Freethought & Rationalism Archive

JoeWallack · 03-16-2010, 06:46 AM

JW:
What follows is Part 3 of a preliminary draft of:

Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrier, Ph.D. (2009)

written for ErrancyWiki

posted here for commentary. I'll gradually post the other portions of his draft here. Enjoy!:

Quote:

3. The Principal Scholarship

The literature on the ending of Mark is vast. But certain works are required reading and centrally establish the fact that the current ending of Mark was not written by Mark. They cite much of the remaining scholarship and evidence, and often go into more precise detail than I will here. So to pursue the issues further, consult the following (here in reverse chronological order):

David Alan Black, ed., Perspectives on the Ending of Mark: Four Views (2008). Hereafter PEM.

Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (2007): pp. 797-818. Hereafter MAC.

Bruce Metzger and Bart Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 4th ed. (2005): pp. 322-27. Hereafter TNT.

Joel Marcus, Mark 1-16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (2000): pp. 1088-96. Hereafter MNT.

James Kelhoffer, Miracle and Mission: The Authentication of Missionaries and Their Message in the Longer Ending of Mark (2000). Hereafter MAM.

John Christopher Thomas, “A Reconsideration of the Ending of Mark,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 26.4 (1983): 407-19. Hereafter JETS.

Bruce Metzger, New Testament Studies: Philological, Versional, and Patristic (1980): pp. 127-47. Hereafter NTS.

Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 3rd ed. (1971): pp. 122-28. Hereafter TCG.

There are also a few online resources worth consulting (with due critical judgment). Most worthwhile is Wieland Willker’s extensive discussion of the evidence and scholarship.[11] Though Willker is only (as far as I can tell) a professor of chemistry, and biblically conservative, he did a thorough job of marshaling the evidence. Much briefer but still adding points of note is the treatment of the problem at Wikipedia.[12] Other threads can be explored but will only end up with the same results that all the above scholars document.[13]

JW:
Everyone is welcome to comment except for Harvey Dubish.

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

JoeWallack · 03-17-2010, 07:14 AM

JW:
What follows is Part 4.1-3 of a preliminary draft of:

Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrier, Ph.D. (2009)

written for ErrancyWiki

posted here for commentary. I'll gradually post the other portions of his draft here. Enjoy!:

Quote:

4. The Internal Evidence

Internal evidence is what we can conclude from the reconstructed text, such as it’s internal logic andliterary content and style. In order of physical creation, the ‘internal’ evidence is earlier and so will be treated here first. Other scholars usually treat it last, but the order of examination doesn’t matter. Either way, the internal evidence still confirms the LE is not by Mark, in three different ways: the SE and LE are too incongruous with the OE to have been composed by its author (i.e. the transition from the OE to
either the SE or the LE is illogical); the SE and LE are written in a completely different style from Mark (which proves a different author composed them); and the LE betrays (in fact assumes) knowledge of the Canonical New Testament, which did not exist when Mark wrote (and to a lesser extent the same can be said of the SE).

4.1. Transition Is Illogical

The transition from the OE to the LE violates logic and grammar, while the transition from the OE to the SE is grammatical but even more illogical. This alone greatly reduces the probability of common authorship.

4.1.1. The LE

In the LE the transition from verse 8 to 9 is ungrammatical and thus cannot have been composed by the same author. In fact, this oddity suggests the LE actually derives from another text (possibly a 2nd century commentary on the Gospels) and was only appended to Mark by a third party. There is more evidence for this hypothesis in the manuscripts (which will be discussed later) and in every other element of this illogical transition (to be explored shortly). For the present point, it is enough to note the internal evidence. First, the grammatical subject in verse 8 is “they” (the women), but in verse 9 it is “he” (Jesus). But the word “he” is not present in verse 9. Thus we have the strange transition, “For they were afraid and having risen on the first day of the week appeared first to Mary,” which makes no sense. The pronoun “he” is expected (or the name “Jesus”) but it is absent, creating a strange grammatical confusion. The oddity is clearer in the Greek than in English translation. In the Greek, verse 9 begins abruptly with a nominative participle with no stated subject, a strange thing to do when transitioning from a sentence about a wholly different subject. The transition is not only ungrammatical, it is narratively illogical. Verse 9 reintroduces Mary Magdalene with information we would have expected to learn much earlier (the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her). Instead it is suddenly added in the LE, completely out of the blue without any explanation, suggesting the author of the LE was trying to improve on the OE or wasn’t even writing an ending to Mark but a separate narrative altogether (in which this is the first time Mary Magdalene appears in this scene or in which the story of her exorcism appeared many scenes earlier).
Either entails the same author did not write the OE. Indeed, it makes no sense to add this detail in the LE, as it serves no narrative function, adds nothing relevant to the story, and alludes to an event that Mark never relates. If the author of the LE were Mark, he would have added this exorcism story into the narrative of Jesus’ ministry, and then alluded to it (if at all) when Mary Magdalene was first introduced in verse 15:40, or when she first appears in the concluding narrative (verse 16:1). Furthermore, not only does the subject inexplicably change from the women to Jesus, but suddenly Mary Magdalene is alone, without explanation of why or to where the other two women have gone. We should also expect some explanation of when these appearances occurred, yet we get instead an inexplicable confusion. Verse 9 says they happened after Jesus rose on the first day of the week, but it’s then unclear as to how many days after. This single temporal reference would normally entail everything to follow occurred on the same day. But that would contradict the OE’s declaration that Jesus had already gone ahead to Galilee and would appear there, as it would have taken several days for the women (or anyone else) to travel from Jerusalem to Galilee. It is unlikely Mark would produce such a perplexing contradiction or allow a distracting ambiguity like this in his story, as he is elsewhere very careful about marking relevant chronological progression (e.g. Mark 16:2, 15:42, 14:30, 14:12, 6:35, 4:35, etc.). Mark also wouldn’t repeat the declaration that it was “the first day of the week,” as he already said that in verse 16:2. Instead, he would simply say “on the same day,” or not even designate the day at all, as there would be no need for it (his narrative would already imply it), until the story entailed the passage of several days (perhaps either at 16:12 or 16:14). Apparently the author of the LE ssumes the day hasn’t yet been stated (and thus appears unaware of the fact that it was already stated in the OE only a few verses earlier) and then assumes all these events took place over a single day, and thus in and around Jerusalem, which contradicts Mark’s declaration that the appearances were to occur in Galilee (16:7, 14:28, corroborated in Matthew 28:16-20), yet conspicuously agrees with Luke and John (a telling contradiction that will be discussed later). All four oddities (the incorrect grammar, the strange reintroduction of Mary, the unexplained disappearance of the other women, and the chronological redundancies and contradictions) make the transition from the OE to the LE too illogical for the same author to have written both. On the hypothesis that the LE was written by another author in a different book and just copied into Mark by a third party, all these oddities are highly probable. But on the hypothesis that Mark wrote the LE, all these oddities are highly improbable. Indeed, any one of them would be improbable. All of them together, very much so.

