It states: “And they excused themselves, saying, ‘This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under Satan, who does not allow, through the unclean spirits, the truth and the power of God to be understood. So then, reveal your righteousness now.’ Thus they spoke to Christ. And Christ told them, ‘Fulfilled are the years of the reign of Satan, but other terrors approach. And for those who have sinned I was delivered unto death, that they might return unto the truth and sin no more, so that in heaven they may inherit the spiritual and incorruptible glory of righteousness. But.” Jerome, a very important writer in the late 300’s and early 400’s, quotes part of this material was in some copies, “especially in Greek codices,” although now Codex W is the only MS in existence that contains it. (It is named the “Freer Logion” in honor of Charles Lang Freer, who purchased the codex.)

Lectionary: a book containing Scripture-texts separated into portions for day-to-day reading in church-services. (These are distinct from continuous-text MSS.)

Longer Ending: Mark 16:9-20.

Miniature: an illustration, especially of the author of a Biblical book or of a famous Biblical scene. (These are often full-page pictures and not miniaturized as English-readers might expect.)

Minuscule: a MS written in lower-case letters. These are assigned identification-numbers that do not begin with zero.

MSS: the abbreviation for "manuscripts." (singular = MS)

Palimpsest: a MS which has been recycled; that is, it has two (or more) layers of writing on it; an attempt was made to remove the the earlier writing so that the parchment could be re-used.


Peshitta: the standard Syriac version of the NT (without II Peter, II John, III John, Jude, and Revelation), which is extant in hundreds of MSS.

Shorter Ending (a.k.a. Intermediate Ending): A two-sentence paragraph that is found in six Greek MSS between Mark 16:8 and 16:9 (in some cases with a prefatory note), and at the end of Mark (after a shortened form of 16:8) in the Old Latin Codex Bobbiensis. Its form varies slightly but it basically says, “And they promptly reported all these instructions to Peter and his companions. And after that, Jesus himself [appeared and] sent out through them from east to west the sacred and imperishable message of eternal salvation. Amen.”

Uncial: a MS written in capital letters, typically without spaces between words. These are assigned identification-numbers that begin with zero. The most important of them are also known by letters: Sinaiticus = the Hebrew letter Aleph; Alexandrinus = A, Vaticanus = B, etc.

Vulgate: the standard Latin version of the Bible. The Gospels-text of the Vulgate was produced by Jerome in 383. Jerome standardized the diverse Old Latin texts by conforming them to old Greek MSS (that is, MSS that Jerome, in 383, considered old). The Vulgate is extant in thousands of MSS.


Western Text: forms of the NT-text, especially of the Gospels and Acts, used in Western Christendom in the early centuries of the church. The chief representatives of this text-form (or text-forms), which is known for paraphrastic tendencies, are Codex Bezae (Codex D) and the Old Latin MSS.

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I hope that wasn’t too boring. Now let’s tackle another exciting list by noticing the treatment that Mark 16:9-20 has received in the headings and footnotes that accompany this passage in some recent Bible translations:

NLT: “The most reliable early manuscripts conclude the Gospel of Mark at verse 8. Other manuscripts include various endings to the Gospel. Two of the most noteworthy are printed here.”

NIV (pre-1984): “The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.”

NIV (1984 and 2011): “The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.” Verses 9-20 are bracketed.

ESV (2007): “Some manuscripts end the book with 16:8; others include verses 9-20 immediately after verse 8. A few manuscripts insert additional material after verse 14; one Latin manuscript adds after verse 8 the following: 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. Other manuscripts include this same wording after verse 8, then continue with verses 9-20."

NASB (pre-update): “Some of the oldest mss. do not contain vv. 9-20” and, after the Shorter Ending, which is bracketed and italicized after 16:20: “A few later mss. and versions contain this paragraph, usually after verse 8; a few have it at the end of chapter.”

NASU (1995): “Later mss add vv 9-20” and, after the Shorter Ending, which is bracketed and italicized after 16:20: “A few late mss and versions contain this paragraph, usually after v 8; a few have it at the end of ch.” Verses 9-20 are bracketed.

“The Message” (2010): “Mark 16:9-20 [the portion in brackets] is contained only in later manuscripts.” Verses 9-20 are bracketed.

New King James Version: “Verses 9-20 are bracketed in NU-text as not original. They are lacking in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, although nearly all other manuscripts of Mark contain them.”

