JoeWallack

JW:
Regarding the original ending of the original Gospel "Mark", CBS (Christian Bible Scholarship) is not afraid to say that it was not 16:9-20. CBS continues to be amazed though that it was 16:8. The purpose of this Thread is to Inventory CBS that thinks/suspects the original ending was lost.

Before commenting on CBS' desire not to have 16:8 as the original ending of the original Gospel, I'll first present my original CBS witness for 16:8, not!(Ben Witherington):

Evidence of Mutilation and Deterioration— Mk. 16.

JW:
This is his evidence. Following is his conclusion:

Everyone is welcome to comment except for Harvey Dubish or sotto voce claiming that the above is evidence that Jesus was the logical conclusion of The Jewish Bible.



Joseph

ErrancyWiki

Diogenes the Cynic

I think that sounds perfectly plausible. I think the γὰρ ending is highly suggestive that something else followed it. What, I have no idea. Something like John's second ending is not impossible. In fact, I think something like John's second ending (Peter seeing Jesus at the Sea of Galilee) may have been germinal to the invention of the resurrection by Paul (i.e a theophanic vision of some sort by Simon Kephas becomes "catching," is "me-too-ed" and one-upped until you just aren't anybody unless you've seen Jesus. Paul takes these "appearances," and conceptualizes as them as evidence that Jesus has been not just seen, but raised from the dead as the "first fruit" and that everybody else will soon follow).

la70119

Mark 16:8. Because typically or at least frequently in Greek sentence strusture, the conjunction is the second word in the phrase it's introducing.

Vorkosigan

I tend to agree too that the end of John used to be the end of Mark, with substantial editing.

JoeWallack

JW:
I find fault with every observation you make here but to move towards the Theme of this Thread what I find reMarkable about WutheringTon's Height of his conclusion is the relationship between his evidence and conclusion. The only attempt he makes at External evidence is the general observation that a papyrus would be more likely to deteriorate at the edge.
Besides the weakness of such a general observation, what exactly is the theory for how this happened? A papyrus which at some point in time was the only copy of "Mark" had the entire post resurrection part worn out in a minority of the second century. I suppose that is more likely than Jesus being resurrected or one of the Republican candidates beating Obama in a debate, but what else would it be more likely than?

On the other side, he has:

1) No Manuscript evidence for a lost ending.

2) No Patristic evidence for a lost ending.

3) No Scribal evidence for a lost ending.

Ironically, the only category of External where he has support, Authority, he does not invoke.

Combine this weakness of external evidence with the overall and absolute weakness of evidence for Source. No hand or foot evidence for Authorship or Provenance. The only reason a lost ending is even possible is because of the overall weakness of any of the choices. If we compare relative evidence though for External, there is no comparison.

On the other side though, he describes his conclusion of lost ending as "quite likely" (I can forgive him for not being an English major). The evidence above though does not support such a conclusion. He can guess/speculate that the ending was lost, but nothing more. Strangely/bizarrely/macabraly he contradicts himself in his last paragraph. If the original ending was lost than parts of the LE may be original.

The Skeptical comparison would be 1_Corinthians_15:3-11

I doubt that this is original but because of the absence of External support I would not say my conclusion is likely (and definitely not "quite likely").

That being said DC, I would ask you to clarify. Do you think it likely that the ending was lost or just possible and this possibility is your guess?



Josep

ErrancyWiki

Adam

Good arguments, Joe,
But has anyone considered that someone may have miscalculated how Mark would fit on the medium, with anything beyond Mark 16:8 written on another sheet or scroll that was soon misplaced? Or that the original ending (say, something like the ending of Matthew) was cut off to be replaced by something else, but which was misplaced?

Bernard Muller

The original ending of gMark was at 15:39
Explanations here: http://historical-jesus.info/hjes3.html and then search for: Mk9:9-10

Vorkosigan

Bernard, that position is not really defensible. The Empty Tomb and rising are prefigured throughout the gospel, indicating that the writer intended for those scenes to be there.

Further, the Centurion's remark about Jesus could well be sarcastic: truly this man was the son of god (and I'm Julius Caesar!).

Bernard Muller

Vorkosigan wrote:
It is was so hard to defend, why could I find so many arguments, with some few strong ones. And where is the empty tomb prefigured in the gospels?
Nowhere I know of. The rising is, but after three days, not after 40 hours (or on the third day). I think "Mark" did not dare to go beyond a spiritual resurrection, when Paul and the author of Hebrews did not assert a bodily one. "Mark" had Jesus predicting his raising from the dead three times after three days, "demonstrated" that Jesus was an excellent prophet and "showcased" Moses & Elijah on the high mountain.
Yes, I know the centurion remark has been said to be possibly sarcastic. But if it was the ending, I do not think it would be interpreted that way. The gospel is Roman-friendly (Pilate trying not to crucify Jesus, pay tax to Caeasar). A sarcastic remark from the centurion would go against that.
It does not make any difference for my case if the "empty tomb" is original or an early interpolation. For a long time, I accepted the empty tomb as original, but more and more pieces of evidence started to accumulate in my mind and I had to write against my initial view.

sotto voce

Obviously the apostles, and many more Jews in the diaspora, thought it was. Apparently, more Jews now disbelieve in YHWH than believe, and, after 2600 years of silence from him, with no Messiah, that can't be so surprising.

