Freethought & Rationalism Archive

JoeWallack · 12-19-2009, 01:30 PM

The Manuscript Evidence

Now that we have gone through the Patristic category of evidence I would like to say that I consider my opponent here, Mr. James Snapp, Jr., the foremost authority the world has ever known now on the argument for the originality of the LE. It is an honor to debate him on the subject. I have forced him to try and apply criteria to the data on a more formal basis which has made him more aware of the weaknesses in his argument. A general observation regarding the Patristic category is that the qualitative criteria tend to favor against LE and the quantitative criteria tend to favor for LE. Perhaps the only criterion I and my opponent agree on right now is that there are more Patristic references for the LE than against it. Our key difference right now is the qualitative Age criterion. We each see it as strongly supporting our argument. Historically, these two criteria are the basis for my opponent’s argument. Supposedly the earliest and most Patristic references are for LE.

As we move now to the next category of evidence, Manuscript, I would like the reader to pay close attention to the relationship between categories of evidence. If a relationship of evidence can be established it is exponentially more valuable than a single piece of evidence as relationships are based on consistency and consistency gives statistical probablility.

Analysis of Manuscript Category (from Metzger)

The data against LE is:

Sinaiticus (One of two oldest)

Vaticanus (One of two oldest)

Sinaitic Syriac

Most of one hundred Armenian

Two oldest Georgian

Sahidic

L Ψ 099 0112

Several Bohairic

Some Ethiopic

Bobbiensis

It(a)

Codex Washingtonianus

The first star witness against LE is

Codex Sinaiticus:

Quote:

Codex Sinaiticus (Shelfmarks and references: London, Brit. Libr., Additional 43725; Gregory-Aland nº א [Aleph] or 01, [Soden δ 2]) is one of the most important hand-written ancient copies of the Greek Bible.[1] It was written in the 4th century in uncial letters. It came to the attention of scholars in the 19th century at the Greek Monastery of Mount Sinai, with further material discovered in the 20th century. Most of it is today in the British Library.[2] Originally, it contained the whole of both Testaments. The Greek Old Testament (or Septuagint) survived almost complete, along with a complete New Testament, plus the Epistle of Barnabas, and portions of The Shepherd of Hermas.[2]

JW:
Codex Sinaiticus has the following weighty attributes:

1) Age
It is one of the two oldest extant Manuscripts, c. 342.

Compared to the Patristic category this is mid 4th century while we have copies of Patristic witness that originally wrote 2nd century. Keep in mind that these extant copies though are not nearly as old as Codex Sinaiticus (א). I accept that it is more likely that Patristic copies reflect what was originally written than it is that a Manuscript reflects what was originally written but there is still a risk, called “transcription” risk, that our extant Patristic copies do not show what was originally written. So the Age difference here is something less than comparing 4th century to 2nd century.

2) Connection to older textual evidence
It generally agrees to extant 2nd century papyri.

It generally agrees to Papyrus 75 which is early 3rd century.

It generally agrees to Early Patristic support (Clement, Origen).

The text-type is Alexandrian which authority claims goes back to the 2nd
century.

We have a good connection here than to the 2nd century which makes it comparable to the Age quality of the Patristic category.

3) It has more difficult readings compared to other early Manuscripts. External force than had less effect on it.

4) It has avoided some External force by being discovered 19th century.

5) It has significant Editing from the early centuries with the original still detectable. This is an especially valuable quality relating to the key qualitative criteria of direction.

6) It generally agrees with Vaticanus, the other earliest manuscript, against other early manuscripts. The confirmation criterion.

7) Some editing is to the Byzantine text type indicating the Alexandrian text type was earlier. Direction.

8) Authority generally considers Sinaiticus one of the best witnesses for the original.

Note the coordination here with evidence from the Patristic category:

Qualitative:

1 – Age.

The earliest Patristic evidence is against LE and is 2nd century. א has ties to the 2nd century. Eusebius testifies that in his time, early 4th century, most manuscripts are against LE. Eusebius indicates that either ending is acceptable to him so there is no external pressure at the time to change the ending. Jerome confirms Eusebius a century later and contemporary to א that most manuscripts are against the LE but both endings are acceptable, so there is still no external pressure.

2 - Direction (of change).

א is evidence that the older Alexandrian text is being edited towards the newer Byzantine text and external force is present in general.

Quantitative:

1 - Confirmation – width.

We have the same weakness here as the Patristic as א is Alexandrian text type and the Patristic support against LE has a concentration of Alexandrian/Ceasarean.

The second star witness against LE after Codex Sinaiticus is

Codex Vaticanus:

Quote:

The Codex Vaticanus, (The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209; no. B or 03 Gregory-Aland, δ 1 von Soden), is one of the oldest and most valuable extant manuscripts of the Greek Bible. The codex is named for its place of housing in the Vatican Library.[1] It is written in Greek, on 759 vellum leaves, with uncial letters, dated to the 4th century.[2] It is one of the best manuscripts of the Bible in Greek. Codex Sinaiticus is its only competitor. Until the discovery by Tischendorf of the Codex Sinaiticus, it was without a rival in the world.

JW:
Codex Vaticanus has the following weighty attributes:

1) Age
Together with Sinaiticus it comproses the two oldest extant Manuscripts and is c. 325.

2) Connection to older textual evidence
It generally agrees to extant 2nd century papyri.

It generally agrees to

Papyrus 75 which is early 3rd century.

It generally agrees to Early Patristic support (Clement, Origen).

The text-type is Alexandrian which authority claims goes back to the 2nd
century.

3) It has more difficult readings compared to other early Manuscripts

4) It has avoided some External force by being somewhat ignored until relatively modern times.

5) It has significant Editing from the early centuries with the original still
detectable

6) It generally agrees with Sinaiticus, the other earliest manuscript, against other early manuscripts.

7) Some editing is to the Byzantine text type indicating the Alexandrian text type was earlier.

8) Authority generally considers Vaticanus one of the best witnesses for the original.

In connection with Codex Sinaiticus there is some independence as the two show numerous differences which make it likely that they had different exemplars.

We also have

Codex Washingtonianus

Quote:

The Codex Washingtonianus or Codex Washingtonensis, designated by W or 032 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), ε 014 (Soden), also called the Washington Manuscript of the Gospels, and The Freer Gospel, contains the four biblical gospels and was written in Greek on vellum and palimpsest in the fourth or fifth century.[1]

Codex Washingtonianus (“W”) than is c. 400 and has the Extended Ending.

We also have the following Greek Manuscripts which contain the Short Ending followed by LE:

L Ψ 099 0112 = four uncial manuscripts of the 7th, 8th and 9th century. The order is evidence that these manuscripts originally lacked the LE, which was subsequently added on but after the SE since that was already at the end of “Mark”.

Note that W and the uncials are evidence that by the 5th century there is external pressure to add to the AE and the specific variation they evidence is a direct sign of editing. There was no original ending to follow.

The above than is the extent of the quality Manuscript evidence against LE in Greek, which most assume was the language of the originals. The Greek Manuscript evidence than will strongly outweigh the evidence of other languages, which are translating, as opposed to copying, and therefore force different words to be chosen, unless the translated Manuscript has significant advantages over the Greek in other criteria. Comparing these Greek Manuscripts to Greek Manuscripts for LE let’s first consider a qualitative comparison:

Qualitative

The best individual Manuscript evidence of LE is

Codex Alexandrinus

Quote:

The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, MS Royal 1. D. V-VIII; Gregory-Aland no. A or 02, Soden δ 4) is a 5th century manuscript of the Greek Bible,[n 1] containing the majority of the Septuagint and the New Testament.[1] It received the name Alexandrinus from its having been brought by the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch Cyril Lucaris from Alexandria to Constantinople.[2] Wettstein designated it in 1751 by letter A,[3] and it was the first manuscript to receive thus a large letter as its designation.[4]

Codex Alexandrinus (“A”) has two weaknesses compared to S and V. It is a century later and the text type for the Gospels is Byzantine which is known to be a later text type of the Alexandrian text type of S and V. This means its ties to earlier Manuscripts does not go back as far.

Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (“C”) is the next best Manuscript evidence for LE”:

Quote:

Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (Paris, National Library of France, Greek 9; Gregory-Aland no. C or 04, von Soden δ 3) is an early 5th century Greek manuscript of the Bible,[1] the last in the group of the four great uncial manuscripts of the Greek Bible (see Codex Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus and Vaticanus). It receives its name, as a codex in which the treatises of Ephraem the Syrian, in Greek translations, were written over ("rescriptus") a former text that had been washed off its vellum pages, thus forming a palimpsest.[1] The later text was produced in the 12th century. The effacement of the original text was incomplete, for beneath the text of Ephraem are the remains of what was once a complete Bible, containing both the Old Testament and the New. It forms one of the codices for textual criticism on which the Higher criticism is based.”
It’s not as old as A but has some Alexandrian text type for the Gospels.
Codex Bezae (“D”) is the next best Manuscript evidence for LE”:
“The Codex Bezae Cantabrigensis, designated by Dea or 05 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 5 (von Soden), is an important codex of the New Testament dating from the fifth-century. It is written in an uncial hand on vellum and contains, in both Greek and Latin, most of the four Gospels and Acts, with a small fragment of the Third Epistle of John. Written with one column per page it has 406 parchment leaves (26 by 21,5 cm), out of perhaps an original 534, and the Greek pages on the left face Latin ones on the right.[1]

D has the further weaknesses that it is Western text type, later than Alexandrian, and in general has exponentially the most deviations from the earliest Manuscripts. As we move forward in time there are increasingly more Greek manuscripts for LE but all show the same weaknesses as these 3, less Age, newer text type and editing away from earlier manuscript and Patristic evidence.

The qualitative criterion here than, Age, clearly favors against LE, while the quantitative criterion, confirmation, favors for LE. Keep in mind though regarding the relatively few early Manuscripts of the Alexandrian text type against LE, that this is a common observation in general and specifically as we look at Manuscripts in other languages here, that the earliest Manuscripts will be exponentially fewer than Manuscripts one or two centuries later. This is because once an earlier Manuscript has fallen out of favor due to its specifics the demand is than to retain it as a reference guide for what was originally written but not as a guide for current usage. Therefore it is not copied unless it is recognized to be in danger of becoming illegible. Thus the difference in quantity is not as significant here as the numbers alone would indicate.

Notice that the general criteria observation for the Manuscript evidence also coordinate with the Patristic evidence as quality favors against LE and quantity favors for LE. We also have a coordinated chronology between the two. Eusebius/Jerome testify that to c. 400 most Greek Manuscripts are against LE. Victor c. 450 contradicts that quality supports LE and advocates changing to LE. This is exactly the time when we start to see changes in the Manuscripts away from AE. Also note that regarding Variation we have no evidence that there was ever any variation in the AE. The LE however initially competes with the SE and EE before it is standardized. A likely sign that all these endings are edits as they had nothing after the AE to follow.

The most important translated language, Latin, provides similar evidence.

The next star witness against LE after S and V is

Codex Bobbiensis/ita

Quote:

Codex Bobiensis (k) is a fragmentary Latin manuscript of the bible. Specifically, it is an example of a Vetus Latina bible, which were used from the 2nd century until Jerome's Latin translation, the Vulgate, was written in the 5th century. The text contains parts of the Gospel of Mark (Mk 8:8-end) and Gospel of Matthew (Mt 1:1-15:36). The order of books was probably: John, Luke, Mark, and Matthew.[1]

It is from North Africa and is dated to the 4th or 5th century. Later it was brought to the monastery in Bobbio in northern Italy. Traditionally asserted to St. Columban, who died in the monastery he had founded there, in 615.[1] Today it is housed in the national library in Turin.

Researchers think, comparing the Codex Bobiensis with quotes from Cyprian’s publications from the 3rd century, that the Codex Bobienses is a page from the Bible Cyprian used while he was a bishop in Carthage.

From a paleographic study of the scripture, it is a copy of a papyrus script from the 2nd century. Codex Bobiensis is interesting, in that it is the only known scripture which has the addition of Mark 16:9's "short ending", but not the later, "long ending" through Mark 16:20.

The Latin text of the codex is a representative of the Western text-type in Afra recension.

JW:
Codex Bobienses has the following weighty attributes:

1) Age
It is one of the oldest extant Manuscripts, c. 400.

2) Connection to older textual evidence

It generally agrees to Early Patristic support (Cyprian).

The style of Bible, Vetus Latina, goes back to the 2nd century.

3) Variation in additions to AE
Codex Bobbiensis (itk) is also likely supported by ita, which is
considered the second best Itala witness. Part of the ending of "Mark" is
missing but an analysis of the related space indicates either the ending
was 16:8 or the SE. itk has the SE with no LE and ita either has the AE or
SE with no LE. The variation in additions after the AE (LE or SE) is
evidence that AE is original.

4) Western
Its provenance and text-type is Western adding scope to all of the
Eastern evidence against LE. It further solidifies Direction from AE to
LE as now there is East and West support for such change as well as Greek and Latin.

5) Authority
Generally considers Bobienses the most authoritative Latin manuscript of
Western text type and ita the second most authoritative.
The Latin witness here follows the same pattern as the Greek. The extant exemplars are both against LE with subsequent manuscripts supporting LE. There is the same criteria pattern, qualitatively, Age favors against LE while quantitatively, confirmation favors LE. The Latin coordinates with the testimony of the outstanding Latin textual critic of the early Church, Jerome. The Greek is clearly against LE. Latin has more support for LE but Jerome observes more variation in Manuscripts of his time. The translated Latin provides the opportunity to change the Greek original.

The next star witness against LE after S, V, itk and ita is

Syriac Sinaiticus:

Quote:

The Syriac Sinaitic (syrsin), known also as Sinaitic Palimpsest, of Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai is a late 4th century manuscript of 358 pages, containing a translation of the four canonical gospels of the New Testament into Syriac, which have been overwritten by a vita (biography) of female saints and martyrs with a date corresponding to AD 778. This palimpsest is the oldest copy of the gospels in Syriac, one of two surviving manuscripts (the other being the Curetonian Gospels) that predate the Peshitta, the standard Syriac translation of the Bible. The manuscript is designated by syrs.

JW:
The Syriac Sinaiticus has the following weighty attributes:

1) Age
It is one of the oldest extant Manuscripts, c. 385.

2) Connection to older textual evidence

It is supported by early 3rd century Western readings

3) Western
It is supported by early 3rd century Western readings which further solidifies Direction from AE to LE with Western support for such change as well as in Greek, Latin and Syriac.

4) Authority
It is considered the Oldest and best Syriac witness and therefore the most authoritative Syriac manuscript.

The same type observations can be made for Armenian, Georgian and Sahidic languages. What we see than is almost every important translated language made before the dominance of the Byzantine text type in the 7th century shares the same criteria observations = quality Age favors against LE while quantity confirmation favors for LE. The Manuscript evidence than not only coordinates with the Patristic evidence but is even stronger evidence against LE as every significant translated language shows qualitative edge to against LE.

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

Loomis · 12-28-2009, 12:45 PM

Excuse me if this has been discussed before but I think I found an elephant in the room.