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Some of these footnotes are so vague that they raise more questions than they resolve. Some of them are not only vague but incorrect. For example:

Regarding the footnote in "The Message" -- Mk. 16:9-20 is displayed in Codex Alexandrinus, and in Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, and (mostly) in Codex Bezae. All three are early MSS. Thus the footnote in “The Message” needs to be corrected.


Regarding the footnote in the ESV -- Only Codex W includes the Freer Logion, so the ESV’s statement that “a few manuscripts insert additional material after verse 14” needs correction.


Regarding the footnote in the NLT -- The NLT’s statement that “Other manuscripts include various endings to the Gospel” is extremely misleading: it gives the impression that there are, besides the Shorter Ending, other conclusions to Mark that are independent of Mark 16:9-20. But that is false. In real life, all undamaged Greek MSS of Mark 16, except Vaticanus and Sinaiticus (and possibly a medieval MS, 304, although a careful examination would probably show that 304 is merely damaged), include at least part of 16:9-20.


Regarding the footnote in the NASU after the Shorter Ending -- Codex Bobbiensis, produced c. 430, is not "late." It is among the earliest Old Latin copies of Mark. In addition, no MS in any language has the Shorter Ending "at the end of ch" except Codex Bobbiensis. This part of the NASU's footnote is clearly based on the incorrect evidence-list in the United Bible Society's Greek New Testament as it existed when the NASU was published; the second edition of the UBS GNT features a listing for witnesses which "add vv 9-20 and short ending," but in the fourth edition, this entry (which is entirely based on flawed descriptions of the witnesses in the list) is removed. Unfortunately the editors of the NASU have not adjusted the NASU's footnote accordingly. (The NASB Study Bible for Boys compounds the error: its footnote about the Shorter Ending says, “A few late mss and versions contain this paragraph, usually after v. 8; a few have it at the end of ch. 2.” I don't know how that "2" got there! Larry Richards, the editor, should have been more careful.)

None of these footnotes mention the patristic evidence pertaining to Mark 16:9-20. The earliest manuscripts are not always the earliest evidence. Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus come to us from the 300's, but there is patristic evidence from the 100's showing that Mark 16:9-20 was in MSS of Mark at that time. Irenaeus of Lyons, for example, writing around 184 in Book 3 of his composition Against Heresies, quoted Mark 16:19, and specified that he was quoting from Mark's Gospel-account. Another example: Tatian, c. 172, incorporated Mark 16:9-20 in the Diatessaron. Hopefully we will have the opportunity to look at more evidence from the 100's soon. But inasmuch as it is clear that the MSS of Mark that were used by Tatian and by Irenaeus contained 16:9-20, and inasmuch as those MSS were over a century older than the two Greek MSS in which Mark's text stops at 16:8, the footnotes which fail to mention the evidence from the 100's, while mentioning, and emphasizing, evidence from the 300's and 400's and later, are somewhat unbalanced, and do a disservice to the reader.

But the inaccuracies in these brief headings and footnotes are paragons of precision compared to some of the claims that commentators have spread about the ending of Mark! Before we look at some examples of that, though, does anyone have any questions about this passage, or about how it has been treated historically by the church, or about anything I have written so far?

Yours in Christ,

James Snapp, Jr.

 

[MennoII]

Thanks James, really enjoy this so far.

 

[Heterodoxus]

In re Mark 16:9-20:

1. Irenaeus is only one of two "earliest patristic witnesses to part or all of the long ending". The only other earliest witness is the Diatessaron (Metzger, TCGNT 2nd ed., p. 103).
2. "Four endings of the Gospel according to Mark are current in manuscripts.... It is obvious that the expanded form of the long ending (circulated in the fourth century by Jerome and preserved today only in Codex Washingtonianus) has no claim to be original [and] contains several non-Markan words and expressions [plus] several that occur nowhere else in the New Testament .... The whole expansion has about it an unmistakable apocryphal flavor. It probably is the work of a second ... century scribe who wished to soften the severe condemnation of the Eleven in 16.14 (Op. cit., p. 104).
3. "The longer ending (so familiar through the AV and other translations of the Textus Receptus), 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 .... (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.... In short,... 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...., it is more likely that the section was excerpted from another document, dating perhaps from the first half of the second century [it's possible, then, that Irenaeus, writing in the second half of the second century, would have known about this document]. 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 [i.e., the Editorial Committee of the UBS' Greek NT] decided to include verses 9-20 as part of the text, but to enclose them within double square brackets in order to indicate that they are the work of an author other than the evangelist." (Op. cit., pp. 104-106, emphasis added).
4. "In the earliest manuscripts ..., the Second Gospel breaks off suddenly at 16:8 .... What follows in verses 9-20 is an early attempt to provide a more or less suitable ending for what was soon recognized as a most unsatisfactory close .... Whether Mark was prevented by death from completing his Gospel, or whether the original [text] was accidentally mutilated, losing its final sheet (or sheets), no one can say." (Metzger, The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content, 3rd ed., pp. 109-110).
5. "How did Mark end his Gospel? Unfortunately, we do not know; the most that can be said is that four different endings are current among the manuscripts but probably none of them represents what Mark originally intended..... All that is known is that more than one person in the early Church sensed that the Gospel is a torso and tried in various ways to provide a more or less appropriate conclusion..... Mark was not responsible for the composition of the last 12 verses of the generally current form of his Gospel [which] were attached to the Gospel before the Church recognized the fourfold Gospels as canonical,...." (Metzger and Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 4th ed., pp. 322-327.)
6. "That scribes were concerned to emphasize, to some degree, the ascension of Christ into heaven is demonstrated in other, less disputed, corruptions. Two familiar examples occur in the final chapter of the Gospel According to Mark. In Mark 16:4 the Old Lation manuscript Bobiensis (OL k) gives an actual description of Jesus' physical resurrection and exaltation to heaven, which are apparently understood as comprising a single event ..... So too the longer ending of [Mark at 16:19], which by common consent forms no part of the original text,.... Here there can be no doubt concerning the dating ...: it is attested in the main by sources as early as Irenaeus. What we have in these traditions, then, are corruptions that emphasize the physical character of Jesus' ascent, useful material for proto-orthodox Christians bent on opposing docetic forms of Christology." (Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament, pp. 322-323, emphasis added).
   

 

[James Snapp Jr]

Heterodoxus,


I am going to have to split my reply into two parts. (Perhaps we may avoid this by limiting pasted quotations to as few as necessary per post.) Here is the first part.

In the closing paragraph of my previous post, I mentioned that some commentators have spread misleading and inaccurate claims about the evidence pertaining to Mark 16:9-20. It looks like you have encountered two of them: Bart Ehrman (whose statements are vague to the point of giving false impressions) and the late Bruce Metzger (whose statements about the evidence pertaining to Mark 16:9-20 are sometimes vague, sometimes incomplete, and sometimes incorrect).
I have already prepared a point-by-point critique of the comments about Mark 16:9-20 that are in Metzger’s very influential A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, which is one of the sources of the material you have proviced. The entire critique is online; I hope that I will be able to provide the address when my post-count here at Christian Forums is above 50. Here I will only address the parts that you mentioned.

(1) “Irenaeus is only one of two "earliest patristic witnesses to part or all of the long ending". The only other earliest witness is the Diatessaron.”

That is not accurate; here (in five brief points) is why.

First, when we read that Tatian’s Diatessaron and Book Three of Irenaeus’ Against Heresies both attest to Mark 16:9-20, our initial reaction should be, “Wow; that’s pretty early! The Gospels-manuscripts that Tatian and Irenaeus used were at least 140 years older than Codex Vaticanus! Figuring that the Gospel of Mark was produced in Rome in the mid-60’s, their copies were 116 years away from the autograph, whereas Codex Vaticanus is 257 years away from the autograph! In chronological terms we may say that the evidence from Vaticanus and Sinaiticus is not only outrun, but is lapped, by the copies used by Tatian and Irenaeus!”

Second, Metzger minimized the testimony of Justin Martyr (whose First Apology is typically assigned a production-date of 155-160), probably because Metzger’s own primary source was Hort’s “Notes on Select Readings” (1881) and that is what Hort did. Justin’s testimony, however, is considerably stronger than what Metzger presented it as being; the reasons for this were pointed out by J. Rendel Harris and by F. Chase, after Ciasca published the Arabic Diatessaron; unfortunately they made this observation in relatively obscure writings which Metzger either did not consult or did not recollect when he wrote his comments. The late William Petersen’s 1990 analysis of affinities between Tatian’s Diatessaron and Justin’s Apostolic Remembrances further strengthens the case that Justin utilized verbiage from Mark 16:20 in First Apology chapter 45. I would add that Justin may also utilize Mark 16:14 in chapter 50 of the same composition.

