Anglican scholar Jonathan Sheffield and I 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. This is our third entry. If you are jumping in at the middle, you can catch up with Sheffield’s opening statement and my first reply.

That the Long Ending Was Original to Mark (II)

Jonathan Sheffield

In order to understand the scholarly consensus against the genuineness of Mark 16:9-20, which Dr. Carrier asserts is the result of the culmination of evidence (Hitler Homer, p. 233, and First Reply), I would like to draw attention to the historical development of this school of thought on which Dr. Carrier and Modern scholarship relies so heavily to support their hypothesis on the LE.

Dr. Carrier, Burgon identifies “Griesbach as the first to insist that the LE was spurious” (in Unholy Hands on the Bible, vol. 1, p. C-4), demonstrating this view of the LE to be of quite a recent development. While the footnote of Eusebius was well known to scholars up through the late middle ages, Burgon states “it is only since the appearance of Griesbach’s second edition [1796 – 1806] that critics of the New Testament began to rule against the genuineness of these verses” (ibid.) …denoting that “previous critical editions of the New Testament were free from this reproach” (ibid.); citing the editions of Mill in 1707, Bengel’s in 1734, Wetstein in 1751, Alter in 1786, Birch in 1788 and Matthaei in 1788.

The development of this theory, Dr. Carrier, begins to gain support when Hort in 1881 introduces a theory explaining the existence of readings like the LE; a theory that would also, in turn, nullify the commonly received texts of the Apostolic Churches’ testimony, by relegating thousands of independent witnesses down to essentially one (see Pickering’s The Identity of the New Testament Text II, 3rd ed., 2003, p. 14). Accordingly, in the face of the extant manuscript testimony, Hort stated “the natural presumption would be that a majority of extant documents is more likely to represent a majority of ancestral documents at each stage of transmission than vice versa” (see Hort’s Introduction to The New Testament in the Original Greek, 1882, p. 45).

However, Dr. Carrier, Birdsall’s published study in 1956 (“The Text of the Gospels in Photius,” Journal of Theological Studies 7, p. 43) has had major implications for this school of thought affirming:

Since the publication of Hort’s introduction in 1881 it has been assumed in most quarters that the text was uniform from the time of Chrysostom and that this uniform text, called here Byzantine, is to be found in his quotations…However, more recent investigation has questioned both the uniformity of the Byzantine Text and its occurrence in Chrysostom’s citations.

Given Karl Popper’s Maxim “for a theory to be scientific it must be falsifiable”, it appears from Birdsall’s review of the studies, including his own, that Hort’s premise has been falsified. How then can proponents of this school of thought continue to maintain Hort’s conclusion when its premises have been falsified? I don’t think you want to go after Karl Popper with a poker.

Therefore, I conclude that the critical text theory is just another postmodern narrative, without facts to back it up.

Subsequently, this also means that the commonly received texts of the Apostolic Churches (i.e. Peshitta, Vulgate, and Greek Text) are back in contention, and are no longer considered one witness, but thousands of independent witnesses.

Having vindicated our textual witnesses, we turn our attention to the external evidence, which Dr. Carrier asserts further confirms his hypothesis on the LE (Hitler Homer, p. 269). Yet the following empirical data will provide evidence to the contrary. Now “the passage in question is contained in every extant Greek manuscript (about 1800) except 3 (i.e. Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, minuscule 304) … To be more precise, every Syriac MS (about 1000) except 1 (the Sinaitic circa 400) …and every Latin MS (8000?) except one (Bobiensis circa 400) bears witness to the LE”  (Pickering, The Identity of the New Testament Text II, 3rd ed. [2003], p. 163-64).

Dr. Carrier, by way of hyperbole in his Reply, attempts to counter this testimony when he states “most later manuscripts that do contain the LE, place it after another forged ending, the so-called Short Ending…a sequence highly improbable unless the LE was added after that verse was, and thus not original to the text.”

“Most Manuscripts”, Dr. Carrier?

“Exactly six Greek manuscripts (L, Psi, 083, 099, 579, and 274) have the Shorter Ending; minuscule 274 has it next to 16:9 in the margin” (James Snapp, Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20, 2016, p. 149).

Considering the overwhelming manuscript testimony favoring the LE, Dr. Carrier does appeal to his, so called, best and earliest Greek texts (i.e. Sinaiticus, Vaticanus; Hitler Homer, p. 270) in an attempt to discredit the received texts of the Apostolic Churches as secondary in origin. Yet, the provenance of these texts is unknown. Dr. Carrier cannot establish who authored these texts, or who they belonged to; therefore, the contents within its pages are hearsay.

Tertullian states that the official writings of the apostles are found in the churches known to the apostles (e.g. Peter, Paul, John), listing Corinth, Philippi, Thessalonia, Ephesus and Rome (Tertullian, Prescription against Heresies 36). This testimony is also confirmed by Irenaeus at Gaul in Circa 180 (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3). Therefore, we can provide an objective framework to examine the textual witnesses in these historic churches closest to the authors going back to the 1st century to investigate the authenticity of the LE.

Incidentally in the fourth century, we can establish the provenance of two official texts read publicly at churches in Antioch and Rome, which were known to Peter. Burgon cites Chrysostom as a witness to the LE in his homily from Antioch (in Unholy Hands on the Bible, vol. 1, p. C-16), which is the oldest surviving Greek church going back to Peter.

In the west, we have Jerome acting as secretary to the pope, and trained in Greek by Gregory Nazianzen, the patriarch of Constantinople; Jerome stated in his prologue to the gospels that his Latin translation was “revised in comparison with only old Greek manuscripts” (at least 4th century; see Jerome’s Prologue to the Gospels). Jerome, in his letter to Marcella, stated that “the object of his revision has been to restore them (the Latin) to the form of the Greek original” (Letter to Marcella 1). Jerome, who was aware of Eusebius’s footnote, ruled in favor of the LE by including it in the Vulgate.

To provide further evidence in support of the LE, Augustine, who wrote to Jerome complaining about the riot that erupted in a congregation in North Africa over one word changed in Jerome’s translation of Job [correction: Jonah], actually vetted Jerome on his gospel translation stating:

We are in no small measure thankful to God for the work in which you have translated the Gospels from the original Greek, because in almost every passage we have found nothing to object to, when we compared it with the Greek scriptures.

(Excerpted from the Letters of Augustine (No. 28, 71, 82) and the Letters of Jerome (No. 112) in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, translated into English under the supervision of Henry Wace and Philip Schaff, and published by Parker in Oxford and New York between 1890-1900. This exchange is available here.)

In conclusion, the scholarly consensus against the LE is a late 18th century development, and while the central premises of their theory have been falsified, the scholarship which Dr. Carrier relies on, continues to maintain their conclusions. Dr. Carrier’s so called best and earliest texts that are deficient the LE, cannot establish a legal chain of custody to the Apostolic Churches, yet Jerome’s Vulgate and the text at Antioch that witness to the LE can.

Due to time constraints, I will be following up on Dr. Carriers questions on the Apostolic Polity, but I have referenced in my opening the authoritative works.

-:-

See my Reply.


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