Look at Mark 1:1

Quote:

The Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Why doesn’t it just say, “The Gospel of Jesus Christ?”

Q: Why does the author (or whoever gave it the title) describe it as the Beginning?

A: Because the author (or whoever gave it the title) knew that the story lacked an ending.

Wuddia think?

Am I a genius?

Is this a profound revelation?

Is Mark 1:1 an admission that there was no ending?

Is it effectively saying, "The Gospel of Jesus Christ Part I" ?

JoeWallack · 01-10-2010, 03:29 PM

JW:
From: CARM Mark 16:9-20: Authentic or Not?

Quote:

As we begin a new stage, I thank Joseph for his kind words, and for taking the time and effort to engage in this discussion.

Over 1,700 Greek manuscripts of Mark are known to exist. We will review eleven of them today. When we examined the patristic evidence, we saw that only one writer offers an independent judgment against Mark 16:9-20: Eusebius of Caesarea. Similarly, we shall see that in the extant Greek MSS, there are two copies that end with Mark 16:8 followed by a subscription, and that they emanate from a single source.

First, though, we should become acquainted with the earliest MS of Mark: Papyrus 45, a mutilated copy of the Gospels and Acts produced c. 200. In 1981, Larry Hurtado analyzed P45’s much-mutilated text of Mark 5:31-12:28 and concluded that in this section, P45 and Codex W have a distinctly high 69% rate of agreement. This means that in Mark, neither P45 nor Codex W is a strong “Caesarean” witness. Instead, they both imperfectly echo another ancient transmission-stream.

This information about P45 helps us evaluate references to “the earliest manuscripts.” Although damage has claimed the text of P45 after 12:28, it is probable that P45, like its closest textual relative, contained 16:9-20 when intact. Also, when we encounter claims that the Alexandrian text of Mark “goes back to the second century,” we should recall that that no second-century or third-century Alexandrian MSS of Mark are extant other than P45, and its text in Mark 5:31-12:28 tends to agree with Codex W rather than the Alexandrian text.

We now turn to two Greek MSS from the 300’s: Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.

Codex Sinaiticus (À) is a bit younger than Codex Vaticanus. Codex Sinaiticus was produced in about 350, almost certainly at Caesarea. In the Gospels, its main exemplar was Alexandrian, but in John 1:1-8:38, a “Western” exemplar was used. Some researchers have proposed that À may be one of the 50 copies which Eusebius produced for Constantine in about 330. In 1999, T.C. Skeat even offered a theory in which À and B were both made under Eusebius’ supervision. However, while several features in À support a production-location at Caesarea, it is unlikely that Eusebius would supervise the production of copies with texts significantly different from what he employed when he made the Eusebian Canons. Eusebius’ text did not contain the extended version of Mt. 27:49 (attested by À and B), and contained Mark 15:28 (not included in À and B). Also, the Eusebian Canon-numbers in À were written imprecisely, as if the person who added them was not very familiar with them. So, the historical link between Eusebius and À is close but not immediate. It is more likely that À was produced under the supervision of Acacius the One-eyed, who succeeded Eusebius as bishop in 339. Jerome reports that Acacius preserved the contents of papyrus copies in the library of Caesarea by transferring them to parchment. Acacius’ main exemplars of Biblical texts would have thus been copies handed down from his predecessors: the same Alexandrian copies Eusebius had regarded as “the accurate copies.”

In À, the four pages containing Mark 14:54-Luke 1:56 are not in the handwriting of the main copyist. The main copyist’s handwriting stops in Mk. 14:54. Then we encounter four pages (made of one folded sheet of parchment) containing Mk. 14:54-Luke 1:56. The main copyist’s handwriting resumes at the beginning of the next page. The missing pages by the main copyist must have contained something which his supervisor considered problematic. The supervisor wrote four new pages to replace the pages made by the main copyist, tightly compressing his lettering in Luke 1:1-56 so that the text in the replacement-pages would end where the main copyist’s text of Luke 1:56 began.

What was in the four pages that the supervisor replaced? We cannot tell, because we only have the replacement-pages. But the creator of À’s replacement-pages left a feature after 16:8 which is rather suggestive. Normally when this copyist reached the end of a book, he added a relatively simple decorative line. (Examples occur in À at the end of Tobit, Judith, and First Thessalonians.) After Mark 16:8, though, he made the decoration more emphatic than usual: a wavy line immediately follows the end of 16:8 so as to fill the rest of the column-width, and the next column-width is filled by his usual red-and-black decorative design combined with another wavy line. This unique feature indicates deliberation of some sort on the part of its creator. Inasmuch as the SE was unknown at Caesarea just a few decades before À was made (when Eusebius wrote to Marinus without mentioning the SE), it is likely that the producer of this page deliberately rejected 16:9-20 and consequently made this emphatic decoration.

Metzger’s short description of Sinaiticus as a witness for the non-inclusion of Mark 16:9-20 did not treat the evidence adequately. Whenever the testimony of À is mentioned, we should remember that we are discussing a replacement-page, the creator of which, by emphasizing the ending at 16:8, suggested his awareness of 16:9-20.

I will not delve into another feature in À: the broad variation in the rate of letters-per-column on the replacement-pages. We might revisit this; in the meantime J. K. Elliott’s observation must suffice: “The strange calculations suggest that the scribes were aware (as was the scribe of Codex Vaticanus) that the ending of Mark was disputed.”

On to Codex Vaticanus (B), which is usually assigned a date around 325. Contrary to the impression given by my opponent, the text of B in Mark does not especially agree with second-century papyri; nor does it especially agree with citations of Mark by Clement and Origen. Codex B has two remarkable features after Mark 16:8. First, it displays the same decorative design that is normally found in À at the ends of books by the copyist who made the cancel-sheet at the end of Mark. Second, after the blank space below the subscription, B contains An Entire Blank Column before Luke begins on the opposite side of the page.

B’s blank column between Mark 16 and Luke 1 is unique. Throughout the New Testament in B, after the end of a book, the next book begins at the top of the next column – except here. In the Old Testament portion of B, there are three places where blank spaces occur between books, but none of them suggest anything unusual. The mechanisms that elicited the seams at the following places are not operating at the end of Mark:

(1) Between the end of the OT and the beginning of the NT. This was elicited by the copyist’s normal desire to begin the NT on a fresh page.
(2) After Second Esdras, on the last page with a three-column format, before a two-column format for the Books of Poetry begins on the next page. This was necessary (unless the text of Second Esdras had happened to end in the last column on the page) because of the shift from the three-column format to the two-column format.
(3) Between the end of Tobit and the beginning of Hosea. Here a change of handwriting occurs; this is merely leftover space, where one copyist had completed his assigned portion of text.

Why did B’s copyist deliberately leave this blank column after Mark 16:8? It is as if his exemplar ended at the end of v. 8, but he recollected 16:9-20, estimated the amount of space the missing passage would occupy, and left space in which it could be added. He slightly underestimated: if one begins writing Mark 16:9-20 from the point where 16:8 stops (erasing the decorative line and subscription) in normal lettering, four more lines remain to be written when the end of the last line of the last column is reached. However, by slightly reducing the size of some letters and slightly reducing the space between letters (a space-saving technique used in À in Luke 1:1-56), a copyist could fit 16:9-20 in the space after 16:8.

The impact of this feature in B is already colossal. Already, B attests to the existence of 16:9-20 in at least one exemplar recollected by its copyist. But there is more: as J. K. Elliott has written, “Scribe D of Sinaiticus was also very likely to have been one of two scribes of Codex Vaticanus.” (Scribe D is the supervisor-copyist who made the pages in À containing Mark 14:54-Luke 1:56.)