Third, besides Justin’s First Apology (160), Tatian’s Diatessaron, (172), and Book Three of Irenaeus’ Against Heresies, (184), there is another second-century composition to consider: the anonymous composition Epistula Apostolorum, the author of which presented his work as the work of the apostles themselves, relating instructions that Jesus gave to them after Christ’s resurrection. Metzger did not mention Epistula Apostolorum at all, probably because his primary source, Hort, did not mention it. (Hort didn’t mention it because in 1881 it was still undiscovered until 1895 and unpublished until 1913.) But Robert Stein mentioned Epistula Apostolorum in his commentary, and affirms rather matter-of-factly that the author attests to Mark 16:9-20.

Epistula Apostolorum has an interesting internal feature that helps us discern its composition-date. In a portion of the Coptic text of Epistula Apostolorum, in which the author depicts Jesus speaking to the apostles after His resurrection, Jesus says that His second coming will occur when 120 years have passed. Inasmuch as the author would not picture Jesus uttering a false prophecy, this strongly indicates that the text was composed before 150. In the Ethiopic text of Epistula Apostolorum, the text at this point is adjusted so that Jesus, instead of referring to 120 years after His resurrection, refers to 150 years after His resurrection, which indicates that the Ethiopic version of this text descends from an edited version that was made after 150 but before 180.

Fifth, while these four compostions are “The earliest patristic witnesses to part or all of” Mark 16:9-20,” it is not as if they constitute the total of the patristic testimony. Not by a long shot! Michael Holmes (the editor of the SBL-GNT) affirmed that Hippolytus, a church-leader in Rome in the early 200’s, attested to Mark 16:9-20. Mark 16:15-18 is utilized in Hippolytus’ Apostolic Tradition, as it appears in Book Eight of Apostolic Constitutions (an edited collection of texts assembled c. 380), but since some analysts have raised questions about how confidently that section of the text should be assigned to Hippolytus, a more secure reference is in the 32nd chapter, where the Greek text is extant. There, Hippolytus states, “Let every one of the believers be sure to partake of communion before he eats anything else. For if he partakes with faith, even if something deadly were given to him, after this it cannot hurt him.” Thus Hippolytus applies First Corinthians 11:30-31 and Mark 16:18, using the term “thanasimon” ("something deadly") which appears in Scripture only in Mark 16:18.

Sixth, there are many other early patristic writings which utilize Mark 16:9-20. Here are a few examples: Vincentius of Thibaris alluded to Mark 16:15ff. at the Seventh Council of Carthage (257), briefly stating, “We have assuredly the rule of truth which the Lord by His divine precept commanded to His apostles, saying, ‘Go ye, lay on hands in my name, expel demons.’” The author of De Rebaptismate (258) utilized Mark 16:14. Hierocles (305), a pagan enemy of Christianity, utilized Mark 16:18, and in doing so he was probably recycling material that had been written by his pagan mentor Porphyry (270). Marinus (325) mentioned Mark 16:9; Aphrahat (335), in Syria, utilized Mark 16:16-18 in his composition “Demonstration One: On Faith.” I specify these individuals because they are all very old, and because they demonstrate remarkable geographical range: Irenaeus was in France; Justin and Hippolytus were in Rome; Vincentius was in North Africa; Hierocles was in western Turkey; Aphrahat was in Syria.

If we were to consider just the patristic testimony from the era of the Roman Empire (pre-486), the list would include more than 50 pieces of attestation for Mark 16:9-20. Most of them are completely unmentioned by Metzger.


(2) “Four endings of the Gospel according to Mark are current in manuscripts.... It is obvious that the expanded form of the long ending (circulated in the fourth century by Jerome and preserved today only in Codex Washingtonianus) has no claim to be original . . . . 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 “four endings” that Metzger lists are (a) the Abrupt Ending, (b) the Shorter Ending, (c) verses 9-20 with the Freer Logion between 16:14 and 16:15, and (d) verses 9-20. If you read Metzger’s comments carefully you will see that the comments you have presented here are about the Freer Logion. And I agree with Metzger that the Freer Logion is an interpolation. I also agree that the Freer Logion (attested by Codex W, which was found in Egypt, and also mentioned by Jerome, who probably noticed it in manuscripts that he saw when he visited Egypt in 386) is probably the work of someone in the 100’s or 200’s, which implies that the author of the Freer Logion possessed a copy of Mark that contained verses 9-20, and thus here we have yet another witness for Mark 16:9-20 that is earlier than Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.

