Anglican scholar Jonathan Sheffield and I are debating whether the “long ending” of the Gospel of Mark (or “LE,” 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 ninth entry. If you are jumping in at the middle, you can catch up with: Sheffield’s opening statement; my first reply; Sheffield’s first response; my second reply; Sheffield’s second response; my third reply; Sheffield’s third response; and my fourth reply.
That the Long Ending Was Original to Mark (V)
Jonathan Sheffield
The objective for this rebuttal is to examine several statements made by Dr. Carrier from his latest post.
Let’s begin with the following statement from Dr. Carrier: “Sheffield illogically thinks we have to know how the LE arose to know it arose.”
Here, I would like to thank Dr. Carrier for being honest enough to admit that he doesn’t know how it was done and cannot historically document if it ever did happen. Remember, since the development of this school of thought in the late 18th century, scholars like Griesbach (in Unholy Hands on the Bible, vol. 1, p. C-4), Hort (see Pickering’s The Identity of the New Testament Text II, 3rd ed., 2003, p. 14), Burkitt (Ibid.), and others offered a number of theories to explain the creation of traditional readings like the LE and PA common to the great mass of cursive and late uncial manuscripts of the New Testament. However, J.N. Birdsall concluded, after referring to his own work, Hort’s premise, and the investigations of Lake, Lagrange, Colwell, and Streeter that “It is evident that ALL PRESUPPOSITIONS concerning the Byzantine text—or texts…, must be doubted and investigated de novo” (“The Text of the Gospels in Photius,” Journal of Theological Studies 7 [1956], p. 43).
Kurt and Barbara Aland came to the same conclusion in 1995 affirming “no adequate history has yet been written of the Byzantine text” (in The Text of the New Testament, 2nd ed., 1995, p. 142). Therefore, all these theories amount to mere speculation, not an actual documented historical event. While Dr. Carrier states “that there are many possible ways the LE could have arisen,” we don’t need hypotheticals, but actual historical documentation that thousands of biblical texts in Greek, Latin, and Aramaic were actually interpolated, and not speculation based on approximately five extant manuscripts of unknown provenance and one subjective interpretation of Eusebius comments.
Next, let us explore the validity of Dr. Carrier’s subsequent statement pertaining to documentation of changes to biblical texts:
Sheffield illogically thinks we have detailed documentation of every church’s every change to the text of their Bibles in every decade of antiquity since the dawn of Christianity. We don’t. We have zero documentation.
Zero documentation Dr. Carrier?
While I have made no such claim that we can historically document every change, we can certainly document many changes to biblical texts throughout church history. The following empirical data will establish two points: first, both minor and major changes to biblical texts, and second, the Apostolic Churches were well aware of these changes to biblical texts and responded accordingly.
- Tertullian, in his treatise On Baptism (section 17), documents a presbyter from Asia who composed a forged writing under the name of Paul. The presbyter was convicted, and after his confession removed from his office.
- Caius, a presbyter at Rome, identifies four individuals, Asclepiades, Theodotus, Hermophilus, and Apollonius, as altering the text of scripture (see Eusebius’ Eccl. Hist., v. 28.).
- In the case of Marcion, Irenaeus documents in Book 1 Against Heresies (section 27) that Marcion removed major passages in Luke and ten letters from Paul.
- Irenaeus documents in Book 1 Against Heresies (section 20) the spurious and apocryphal writings of the followers of Marcion which were forged, and the production of a story of Jesus as a child.
- Irenaeus documents in Book 5 Against Heresies (section 30) a variant reading in John’s Apocalypse, the number “616” that was probably the result of faulty copyists and confirms the received reading of “666” as the official wording of the text.
- Augustine documents the change of one word in Jonah from Jerome’s Vulgate was noticed by the Bishop reading from the text, and the congregation who denounced the translation as false (Letters of Augustine, Nos. 28, 71, 82; and the Letters of Jerome, No. 112, in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church).
