sighhswolf

A very short question.
The oldest copies of the Gospel of Mark,
the sinaitic and vatican end with 16:8.
Where did 9-20 come from?

offa

That is an interesting question. It is my
contention that John was written first and
that there were two women beneath the cross (regardless of the puntuation). Cleophas is mentioned in another gospel and this mentioning of Cleophas (Jesus' brother James) was placed there to convince the fundies (you and me also) that the Cleophas mentioned in John was not Mary's husband Joseph (Mary was a widow at the time).

I believe the bible is an historical document and if it is read with knowledge it is informative.

thanks, offa

btw, John was also edited with a last chapter added in an attempt to make St. Peter an ally of Jesus'. The original John displayed him as an opponent. Jesus and Peter (along with Paul) becam united about four years after the crucifixion (which Jesus survived) and the movement began. A big reason for its success was the reqiurement for circumcision being dropped. The original group of followers of Jesus were rent in twain (divided) because they, for one thing, could not accept this position.

Toto

Early Christians continually revised and improved on the gospels for the first 2-300 years, belieing the notion that they were ever regarded as sacred texts or eyewitness accounts. We don't know who wrote the original Mark, or who added to it. It's one of those mysteries.

Vorkosigan

The NET Bible, at http://www.netbible.org, has excellent notes in many places. The passage for Mark 16:9-20 says:

"1tc The Gospel of Mark ends at this point in some texts (Í B 304 al), including two of the most respected mss (Í B). The following shorter ending is found in some mss: "They reported briefly to those around Peter all that they had been commanded. After these things Jesus himself sent out through them, from the east to the west, the holy and imperishable preaching of eternal salvation. Amen." This shorter ending is often included with the longer ending (L Y 099 0112 al). Most mss include the longer ending after v. 8 (A C D K W [following a different shorter ending] D Q P Y 099 0112 Ë13 28 33 Byz al); however, Jerome only knew of a few Greek mss that had this ending. This strongly suggests that as time went on scribes added this ending, either for the richness of its material or because of the abruptness of the ending at v. 8. Internal evidence strongly suggests the secondary nature of both the short and the long endings. Their vocabulary and style are decidedly non-Markan (for further details, see B. M. Metzger, Textual Commentary, 102-106). Because of questions about the authenticity of these alternative endings, 16:8 is usually regarded as the last verse of the Gospel of Mark. There are three possible explanations for Mark ending at 16:8: (1) The author intentionally ended the Gospel here in an open-ended fashion; (2) the Gospel was never finished; or (3) the last leaf of the ms was lost prior to copying. This first explanation is the most likely due to several factors, including (a) the probability that the Gospel was originally written on a scroll rather than a codex (only on a codex would the last leaf get lost prior to copying); (b) the unlikelihood of the ms not being completed; and (c) the literary power of ending the Gospel so abruptly that the readers are now drawn into the story itself. That is, they must now ask, "What will I do with Jesus? If I do not accept him in his suffering, I will not see him in his glory."
sn Double brackets have been placed around this passage to indicate that most likely it was not part of the original text of the Gospel of Mark. In spite of this, the passage has an important role in the history of the transmission of the text, so it has been included in the translation."

Nobody knows who wrote the extra verses, or why.

Some rigidly fundamentalist scholars criticize the various Bibles that include a note saying that this is a later forgery, arguing that this will only confuse the reader into thinking that the Bible is not Bog's word.

Michael

Michael

Vorkosigan

Actually, until I looked up this question on the Net, I had no idea the NIV was so widely and roundly hated in the Fundie community. I had always thought, from the way it cleans up contradictions by altering the Bible, that the NIV was a big hit with the lame-brainers. But when you get onto sites titled: THE NEW INTERNATIONAL perVERSION....

Michael

Bill

Isn't the NET Bible the fundy answer to the NIV? That's the version I usually quote from these days, and so far as I can recall, no fundy has yet called me on it. (And it's extensive footnotes do seem to at least illuminate the modern fundy thinking on the various (alleged ) "contradictions" in the Bible.

Of course, since no "original Hebrew" or "original Aramaic" text of the New Testament is preserved (everybody quoting Jesus in Greek, it seems), we can never know what sort of errors were introduced by the time the first KNOWN versions were written down.

== Bill