(3) “The vocabulary and style of verses 9-20 are non-Markan (e.g., apistew, blaptw, bebaiow, apalolouqew, qeaomai, meta tauta, poreuomai, sunergew, esterwn are found nowhere else in Mark; and thanasimon and tois met’ autou genomenois, as designations of the disciples, occur only here in the New Testament.”

The answer to this has three short parts. First, readers should notice that Dr. Metzger described the internal evidence, he did not provide the means to evaluate the significance or insignificance of once-used words. He listed nine once-used words or word-combinations in Mark 16:9-20. (Other commentators have identified 18 once-used words in these 12 verses.) This is presented as evidence that Mark did not write them. But consider what readers are not told: in another 12-verse section of Mark (nearby 15:40-16:4) there are 20 once-used words. Are those 20 words therefore non-Markan? Of course not! And inasmuch as Mark was able to use 20 once-used words in 15:40-16:4, the presence of 9, or even 18, once-used words in 16:9-20 does not pose a problem for Markan authorship.

Second, Dr. Metzger’s statement about thanasimon is simply non-sensical, because thanasimon is not a designation of the disciples; it is the word for “deadly poison” in Mark 16:18. (Yet how many commentators have recommended Metzger’s comments without pointing this out? One might almost think that they were not carefully considering what they were recommending.)

Third, the objection that tois met’ autou genomenois (i.e., “those who had been with him”) is not used elsewhere as a designation of the apostles is a rather desperate objection: until Mark 14:50, the disciples are with Jesus, so it would be absurd to think that Mark, before that point in his account, would refer to the disciples as “those who had been with him” while, scene by scene, they are there with Jesus. With a little thought, this objection melts down to nothing.

[Continued]


Yours in Christ,


James Snapp, Jr.

 

[James Snapp Jr]

Heterodoxus,

Here's the second part of my reply:

You posted, quoting Metzger:

(4) “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.... 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...., it is more likely that the section was excerpted from another document, dating perhaps from the first half of the second century [it's possible, then, that Irenaeus, writing in the second half of the second century, would have known about this document].”

Metzger’s hypothesis is partly right. I agree with Metzger that the lack of a transition between 16:8 and 16:9 is one of several pieces of internal evidence that indicates that Mark 16:9-20 was not composed to continue the account that otherwise stops at 16:8. However, I submit that the person who attached the material that we know as Mark 16:9-20 did so in the mid-60’s, during the text’s production-stage, before the Gospel of Mark began to be distributed for church-use. In that case, by any normal standard (i.e., the standard by which we routinely define the “original text” of a book of the Bible, such as Psalms, Proverbs, Jeremiah, John, Romans, First Corinthians, etc.) these verses are part of the original text, albeit not attached by the primary human author.

Notice, by the way, that Metzger had no secure idea about what date to give the document from which he theorized that the Longer Ending was excerpted: “perhaps” it may be from the first half of the 100’s but nothing precludes an earlier date.

I sense that we need to take a close-up look at the evidence from Book Three of Irenaeus’ Against Heresies. In this composition, Irenaeus lists the bishops of Rome up to his own day, and thus we can assign the composition-date to the time when Eleutherus was bishop of Rome (174-189). (Side-note: in 177, Irenaeus delivered a letter from persecuted Christians at Lyons to Eleutherius in Rome.) His statement in which Mark 16:19 is utilized is in Book Three, chapter 10 (in paragraph 5 or 6, depending on varying formats): “Also, towards the conclusion of his Gospel, Mark says: ‘So then, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God.’” The Latin text is, “In fine autem euangelii ait Marcus: Et quidem Dominus Iesus, postquam locutus est eis, receptus est in caelos, et sedet ad dexteram Dei.”

We can describe additional details about the evidence from Irenaeus if anyone feels the need to do so. But obviously Irenaeus was not quoting from some now-lost document. He says specifically that he was quoting from Mark’s Gospel.

(5) “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.”