4.1.2. The Terry Thesis

Bruce Terry claims such odd transitions exist elsewhere in Mark and thus are not improbable, but his proposed grammatical parallels actually demonstrate what’s so odd about this one, and he has no parallels for any of the other oddities.[14] In Mark 2:13 we actually have a nested pericope in which the subject (Jesus) is already established at 2:1-2, and he remains the primary subject for the whole story, which story includes 2:12, which clearly explains the temporary transition of subject from Jesus to the man he healed: Jesus gives a command in v. 11, the man follows it in v. 12, then Jesus moves on in v. 13. There is no parallel here to 16:9, where Jesus has never been a subject of any prior sentence much less the whole pericope, yet suddenly he is the subject without explanation, whereas it is the women who have been the primary subject of the entire pericope up until now (beginning at 16:1), and yet even they inexplicably vanish, and suddenly all we hear about is Mary Magdalene alone. That is not a logical transition. Moreover, Mark’s narrative in chapter 2 follows a clear structure of chronological stations, beginning when Jesus is introduced into the story (1:9), then sojourns in the desert (1:13), then returns to the seashore (1:14), then goes to Capernaum (1:21), then leaves (1:35) and goes through Galilee (1:39), then he returns “again” to Capernaum (2:1), where he heals the paralytic, then he returns “again” to the seashore (2:13). The structure and transitions are clear. There is nothing of the sort for 16:9. Hence the transitions in chapter 2 are logical and grammatical, but the transition at 16:8-9 is not. A similar structure accompanies Mark 6:45: the subject is already established as Jesus at 6:34, then Jesus gives commands to his Disciples to deliver food to the multitude (6:37-39), and in result the multitude eat (6:40-44), thus temporarily becoming the subject, then Jesus gives another command to his Disciples (6:45). The nested structure already has the subject clearly established as Jesus. So there is no parallel here to 16:9. The same structure accompanies Mark 7:31: the subject is already
established as Jesus at 7:6, then Jesus teaches and interacts with the crowd, then heads toward Tyre and enters a house (7:24), then a woman begs his aid and they have a back-and-forth conversation (7:25-30), in which the subject shifts entirely as expected from her (7:26) to him (7:27) to her (7:28) to him (7:29) to her (7:30), and then back to him (7:31). The woman has departed in verse 7:29, so obviously we expect the subject at 7:31 to pick back up with who the primary subject has been all along: Jesus.
Mark even indicates this by telling us he “again” went toward Tyre (thus leaving no mistake who the subject is). Again, there is no parallel with 16:9. In just the same way, at 8:1 we already know Jesus is the subject: he is the subject all the way up to 7:36, then we hear a brief audience reaction at 7:37, then Jesus is again the subject at 8:1, as we should already expect. In a comparable fashion, at 14:3 Jesus has already been the primary subject throughout chapter 13, then is temporarily the subject of conversation
for just two verses (14:1-2), then becomes the primary subject again (14:3). There is no comparable nested structure at 16:9. Moreover, all these alleged parallels show how different the style of the LE is, as Mark uses kai (“and”) dozens of times to mark almost every transition in Mark 2 (19 out of 28 verses begin with kai), 6 (40 out of 56 verses begin with kai), and 7 (18 out of 37 verses begin with kai), yet the author of the LE shows no comparable fondness for kai (apart from two un-Markan transitions with kakainos, he begins only 1 of 12 verses with kai, and this despite the fact that the LE runs through no fewer than 9 comparable sentence transitions in just 12 verses), and more importantly, he doesn’t use it to transition
in 16:9, as we would expect if this is supposed to parallel the Markan style of 2:13, 6:45, 7:31, and 14:3 (which all transition with kai) as Terry claims. Only 8:1 uses instead the device of a participle-verb construction similar to 16:9, yet doesn’t transition with the particle de. The LE does. And again, the subject of 8:1 was already established two verses earlier, in an obvious nested structure not at all parallel to 16:9. Another stylistic oddity comes from another verse that Terry mistakenly considers a parallel: only once, he says, does Mark elsewhere begin a new pericope with a participle, and that’s at 14:66, which he claims is a parallel for 16:9. But in fact 14:66 begins with a genitive absolute, which is indeed a very Markan feature (it’s also how he transitions in 8:1, another of Terry’s alleged parallels). It’s just that this is exactly what the author of the LE doesn’t do at 16:9. Since 16:9 does not use the genitive absolute to mark its transition, but 14:66 does, even 14:66 fails to be a parallel, but instead shows just how different Mark’s style was from the author of the LE.

