Why I Won't Preach Mark 16:9-20

Textual Note in NKJV:

“Mark 16:9 Vv. 9–20 are bracketed in NU as not in the original text. They are lacking in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, although nearly all other mss. of Mark contain them.”

Thoughts on Mark 16:16,

http://gulfcoastpastor.blogspot.com/2019/09/quotes-on-mark-1616-baptism…

David R. Brumbelow

[TylerR]

None of the earliest manuscripts have this

I have never understood this reasoning. Time-based arguments are tricky, and the way we determine textual authenticity revolves much around the issue of timing. The earliest manuscripts that matter the most are the originals. Anything but the original involves human reasoning to determine authenticity. What matters more than earliest, non-autograph extant is quantity of extant and how many of them are in agreement. Time does matter, but if the church was using manuscripts for hundreds of years that contained information, then that carries a lot of weight with it when compared to the discovery of a few manuscripts that do not. Why do the older manuscripts still exist? Perhaps because they were not used because the church deemed them inferior? Yes, this is just another form of textual criticism (I’m not anti-textual criticism), but it is more logical than simply assuming the oldest extant is the best.

[TylerR]

Mk 16:16 says baptism is required for salvation

And so do Acts 2:38, Acts 8:35-38, and 1 Peter 3:21, yet we have all agreed that these passages must not be teaching that baptism is required for salvation or that they are teaching some baptism other than the human act to submit to water immersion, because we interpret the unclear in light of the clear.

As others have hinted, it would have come as news to the thief on the cross near Jesus, no? (my actual response to a Lutheran friend arguing this point) Definitely the context of the full scripture comes to bear, but you’ve also got the reality that in Mark 16:16, it is he who “does not believe” who will not be saved (baptism not mentioned in second phrasing), 1 Peter 3:21 makes very clear that the immersion being written about is no ordinary bath, and Acts 2:35-8 states it more as a command than a requirement.

Perhaps some of the confusion was that in that day, the Church needed a real sign that someone was serious about the matter and wouldn’t go bouncing off to the Sanhedrin or Roman authorities at the drop of a hat? Not sure.

Regarding Mark 16:9-20, I may have heard teaching on this, but suffice it to say that even the KJVO “pastors” I’ve known generally avoid the passage because it simply raises too many charismatic questions. The textual issues probably come into play as well for those not convinced of KJVO.

[TylerR]

Hopefully this article doesn’t degenerate into minutae of textual critical theories. This is one reason why I initially wasn’t going to post it. My basic point is this:

• every printed text is the result of textual decisions,
• your congregation has footnotes that tell them all about these variants,
• so what are you going to do about it?

Will you pretend there’s nothing to see here? Will you give them a false sense of security by telling them to “just trust” a particular translation? Do you have the courage to engage these issues as best you can when you come across them?

• If you’re a MT guy, then take that position!
• If you’re a critical text guy, then have at it
• If you’re a TR guy, then advocate for it - just please be fair and don’t use Sam Gipp’s resources!

Whatever you do, just do something and do it fairly. Your congregation needs to know what to make of those pesky footnotes!

I totally agree, Tyler - I definitely don’t want it to digress in that direction, either. The only reason I posted is that no one has ever explained to me why “older is better” actually makes any sense (because it doesn’t), even though it is so often references as a reason to choose one over another.

I completely agree with your approach on difficult passages like this; there are plenty of others (eschatological ones, especially).

Another option I have enjoyed is not often employed in a Sunday Morning worship service, but, rather, in more of a PM or Wednesday study-type service, where the pastor dares to actually fairly represent varying scholarly opinions on a topic that is reasonably open to debate (1 Timothy 2:15, for example). I think a wise pastor better educates his congregation by humbly explaining varying opinions, even though he himself (wisely) chooses one of them because of his own conclusions based on reasoned study. It is unwise to be dogmatic about every single verse.

Thanks again, Tyler. I very much enjoyed the article.

For those interested, here’s a helpful resource on the various perspectives on the long ending, called Perspectives on the Ending of Mark. David Black provides some worthwhile thoughts.

Each variant reading needs to be studied on its own, as there is no overall principle that one can apply against every variant that insures one has the right reading. Often older is better, but it depends on the nature of the variant and a host of principles that may be summed up in the phrase, “Which reading best explains the rise of the other?” But sometimes even this question can go either way. Similarly, 1000 hand-written copies of an error gives you 1000 errors, not the correct reading due to majority status. Each variant must be weighed. Then there are examples where both the older witnesses and the later (MT) witnesses are split in half.

