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 twelfth and final entry. For the rest:

• 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.
• My fourth reply.
• Sheffield’s fourth response.
• My fifth reply.
• Sheffield’s closing statement.
• And my closing statement…

-:-

That the Long Ending Was Not Original to Mark (VI)

by Richard Carrier

Sheffield has rebutted none of the evidence I presented that the LE is an interpolation.

Sheffield now claims Burgon rebutted the internal evidence over a century ago, but that’s impossible (much of the case for it was published after he died), moot (scholarship a century obsolete cannot trump the latest peer reviewed studies), and irrelevant: because Sheffield has presented absolutely none of Burgon’s (or anyone else’s) case against the internal evidence. So Sheffield has in fact presented no rebuttal to that evidence. “I think someone else might have rebutted it” is not a valid argument.

The internal case I laid out in my opening is alone decisive: the probability the same author composed the LE as the rest of Mark is shown there to have a probability near zero. I could end this debate there with a decisive win.

The external evidence only further confirms the same conclusion. Sheffield has rebutted none of that evidence either. All he has done is make wild claims about “Apostolic church” texts, backed by no evidence. Consequently, all of the evidence I presented stands unrebutted; and Sheffield’s alternative theory of that evidence stands on no evidence at all. That concludes the debate decisively for my position. I have all the evidence. Sheffield has none.

All that remains is to further illustrate how nothing Sheffield says even in his closing constitutes evidence for his bizarre theory.

That Eusebius mentions “the existence of” many “Apostolic Churches” is not evidence they really were such, nor evidence of when any of those Churches acquired a copy of Mark, what ending that copy then had, or when any of those Churches’ manuscripts acquired the LE. A complete absence of evidence for Sheffield’s position.

That we know some things about some of those Churches’ organization at some point is also not evidence of when any of them acquired Mark, what ending it then contained, or when the LE was added to their copies. Even bishop lists, which Sheffield cannot even establish are authentic, are not such evidence.

That we know these churches wrote letters to each other is also not evidence. Because we have no such letters pertaining to Mark and its ending. So “that there once were letters” literally evinces nothing relevant to this debate.

Sheffield has not even presented any evidence regarding “how” these “Apostolic Churches” authenticated their text of Luke against Marcion’s. That they asserted their texts were authentic is not a procedure. It’s dogma. And Luke is not Mark. So that example isn’t even relevant.

Neither Tertullian nor Irenaeus “document” that “the authentic writings can be examined at the apostolic churches.” Sheffield has not presented a single passage from either author saying this of any Gospel, or attesting to any church possessing even a copy of Mark, much less a copy with the LE, even less when any church finally did acquire any copy of Mark, or what ending that copy had. More irrelevant data.

Sheffield tries to avoid evidence when he claims “it was only noticed in the 4th century that there were copies of Mark that didn’t have the LE.” Wrong. Eusebius also says manuscripts with the LE were rare. So rare that he doubted its authenticity, and did not include it in his canon lists. This is not speculation; it’s fact. Yet if it existed in all those Apostolic church texts as Sheffield claims (on no evidence at all), Eusebius cannot have doubted it, nor said it was rare. Nor can Jerome have confirmed it was still rare a generation later and likewise admitted it was a dubious reading (as I proved he did). Therefore, Sheffield’s claim the LE was then in those Churches is not only undemonstrated, it is demonstrably false.

Sheffield was able to present not a single manuscript actually from any of these Churches; he didn’t even identify an extant manuscript at all, much less any that predates Jerome. And Sheffield fails to produce any evidence Jerome used any reliable procedure for deciding to include the LE in his Latin translation. That Jerome chose certain Greek texts to render by is not evidence his choice was well founded, much less linked to any “Apostolic Church” text as Sheffield groundlessly claims. Jerome never says any such thing.

Sheffield also could not present any evidence the LE was actually attested by “Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa” as he now implies in his closing. Throughout this debate he attempted to present such evidence only for Chrysostom, and I proved what Sheffield provided evinces no knowledge of the LE (in my fourth reply; see also my second reply). I am aware of no like evidence from the Gregories.

Sheffield addressed none of the evidence I presented that the LE is attested only in an interpolation in a medieval text of Irenaeus. He suggests the late Bruce Metzger didn’t notice this. But that someone didn’t notice a fact, is not evidence against it. It’s certainly not a rebuttal to evidence for it. Metzger also, like Sheffield, presented no evidence the Diatessaon contained the LE when it was composed.

Sheffield keeps citing late fourth century authors attesting the LE, but no one he cites attests it was in any Apostolic church text, or that it was a common reading, or that they had any reason to trust its authenticity other than Jerome’s personal mid-century endorsement of it. They liked the LE. That is not evidence the LE was always in the text of Mark. Again, there’s no evidence here for the authenticity of the LE.

Sheffield is flabbergasted the LE was a rare reading in the 4th century, but that’s simply a fact: all 4th century witnesses to the LE’s frequency attest it was rare; and all preceding witnesses corroborate this by having no knowledge of the LE at all. And that means that the thousands of medieval manuscripts attesting it today, must come from traditions that added it during or after the 4th century; as otherwise, it would not have been so rare a reading as Eusebius and Jerome found it was. Further proving this, as I noted repeatedly in this debate, is the fact that all the earliest manuscripts containing the LE contain physical evidence of it having been added. Which confirms my position in this debate, not Sheffield’s.

I thank Jonathan Sheffield for funding and engaging in this debate. But with all due respect, I have to conclude he is delusionally obsessed with a claim about Apostolic church texts that he has no evidence at all for, and that all surviving evidence stands against. I can only conclude his religious convictions must be compelling him to ignore all facts and reason, and instead imagine irrelevant facts pertinent.

-:-

This concludes the debate.