4.1.3. The SE

The transition from the OE to the SE is smoother than for the LE, yet it is still too incongruous for the SE to have come from the original author. For the SE immediately contradicts the very preceding sentence (and without any explanation) by first saying the women told nothing to no one, then immediately saying they told everything to everyone, an error no competent author would commit. This was so glaringly illogical that in at least one manuscript a scribe erased the contradiction by deleting the end of verse 16:8 before continuing with 16:9a, but that ms. (designated “k” = Codex Bobiensis, Latin, 4th/5th century) is actually known for many occasions of such meddling with the text (the BE itself being an example: see section 2.3). The SE is thus even more illogical than the LE. Though otherwise a grammatically correct transition, it was clearly not written by Mark but by someone who could not accept his ending and had to change it, directly reversing what it just said. Mark would not have done that without explaining the incongruity (such as by mentioning a passage of time or otherwise indicating why the women changed their mind).

JW:
Everyone is welcome to comment except for Harvey Dubish.

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

JoeWallack · 03-23-2010, 07:46 AM

JW:
What follows is Part 4.2.1-2 of a preliminary draft of:

Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrier, Ph.D. (2009)

written for ErrancyWiki

posted here for commentary. I'll gradually post the other portions of his draft here. Enjoy!:

Quote:

4.2. Style Is Not Mark’s

That the LE was clearly written by another author is also sufficiently proved by its unique style. Some examples of this were already given in section 4.1.2 (above), but the evidence is far more extensive than that. It is nearly impossible for a forger to imitate an author’s style perfectly, because there are too many factors to control and no one is cognizant of even a fraction of them (from the choice and frequency of vocabulary to average sentence length, grammatical idioms, etc.). And this is entirely the case when the forger makes no effort even to try. It is also very difficult for an author to completely mask his own style, especially since authors are always unaware of all the ways in which their style differs from anyone they may be emulating. And an author never even tries to do that unless he aims to. [15] Thus, if the LE was originally written in a separate work, and thus not even intended as an ending to Mark, it should exhibit a wildly different style, indicative of a different author. But if the LE was written by Mark, it should be the reverse, with far more similarities than deviations. This is not what
we find.

4.2.1. Deviations of Narrative Style

In the LE the series of events is far too rapid and terse and lacks narrative development, which is very unlike the rest of Mark, who as an author would surely cringe at the obscure, unexplained jumble of the LE. Mark composes all his pericopes with clever and elaborate literary structure, nearly everything is present for a reason and makes sense (if you understand the point of it).[16] But the contents of the LE are simply rattled off like a laundry list without explanation or even a clear purpose. There is nothing in
the passage that resembles the way Mark writes or composes his stories. He never rapidly fires through a laundry list of ill-described events, as if alluding to half a dozen stories not yet written. So the whole nature of the passage is starkly uncharacteristic of Mark, being “a mere summarizing of the appearances” of the risen Jesus, “a manner of narration entirely foreign” to Mark’s Gospel. Indeed, as Ezra Gould had already observed over a hundred years ago, the OE’s narration of “the appearance of the angels to the women is a good example of his style” and yet it’s in “marked contrast” to the LE.[17]

Even the cursory temptation scene (Mark 1:12-13) is no comparison. It still reads like a complete unit, for which we would not need or expect any further details had we not otherwise known of them (from the expansion of Matthew and Luke). The LE, by contrast, is unintelligible without knowing the details alluded to, and is not a single event, but a long compressed series of them. Never mind that each one is of phenomenally greater narrative importance than the relatively trivial fact that Jesus was once tried
by the Devil. What remains inexcusably peculiar is the great number of events, compressed to so small a space—compressed so far, in fact, that each one bears even less detail than the temptation, and what details got added make no inherent sense (as will be shown in section 4.3.1).

Moreover, Mark composed a unified Gospel from beginning to end, so if Mark had written the LE, we would expect the LE to mention Galilee: he has set this detail up twice already (14:28 and again in 16:7), anticipating an
appearance in Galilee. So that he would drop this theme in the LE is inconceivable. Indeed, as observed in section 4.1.1 (above), the LE not only drops that theme, it contradicts it by evidently presuming a series of appearances in and around Jerusalem.