- We have documentation from Nikon in the tenth century accusing the Armenians of casting out the Pericope Adulterae from their scriptural texts (see S.S. Patrum qui temporibus Apostolicis by J. B. Cotelerius, 1698 Antwerp ed., vol. i, p. 235), and Augustine in the 4th Century also documents the removal of the Pericope Adulterae from scriptural texts of his day (see Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. xxxxi, p.387), yet Dr. Carrier concludes the PA was also interpolated (Hitler Homer, p. 293).
Furthermore, the empirical documentation above clearly establishes how vigilant the Apostolic churches were to changes in the biblical texts, which is a testament to the Apostolic Polity; yet history is unaware of unknown scribes or church communities as Dr. Carrier has suggested (in his previous responses), interpolating the LE into thousands of Greek, Latin, and Aramaic texts.
Remember, the Churches did report copies of Mark that didn’t have the LE; and while Dr. Carrier dogmatically asserts Eusebius (Hitler Homer, p. 305) and Jerome (Ibid., p. 308) as champions for his cause, scholars like Burgon (in Unholy Hands on the Bible, vol. 1, p. C-25) and Pickering (see Pickering’s The Identity of the New Testament Text II, 3rd ed., 2003, pg. 165-166) come to the opposite conclusion reading the same scholia, as did almost all textual editors prior to Griesbach, who ruled in favor of these verses (in Unholy Hands on the Bible, vol. 1, p. C-24).
To conclude my rebuttal, I will deal with the following statement from Dr. Carrier:
I’ve also shown by abundant external evidence that the evolution of the ending of Mark went from no evidence for one to two hundred years of the LE even existing (no patristic authors are aware of it; no known manuscripts contain it), followed by a period of one to two hundred more years of the LE existing only as an unusual or rare reading.
To uphold that assertion, Dr. Carrier has to dismiss all the allusions to the LE in the works of Papias, Justin, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Vincentius (via Cyprian), the Apostolical Constitutions, and the Gospel of Nicodemus (Hitler Homer, p. 291-305). For Irenaeus and Tatian’s Diatessaron, Dr. Carrier has to assert that the extant copies have been interpolated (Ibid., pp. 293-300).
Dr. Carrier has not even given an honorable mention to the greatest anti-Christian scholar of the Ancient World, Porphyry of Tyre, who probably made fun of the LE (see Porphyry, Against the Christians, 2004 ed. by Harnack; cf. Macarius, Apocriticus III:16). I find it interesting that Porphyry of Tyre in the third century was making fun of an obscure reading not known to the Apostolic Churches.
I suggest that the great pastor from Edinburgh, Rev. Bayes, would conclude that the probability of some, but not all, of the allusions being references to the LE would be a probability of almost 1.0.
I can understand because of Dr. Carrier’s confirmation bias that when he is confronted by the overwhelming documentation of the Apostolic Churches, he uses his very real skills as an historian to dismiss it, but the empirical evidence is still there.
In order to explain how it was done, against the view that the LE was always there, you need to reject actual documentation (in Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3; Tertullian of Carthage, Against Marcion 4; Eusebius of Caesarea, History of the Church; and the Anglican Divine Richard Hooker). The writings of Tertullian, Irenaeus and Eusebius document how the Apostolic Churches were set up and organized to secure and transfer the text of the New Testament down through the ages. Each Apostolic Church has independent lists of bishops that can be traced back to an apostle. So, when we examine the texts that have come down in real historic Apostolic Churches, we find 1,800 in Greek, 8,000 in Latin, 1,000 in Syriac, and all extent lectionaries, witnessing to the LE (see Pickering’s The Identity of the New Testament Text II, 3rd ed., 2003, pg. 163-164). In any normal court of law, statements from independent witnesses that agree, and haven’t colluded on their testimony, would be considered conclusive testimony; and the Apostolic Churches have thousands of witnesses.
