This is my first response to Jonathan Sheffield’s opening statement. We are debating whether the “long ending” of the Gospel of Mark (verses 16:9-20) is authentic or interpolated. For essential reading and references on the subject see chapter sixteen of Hitler Homer Bible Christ.

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That the Long Ending Was Not Original to Mark

by Richard Carrier

The consensus today is that the Long Ending of Mark (or LE) is an interpolation (Hitler Homer, pp. 233-44). But consensus can be challenged. So on what evidence is this consensus based? Internal stylistic evidence and external manuscript and reportorial evidence.

Internally, there are three sets of evidence weighing against authenticity.

  • The transition from verse 8 to verses 9-12 is structurally illogical (Hitler Homer, pp. 244-49). It’s more improbable the original author would have composed this than an interpolator.
  • The LE is a creative summary of the other three Gospels (even including, just as suspiciously, Acts) that are now in the canon, yet they had not been written or combined into a common edition when Mark composed his Gospel. It is unlikely Mark could presciently know which three Gospels would be merged with his in that future edition, much less what would be said in them (Hitler Homer, pp. 259-68).
  • Most importantly, the grammar and vocabulary is so deviant from the rest of the Gospel of Mark as to alone render Markan authorship extremely improbable (Hitler Homer, pp. 249-59).

Each of these facts is substantially less likely on Markan authorship than on later authorship. They weigh even more in combination.

Externally, there are several sets of evidence weighing against authenticity.

  •  All the earliest manuscripts extant, including the earliest complete bibles to survive, lack the LE; it begins to appear in the extant manuscript record only in the 4th century, which means it can only have been a rare reading before that (Hitler Homer, pp. 269-72).
  • Even in translations, the earliest manuscripts (e.g. in Syriac and Latin) lack the LE; and later traditions that contain it show textual evidence of it not having originally been there (e.g. in Coptic, Ethiopic, Georgic, and Armenian); only the late 4th century Gothic likely originated from a text including the LE (Hitler Homer, pp. 272-80).
  • And most later manuscripts that do contain the LE [correction per Sheffield: only those that contain the SE], place it after another forged ending, the so-called “Short Ending” (or SE, designated verse 16:9a or 16:20b), a sequence highly improbable unless the LE was added after that verse was, and thus not original to the text (Hitler Homer, pp. 280-83).
  • We also have physical evidence, actual annotations, gaps, and marks in extant manuscripts indicating the LE was an additional reading, or where the LE was explicitly added by a later scribe (Hitler Homer, pp. 284-290).
  • We have the testimony of Christian authors. No second century author evinces any knowledge of the LE being in Mark, even though in several places they would likely have mentioned that fact (Hitler Homer, pp. 290-95). Only a medieval Latin translation of Irenaeus includes mention of it, and there is strong evidence that’s an interpolation of a marginal note not written by Irenaeus (Hitler Homer, pp. 295-300). Third century authors all fail to mention the LE even when they should have (e.g. Hippolytus, Origen, Clement, Vincentius), while fourth century authors (e.g. Eusebius and Jerome) outright tell us it was a rare reading (Hitler Homer, pp. 300-09). A later medieval author even admitted to adding it to manuscripts he found lacking it (Hitler Homer, pp. 306-07).

Altogether, the external evidence is also far less likely on the conclusion the LE was originally in the text than on the conclusion that it wasn’t (Hitler Homer, pp. 309-12).

Against this overwhelming mountain of evidence Jonathan Sheffield offers a naive argument from silence that betrays ignorance of the state of the ancient documentary record and relies on indefensible assumptions.

Sheffield begins by misconstruing my statement that the record of the state of ancient culture is better for the first century A.D. than the 9th century B.C., as a statement that we have meticulous records of the production and alteration of ancient books. This is false. We have almost no such records even for the production of the Aeneid that he misuses as an example. And we have absolutely no such records for anything in the New Testament. Sheffield’s argument thus relies on a falsehood: that we have such records. We don’t. And you can’t say what is not in a record you don’t have.

Sheffield cites Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Gaius, but none actually told us anything about the LE. Or almost any other textual variants, of which there were already hundreds. They cite no sources regarding who produced the Gospel of Mark, only late, unsourced, and implausible legends. In fact they never even mention having any sources at all for anything that happened in the first century of Christianity. Much less regarding the production and copying of the Gospels.

Sheffield cites Eusebius and Jerome, but both said the LE was a rare reading not found in the best manuscripts. They testify against him.

Sheffield asks how we can explain the origin and dissemination of the LE, but the same can be said of its deletion. Both would have generated a record of outrage, if altering the text always did that. It clearly didn’t. So this silence is equally likely on both theories. It therefore argues for neither. Even the SE came to be widely disseminated without mention or protest.

Sheffield then garbles the “Aristonian theory” of the LE. The actual argument is quite strong (cf. Hitler Homer, pp. 286-90). But we don’t argue Ariston added the LE; rather, that it came from his lost Biblical commentary on Mark, and someone else transposed it to their copy of the Gospel. Subsequent church communities then started regarding it as a lost original reading and added it (the same way the SE came to be widely disseminated, again without any notice or protest in the record). Only a few had done so by the time Eusebius noticed, and he regarded it as an interpolation. It thus only became widely disseminated after Eusebius, indeed after even Jerome. It wasn’t a common reading until after the 4th century. How then did it spread to all Bibles in the Middle Ages, without record or protest? Sheffield cannot explain that even if the LE were authentic. As it still requires an incredible distribution of alteration across hundreds of Bibles spanning three continents.

Sheffield says that’s impossible because Eusebius mentions Ariston. But Eusebius doesn’t say he read any Gospel commentary by Ariston. So he couldn’t have known he originated the LE. Whereas a medieval Armenian scholar had a text of Ariston’s Commentary to identify the passage by.

I must ask Sheffield: What are “Apostolic” churches, and what manuscripts do we have from them to judge by? What records do we have from any of those churches telling us what text of Mark they used prior to that? What records do we have regarding when they acquired any copy of Mark? What records do we have showing any of those churches actually had an unbroken chain of custody of any text at all? The answer to these questions is not going to go well for him.

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Follow up here for Sheffield’s reply.


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