4.2.2. Deviations of Lexical & Grammatical Style

The stylistic evidence is alone decisive. For the vocabulary and syntax of the LE could hardly be further from the style of Mark’s Gospel. This has been known for over a hundred years, most famously demonstrated to devastating effect by Ezra Gould in 1896.[18] Unattributed quotations in the present section are from Gould’s seminal commentary (where also the evidence is given). Following is a mere selection of the style deviations demonstrating the LE was not written by Mark:

(1.) In the LE (a mere 12 verses), the demonstrative pronoun ekeinos is used five times as a simple substantive (“she,” “they,” “them”). But Mark never uses ekeinos that way (not once in 666 verses), he always uses it adjectively, or with a definite article, or as a simple demonstrative (altogether 22 times), always using autos as his simple substantive
pronoun instead (hundreds of times).[19]
(2.) In the LE, husteron is used as a temporal (“afterward”), but never by Mark, who only uses cognates (the noun and verb) and only in reference to poverty (2 times), never to express a succession of events.
(3.) In the LE the contraction kan is used to mean “and if” but Mark only uses it to mean “even, just” (5:28 and 6:56, “if I touch even just his garment...”). Mark always uses the uncontracted kai ean to mean “and if” (8 times).
(4.) In the LE, poreuomai (“to go”) is used three times, but never once in the rest of Mark (Mark only ever uses compound forms), which is “the more remarkable, as it is in itself so common a word,” used 74 times in the other Gospels alone, and in Mark “occasions for its use occur on every page.”
(5.) In the LE, theaomai (“to see”) is used twice, but never once in the rest of Mark, who uses several other verbs of seeing instead, none of which are used in the LE. And this despite the fact that theaomai is normally a common word.
(6.) In the LE, the verb apisteô (“to disbelieve”) is used twice, but never once in the rest of Mark, who always uses nominal and adjectival expressions for disbelief instead (3 times).
(7.) The LE employs blaptô (“to hurt”), a word that appears nowhere else in Mark, nor even anywhere else in the whole of the NT (except once, and there very similarly: Luke 4:35); and synergountos (“working with,” “helping”) and bebaioun (“to confirm”), words that appear nowhere else in Mark, nor in any Gospel (but commonplace in the epistles of Paul); and epakolouthein (“to come after,” “to follow”), a word that appears
nowhere else in Mark, nor in any Gospel (but used in the epistles 1 Tim. and 1 Pet.); and several other words that appear nowhere else in Mark: penthein (“to mourn”), heteros (“other”), morphê (“form”), endeka (“eleven”), parakolouthein (“accompany”), ophis (“snake”), analambanô (“take up”), and thanasimon (“deadly thing,” e.g. “poison”). Not
all of these novelties are unexpected, but some are.
(8.) In the LE, the expression meta de tauta (“after these things”) is used twice, but never once in the rest of Mark. Among the Gospels the expression meta de tauta (or just meta tauta) is used only in John and Luke-Acts. In fact, meta tauta is so commonplace in those authors as to be stylistically distinctive of them.
(9.) In the LE, the disciples are called “those who were with him,” a designation Mark never uses, and employing genomenos in a fashion wholly alien to Mark (who uses the word 12 times, yet never in any similar connotation).
(10.) The LE says “lay hands on [x]” with the idiom epitithêmi epi [x], using a preposition to take the indirect object, but Mark uses the direct dative to do that, i.e. epitithêmi [x], with [x] in the dative case (4 times). He only uses the prepositional idiom when he uses the uncompounded verb (tithêmi epi [x], 8:25). Thus Mark recognized the compound idiom was redundant, while the author of the LE didn’t.
(11.) The LE employs several other expressions that Mark never does: etheathê hypo (“seen by”); pasê tê ktisei (“in the whole world”); kalôs hexousin (“get well”); men oun (“and then”); duo hex autôn (“two of them,” an expression not used by Mark with any number, ‘two’ or otherwise); par’ hês (“from whom”), which Mark never uses in any context, much less with ekballô (“cast out,” “exorcise”), in which contexts Mark uses ek instead (7:27); and finally the LE uses prôtê sabbatou (16:9) where we should expect some variation of tê mia tôn sabbatôn (16:2).
(12.) The LE also lacks typical Markan words (like euthus, “early, at once” or palin, “again,” and many others) while using Markan words with completely different frequencies, e.g. pisteuein (“to believe”), used only 10 times by Mark in 666 verses, in the LE is used 4 times in just 12 verses (a frequency far more typical of John, where the word appears nearly a hundred times).

Any one or two of these oddities might happen in any comparably extended passage of Mark, but not so many. In all, of 163 words in the LE, around 20 are un-Markan, which by itself is not unusual. What is unusual is how common most of these words normally are, or how distinctive they are of later NT writers or narratives, hence the concentration of so many of these words in the LE is already suspicious. But more damning are all the ways words are used contrary to Markan style, using different words than Mark uses or using Markan words in a way Mark never does. We also find 9 whole expressions in the LE that are un-Markan, which in just 12 verses is something of a record. Certainly, any single deviation of style will occur at the hand of the same author in any passage or verse, sometimes even several deviations of different kinds, and unique words will be common when
they are distinctive to the narrative. But to have so many instances of so many deviations in such a short span of verses (against a compared text of hundreds of verses) is so improbable there is very little chance the LE was written by the same author as the rest of Mark. And the above list is but a sample. There are many other stylistic discrepancies besides the twelve just listed (and the others in section 4.1.2 above, which must be added to those twelve). James Kelhoffer surveys a vast number of them in MAM (pp. 67-122).