The weight of Dr. Carrier’s arguments come down to a number of theories that cannot be historically documented as ever happening in reality, which theories are based on several extant manuscripts of unknown provenance (Hitler Homer, pg. 269-285), and his interpretation to explain away all allusions to the LE in the second and third century.
-:-
My reply is here. Only one more exchange between us after that will conclude the debate.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but I don’t see that this really addresses the point. Sheffield starts off by doubling (or tripling, I’ve lost count) down on the “logic” that he can dismiss any argument that doesn’t give precise location/date/authorship to the creation of the LE. That doesn’t make sense.
He picks apart a perhaps colloquially worded claim by Carrier, defeating one word in the claim by technicality. However, he then generalizes this to imply a far greater claim (scripture was studiously kept from changing). Like above, even if his initial rebuttal of claims stands, his conclusion doesn’t follow.
Sheffield claims “allusions” to LE in earlier writings, but can’t seem to produce them. He later even claims direct documentation of the LE. But Carrier already addressed this (seemingly, I don’t have the historical background of the debaters), and noted none of them ACTUALLY reference the LE.
Sheffield once again makes NO attempt to address the internal criticism of the text, that alone would imply it was a later interpolation.
Further, and this might be nitpicking, but I have significant concern about Sheffield’s sources. He several times references Burgon (or his work), a man that died before 1900. Is that supposed to represent the best scholarship on the subject today? He also references Pickering, a man who has dogmatically (and irrationally) defended biblical inerrancy (textually). If you’re going to reference someone who misrepresents scholarship, it doesn’t bolster a scholarly case for your position.
IMO, all your observations and concerns here are spot on.
Keith, I fully agree. This debate got tiresome 2 episodes ago, entirely due to the ongoing use of logical fallacies by mr. Sheffield. At first I gave him the benefit of the doubt of being an honest scholar in search of the truth. It turns out he’s just another apologist who uses twisted reasoning to maintain his position, defensible only by his faith. A true scholar, made aware of a phallacy, would discard his argument without second thougths and come up with a completely new one – or lose the debate. Mr. Sheffield CANNOT come up with a new one, because the fallacious argument is the only one he’s got, and uses it time after time. Like I said, tiresome.
Thank you for your comments Keith.
Regarding your first point. Remember, there had to be an author to create the passage, and a place where it was done. Then the normal way in the Apostolic Churches would be to send out a bishop’s letter (e.g. Paul’s letters) or a council (e.g. Nicaea).
Any one text can be changed as was the case in Marcion’s edition, but the problem is how do you get these changes into almost all the independent Greek, Latin and Aramaic Churches without anyone noticing.
We are also aware of many variant readings; but these readings are not found throughout the Greek, Latin and Aramaic Textual traditions. At least Hort provided a real mechanism by suggesting a Lucan Recession at Antioch; The problem with Hort’s theory is we are well aware of Lucan’s edition of the Septuagint, which Jerome attacked, but there is no historical documentation to support that Lucan ever did an edition of the New Testament.
My point to Dr. Carrier and this school of thought, is they have to document how it was done; This is done in Archeology all the time; (e.g. Dome of Florence).
Regarding your second point, I provided empirical data to document that the fathers were well aware of attempts to alter biblical texts; My point was to demonstrate how well documented these changes were;
Remember, these texts had to be read before the congregations, which is why I documented that both the Bishop and the congregation at North Africa noticed the changed of one word in Jerome’s translation of Jonah and denounced the translation as false. Yet, the congregations didn’t notice 12 new verses being read from Mark. The LE is found in all extent lectionaries (the public readings of the church) and two festivals.
If you research Augustine’s dispute with the Donatists, you’ll understand that the Donatists wouldn’t recognize bishops or their grandchildren that handed over biblical texts to the Romans During the Diocletian persecution.
The Donatists challenged Augustine over the reading “without cause”, yet no documented challenge to Augustine quotes of the LE found in his writings.
Remember, the Allusions can go either way; but the probability that none of them refer to the LE is almost 0.0.