If one is going to define the earliest ascertainable form of a text by extending one’s analysis into the production-stage, instead of accepting it in the form in which it began its transmission-stage, then one might just as well say that the text’s earliest ascertainable form is an inkwell, a pen, and an empty scroll. Textual critics' business involves the transmission-stage, not the production-stage. And on the basis of evidence, internal and external, that is better than any evidence to the contrary, the text of the Gospel of Mark that existed when the production-stage was over, and the transmission-stage began, included Mark 16:9-20.

(6) “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 in order to indicate that they are the work of an author other than the evangelist."

Indeed that is what the Committee did. That does not mean that that is what should be done. (Shall we also bracket any passage throughout the Bible -- Deuteronomy, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, John, Romans, First Corinthians, etc. -- that appears to a consensus of researchers not to have been written by the primary human author?)

(7) “In the earliest manuscripts ..., the Second Gospel breaks off suddenly at 16:8 .... What follows in verses 9-20 is an early attempt to provide a more or less suitable ending for what was soon recognized as a most unsatisfactory close .... Whether Mark was prevented by death from completing his Gospel, or whether the original [text] was accidentally mutilated, losing its final sheet (or sheets), no one can say."

I think we can say, when the evidence is carefully assessed: Mark unintentionally stopped writing at the end of 16:8, and a colleague of Mark completed the Gospel-account by attaching the contents of another Markan/Petrine composition, which briefly described Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances. I don’t think anyone at Rome would present the churches with a book that was based on Peter’s recollections about Jesus, without including any post-resurrection appearances. And I think that the commentators who believe that the Abrupt Ending was intentional are squinting its motive into existence. (Metzger, like Hort, considered it extremely and incredibly unlikely that Mark deliberately stopped writing at 16:8.)

(8) “How did Mark end his Gospel? Unfortunately, we do not know; the most that can be said is that four different endings are current .... Mark was not responsible for the composition of the last 12 verses of the generally current form of his Gospel [which] were attached to the Gospel before the Church recognized the fourfold Gospels as canonical,....”

This is basically a repetition of what Metzger said in his Textual Commentary, and adds nothing new, so I will ignore it unless you want to emphasize something in it.

(9) “That scribes were concerned to emphasize, to some degree, the ascension of Christ into heaven is demonstrated in other, less disputed, corruptions. Two familiar examples occur in the final chapter of the Gospel According to Mark. In Mark 16:4 the Old Latin manuscript Bobiensis (OL k) gives an actual description of Jesus' physical resurrection and exaltation to heaven, which are apparently understood as comprising a single event.”

Dr. Ehrman’s description here is of the only Latin witness that does not include Mark 16:9-20: Codex Bobbiensis. Its text of Mark 16 is extremely anomalous and corrupt: the names of the women in v. 1 are omitted; the interpolation that Dr. Ehrman describes (see Metzger's Textual Commentary on Mark 16:4 for some details about this) is added between v. 3 and v. 4; the part of v. 8 stating that the women said nothing to anyone is removed, and even in the Shorter Ending there are careless mistakes.

(10) [continuing the excerpt from Ehrman] “So too the longer ending of [Mark at 16:19], which by common consent forms no part of the original text,.... Here there can be no doubt concerning the dating ...: it is attested in the main by sources as early as Irenaeus. What we have in these traditions, then, are corruptions that emphasize the physical character of Jesus' ascent, useful material for proto-orthodox Christians bent on opposing docetic forms of Christology.”

Since Ehrman does not engage the evidence, but only mentions the consensus-view, and proceeds from there, I will ignore his statement unless you want to emphasize something in it. Among New Testament scholars in general there is a consensus that Mark 16:9-20 is an addition; I contend, however -- and I believe that I can demonstrate -- that this is largely a result of a combination of groupthink, shallow research (exemplified, for example, by commentators whose research on the subject consists of reading what Metzger wrote), massive amount of misinformation, and evidence-descriptions that have been spun in such a way that they give false impressions in favor of the Abrupt Ending. Those guilty of spinning evidence-descriptions include Bruce Metzger, Ben Witherington III (who repeats Metzger almost verbatim), William Lane, Craig Evans, Daniel Wallace (and the notes in the NET Bible), John MacArthur, and the ESV Study Bible. Let the reader beware.

Yours in Christ,

James Snapp, Jr.