Plenty of evidence renders Elliott’s conclusion not only very likely but practically irresistible. This evidence includes this copyist’s orthography, his selection of sacred names to contract, his method of indicating OT-quotations, and the decorative design he placed at the end of books.

So, when we view the end of Mark in B and À, we view the work of a copyist who, when he worked on B, formatted the page so as to allow the inclusion of 16:9-20, and who, when he supervised the production of À later in life, produced replacement-pages that reflected his decision to adopt the abrupt ending. Who was this copyist? Acacius is the only individual whose name is known who, as a young low-level copyist, could have participated in the production of B in the early 300’s, and who, as bishop of Caesarea decades later, could have overseen the production of À.

Now we proceed to Codex W. I cannot explain why my opponent listed Codex W as a witness against Mark 16:9-20; it contains all these verses. Between v. 14 and v. 15 we find the “Freer Logion,” which Jerome mentioned in his composition Dialogue Against the Pelagians 2:15, (c. A.D. 417). Jerome stated that he had found this material “in certain exemplars and especially in Greek codices near the end of the Gospel of Mark.” Thus we observe, first, that Jerome regarded Mark 16:20, not 16:8, as the end of Mark; second, that he expected this to be the case in his readers’ copies; third, that Codex W was not the only MS that contained this interpolation.

An additional piece of evidence provides further insight about Codex W’s background: after the subscription to Mark, there is a benediction-note – “Holy Christ, be with your servant Timothy and all of his.” The name “Timothy” (more precisely, Timotheus) appears over an erasure; the erased name was probably “Sinuthius.” The name-changes appear to echo changes in the leadership of the Egyptian church in the 400’s: Shenute (i.e., Sinuthius) founded the White Monastery there in the late 300’s, and his successor in the mid-400’s was the patriarch Timothy (i.e., Timotheus). Considering this connection between Codex W and the White Monastery, and considering that Charles Freer obtained Codex W while in Egypt, we may confidently conclude that Codex W exhibits a local Egyptian (or “Nitrian”) text of Mark, of the same sort that Jerome saw when he visited the area in 386.

The next four witnesses listed by my opponent are L, Ψ, 099, and 0112. In L, after 16:8, there is a framed scribal note: “this also appears.” This is followed by the SE. Then there is another framed scribal note: “esthn de kai tauta feromena meta to efobounto gar,” which means, “There also appears this after ‘efobounto gar.’” This is followed by 16:9-20, which is followed by the subscription.

The claim that these MSS “originally lacked the LE” is not true. Every one, when produced, contained Mark 16:9-20. The Short Ending was placed after 16:8 because there it could be employed to end the preceding lection on a positive note; whereas if it had been placed after 16:20 it would be completely useless.

(Continued in the following post.)

Yours in Christ,

James Snapp, Jr.

JoeWallack · 01-12-2010, 07:50 AM

JW:
From: CARM Mark 16:9-20: Authentic or Not?

Quote:

(continued from the previous post)

Also, L and its allies contain variants which are not in the Byzantine, “Western,” or “Caesarean” text-types. The phrase “And in their hands” in 16:18 is particularly important. This indicates that the text of Mark 16:9-20 in L and its allies is indigenous; it is not borrowed from another text-type.

In Y, there is no intervening note between 16:8 and the SE. There is a normal “end-of-lection” mark, and a “beginning-of-lection” mark is in the left margin parallel to the beginning of 16:9, along with a liturgical lection-title. Between the end of the SE and the beginning of 16:9 is a note that is virtually identical to the note that precedes 16:9 in L.

In 099, which is very fragmentary, 16:8 is followed by the SE. The SE is followed by a repetition of the last half of 16:8 (eicen gar autas tromos kai ekstasis kai oudeni ouden eipon efobounto gar), which is followed immediately by the beginning of 16:9, at which point the fragment stops due to damage. The same treatment of the SE and 16:9-20, with the text of 16:8b presented twice, is found in the Greek-Sahidic lectionary #1602 (from the 700’s). So, again, we are looking at a witness to a distinctly Alexandrian text-form that included Mark 16:9-20.

083 (which is the same MS as 0112+0235) is a badly mutilated fragment discovered by J. Rendel Harris at St. Catherine’s Monastery. A couple of lines after the end of 16:8, 083 has the subscription “Gospel According to Mark,” just above the fragment’s lower edge. Harris acknowledged that the MS would have had, when intact, sufficient room for the same note that precedes the SE in L. In the next column (on the same page), the extant text resumes at tauta kai autos, about a third of the way through the SE. After the SE, 083 has the same phrase that appears in L. Then 16:9 begins, and the text of 16:9-10 continues until the edge of the fragment is reached.

When we scrutinize these four witnesses, it becomes obvious that they all originally contained Mark 16:9-20. Their identical or nearly identical notes shows that all four (along with Lect. #1602) descend from a common ancestor: a MS produced by someone who had access to at least one copy that ended at 16:8, and at least one copy that ended with the SE, and at least one copy that ended with an Alexandrian form of 16:9-20. Unsure what to do with his disagreeing exemplars, this individual attempted to echo them all by placing a subscription after 16:8, followed by the SE and 16:9-20 (each with introductory notes), followed by a second subscription. The copyist who did this probably worked in an isolated location – possibly at St. Catherine’s monastery itself in the mid-600’s.

Thus L, Y, 099 and 083 testify about three forms of the text of Mark (including a form with 16:9-20) which were merged at some point in these MSS’ shared ancestry.

The next MS my opponent mentioned is Codex Alexandrinus (“A”), from the early 400’s. Its text of Mark is essentially Byzantine. In Codex A, 16:9 immediately follows 16:8. It include the phrase “from the dead” in v. 14; it does not contain “And in their hands” in 16:18, and it reads “the Lord” instead of “the Lord Jesus” in 16:19.

My opponent proposed that because Codex A’s Gospels-text is Byzantine, “its ties to earlier Manuscripts does not go back as far.” However, the number of extant Alexandrian MSS of Mark from the 100’s is the same as the number of Byzantine MSS of Mark from the 100’s and 200’s: zero. My opponent is overstating a theory. Mark 16:9-20 is the reading with verifiably ancient ties; it is used in patristic writings from the 100’s and 200’s.

Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C), from the mid-400’s, is next. It contains 16:9-20 immediately after 16:8 (with “And in their hands” in 16:18, and with “Lord” (not “Lord Jesus”) in 16:19). Also, although Eusebius numbered only 233 sections in Mark, in C the section-numbers continue into 16:9-20, up to section #239.

Next is Codex Bezae (D), a damaged Greek-Latin codex which contains the Gospels and Acts, and a bit of Third John. In the 1800’s, most researchers thought it was made in the 500’s, but recently David Parker has proposed a date around 400. The text of D is “Western.” Due to damage, the Greek text on its original pages stops midway through 16:15, at the end of a page. However, when intact, D contained 16:9-20.

Despite being damaged, D supplies enough variants to show that its text is independent of other text-types: in 16:9, 16:10, 16:11, and 16:12, it displays non-Byzantine readings. This shows that D did not derive Mark 16:9-20 from a Byzantine source.

So far, the manuscript evidence tells us the following:

(1) À and B show that exemplars with the abrupt ending and exemplars with 16:9-20 were known at Caesarea in the first half of the 300’s. Eusebius’ letter to Marinus confirms this, and shows that the Short Ending was not known at Caesarea at that time.

(2) L, Y, 099, and 083 (especially 083) show that copies with the abrupt ending, copies with the SE, and copies with 16:9-20 were circulating in Egypt when an ancestor-MS of these witnesses was made, perhaps in the mid-600’s.