Bruce Metzger reviewed the same evidence as Dr. Carrier on Irenaeus and Tatian’s Harmony, however Metzger concludes them to be witnesses to the LE whereas Dr. Carrier says the LE was interpolated into their writings.
Regarding the internal criticism, different scholars like Dr. Carrier and Burgon comes to opposite conclusions, which shows the subjectivity, not the decisiveness of the evidence. In addition, we cannot read the minds of ancient authors.
Regarding my choice of Burgon, as an Anglican, he understood how the churches were organized, which is why I consider him the best. He also had a chair at Oxford after Newman converted to Roman Catholicism.
Dr. Pickering is a modern scholar who comes to similar conclusions. There were a number of other scholars I could have quoted that comes to similar conclusions such as Theodore Letis, Miller, Hills, Hoskier, and Scrivener.
Please let me know if you have any further questions?
Jonathan A. Sheffield
I’ll reiterate that it is absurd to think we must have a documentation of every change to every manuscript in every church. We have almost no such records, and none ancient. Yet thousands of variants exist, even in texts owned by so-called Apostolic churches. So the theory that we would have documentation of such changes, is vastly refuted. It’s simply delusional. And contrary to all sound understanding of how history works.
It’s also again inaccurate to say the same person who wrote the LE had to add it. I’ve said repeatedly that’s not necessarily true. It may have been composed elsewhere (e.g. a commentary on the Gospels; a dialogue; an apocryphal Gospel; etc.), and someone else later added it to the end of Mark, possibly even only intending that it be a supplementary note. Or possibly intending to pass it off as authentic. Or possibly even believing it was supposed to be there. Any of these is possible. None can be ruled out on extant evidence. Since we have no ancient records of who the scribes were who were copying these texts, when they made copies, how they made them, how they corrected them, or anything the like, nothing can be said. It is contrary to all sound historical methodology to base conclusions on the contents of documents we don’t have and know nothing of the contents of.
Since we know for a fact the LE was a rare reading even as late as the 4th century, confirmed by the two most informed people we know of that century (Eusebius and Jerome), it cannot possibly have been in even a few, much less all the Apostolic Churches as Sheffield claims. And no one in that century says it was. Not even Eusebius or Jerome; nor anyone else Sheffield cites from the later 4th century. It is therefore necessarily the case that it had to later have been added to those Church texts. This is not speculation. This is fact. A fact Sheffield cannot explain.
Sheffield wants to know how they did it. But it would be the same way all other of the thousands of variants entered “Apostolic church” texts, particularly in foreign languages. All the earliest translations, even in Latin, lack the LE. The LE starts to appear in those languages only as a later addition (beginning with Jerome). And when they do start to appear, even in the Greek, always it is with indications of it having been added (with markings or even explicit statements by the scribes doing it). Notably, even when we have a scribe explicitly telling us he added the LE to a manuscript, we have no records of anyone protesting. No riots. No hand wringing. No inquisitions. Nor do they tell us any reason to have added the LE other than (if they give any reason at all) that they knew some manuscripts contained it.
So we know for a fact that scribes were adding the LE to manuscripts, without protest or opposition. Clearly they were authorized to do so and no one raised any protest. Why? Is the reason they give Sheffield’s? That they checked “Apostolic Church” texts and confirmed they all had it? No. They never once ever mention any “Apostolic Church” text. Nor even say the reading was common. They simply saw it was in some manuscripts, and made their own personal judgment call to include it—evidently backed by church authorities (as none objected), who were possibly impressed by Jerome’s decision to include it, or for who knows what other reason; they do not tell us, so we cannot claim to know. They clearly just believed (or claimed) that it was a lost ending they should restore. And so it was. There is no evidence whatever against this being what happened. And it clearly is what happened hundreds of other times, with countless other variants.