But of this gospel. My thought is that it would have to have been the autograph that was left out in the rain, and soon, and perhaps deliberately, because copies could have been amended, from each other, or from communal memory. But it cannot be denied that, in comparison to the other canonical gospels, this one finishes 'early', and there may have been more that has disappeared, if only because attempt have been made to rectify the situation, as supposed.

Because there surely can't be too much certainty that either the Short Ending or the Long Ending is genuine, even if stylistic considerations are laid aside. The former may look like a well-meaning, apologetic attempt to escape embarrassment at what was perceived to be an incomplete account. The latter might seem like a late, crude attempt to smuggle in doubtful theology, while compensating with piety, both overdone and incompetent, that actually embarrasses its author(s). Interpretations of it have certainly been used to teach doctrines that cannot be justified from agreed Scripture, at any rate. But there is nothing in the LE that can be said to incontrovertibly heretical, only suggestively so.

It is frequently claimed that the Longer Ending was addendum of material found in other canonical gospel content. If that is the case, doctrine can, and indeed should, be based upon that material. The recommendation to translators of the United Bible Societies is that Mark is finished at verse 8, so if the UBS is to be taken seriously, doctrine should never rely on the Longer Ending. The inclusion of the LE by most publishers can be taken, along with other practices, as mere publisher preference. Publishers are not in existence to lose money, so one can hardly expect any one of them to be first in the queue to exclude the LE. But they surely all bear a responsibility to make clear to readers the view of the UBS on what is considered non-scriptural material, and this is not always clear.

The more interesting question imv is whether there was a lost ending. I'm not at all sure that there was. Ancient works, including many treatises and dramas, not infrequently had sudden endings. This increases the suspicion that the LE was appended for less than honourable reasons; because there was no necessary literary reason. Neither was there a pressing reason to supply more information, because resurrection was reported, and that was all that was necessary. Post-resurrection appearances of Jesus were not necessarily of interest to readers, who could have known from oral lore more about events after the resurrection, anyway. A modern teacher would send back a story that ends abruptly to obtain a nice 'ending' to wrap things up, and modern readers may therefore have expectation of a 'nice' ending, but the author of this gospel could well have thought that this was at least a natural way to stop. He had reached the point at which the reader knew that the crucifixion, predicted by Jesus, had been vindicated by resurrection, and there was no more, necessarily, to say.

The author may have had his own additional purpose, and his own point to make, however, and may have wanted no further record whatsoever. It may be that his overall intention was to make clear the true identity of Jesus to people who had heard about him, that he had risen from the dead (indeed, the author would have taken that knowledge for granted, if his account ended in verse eight); and had also heard false ideas about him, particularly, that Jesus was not the manifestation or Son of God. Notwithstanding the disputed 'Son of God' appellation of the introduction, the author is throughout interested in the reaction of people to Jesus, both of the religious Establishment, and of ordinary folk (his typical readers), because his point is that Jesus is not just a man. Unlike ordinary men, he forces reactions, both joyful and adverse; there is no middle ground reported; there is no 'Don't Know' option needed in this opinion poll.

So, the disciples, themselves 'astonished' on more than one occasion, mourn Jesus after his crucifixion. So, a tough pagan centurion recognises divinity in him. So, after Gadara, people ask Jesus to leave their territory. So, his own townsfolk can't figure out where he gets his wisdom from. Even his own family say he is mad! God, 'Mark' is saying, had now really 'tabernacled' with man, not just in figure, as in the Tabernacle, then the Temple, of Israel. Perhaps that's the central purpose of 'Mark', whether this is the actual ending or not. But ending at verse 8 may be consonant with that purpose.

The author recorded eight occasions on which Jesus had required silence about his nature— his divinity, one might say— yet, where this command had not been to the twelve disciples, those commands had often not been observed; because of the effect that Jesus had on people. On the last occasion, the 'time limit' on the required silence was defined:

'As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen [transfiguration] until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.' Mk 9:9 NIV

But, at the very moment that humanity knew by apparently angelic authority that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead, there was stunned silence, through fear and/or awe, and from those most apparently devoted to him.

Now is this really an abrupt ending? Or should the ending be taken as the key to understanding the whole? The women had not witnessed the transfiguration of Jesus, and, we may suppose, had not been informed of it (not that it had made overmuch of an impression on Peter, James and John, who had witnessed it). But they had now witnessed a young man, dressed in a long white robe, who sat on the right. Dressing in white was indication of divine purity. Sitting on the right was indication of divine power. This man was 'Jesus', and the women— who by their very presence had shown unbelief— really had at last 'found' him, as 'God, with us', as their reaction showed.

So, almost at the last, we are told, Jesus' own disciples had not believed that he was 'God, with us'. But they had believed it, because of promised resurrection. The women had been caught out, red-handed. Here they were, solicitous and loving, arms full of precious spices, but their expense, and their solicitation, were all in vain; and they should have known it. Hence their shocked and indeed fearful state— because they had been so faithless. They should have known who Jesus was, Jesus who years before, in this account, had virtually claimed to be God, and afterwards done much else to prove that he was. So the author's point is again, and finally, and perhaps conclusively, that, yes, Jesus really was God in the flesh; he was 'there', in the opened tomb, alive, and never mind later appearances. The author had made his point, and no further words were appropriate. He made no comment about what the women or the disciples thought or did subsequently, because what they thought was no more important than what his readers thought, and were now doubtless provoked to think, by his account.