As Darrell Bock says, “it is the combination of lexical terms, grammar, and style, especially used in repeated ways in a short space that is the point.” Hence appealing to similar deviations elsewhere in Mark fails to argue against the conclusion, which carries a powerful cumulative force matched by no other passage in Mark. This is emphasized by Daniel Wallace:
First, the most important internal argument is a cumulative argument. Thus, it is hardly adequate to point out where Mark, in other passages, uses seventeen words not found elsewhere in his Gospel, or that elsewhere he does not write euthôs for an extended number of verses, or that elsewhere he has other abrupt stylistic changes. The cumulative argument is that these ‘elsewheres’ are all over the map; there is not a single passage in Mark 1:1-16:8 comparable to the stylistic, grammatical, and lexical
anomalies in 16:9-20. Let me say that again: there is not a single passage in Mark 1:1-16:8 comparable to the stylistic, grammatical, and lexical anomalies that we find clustered in vv. 9-20. Although one might be able to parry off individual pieces of evidence, the cumulative effect is devastating for authenticity.
In fact, all the most renowned experts on this linguistic question conclude that the LE was not written by Mark and that the stylistic evidence for this is conclusive. Thus as J.K. Elliott puts it, “It is selfdeceiving to pretend that the linguistic questions are still ‘open’.”[20]

The SE is even more incongruent with Markan style. Despite being a mere single verse, 8 of the 12 words in it “that are not prepositions, articles, or names” are never used by Mark—but half of them are found in the Epistles (and sometimes, among NT documents, only there).[21] The whole verse consists of just 35 words altogether, 9 of which Mark never uses, in addition to several un-Markan phrases (including, again, meta de tauta). Discounting articles and prepositions and repeated words, the SE employs only 18 different words, which means fully half the vocabulary of the entire SE disagrees with Markan practice. Half the SE also consists of a complex grammatical structure that is not at all like Mark’s conspicuously simple, direct style. You won’t find any verse in Mark with the convoluted verbosity of “and after these things even Jesus himself from east and as far as west sent out away through them the holy and immortal proclamation of eternal salvation.” The SE was clearly not written by Mark.

JW:
Everyone is welcome to comment except for Harvey Dubish.

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

Rich Oliver · 03-23-2010, 08:18 AM

"The Bible", no such thing and you don't have to get into arguments about Mark 16 to prove it. Some Bibles include books that others don't. The so called apocrypha.

Statement: "The Bible is inerrant/ sacred/ Gods word / etc, etc"

Retort: "Which one?"

JoeWallack · 03-30-2010, 07:19 AM

JW:
What follows is Part 4.2.3-4 of a preliminary draft of:

Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrier, Ph.D. (2009)

written for ErrancyWiki

posted here for commentary. I'll gradually post the other portions of his draft here. Enjoy!:

Quote:

4.2.3 The Terry Thesis

Bruce Terry again claims there is nothing odd about so many unusual phrases, for even in Mark 15:42-16:6 “there are nine phrases” that appear nowhere else in Mark.[18] But that’s not true. Terry chooses as ‘phrases’ entire clauses, which obviously will be unique, since authors tend not to repeat themselves. Hence he is either being disingenuous, or he doesn’t understand what a ‘common phrase’ is. Phrases like “after these things,” “those with him,” “seen by,” “whole world,” “get well,” “and then,” “[#] of
them,” and “from whom” are entirely generic phrases that authors tend to use frequently, or certainly often enough to expect to see them at least a few times in over six hundred verses, unless they are not phrases the author uses. Which is exactly why their presence in the LE tells us Mark didn’t write it. And this conclusion follows with force because there are so many of these oddities, and some go against Mark’s own preferences, e.g. using para instead of ek in “cast out from,” and using prôtê sabbatou instead of tê mia tôn sabbatôn to say “first day of the week.”

In contrast, almost none of Terry’s ‘examples’ are generic phrases—and what generic structure we can discern among them is often confirmed in Markan style elsewhere. For example, he claims “now evening having come” (êdê opsias genomenês) is a unique ‘phrase’ but what’s actually generic in this phrase is êdê [x] genomenos, “now [x] having come,” which Mark uses two other times (Mark 6:35 and 13:28). So this is not unique in 15:42. Likewise, Terry claims “know from” (ginôsko apo) is a unique phrase, but it’s not, as Mark 13:28 has “learn from” (apo mathete), the exact same grammatical construction, just employing a different verb, while the same verb was not unknown to Mark (who used it at least three times, just never in a context that warranted the preposition). Meanwhile, “roll on” (proskulio epi) isn’t a generic phrase at all—it’s just an ordinary verb with preposition, and Mark uses verbs with epi to describe placing objects on things quite a lot (e.g. Mark 4:5, 4:16, 4:20, 4:21, 4:26, 4:31, 6:25, 6:28, 8:25, 13:2, 14:35), so there is nothing unique about that here, either. And there is nothing generic whatsoever about “the door of the tomb” or “white robe.” These are highly specific constructions, using established Markan words. For leukos (“white”) and stolê (“robe”) appear elsewhere in Mark, and mnemeion (“tomb”) appears six other times in Mark (and the equivalent mnêma three other times), and thura (“door”) likewise appears six other times. Likewise, “be not afraid” (me ekthambeisthe) is not a generic clause, but a whole sentence (it is an imperative declaration), none of which is unusual for Mark, who routinely uses mê for negation and uses the exact same verb (ekthambeô) in 9:15. Similarly, “come very early” (lian prôi exerchomai) is not a generic phrase, either, it’s just a verb with a magnified adverb of time, nor is it an unusual construction for Mark, who has “go very early” (lian prôi exerchomai) in 1:35, and who otherwise uses prôi and lian
several times, and erchomai often.

