rlogan

The terms "Abrupt Ending" carry with them a begging of the question.

It is only abrupt if you assume a longer ending. There is nothing incomplete, nothing rushed, nothing out of place - it ends, and moreover it ends with what is decisive historically: nobody knows. Jesus slips through un-noticed so the scriptures may be fulfilled and those of us in on the secret can inherit everlasting life.

As you add in the specious material after 16:8 the problems start to mount. In the original ending you had to explain the historical silence regarding Jesus. It is done so effectively with stupid, fearful disciples, and an ignorant Jewish church.

So when you re-introduce the spectactular appearance before multitudes after death, now you are back to explaining why nobody noticed him.

bacht

Right. The original short version works fine on it's own.

spin

Jerome tells us in his 120th epistle that the long ending of Mark "is met with in only a few copies, almost all the codices of Greece being without the passage". (The earliest manuscript we have with the ending is the Codex Washingtonianus (5th c.) which itself has a large interpolation after v.14, attesting to the volatility of the Markan ending (as do the variations in many other manuscripts).

Either the vast majority of manuscripts of Greece (in the late 4th c.) were an aberration or Irenaeus's source (in the late 2nd c.) was. We have earlier sources again as non-witnesses, both Matthew and Luke, neither of which support the long ending, a strange occurrence for they usually follow Mark.


spin

jakejonesiv

Quite right. The gospels of Matthew and Luke diverge wildly after more or less following Mark's PN through 16:8. That was the end of Mark's gospel.

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Jerome was in Bethlehem when he wrote that epistle, and had probably been there quite a while. Afaik, he was never based in Greece although he might have stoped for some galaktoboureko en route to Bethelehem to go with the veggie pizza from Rome.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

This is of course assuming that Irenaeus was a lone voice before the semi-arbitrary 400 AD time period with the ending. Putting aside for now that manuscript lines that were translated before 400 AD have the ending, and just looking at early church writers... we have many additional fellow aberrants.

=======================================

Irenaeus (wrote c. 180) - Against Heresies, Book III,10:5-6 -- (3.10.5)

Constitutions of the Holy Apostles Book V - XIV
VI-XV
VIII-Chapter I
Treatise on Rebaptism (A.D. 250) - IX

Aphraates (Aphrahat), A.D. 337,
Demonstration One: Of Faith (Syrian Church, in Syriac)

The Apocriticus of Macarius Magnes (c. 300)

Ambrose (c. 390) -The Prayer of Job and David.
"Ambrose - quotes from Mark 16:9-20 repeatedly"

Augustine (c 420 AD) Homilies On The Epistle of John To The Parthians (IV:2)

===========================

There are actually many more, and there other important early evidences not included that are, like many early evidences on this discussion, far from 100%, like the Diatessoran.

The wealth of citations, wide and strong in geography and languages, and the knowledge that the Vulgate includes the ending may be why Bruce Metzger warned not to read too much into the Jerome comment c. 400 AD

"Such disparities of proportion of evidence [in comparison with existing MSS] . . . may of course be due to the limitations of Jerome's knowledge"

Perspectives on the Ending of Mark: Four Views p.46 (2008) - citing
St Jerome's Explicity References to Variant Readings in Manuscripts of the New Testament - Metzger

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Toto

This is the mainstream because the heretics lost out, and Eusebius made Irenaeus the standard. But is there any other source that surrounds Irenaeus, so that you can call him mainstream for his time? He seems more inventive.

And I don't think that disingenuous is the word that you want. Joe Wallack claims that Irenaeus was inaccurate. He gives examples of inaccuracies. You haven't shown where those charges were wrong.

Yeah, written on those new fangled typewriters. How can you trust something that violates tradition like that?

Seriously, Irenaeus is criticized for being wrong. Calling modern scholarship "ultra-dubious nouveau" analysis doesn't give me any reason to reject it, or tell me anything except that you don't like it.

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Conceptually bankrupt. I showed that they were based on concepts that had no mileage till 1700+ years later. An argument by anachronism. I'm not going to prove every doofus multi-contradictory modernist theory wrong simply to point out that the Irenaeus statements about the NT authors and books are mainstream and standard for the whole early church period, as well as quite sensible.