(3) A, D, C (supplemented by L, Y, 099, and 083), and W disallow what my opponent has proposed. Instead of seeing a large Byzantine variant grafted onto local Alexandrian, “Western,” and Caesarean forms of Mark 1:1-16:8, we observe distinct Alexandrian, “Western,” and Caesarean forms of Mark 16:9-20 – plus another form in Egypt attested by Codex W and its allies mentioned by Jerome.

These three observations correspond to what is shown by the patristic evidence: Mark 16:9-20 was perpetuated as part of the Gospel of Mark throughout Christendom, except in part of Egypt and at Caesarea where some cherished copies from Egypt (and copies of Egyptian copies) were kept.

There is still much to say about other Greek MSS, and about the non-Greek evidence my opponent mentioned. However, this post is already thick with details and it’s a lot to digest. So I will stop here for now.

Yours in Christ,

James Snapp, Jr.

JoeWallack · 01-24-2010, 07:12 PM

JW:
As I review my opponent's review of the two star witnesses for the AE, Sinaiticus (A), and Vaticanus (B), it's useful to consider the likely context for the environment they were written in. Eusebius, c. 310, has provided a qualitative assessment of the issue in his time. The accurate texts and most of the texts of his time have the AE. Eusebius says though that the LE is very old. Old enough so that he is not sure which is original. His works though generally use the AE so presumably his conclusion followed his evidence.

For Eastern scribes 50 years later presumably they are aware of Eusebius above. Their exemplars than are likely to have had the AE and while they did not realize that "Mark" is the original Gospel so whether it had any post resurrection sighting should be a bigger issue than they thought, we have already seen the increasing external pressure, based on the Patristic testimony, to change to LE.

Mr. Snapp writes:

Quote:

First, though, we should become acquainted with the earliest MS of Mark: Papyrus 45, a mutilated copy of the Gospels and Acts produced c. 200. In 1981, Larry Hurtado analyzed P45’s much-mutilated text of Mark 5:31-12:28 and concluded that in this section, P45 and Codex W have a distinctly high 69% rate of agreement. This means that in Mark, neither P45 nor Codex W is a strong “Caesarean” witness. Instead, they both imperfectly echo another ancient transmission-stream.

This information about P45 helps us evaluate references to “the earliest manuscripts.” Although damage has claimed the text of P45 after 12:28, it is probable that P45, like its closest textual relative, contained 16:9-20 when intact. Also, when we encounter claims that the Alexandrian text of Mark “goes back to the second century,” we should recall that that no second-century or third-century Alexandrian MSS of Mark are extant other than P45, and its text in Mark 5:31-12:28 tends to agree with Codex W rather than the Alexandrian text.

"it is probable that P45, like its closest textual relative, contained 16:9-20 when intact."

JW:
Obviously we don't know what P45 had for an ending. A minor part of my (and authority's) argument for the superiority of A and B is that as Alexandrian text type they tend to be supported by the earlier fragments.

Papyrus 45

Quote:

The textual character of the manuscript varies between each book: Mark is the closest to Caesarean,

Wikipedia dates it to c. 250. Presumably Eusebius was familiar with its family as by an act of providence Eusebius was in Caesarea, as was Origen, who as we saw, seemed unaware of the LE. They also had a Scriptorium at Caesarea. Do I take this indirect evidence and project P45 as a witness for AE? God forbid. Than I would sound like my opponent. I'll also note once again that Codex W has the Extended Ending and not the LE so it is evidence against LE. I'll remind my opponent that the subject of this debate is:

Is the LE original?

and not:

Which ending is original?

Regarding Sinaiticus (A) my opponent spends a good deal of time looking through a text which has the AE for evidence that it had the LE. Now there was a scribal sign used to indicate that a verse was an addition but there is no such sign here (as there is in a number of later Greek manuscripts indicating the LE is an addition). So my opponent than has to look for evidence that the scribe hid the evidence that the text had LE. My opponent even confesses to us that this scribe would have inherited Eusebius' collection of manuscripts without the LE:

Quote:

Acacius’ main exemplars of Biblical texts would have thus been copies handed down from his predecessors: the same Alexandrian copies Eusebius had regarded as “the accurate copies.”

My opponent's conclusion here is:

Quote:

J. K. Elliott’s observation must suffice: “The strange calculations suggest that the scribes were aware (as was the scribe of Codex Vaticanus) that the ending of Mark was disputed.”

JW:
Well I would hope so. Eusebius at Caesarea already indicated he was not sure which was original. I'm at a loss here to even summarize my opponent's position that A is evidence for the LE:

Even though the exemplars in general had AE, the exemplar for A had LE. The supervisor did not supervise the ending of LE until after it was done and than hid it but made a point that it was hidden.

I would like to thank my opponent though for confessing that there must have been many manuscripts here with the AE. I suggest he decide before the next debate whether or not he will argue that A and B are the exceptions.

On to Vaticanus (B) which is more of the same. My opponent looks at a manuscript which has AE and lacks the scribal sign of a change, for evidence that the manuscript had LE and had scribal evidence of a change.

My opponent argues about whether B is supported by the Papyri or early Church Fathers. Wikipedia says:

Alexandrian text-type

Quote:

Most textual critics of the New Testament favor the Alexandrian text-type as the closest representative of the autographs for many reasons. One reason is that Alexandrian manuscripts are the oldest we have found, and some of the earliest church fathers used readings found in the Alexandrian text. Another is that the Alexandrian readings are adjudged more often to be the ones that can best explain the origin of all the variant readings found in other text-types.

This is why authority considers the Alexandrian text-type, such as B, authoritative.

My opponent spends a lot of words claiming as remarkable that there is blank space after the AE while confessing to us that there would not be enough room for the LE. Again, since there is no scribal mark here of textual variation, there is no direct evidence against the AE here. If the blank space is evidence of a variant it would be evidence of the Short Ending, since that would fit. And again, I wouldn't have a problem anyway even if the intent of the blank space was an option to include the LE. The LE was clearly known at Caesarea, thought to be old and possibly original and was building Patristic pressure to be changed to. The final note though is that B was subsequently heavily edited to different text types and in all that time, with space available, no one ever added the LE. So with apologies to my opponent, not only is B clear evidence of AE it is also evidence that it was recognized as likely original for some time after (The same thought applies to A).

The conspiracy theory offered by my opponent than becomes somewhat comical as the conspirator (in my opponent's mind) was unable to hide the evidence in the later manuscript even after going through the same problem in the earlier and presumably my opponent would tell us that we just happen to have the only 2 out of 50 manuscripts that this occurred in.

My opponent writes:

Quote:

Jerome regarded Mark 16:20, not 16:8, as the end of Mark; second, that he expected this to be the case in his readers’ copies; third, that Codex W was not the only MS that contained this interpolation.

JW:
Remember the context here. Eusebius, c. 310, testifies that the evidence indicates AE is original and this is Eusebius' conclusion, before the extant texts. Jerome, c. 400, confirms Eusebius that the manuscripts support AE as original and this is confirmed by the extant texts here, A and B. But due to the increasing external pressure to change to LE, Jerome concludes that LE should be the text. Jerome further indicates that the EE was not limited to Codex W, creating further doubt as to the originality of LE due to variation.

My opponent has properly corrected me regarding L Ψ 099 0112. They are not evidence of originally lacking the LE. They are only evidence that their exemplars lacked the LE.