I should also note that we have no evidence the LE was “being read” in any churches, much less “apostolic” ones, before the Middle Ages. Eusebius didn’t include it in his canon lists, so he clearly knew of no church that was reading it. Jerome says the reading is extremely rare and not in what he deemed the best manuscripts; so he clearly didn’t know of any church that was reading it to its congregation either. And there are no ancient lectionaries.
We must assume that churches that did read Mark to their congregations would have started reading the new ending of Mark at some point in the Middle Ages (for example, those churches with manuscripts in which scribes admit to adding the LE must have). But what people thought of that, or what the leadership told them, we don’t know. Because all records of what went on regarding this are lost.
Most probably, it was celebrated and welcomed everywhere as a lost ending restored, particularly as the church leadership must have backed it as such. Elsewise it can’t have disseminated so widely, as we know it did: starting rare, then being routinely added only with indications it was new, and only then spreading to hundreds of locations—as the physical evidence conclusively proves happened.
On what basis did they conclude it was a “lost” ending? We aren’t told. And have no indication the basis was anything we’d deem reliable. “I saw it in a manuscript this other church has, and we can’t be outdone by them, so we should restore it in ours as well” is as likely a motivation as any. It can’t be ruled out. Nor can any other.
Indeed, they likely relied on the same irrational fallacious reasoning as Sheffield: “that church has it; we think that church is really old; therefore that church must always have had it; therefore that reading is really old.” That’s completely illogical. A total non sequitur. But see how obsessively Sheffield follows this illogical line of reasoning even after being shown repeatedly why it is illogical? If he can make this mistake, we can assume so did countless others just as fanatical in times past.
So we really don’t need any other explanation of how the LE became popular. And yet no doubt there are plenty other explanations we can’t rule out either. Because no documentation exists to tell us. Nor would any likely exist; because none exists for any other variant (or virtually none; and absolutely none before the Middle Ages). No argument can proceed from what was said in documents we don’t have.
Not sure if a reply will be forthcoming for this, but, as we already are aware the gospels of Matthew and Luke used the Gospel of Mark extensively in many cases verbatim, if the LE of Mark was original, do we see any signs of any verbatim copying of the LE in Matthew and Luke.
Cheers.
No. But Sheffield likely assumes Matthaean priority and Lukan originality (as Luke doesn’t follow Matthew in this section either). Which would eliminate the value of that evidence. But yes, if you conclude Mark was used as a source by Matthew and Luke, the absence of the LE in those later Gospels is evidence of its presence in Mark when they composed. One could try to argue that hints of it exist in them, insofar as the LE cribs from them, but that debate (if anyone were to pursue it) ends in a conclusion for the reverse (the LE is more likely using them, not the other way around). See my discussion in Hitler Homer, pp. 259-69 (particularly section 4.3.2, “Testing the Reverse Thesis,” pp. 264-66, where I discuss why the case for the later Gospels’ use of the LE is far weaker than the case for the LE’s use of those later Gospels).
Thank you for your comments Leigh,
The two-source hypothesis was only first articulated in 1838 by Christian Hermann Weisse. There is no documentation from the ancient world that supports that assertion, especially their so-called Q document.
Here is what a bishop from an Apostolic Church wrote –
“1. We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.(2) For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed “perfect knowledge,” as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles. For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge: they departed to the ends of the earth, preaching the glad tidings of the good things [sent] from God to us, and proclaiming the peace of heaven to men, who indeed do all equally and individually possess the Gospel of God. Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews(3) in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.” (See Irenaeus Against Heresies Book 3)
Here is what Tertullian wrote from North Africa
“The same authority of the apostolic churches will afford evidence to the other Gospels also, which we possess equally through their means, and according to their usage — I mean the Gospels of John and Matthew — while that which Mark published may be affirmed to be Peter’s whose interpreter Mark was. For even Luke’s form of the Gospel men usually ascribe to Paul.” (Tertullian Against Marcion Book 4 Chapter 5).
Eusebius, Papias and Clement of Alexandria also said the source for Mark’s gospel was Peters Sermons.