That leaves only two unusual phrases in verses in 15:42-16:6: mia tôn sabbatôn, literally “on the first [day counting] from the Sabbaths” (i.e. “first day of the week”) and en tois dexiois (“on the right”). The former simply paraphrases the Septuagint (Psalm 24:1), which Mark is known to do (e.g. Psalm 22 all throughout Mark 15:16-34). Only the latter is very unexpected as Mark otherwise (and quite often) uses ek dexiôn to say “on the right.” So these two phrases are unique to 15:42-16:6. It’s just that 2 unique generic phrases in 12 verses is simply not enough to doubt their authorship. But 9 unique generic phrases definitely is, especially in conjunction with all the other deviations: the Markan vocabulary that’s missing, the non-Markan vocabulary that’s present, the un-Markan frequencies of Markan words, and the un-Markan idioms where Mark has established a completely different practice. It is all these oddities combined that makes for a vanishingly small probability of Markan authorship. Indeed, if this is not enough evidence to establish the LE wasn’t written by Mark, then we should just assume everything ever written in the whole of Greek history was written by Mark.

4.2.4. Agreements of Style

Though there are several Markan words and phrases in the LE, there are not enough to be peculiar. Most are words and phrases common to all authors and thus not unique to Mark. Excluding those, there are only a very few agreements with Markan style in the LE which can be considered at all distinctive. And yet there are as many agreements with the distinctive style of all the authors of the NT (including both the Gospels and Epistles)—very much unlike Mark. Kelhoffer (in MAM, pp. 121-22, 138-39) lists over forty stylistic similarities with all four Gospels (and Acts). Notably those drawn from Mark show more deviation from Markan style, using different words and phrases to say the same things, while exact verbal borrowing from the other Gospels is frequent. It is thus more probable that the LE’s author was influenced by NT style as a whole (see section 4.3 next), because the similarities to Markan style are no greater than similarities to the rest of the NT, whereas the deviations from Markan style are frequent and extreme. This aspect of the LE’s style is very probable if the author of the LE knew the NT, but much less probable if the LE had been written by Mark.

Of course, such agreement can also be found by mere chance between any two authors. But it’s even more likely when a later author has been influenced by the earlier one, and an author familiar with the whole NT could easily exhibit influence from all its authors, Mark included. This would be all the more likely if the author of the LE deliberately attempted to emulate Markan style (as a forger would be inclined to do), but if that was his intent, his effort was marvelously incompetent. For as we’ve seen, the disagreements of style are so enormous they far outweigh any agreement there may be. In fact, the deviations are so abundant and clear, they actually argue against the original author of the LE intending it to be used as a forgery—the ‘forger’ would then instead be some third party who attempted to pass off the LE as belonging to Mark. It’s also possible the LE became attached to Mark by accident (whereas the SE can only have been a deliberate forgery). I have already presented evidence (in section 4.1. above) and will present more (in following sections) that the author of the LE did not write it as an ending to Mark but as a harmonizing summary of the appearances in all four Canonical Gospels, originally in a separate book (quite possibly a commentary on the Gospels), which was simply excerpted and attached to Mark by someone else (whether deceitfully or by accident).

JW:
Terry's use of statistical Apologetics is instructive. He starts by taking parts of two connected stories in "Mark" with what he thinks has the most unique features and only uses this excerpt to compare to the LE. He than expands the test unit he is critiquing from phrase size to clause in order to get more differences for his sample. He ignores when his supposed unique clauses can be constructed with combinations in "Mark" or a known source such as Greek translations of the Jewish Bible.

Everyone is welcome to comment except for Harvey Dubish.

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

rhutchin · 03-30-2010, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWallack

JW:
What follows is the Introduction portion of a preliminary draft of:

Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrier, Ph.D. (2009)

written for ErrancyWiki

posted here for commentary. I'll gradually post the other portions of his draft here. Enjoy!:

Quote:

1. Introduction: Problem and Significance

...
If Mark did not write verses 16:9-20, but some anonymous person(s) later added those verses, pretending (or erroneously believing) that Mark wrote them (as in fact they must have), then this Gospel, and thus the Bible as a whole, cannot be regarded as inerrant, or even consistently reliable....

This statement is not necessarily so. Even if some anonymous person wrote the ending, the Bible can still be regarded as inerrant or reliable (by those advocates of inerrancy). It is not the authors of the material found in the Bible that determine its inerrancy but the material itself.

If the end of Mark is deficient, then it would seem to work to the advantage of those who argue against the Bible being inerrant. So, let them at it.

rhutchin · 03-30-2010, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWallack

JW:
What follows is the Introduction portion of a preliminary draft of:

Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrier, Ph.D. (2009)

written for ErrancyWiki

posted here for commentary. I'll gradually post the other portions of his draft here. Enjoy!:

Quote:

1. Introduction: Problem and Significance

...