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

JoeWallack · 01-31-2010, 02:25 PM

JW:
In the process of trying to claim support for LE by appealing to the variety of text types which support it my opponent exposes himself to a side effect of this variation discussion which is worse than the attempted cure. Variation in the LE. Variation is probably the most important clue for scribal addition. They go together like salt & pepper, politics & corruption and eggs & turkey sausage bacon

Let’s present the majority textual LE and than backtrack to references to the text of the LE in the Greek to consider the history of variation in the LE:

Mark 16

Quote:

9 Now when he was risen early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.
10 She went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept.
11 And they, when they heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, disbelieved.
12 And after these things he was manifested in another form unto two of them, as they walked, on their way into the country.
13 And they went away and told it unto the rest: neither believed they them.
14 And afterward he was manifested unto the eleven themselves as they sat at meat; and he upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them that had seen him after he was risen.
15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.
16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned.
17 And these signs shall accompany them that believe: in my name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues;
18 they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken unto them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.
20 And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen.

Irenaeus c. 180 gives the first clear reference to the LE with one verse:

Quote:

So then, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God

Tatian c. 190 appears to have included most of the LE within his Diatesseron.

Tertullian c. 210 refers to verses 9, 15 and 19.

Eusebius c. 300 gives this description of the LE:

Quote:

For in this [manner] the ending of the gospel according to Mark is circumscribed almost in all the copies. The things that seldom follow, which are extant in some but not in all, may be superfluous, and especially if indeed it holds a contradiction to the testimony of the rest of the evangelists. These things therefore someone might say in avoiding and in all ways doing away with a superfluous question.

The implication here from the bold is that Eusebius observes variation in the LE in his time.

A few other 4th century Fathers have limited quotes/references to the LE.

Note that at this point, before the 5th century, we have nothing extant, either Manuscript or Patristic copy of an original written before, that shows us either all of the LE, most of the LE or even a significant part of the LE by itself. Compare this to “Matthew”/”Luke”, Eusebius/Jerome and A/B which make clear that the AE was long since established at 16:8 with little related variation.

The first extant Manuscript supporting LE is Codex Alexandrinus which is 5th century. Normally in debates regarding the original ending of “Mark” neither side mentions variation in Manuscripts with the LE. The For LE side wants to avoid the issue and the Against LE side doesn’t think it necessary. I applaud Mr. Snapp for the information he has provided here. Per Mr. Snapp Codex Alexandrinus' variation is:

Quote:

It include the phrase “from the dead” in v. 14; it does not contain “And in their hands” in 16:18, and it reads “the Lord” instead of “the Lord Jesus” in 16:19.

The next extant Manuscript supporting LE is Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, also 5th century. Mr. Snapp writes:

Quote:

(with “And in their hands” in 16:18, and with “Lord” (not “Lord Jesus”) in 16:19). .

One less variant.

Next is Codex Bezae, again 5th century. Mr. Snapp writes:

Quote:

Due to damage, the Greek text on its original pages stops midway through 16:15, at the end of a page. However, when intact, D contained 16:9-20.

Despite being damaged, D supplies enough variants to show that its text is independent of other text-types: in 16:9, 16:10, 16:11, and 16:12, it displays non-Byzantine readings. This shows that D did not derive Mark 16:9-20 from a Byzantine source.

Now the variation increases.

Regarding the later manuscripts with SE and LE my opponent writes:

Quote:

Also, L and its allies contain variants which are not in the Byzantine, “Western,” or “Caesarean” text-types. The phrase “And in their hands” in 16:18 is particularly important. This indicates that the text of Mark 16:9-20 in L and its allies is indigenous; it is not borrowed from another text-type.

In , there is no intervening note between 16:8 and the SE. There is a normal “end-of-lection” mark, and a “beginning-of-lection” mark is in the left margin parallel to the beginning of 16:9, along with a liturgical lection-title. Between the end of the SE and the beginning of 16:9 is a note that is virtually identical to the note that precedes 16:9 in L.

These manuscripts are a few centuries later and indicate that at this time scribes were still not sure what exactly the LE was.

As always, note the coordination of the categories of evidence here. In the Patristic category Eusbius implies variation in the LE of his time and Jerome explicitly identifies LE variation in his time. Subsequent manuscript evidence for the LE all has variation in the LE for the next several hundred years. This tells us that the main question facing scribes here hundreds of years after the AE was fixed at 16:8 was not what exactly the LE was but whether to use an LE. If you compare variation in 16:1-8 with variation in 16:9-20, there is no comparison. The logical explanation is that scribes wanted to use an LE but had no clearly defined LE in their exemplars because the LE was not original.

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

avi · 02-01-2010, 04:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by James Snapp Jr.

Now we proceed to Codex W. I cannot explain why my opponent listed Codex W as a witness against Mark 16:9-20; it contains all these verses. Between v. 14 and v. 15 we find the “Freer Logion,” which Jerome mentioned in his composition Dialogue Against the Pelagians 2:15, (c. A.D. 417). Jerome stated that he had found this material “in certain exemplars and especially in Greek codices near the end of the Gospel of Mark.” Thus we observe, first, that Jerome regarded Mark 16:20, not 16:8, as the end of Mark; second, that he expected this to be the case in his readers’ copies; third, that Codex W was not the only MS that contained this interpolation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Wallack

Remember the context here. Eusebius, c. 310, testifies that the evidence indicates AE is original and this is Eusebius' conclusion, before the extant texts. Jerome, c. 400, confirms Eusebius that the manuscripts support AE as original and this is confirmed by the extant texts here, A and B. But due to the increasing external pressure to change to LE, Jerome concludes that LE should be the text. Jerome further indicates that the EE was not limited to Codex W, creating further doubt as to the originality of LE due to variation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Wallack

The first extant Manuscript supporting LE is Codex Alexandrinus which is 5th century.

I think Codex W is the oldest extant manuscript supporting the long ending. Yes, the ending of W is even longer than the long ending, but it includes the long ending, thus opposing the abrupt ending found in Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Your argument, Joe, that by containing even more text than the traditional long ending, W raises further doubts about the validity of the long ending seems contradicted by the evidence:

A. 1,2,3,4,5
is contained within
B. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
and not included in
C. 1,2,3

I think we need a more intense study of W, and especially papyrus 45. I am unpersuaded by spin's cute little dead horses, upon which I am always beating, unless I am running into his windmills.

avi

JoeWallack · 02-15-2010, 07:08 AM

JW:
From: CARM Mark 16:9-20: Authentic or Not?

Quote:

(A preliminary note is necessary: due to a font-related glitch, the Hebrew letter Aleph, which stands for Codex Sinaiticus, has been garbled in the presentation here; sometimes it has appeared as an accented “A” or just as “A.” The letter “A” is the symbol for Codex Alexandrinus. So from now on, I will just write “Aleph” to refer to Codex Sinaiticus.)

I will address my opponent’s nine concerns point-by-point.

(1) Regarding Eusebius: although my opponent and I seem to disagree about the significance of some of the nuances in the statements of Eusebius in “Ad Marinum,” we agree that Eusebius has provided a qualitative assessment of the issue. His statements about the quantities of MSS present differing ratios; this indicates that Eusebius, as he made those statements, was only presenting, as he says, things that a person might say. Otherwise he would have mentioned one factual ratio rather than several possible ratios. It is understandable that Eusebius, writing so soon after the Diocletian persecution in which copies of NT books had been targeted for destruction, was reluctant to attempt to declare precisely how many copies included or omitted the passage.

It is the “accurate copies” which mattered most to Eusebius: copies at Caesarea which he inherited from Pamphilus, based on copies inherited from Pierius, based on copies inherited from Origen, who brought copies to Caesarea from Egypt. This interlocks with the theory that the Abrupt Ending at 16:8 originated in an early Egyptian copy, and this variant spread to Caesarea from there.