Christian Weisse theory doesn’t reconcile with the empirical data from the ancient world.
Please let me know if you have any further questions?
Thanks,
Jonathan A. Sheffield
Needless to say, as all modern professional literature attests and explains: the “Mark was Peter’s secretary” theory is founded on no credible sources and wholly implausible (Mark is an anti-Petrine Gospel, written a lifetime later, in a foreign language, highly literarily crafted, and at no point identifying Peter as its source or even claiming to have sources, and shows a poor grasp of Palestinian customs and geography).
That a century after Mark was written this legend of it existed, is not evidence that legend is true; none of the authors Sheffield cites identify any credible source for the claim, nor any evidence vindicating it; and indeed the only known source for it is Papias, writing mid-second century, whose entire discussion of the Gospels is grossly ill informed and unsourced, based solely on unverified rumor even by his own admission, using methods even Eusebius condemned as unreliable (see “Papias” in the index of On the Historicity of Jesus).
But this is all moot anyway. Even if Mark recorded what Peter personally told him to (a really strange and gullible thing for a modern scholar to believe), that still does not tell us Mark wrote the LE. Or had ever even heard of it. Tertullian hadn’t. Nor had Clement. Nor had Irenaeus (but for an obvious medieval interpolation in a late Latin edition of his works). Even Papias doesn’t mention it.
In his closing remarks I would like for Sheffield to directly respond to this point that Dr. Carrier made in his first response:
“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.”
Thank you for your reply OU812INVU, hopefully I can provide some insight for your questions.
Let’s being with this inquiry “Sheffield asks how we can explain the origin and dissemination of the LE, but the same can be said of its deletion.”
First, there is a big difference here; Remember, according to Dr. Carrier’s hypothesis, none of the original publications of Mark commonly received by the Apostolic Churches had the long ending; So, if it was added, it had to be added to thousands of texts in Greek, Latin, and Aramaic across a wide geographic area, whose texts were guarded under the watchful eyes of the bishops.
Plus, you need to consider, the churches were underground until the Edict of Milan in 313, so how do you find the churches to add the passage to the text.
If you recollect, the Aramaic Churches didn’t accept Revelation, Jude, 2 & 3 John, 2 Peter and the PA, but Dr. Carrier is going to have us believe they had no problem accepting the LE.
Dr. Carrier even admits that “One very late manuscript even omits the entire reference to serpents” This, Dr. Carrier coughs up to doctrinal meddling, but he doesn’t take into consideration that there was doctrinal meddling as well as witnessed by Maricon’s text in the second century. (i.e. Marcion’s removal of Jewish readings from Luke and 10 letters of Paul).
In this instance, Marcion was doing this outside the Apostolic churches, so there wasn’t much the Bishops could do to stop this type of activity from happening except write against it as Irenaeus and Tertullian did.
Outside the Apostolic Churches, you had the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Truth, but how many of those texts made it into the commonly received texts of the Greek, Latin and Aramaic Apostolic Churches. Most have only been found in Coptic (see Nag Hammandi).
We can explain why biblical passages were removed.
Take for example “Father Forgive them” that is also witnessed in the majority of Greek, Latin and Aramaic texts (Vulgate, Peshitta, Greek Text). Dr. Ehrman explains in the segment here: That it was removed due to the Anti-Semitism of the period. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8etUXSwwQ_w&feature=youtu.be
The passage “Father forgive Them” was originally in Sinaiticus, and definitely removed by the first corrector, and then added back in by the second corrector (Third Hand).
Augustine on the PA speaks specifically on the removal of the PA “Certain persons of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest their wives should be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord’s act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as if he who had said, Sin no more, had granted permission to sin” While Augustine did offer a reason why the PA was removed (a learned opinion as to why), he specifically stated that it was removed from Manuscripts.
So, we are well aware of the removal of passages from biblical texts; any one text can be changed, but adding a passage throughout the commonly received texts, in Greek, Latin and Aramaic is a little more difficult.