The interpolation of the Markan ending thus refutes Biblical inerrancy. As Wilbur Pickering put it:

Are we to say that God was unable to protect the text of Mark or that He just couldn’t be bothered? I see no other alternative—either He didn’t care or He was helpless. And either option is fatal to the claim that Mark's Gospel is ‘God-breathed’.[3]

The whole canon falls to the same conclusion. This dichotomy is entailed by the fact of the Markan interpolation. It forces us to fall on either of two horns, yet on neither of which can a doctrine of inerrancy survive. If God couldn’t protect His Book from such meddling, then he hardly counts as a god, but in any case such inability entails he can’t have ensured the rest of the received text of the Bible
was inerrant (since if he couldn’t in this case, he couldn’t in any), which leaves no rational basis for maintaining the inerrancy of the Bible, as then even God could not have produced such a thing. On the other hand, if God could but did not care to protect His Book from such meddling, then we have no rational basis for maintaining that he cared to protect it from any other errors, either, whether those now detectable or not. Since the Bible we now have can only be inerrant if God wanted it to be, and the evidence proves he didn’t want it to be, therefore it can’t be inerrant. It does no good to insist the Bible was only inerrant in the originals, since a God who cared to make the originals inerrant would surely care to keep them that way. Otherwise, what would have been the point? We don’t have those originals...

If the material at the end of Mark is consistent with everything else we find in the Bible and does not contradict what we read elsewhere in the Bible, then its addition (even if at a later time) says nothing about God. Why exactly is the addition called "meddling" as the presence of the material can be taken as a priori evidence of its acceptability to God? I think the argument that is being used relies on assumptions that are not necessarily true.

Wilbur Pickering sees no other alternative. What does that mean other than that old Wilbur is not the smartest guy who ever lived? I think you need more than Wilbur backing you up.

You need to make sure that there is "...evidence [that] proves [God] didn’t want it to be...," but absent a specific revelation from God, that evidence would seem hard to come by.

rhutchin · 03-30-2010, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWallack

JW:
What follows is Part 2 of a preliminary draft of:

Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrier, Ph.D. (2009)

written for ErrancyWiki

posted here for commentary. I'll gradually post the other portions of his draft here. Enjoy!:

Quote:

2. The Ending(s) of Mark

2.1. The OE, LE, and SE

Presently in the New American Standard Bible (NASB) the Gospel of Mark ends as follows (Mark
16:1-20, uncontested portion in bold):
...
Quite simply, the current ending of Mark was not written by Mark.

Given the tone of the draft, you probably want to say something like, "Quite simply, the current ending of Mark could not have been part of the original manuscript and was added much later." After all, you do not buy into the idea that some guy named Mark actually wrote the gospel so why attribute it to some guy named Mark.

Also, I don't think your use of the term, "forgery," is the best term to use. Copies of manuscripts can be deficient for a variety of reasons and malicious intent, as suggested by a forgery, is not one of those reasons (I don't think).

JoeWallack · 04-06-2010, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carrier

The interpolation of the Markan ending thus refutes Biblical inerrancy. As Wilbur Pickering put it:

Quote:

Are we to say that God was unable to protect the text of Mark or that He just couldn’t be bothered? I see no other alternative—either He didn’t care or He was helpless. And either option is fatal to the claim that Mark's Gospel is ‘God-breathed’.[3]

The whole canon falls to the same conclusion. This dichotomy is entailed by the fact of the Markan interpolation. It forces us to fall on either of two horns, yet on neither of which can a doctrine of inerrancy survive. If God couldn’t protect His Book from such meddling, then he hardly counts as a god, but in any case such inability entails he can’t have ensured the rest of the received text of the Bible was inerrant (since if he couldn’t in this case, he couldn’t in any), which leaves no rational basis for maintaining the inerrancy of the Bible, as then even God could not have produced such a thing. On the other hand, if God could but did not care to protect His Book from such meddling, then we have no rational basis for maintaining that he cared to protect it from any other errors, either, whether those now detectable or not. Since the Bible we now have can only be inerrant if God wanted it to be, and the evidence proves he didn’t want it to be, therefore it can’t be inerrant. It does no good to insist the Bible was only inerrant in the originals, since a God who cared to make the originals inerrant would surely care to keep them that way. Otherwise, what would have been the point? We don’t have those originals...

If the material at the end of Mark is consistent with everything else we find in the Bible and does not contradict what we read elsewhere in the Bible, then its addition (even if at a later time) says nothing about God. Why exactly is the addition called "meddling" as the presence of the material can be taken as a priori evidence of its acceptability to God? I think the argument that is being used relies on assumptions that are not necessarily true.

Wilbur Pickering sees no other alternative. What does that mean other than that old Wilbur is not the smartest guy who ever lived? I think you need more than Wilbur backing you up.

You need to make sure that there is "...evidence [that] proves [God] didn’t want it to be...," but absent a specific revelation from God, that evidence would seem hard to come by.

JW:
I see Dr. Carrier as largely a Philosopher, a big picture guy. His approach to the ending of "Mark" is a big picture approach. Which theory regarding the endings provides the best explanation. I think his debates show this. Here his point is that if an ending by someone else was added to the original than "Mark" as a whole is not perfect.

I have more of a micro approach. If it is determined that the LE is not original than "Mark" with a LE (without qualification) is error because the presentation in Christian Bibles Implies a whole narrative by the named author. For me, the key to demonstrating error here is to demonstrate that the Christian Bibles have this implication. I think they do for the following reasons:

1) Standard literary convention implies that the named author wrote the entire work.

2) The average Christian (audience) assumes that "Mark" wrote the entire work.