(2) Regarding P45: my opponent appealed to Wikipedia to answer the data I provided about the special textual affinity between P45 and Codex W. However, the Wikipedia-writer seems unfamiliar with Hurtado’s research. That research shows that P45’s text of Mark is much more closely related to the text of Mark in Codex W than the text in either MS is related to any Caesarean witness. That is why I wrote, “In Mark, neither P45 nor Codex W is a strong “Caesarean” witness. Instead, they both imperfectly echo another ancient transmission-stream.” The incorrect statements in the Wikipedia article have misled my opponent into imagining that Eusebius was familiar with the family of P45 at Caesarea, whereas P45 represents an isolated Egyptian text instead.

(3) Regarding Codex W: The interpolation between 16:14 and 16:15 in Codex W is a large variant, but it is still just a variant; it does not turn 16:9-20 into some other ending. To consider Codex W evidence against LE would be like saying that a picture of a ship with a barnacle on its hull is evidence that the hull is not original.

(4) Regarding the unusual features in Sinaiticus at the end of Mark: my opponent stated that because there is not an obvious scribal symbol to indicate the presence of a variant in Sinaiticus, I have sought “evidence that the scribe hid the evidence that the text had LE.” However, my claim is not that the copyist who made the replacement-pages “hid the evidence that the text had LE.” I would even go so far as to say that the replaced pages containing Mk. 14:54-Lk. 1:56 almost certainly did not contain 16:9-20. The inconsistent rate of letters-per-column and the uniquely emphatic decorative line after 16:8 in the replacement-pages shows that the copyist was aware of at least one alternative to the abrupt ending; it does not mean that the copyist was not following his primary exemplar.

With this point established, it seems that my opponent misunderstood me when he wrote, as if summarizing my position, “the exemplar for (Aleph) had LE,” and that the supervisor of Aleph hid the LE “but made a point that it was hidden.” Perhaps it would be helpful to state my observations about the ending of Mark in Sinaiticus again:

(a) We don’t have the main copyist’s pages; we only have replacement-pages.
(b) The person who made the replacement-pages appears to have been aware of an alternative to the abrupt ending, and inasmuch as Aleph was produced at Caesarea, where Eusebius had written about the end of Mark without any hint of awareness of the Shorter Ending, this alternative was 16:9-20.

(5) Regarding Vaticanus: as I mentioned already, claims about the correspondence between B and the early papyri do not pertain to the present subject because there are no early papyri containing Mark 16. Claims such as the ones in the Wikansayanythingipedia article cited by my opponent are merely diversionary. Turning to the MS itself, I shall briefly address some claims my opponent made:

I agree that there is no direct evidence against the abrupt ending in B; the deliberately placed blank column, however, is strong indirect testimony of the copyist’s awareness of 16:9-20. In addition, I again note that the blank space is sufficient for 16:9-20 if a copyist used compressed lettering, as any competent copyist could do (and as we see in the replacement-pages in Aleph); this is demonstrated at the Curtisville Christian Church website.

The claim, “If the blank space is evidence of a variant it would be evidence of the Short Ending, since that would fit,” is unsound. A copyist reserving space for the SE would have no reason to leave an entire column blank, because all the necessary space was below the end of 16:8, in column two. Also, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus appear to have been made at Caesarea, where Eusebius, though aware of the contents of his MSS there, was apparently completely unaware of the SE.

When my opponent claimed, “B was subsequently heavily edited to different text types;” perhaps he was thinking of Aleph. Nevertheless I will address his concern about later correctors’ failure to insert 16:9-20 in Aleph and B. This is attributable to some copyists’ tendency to treat old readings with relic-like veneration, simply because they were old. The abrupt ending, having been explicitly mentioned by Eusebius in “Ad Marinum,” would be among the most famous such readings.

My opponent assumed that a copyist’s failure to correct a variant is “evidence that it was recognized as likely original.” This is not the case. Some correctors did their work spottily rather than exhaustively. Some highly disciplined copyists were capable of reproducing their exemplars so exactly that they even reproduced obvious incorrect readings. And, as I just mentioned, some copyists felt that the antiquity of a variant was a sufficient reason not to correct it. We see this phenomenon in Codex B; at Hebrews 1:3, after someone replaced the incorrect reading “faneron” with the correct “ferwn,” another copyist erased “ferwn,” rewrote “faneron,” and jotted a Greek note in the margin: “Fool and knave! Spare the old reading; do not change it.”

(6) Regarding copies at Caesarea: my opponent wrote, “I would like to thank my opponent though for confessing that there must have been many manuscripts here with the AE.” The question is not whether B and Aleph were the only copies at Caesarea in which Mark ended at 16:8; Eusebius’ comments show that other copies there did so. The question is whether copies at Caesarea (such as Vaticanus and Sinaiticus) were typical or exceptional compared to the copies used elsewhere.

I agree with, and even celebrate, my opponent’s statement that “The LE was clearly known at Caesarea, thought to be old and possibly original,” a claim based on the statements of Eusebius in “Ad Marinum.” It should be clear that, in addition to the other pieces of evidence we have reviewed, we thus have in “Ad Marinum” the evidence of copies of Mark (one belonging to Marinus, and at least one belonging to Eusebius) that included 16:9-20, as old as our two oldest extant copies of Mark 16.

My opponent has misread the evidence as if it indicates that the abrupt ending was once dominant. It is clear that 16:9-20 dominated the rival variants after 400. But that is not the same as evidence that the situation was previously different. Before 400, and before 300, and before 200, 16:9-20 was used in different locales, while all manuscript evidence for the abrupt ending (none of which is earlier than the early 300’s) is traced to Egypt.

Continued in the following post . . .

Yours in Christ,

James Snapp, Jr.

JoeWallack · 02-17-2010, 07:00 AM

JW:
From: CARM Mark 16:9-20: Authentic or Not?

Quote:

(Continued from the previous post)

(7) Regarding Jerome: as my opponent revisited the evidence from Jerome, he encouraged us, “Remember the context here.” Amen! The context, in “Ad Hedibiam,” is the middle of a loosely translated extract from “Ad Marinum.” By the time Jerome wrote to Hedibia, Mark 16:9-20 was in the Greek MSS used by Hippolytus, by Vincentius of Thibaris, by the author of “De Rebaptismate,” by Marinus, by the author(s) of Apostolic Constitutions, by the author of Acts of Pilate, by the author of the Leucian Acts, by Wulfilas, by Porphyry/Hierocles, by Macarius Magnes, by Augustine, by the translators of the Peshitta, and by the copyists of Codices A, D, W, and C. This compels the conclusion that the statement that “almost all the Greek codices lack the passage” is an abridgement of the words of Eusebius, not an observation by Jerome.

Now we turn to Jerome’s statement in “Against the Pelagians.” Jerome had already included Mark 16:9-20 in the Vulgate (which, we may again notice, he states that he made on the basis of old Greek manuscripts) in 383/384. As he refers to the Freer Logion, he states that he had seen it in the end of Mark following 16:14 “in certain exemplars, especially Greek codices.” (As I explained earlier, these were probably copies he had seen in 386 when he visited the White Monastery in Egypt.) Jerome expected his readers to recognize the verses surrounding the Freer Logion as the normal end of the Gospel of Mark; the Freer Logion, not the surrounding verses, was the anomaly.

Regarding the statement, “Jerome further indicates that the EE was not limited to Codex W, creating further doubt as to the originality of LE due to variation,” this is merely a way of attempting to claim that because Codex W has the Freer Logion, it is evidence against 16:9-20. Such a claim is illogical, since the existence of the Freer Logion depends on the prior existence of 16:9-20.

