Peter Kirby

Which scholars have given extensive, or in any way important, treatment of the issue of the ending of the Gospel of Mark and text criticism?

thanks,
Peter Kirby

Ben C Smith

In no particular order....

William Farmer, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark (or via: amazon.co.uk).
John W. Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to Mark (or via: amazon.co.uk).
N. Clayton Croy, The Mutilation of Mark's Gospel (or via: amazon.co.uk).
Lee Magness, Sense and Absence (or via: amazon.co.uk).

There are others, but I cannot recall them right now.

Ben.

Oh, James Kelhoffer has a nice article online. It comes out sideways in the PDF, so I would print it out if I were you.

Vorkosigan

Evan Powell, The Unfinished Gospel (or via: amazon.co.uk)

spin

You could just choose View/Rotate_View/Clockwise as well.


spin

JoeWallack

JW:
Hi Peter. What I'd like to see from you is the same Type article you did for Markan priority. Outline the arguments and than give a Conclusion supported by ranked evidence.

As you know, Metzger wrote the Bible on the Forged Endings of "Mark" in 1971, concluding that 16:8 is Original. Therefore, there hasn't been any incentive for similar thinking Bible scholars to rehash Metzger. Ehrman is the only one with Metzger like credentials and obviously he agrees with Metzger's conclusion. Basically, most effort since than has been by Conservative Bible scholars trying to undermine 16:8 Originality.

One Factor I would like you to consider is how the Ending(s) of "Mark" relates to the overall Theme of "Mark". Even though Mainstream Christian Bible scholarship starts with the Assumption that "Mark" Implied a post resurrection Reunion between Jesus and The Disciples, in my opinion "Mark" strongly Implies that there was no such Reunion. If you haven't already read it, I recommend:



Mark's Story of Jesus by Werner Kelber



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

xaxxat

Interesting to see Lee's name here. He'd crap his pants if he knew he was the one who got me started on my path to disbelief. And, then again, he'd probably find it pretty funny.

He's a great guy. I haven't seen him in years...

Malachi151

This is interesting. Looks like yet another book that needs to be read, and perhaps another thread to start and discuss.

Malachi151

I agree, because my reading of Mark is that it is against the Judeans and even against the apostles, and it is intended to explain the destruction on Judea.

To me this makes sense.

neilgodfrey

Frank Kermode has written about Mark in depth with an especially notable reference to the 16:8 ending of Mark, but he writes as a secular literary critic and not as a 'biblical scholar'. (How often do we wish biblical studies would be taken over by real History faculties and not theologically funded ones! -- well, Kermode takes to biblical literature the same skills he plies to secular literature with interesting results.)

He writes: “it is astonishing how much less there is of a genuine literary criticism on the secular model than there ought to be.” (p.137 of “The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative” (Harvard University Press, 1979).

I recently placed extracts from Kermode's discussion of, in the main, the Gospel of Mark, in my blog for anyone interested.

Specifically of the 16:8 ending Kermode says:

“The conclusion [of Mark, 16:8] is either intolerably clumsy; or it is incredibly subtle. One distinguished scholar [W.L.Knox], dismissing this latter option, says it presupposes ‘a degree of originality which would invalidate the whole method of form-criticism.’ This is an interesting objection. Form-criticism takes as little stock as possible in the notion of the evangelists as authors … If it comes to a choice between saying Mark is original and upholding ‘the whole method of form-criticism’ the judgment is unhesitating: Mark is not original.” (p.68)

Neil Godfrey
http://vridar.wordpress.com

neilgodfrey

Compare the history of Virgil's Aeneid -- similarly even many ancients could hardly accept that its abrupt ending was original with the result that various efforts were made to extrapolate "more rounded" conclusions to the epic.

But I have a second point -- We are most of us in the habit of linking titles to Amazon -- but Web 2.0 has relatively recently brought us a much more flexible alternative that includes Amazon and others, too, along with links to other discussions about the book, which major libraries hold it, how the Library of Congress has linked it to controlled vocabularies, uncontrolled tags others have stuck on it, etc etc etc ---- it enables us all to enter our own personal libraries in a personal catalogue that is linked up to major libraries, everyone else's personal library, discussions and reviews of each title, complete citation details, and links to multiple online stores who may stock it, amazon included.

I have changed all the links in this post to take you to my LibraryThing's holdings so you can check it out for yourselves.

Go Web 2.0

Neil Godfrey
http://vridar.wordpress.com