While the focus of this debate has been the LE, the bigger issue is we aren’t just discussing this one passage (LE) – but this theory applies to the LE, PA, the Doxology, and a hundred or so other traditional readings commonly received in the Greek, Latin and Aramaic textual traditions.
So, all these traditional readings had to be interpolated according to this school of thought Dr. Carrier relies on – yet Dr. Carrier feels he doesn’t have to explain any of it.
We can explain the removal of passages from biblical texts, even the LE. Dr. Carrier pointed out a late manuscript that removed the entire reference to snakes (hmmm, that’s probably the reason) –
second, read how Porphyry of Tyre is making fun of the LE:
“Again, consider in detail that other passage, where He says, “Such signs shall follow them that believe: they shall lay hands upon sick folk, and they shall recover, and if they drink any deadly drug, it shall in no wise hurt them.” So the right thing would be for those selected for the priesthood, and particularly those who lay claim to the episcopate or presidency, to make use of this form of test. The deadly drug should be set before them in order that the man who received no harm from the drinking of it might be given precedence of the rest. And if they are not bold enough to accept this sort of test, they ought to confess that they do not believe in the things Jesus said. For if it is a peculiarity of the faith to overcome the evil of a poison and to remove the pain of a sick man, the believer who does not do these things either has not become a genuine |86 believer, or else, though his belief is genuine, the thing that he believes in is not potent but feeble.”
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/porphyry_against_christians_02_fragments.htm
Jerome documents that Prophyry attacked the writings of the Evangelists, and he was aware of Mark’s Gospel “
“This passage that impious man Porphyry, who wrote against us and vomited out his madness in many books, discusses in his 14th book and says: ‘The evangelists were such unskilled men, not only in worldly matters, but also in the divine scriptures, that they attributed the testimony, which had been written elsewhere, to the wrong prophet.’ This he jeers at.
Jerome, Commentary on Matthew (on 3:3):
Porphyry highlights this passage at the start of the evangelist Mark, in which is written, ‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ… Make his paths straight.
This testimony demonstrates that Porphyry was very familiar with the apostolic churches’ scriptures and the appointment of bishops; it’s also an obvious reference to the LE from a pagan writer of the third century, Porphyry basically quotes verses 16 and 17 from Mark and says Jesus said these things. It’s very hard to believe that Porphyry was making fun of an obscure reading that was rare to the churches’ texts.
However, Porphyry testimony explains why it would have been removed –
Please let me know if you have any additional questions. Thanks
Jonathan A. Sheffield
Sheffield had his chance in the formal debate. So I’ll be briefer on each point hereon out.
Everything he just said is already refuted in my chapter on this topic in Hitler Homer Bible Christ.
The LE was not “added to thousands of texts.”
The LE was added to many root texts (we don’t know how many; it could be a few dozen per century perhaps, over the course of a thousand years), of which those thousands we now have are copies, or copies of copies, or copies of copies of copies of copies of copies. Etc. The earlier we get in the chain of custody of texts, the more we see the LE was marked as an addition. In fact all the earliest manuscripts with the LE are so marked. Only copies of those earlier manuscripts, or copies of copies of those, etc., removed those marks or indications. In other words, almost all of those “thousands” of manuscripts did not have the LE added; they simply copied from a manuscript the LE was already in.
Churches were not “underground until the Edict of Milan.”
The persecution that Sheffield is alluding to was brief and in the late third century. Before that they were entirely open. In fact, that persecution provides a really good bottleneck point for the destruction of texts and loss of congregations and unbroken control of church assets; it may not be a coincidence that the LE only starts appearing in texts at all after that persecution event. And is right after it reported to be extremely rare and admitted to not be in the best manuscripts. Just do the math on that.
The “Aramaic churches” Sheffield means are medieval curators of Syriac editions.