(8) Regarding L, Ψ, 099 and 0112: my opponent’s description of them has improved, but rather than saying that “Their exemplars lacked the LE,” we should say that some of their ancestors or exemplars lacked Mk. 16:9-20 while other ancestors or exemplars contained the passage. This evidence interlocks with the reconstructed transmission-history of the abrupt ending that I have proposed: the abrupt ending circulated in Egypt in the second century; copies with the abrupt ending were taken to Caesarea in the 200’s; meanwhile in Egypt, the Shorter Ending was created to round off the otherwise abrupt ending. Everywhere else, including in the Egyptian transmission-stream represented by P45 and Codex W, the Gospel of Mark circulated with 16:9-20. L, Ψ, 099 and 0112 display the result of the earlier convergence of two Egyptian transmission-streams.

So: Eusebius’ “accurate copies” were at Caesarea; Sinaiticus was produced at Caesarea; one of the copyists involved in the production of Vaticanus was also involved in the production of Sinaiticus. The “accurate copies” at Caesarea were entrusted to Eusebius by Pamphilus, who received his exemplars from Pierius, who received his exemplars from Origen, who had brought his exemplars from Egypt when he left Alexandria around 234. Consider this line of descent carefully and you will see that the Egyptian text represented by the earliest stratum of the Sahidic version (with the abrupt ending) is in the same transmission-stream as Aleph, B, and Eusebius’ “accurate copies.”

(9) Finally, regarding textual variants in Mark 16:9-20: my opponent attempted to use this as evidence that the passage is spurious, stating, “Variation is probably the most important clue for scribal addition.” We may reckon that if this “most important clue” turns out to be utterly meaningless, then his less important evidence deserves even less attention. Before testing the essence of his claim, though, some of his preliminary statements bear correction:

JW: “Irenaeus c. 180 gives the first clear reference to the LE with one verse.”

But, as we have seen, Justin Martyr’s use of Mark 16:20, blended with Luke 24:52-53, in 160 in his First Apology ch. 45, is clear, especially when his use of a Synoptics-Harmony is recognized.

JW: “Tatian c. 190 appears to have included most of the LE within his Diatesseron.”

The date for Tatian’s composition of the Diatessaron should be assigned to 172. (My opponent’s date of 190 is no more justifiable than Dr. Morna Hooker’s date of 140.)

JW: “A few other 4th century Fathers have limited quotes/references to the LE.”

A few??? The fourth-century writers who quoted or otherwise used material from Mk. 16:9-20 include Aphraates (337, loosely cited 16:16-18), Wulfilas (350, translated 16:9-20 into Gothic), “Acts of Pilate” (incorporated 16:15-16), Marinus (c. 325, quoted 16:9), “Apostolic Constitutions” Book VIII (380, quoted 16:17-18 and alluded to 16:15), Jerome (383, included 16:9-20 in the Vulgate), Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 385, cited 16:19), and the author of “De Trinitate” (probably Didymus the Blind, cited 16:15-16).

My opponent wrote, “At this point, before the 5th century, we have nothing extant, either Manuscript or Patristic copy of an original written before, that shows us either all of the LE, most of the LE or even a significant part of the LE by itself.” If he meant that there is no evidence of the entire contents of Mk. 16:9-20 prior to the 400’s, then such a claim is clearly wrong, inasmuch as Tatian used all 12 verses, and Wulfilas translated 16:9-20 into Gothic in 350, and the Vulgate (383) includes the passage. (Also, Augustine, c. 400, commented on the whole passage and, in his comments on 16:12, cited Greek copies, which, unless they were very new, were from the 300’s.) Plus, the sort of logic that says that a citation of part of Mk. 16:9-20 is not evidence of the existence of the whole passage is the sort of logic that says that a citation of only a part of the Gettysburg Address is not evidence of the existence of the entire composition.

By reviewing the differences in Mark 16:9-20 among the text-types (Alexandrian, Byzantine, “Western,” “Caesarean,” and the Egyptian type represented by P45 and W), I have shown that the presence of Mk. 16:9-20 in these copies is not due to the influence of one local text upon another, inasmuch as each has retained its own distinct readings. If we had found a lack of textual variation among these witnesses, we would deduce that we have an orchard, so to speak, in which branches from one tree have been grafted onto others, causing them to bear fruit that would not otherwise be in their nature to produce. But when we see different fruit on different trees, we deduce that the trees are bearing their natural fruit. Likewise when the different text-types contain Mk. 16:9-20 with differences, we conclude that the passage is part of their natural textual genotype.

My opponent claimed that “Eusebius implies variation in the LE of his time,” but Eusebius is really only concerned with the presence or absence of 16:9-20; none of his statements imply an awareness of variant-readings within 16:9-20. Also, it does not follow from the fact that “Jerome explicitly identifies LE variation in his time” (namely, the Freer Logion) that he or his readers had doubts about the entire passage. Jerome elsewhere mentions textual variants in Mt. 5:22, 11:23, 13:35, 16:2-3, 22:31, and 24:36, without suggesting that the adjacent parts of Matthew are spurious. He endorses Mk. 16:9-20 in “Ad Hedibiam.”

My opponent also claimed, “If you compare variation in 16:1-8 with variation in 16:9-20, there is no comparison.” Actually, if you look at 16:1-8, you will see the same sort of variation that we see in 16:9-20 (though not quite as much, because 16:1-8 is not quite as long).

D (“Western”) omits most of verse 1 and lacks ELQOUSAI in v. 1b and transposes phrases in v. 4 and adds “the angel” in v. 6 and omits “the Nazarene” in v. 6.

In family-1 (“Caesarean”), the phrase “He is risen from the dead, and behold,” is inserted in v. 7.

In B and Aleph (“Alexandrian”), in v. 2 TWN precedes SABBATWN and in v. 4 the prefix ANA- appears instead of APO- and in v. 8 the word TACU does not appear.

In Codex W (“Egyptian”), KAI LIAN is absent from v. 2a and QEWROUSIN appears in v. 5 instead of EIDON and OIDA GAR OTI is inserted in v. 6.

In Old Latin k, there is a substantial interpolation between 16:3 and 16:4, and the last phrase of 16:8 is omitted.

And the Byzantine text varies from the others.

More variants could be listed, but the point is already demonstrated: the presence of variants of this sort does not imply a higher or lower degree of authenticity of the passage in which they are found. This can be shown in a dozen different ways but I hope the proof I have given here, using for comparison the sample-passage selected by my opponent, will be sufficient. The variants within 16:9-20 do not suggest scribal uncertainty about Mk. 16:9-20; to the contrary, they demonstrate that Mark 16:9-20 was distributed throughout early Christendom and, unlike the abrupt ending, the passage was disseminated in several text-types as part of the Gospel of Mark.

The textual variants in Mark 16:9-20 do not suggest inauthenticity or scribal uncertainty about the passage. But what about paratextual features, such as the scribal notes found in about 20 medieval MSS? Metzger wrote that “Not a few manuscripts which contain the passage have scribal notes stating that older Greek copies lack it.” Could this be evidence of scribal hesitation? Perhaps we can explore the evidence from those manuscripts soon, and then explore the versional evidence and lectionaries.

Yours in Christ,

James Snapp, Jr.

Unbeliever · 02-18-2010, 08:58 PM

An interesting thing I've noticed about GMark is that without the added verses at the end, it would contain exactly 666 verses. I'm sure it means nothing, since the chapters and verses were added centuries after it was written, but perhaps worth noticing nevertheless.

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02-18-2010, 08:58 PM	#210
Unbeliever Regular Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ca., USA Posts: 283	An interesting thing I've noticed about GMark is that without the added verses at the end, it would contain exactly 666 verses. I'm sure it means nothing, since the chapters and verses were added centuries after it was written, but perhaps worth noticing nevertheless.

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