The other task here for demonstrating error is to select the test unit. I use a theoretical construct, the majority reading of English Christian Bibles. To do this properly you would need to identify the Bible of choice for the main denominations and than weight based on relative numbers. Amazon listed the top ten sellers as:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English...ble#Popularity

Quote:

NAB, NRSV, NIV, KJV, Message, NASB, NLT, RSV, Amplified, and the
Orthodox Study Bible.

If a Bible qualifies with the evidence that the LE is not original than I do not see error. Here is what the ten say:

NAB

Quote:

2 [9-20] This passage, termed the Longer Ending to the Marcan gospel by comparison with a much briefer conclusion found in some less important manuscripts, has traditionally been accepted as a canonical part of the gospel and was defined as such by the Council of Trent. Early citations of it by the Fathers indicate that it was composed by the second century, although vocabulary and style indicate that it was written by someone other than Mark. It is a general resume of the material concerning the appearances of the risen Jesus, reflecting, in particular, traditions found in Luke 24 and John 20. The Shorter Ending: Found after ⇒ Mark 16:8 before the Longer Ending in four seventh-to-ninth-century Greek manuscripts as well as in one Old Latin version, where it appears alone without the Longer Ending. The Freer Logion: Found after v 14 in a fourth-fifth century manuscript preserved in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, this ending was known to Jerome in the fourth century. It reads: "And they excused themselves, saying, "This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under Satan, who does not allow the truth and power of God to prevail over the unclean things dominated by the spirits [or, does not allow the unclean things dominated by the spirits to grasp the truth and power of God]. Therefore reveal your righteousness now.' They spoke to Christ. And Christ responded to them, "The limit of the years of Satan's power is completed, but other terrible things draw near. And for those who sinned I was handed over to death, that they might return to the truth and no longer sin, in order that they might inherit the spiritual and incorruptible heavenly glory of righteousness. But . . . .' "

NRSV

Quote:

9 [[Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. 10She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. 11But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.
Jesus Appears to Two Disciples

12 After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. 13And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.
Jesus Commissions the Disciples

14 Later he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were sitting at the table; and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.* 15And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news* to the whole creation. 16The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned. 17And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18they will pick up snakes in their hands,* and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.’
The Ascension of Jesus

19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. 20And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.* ]]

NIV

Quote:

((The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.))

KJV

Quote:

9Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.

10And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept.

11And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.

12After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country.

13And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them.

14Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.

15And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

16He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

17And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;

18They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

19So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.

20And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.

The Message

Quote:

Footnotes:

1. Mark 16:19 Mark 16:9-20 [the portion in brackets] is contained only in later manuscripts.

NASB

Quote:

Footnotes:

1. Mark 16:9 Later mss add vv 9-20
2. Mark 16:20 A few late mss and versions contain this paragraph, usually after v 8; a few have it at the end of ch

NLT

Quote:

[Longer Ending of Mark]

RSV

[Can not find it with footnotes online]

Amplified

Quote:

Footnotes:

1. Mark 16:9 Some of the earliest manuscripts do not contain verses 9-20.

Orthodox Study Bible

[Not online]

In summary for the ten most popular Christian Bibles per Amazon:

7 qualify that the evidence indicates 16:9-20 is not original

1 has no qualification

2 have no footnotes online

Therefore I conclude that the Christian Bible has properly qualified that the evidence indicates 16:9-20 is not original so there is no error here based on the implication of the title of the Gospel. Another possible defense is that 16:9-20 has been included because of tradition.

Keep in mind though that any individual Christian Bible, such as most before our time, are in error if they have no qualification here.

To me the most importance significance of the forged/fabricated ending is what it means from an evidential standpoint. The single most important Christian Assertian is that Jesus was resurrected and the related most important Christian Assertian of evidence is that historical witnesses witnessed the resurrection. But here we have the original Gospel narrative whose Passion was used as a base for all the Canonical Gospels that originally had no historical witness witness the resurrection but subsequently had such witness forged/fabricated to it.

Of course for those who live in the real world, this is exactly what we would expect. Resurrections are impossible so there could not possibly be historical witness to one. Any such witness would have to be forged/fabricated and this is exactly what we see here.

If you step into the Christian world where resurrections are possible you are still left with the conclusion that the original report had no resurrection sighting by historical witness. This was subsequently forged/fabricated. So there is no quality evidence that Jesus was resurrected. You have to believe based on faith. Exactly what the author ("Mark"/Paul) wanted, hence the ending at 16:8.

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

show_no_mercy · 04-06-2010, 09:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

If the material at the end of Mark is consistent with everything else we find in the Bible and does not contradict what we read elsewhere in the Bible, then its addition (even if at a later time) says nothing about God. Why exactly is the addition called "meddling" as the presence of the material can be taken as a priori evidence of its acceptability to God? I think the argument that is being used relies on assumptions that are not necessarily true.

How many people have died trying to handle poisonous snakes? Drinking harmful liquids? The forged ending of Mark is the only reason why people were foolish enough to do so.

There's nothing in the bible that says that you'll be able to get bitten by poisonous snakes and live if you have enough faith.

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03-23-2010, 08:18 AM	#34
Rich Oliver Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Brighton, England Posts: 54	"The Bible", no such thing and you don't have to get into arguments about Mark 16 to prove it. Some Bibles include books that others don't. The so called apocrypha. Statement: "The Bible is inerrant/ sacred/ Gods word / etc, etc" Retort: "Which one?"

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