But the evidence shows the earliest Syriac translation lacked the LE. Only medieval Syriac added it, with again indications of it being added. Only after that do those indications get purged as copies were made. There are tons of variant readings in the Syriac editions; so Sheffield cannot claim the Syriac tradition was so pure they never accepted weird variants in them. There is also no analogy to whole books. The question with the LE is how they decided which editions of one book they accepted, Mark, were the more original. They had to decide one way or the other. There is no evidence they based that decision on anything we’d consider reliable. Much less on having checked “Apostolic church” editions. Which by then probably were already siding with and thus endorsing the LE as a recovered lost ending anyway.
I should also make sure it is clear: if Sheffield is trying to imply Syriac Bibles are “Palestinian” Bibles, that’s a non sequitur. Aramaic was spoken and used, and Aramaic Bibles produced and emended, across the entirety of the Middle East, up to and including Syria, Mesopotamia, and what is now Turkey. Not a single Syriac manuscript we have can be traced to Palestine before the Middle Ages, much less to an “Apostolic Church” there (and “Palestine,” being a whole province, does not equal “Apostolic”).
As usual Sheffield piles on more non sequiturs.
He notes later scribes continued meddling with the LE (some removed lines they didn’t like; some added whole paragraphs!). That does not help his case. Worse, the fact that a single distasteful line could be removed refutes Sheffield’s illogical claim that the whole LE was removed because of a single distasteful line. No one would do that. It’s illogical.
Marcion never employed Mark, nor did the Marcionite debate ever reference the LE in any way, so all mentions of Marcion are irrelevant to this debate. Indeed, as the evidence shows the LE was constructed from all the four Gospels together that were selected for the anti-Marcionite canon, the LE clearly post-dates the entire Marcionite controversy. None of the anti-Marcionites of the time show any knowledge of the LE, even when they should (e.g. Tertullian, and yes, even Irenaeus).
Sheffield’s citation of the critic of Christianity Porphyry is illogical. I already addressed that irrelevant citation in the debate. It does not support anything Sheffield is arguing. At most it only establishes the LE in some form existed in some text by the late third century. Which we already know.
Notably, the LE is not mocked by Celsus a century earlier, despite Celsus pushing the same line of reasoning as Porphyry. Neither Celsus nor his rebutter Origen show any knowledge of the LE. Nor does any other Church father before or of his time who should have mentioned it, and there are many (as surveyed in Hitler Homer).
Meanwhile, note:
In his whole massive wordwall of a reply to you, Sheffield didn’t actually answer your question. This is evidently SOP for him as I’ve noticed.
This is a question for Jonathan Sheffield.
I joke with him about it sometimes, but I agree with Dr. Carrier’s argument in OHJ that the best explanations for the resurrection appearance claim in the Pre Pauline Corinthian Creed are either that the apostles were hallucinating, or they were lying. I give a recently revised and expanded treatment of the Noble Lie Theory of Christian Origins in an informal essay/blog post here: http://palpatinesway.blogspot.com/2018/03/examining-easter-peering-behind-veil-of.html Given this background knowledge, suppose for the sake of argument that the long ending wasn’t original to Mark. Would you say the forger was simply adding in details he thought Mark ignored, or was the forger engaging in creative apologetics?
Mr. Macdonald,
To help answer your question, it’s important to understand what Dr. Carrier and I are really discussing.
While the LE has been the focus, behind he scenes, the real debate has been this so called evolutionary development of the text, where if Mark was first, and then the LE was added, and then Matthew and Luke were redactions of Mark and then all these traditional readings were conflated into the commonly received texts of the apostolic churches, then it would not only open up the possibility of Dr. Carrier’s central theories, but it would demonstrate that the addition of this passage was created most likely to further promote a resurrection account.
So if the LE wasn’t original, it would have been forged to promote the resurrection account –
Please let me know if you have any further questions. Thanks.
Jonathan A. Sheffield
With one correction: Matthew and Luke show no signs of having seen the LE in their source, Mark. So the LE was added after them, not before.