In fact, Joe did not offer ONE substantial statement of fact that could be disproven anyway !
How can "charges" without facts be shown wrong ? .. c'mon Toto.

While from Irenaeus :

NOT EVEN ONE WAS DISPROVEN BY JOE ON THE REAL ISSUE, NT DATING & AUTHORSHIP
NOT EVEN REMOTELY - no beef, not even a veggie burger.

Even JW qualified it by "or at least seriously disputed" words that apply to:

EVERY SINGLE THEORY THAT ANYONE CAN PROPOUND ABOUT THE NT AUTHORS

As you probably know, there is a word used for that type of wording that sounds impressive but has special outs so that it really means nothing. The word involves a moving creature so I have to pass on the most descriptive and accurate way of expression.

In other words, no matter what Irenaeus said, JW could make the same accusation. Silly. Joe actually claimed NOTHING .. while pretending, giving the appearance .. he was claiming something.

Toto .. if you really can't see how disingenuous it is to make an argument against the simple and clear ideas of a 200 AD writer about the apostles and NT books and authorship and dating, NONE OF WHICH YOU HAVE DISPROVEN, based on multiple wildly conflicting theories of NT Dating and Authorship 1700+ years later ... may I suggest certain courses you could take ?

You quibbled about "Detering analysis" but of course that was shorthand for 25 conflicting modern theories, every single one of which would be "HOTLY CONTESTED" and "SERIOUSLY DISPUTED" and at the very least 24 of them would be wrong.

Now I don't really blame Joe. Sure..he was crafty with the good 'ol handy "or at least seriously disputed" . So JW didn't actually say anything. What amazes me is that you all fall for that gunk.

btw, if your modernists are right, Deteringites or Dohertyists or Disordats .. of course everything Irenaeus writes is wrong. And the resurrection account in the Gospel of Mark was some sort of contraption Ireneaus made up, or a forger put in his pen 500 years later, with men at the top of a mountain. Have you ever heard of circular reasoning, Toto ?

==================================

The other funny thing is that all of this is superfluous. So what if Irenaeus is called Erroneous by some. Or if he messed up some calculations. To pretend that has anything to do with the Bible in his hands from which he referenced the resurrection account of the Gospel of Mark is silly season. If he were a con-man forger, that could be relevant to the Markan evidentiary argument. Something like having Peter write a Gospel instead of Mark, when you think it should be the other way ? Simply irrelevant. They call it poisoning the well. Apparently some skeptics lap it up (only in a metaphorical way).

No error of Irenaeus is as logically bad as trying to judge his historical perspective .. much closer to the times .. by notoriously changing and dubious modernists, many of whom would barely believe a word of the Bible under any circumstances. Whose theories change by the century, or the decade, or which expand this way and that with each new theoretician. Who are they to be manipulated to make some ink-taint on the historicity of Irenaeus. While you are showing no interest or responsibility for their blunders and confusions and contradictions. Let them clean their own house.

Maybe Joe would go into the whole thing about Jesus living x years. So is JW going to claim that Jesus lived 33 years ? But JW is not willing to acknowledge that Jesus lived at all, or that a real Mark actually wrote Mark, or that there was a NT in the first century. So from what basis could he claim Irenaeus wrong ?

============================

Why is JW even claiming the Gospel of Mark (a fiction book to JW?) has a different ending when he redacts the book right and left for convenience and doesn't tell us what century it was written, how many authors it had and how many pieces it was in, and whether it is fact, fiction or docu-drama ? Why am I the only one who points out the absurdity of a "debate" where one protagonist absolutely refuses to actually give his position on the issues. Does Joe think Mark up to Mark 16:8 was written in 140 AD (minus those two awkward verses that refutes his ending theory) and then the ending in 150 AD ? Does JW have an actual theory ?

Shalom,
Steven Avery

spin

:constern02: (There seems to be no pathetic smilie available.)

Impugning an expert witness through your own advocatorial conjecture is an empty ruse the jury sees through and youtaint your case.


spin

spin

In no way.


spin