I have worked on enough manuscripts to know that every manuscript of reasonable length will have at least one nonsense reading. For instance, the scribe completed a page writing lo- intending to start logos and finish it on the next page. He turns the page and writes logos, resulting in the nonsense reading “lologos.” If this happens in the most ancient witness to a verse, then its obviously wrong and should be disregarded in favor of later manuscripts. Another example. The most ancient witnesses read IC (the shortened version of “Jesus”), and then later witnesses begin to read KC (kurios) instead, and still later witnesses conflate the two and read KC IC. In this instance, the latest ones are most certainly wrong, and the greater probability is the earliest ones that read IC are correct.

There are many examples out there of later witnesses that add words that would naturally and logically follow, but were not included in the earliest witnesses. Just in John 11 there are 13 examples of this, not even including the additions of definite articles (addition shown in parenthesis):

11:2 - several manuscripts add “the hairs (of her head)”

11:6 - a few manuscripts add “when (Jesus) heard” to give an expressed subject.

11:7 - a number of manuscripts add “the disciples (of him)”

11:8 - a few manuscripts add “the disciples (of him)”

11:10 - at least one manuscript adds “the light (of the world)”

11:16 - a few manuscripts add “to the disciples (of him)”

11:17 - several manuscripts add “then Jesus came (unto Bethany)”

11:27 - a few manuscripts add “you are the Christ, the Son of (the living) God”

11:33 - a few manuscripts add “(Jesus) groaned in his spirit” providing an expressed subject.

11:44 - a few manuscripts add “and believed on him (on account of Lazarus).

11:47 - several manuscripts add “therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees assembled a council (against Jesus).

11:49 - several manuscripts add “therefore one of them (named) Caiphas…”

11:55 - several manuscripts add “and it was near the Passover (feast) of the Jews”

This shows how manuscripts tend to grow. None of the above examples are the reading of the Majority Text. But they illustrate how manuscripts do grow. However, there are a few examples in John 11 that go the other way, where the majority is shorter, and fewer, earlier ones are longer:

11:44 - a few early manuscripts include an extra pronoun: “loose him, and let (him) go.” The vast majority of manuscripts are shorter, and do not include the second auton.

NT Textual Criticism is a very technical field, and there are no shortcuts. I encourage everyone to spend some time working on an actual manuscript as it is a very eye-opening and enriching experience. Years ago you would have to travel to do this. Now you can sit in your lazy-boy chair with your laptop and internet connection and look at most of the 5000+ witnesses to the Greek NT.

Tyler,

In addition to the CSNTM, one can now access the Virual Manuscript Room of the INTF:

http://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/liste

Here one can access thousands of microfilm images of manuscripts. If I had to render a guess, I would say about 90% of the majuscules and minuscules known to exist have photos available here, while about 50% of Lectionaries known to exist have photos available.

The wikipedia pages are also helpful to know where to find manuscript images:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_papyri

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_uncials

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_New_Testament_minuscules

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_lectionaries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament_amulet

I certainly not a KJVO but but the seemingly erased portion in Sinaiticus always troubled me considering it’s the only one like it in the text.

I agree that the longer ending of Mark was probably not original with Mark.

Luke 1:1 suggests that there were many written Gospels. By saying that he (Luke) was undertaking his Gospel to present an accurate account so that Theophilus could be certain about what he believed has some implications. It suggests that these other “many” accounts (obviously excepting Mark and Matthew — and John was yet future) contained some inaccuracies (in contrast to Luke’s carefully documented approach).

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

It is quite possible that Mark’s longer ending — and the account of the woman taken in adultery which appears sometimes in one of the synoptics (can’t remember which) and sometimes in John — might be either accurate or inaccurate accounts spliced in from these other Gospels.

The woman taken in adultery and the longer ending of Mark both present their textual challenges. And we cannot escape the judgment call. I too, am skeptical about Mark’s ending, but, because the woman taken in adultery seemed to be highly valued among the early believers (and had to be spliced in somewhere), I tend to think it is legit.

Back to Mark, it seems likely that his original ending was lost (cutting it off with vs. 9 is abrupt), so that could have served as a motivation for the splice.

I mention it as POSSIBLE, but don’t really address it much when I get to that part of the text.

Some manuscripts have an extra verse at the end which could have been the original ending or another splice or someone’s notes: [NASB]:

[And they promptly reported all these instructions to Peter and his companions. And after that, Jesus Himself sent out through them from east to west the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.]

I agree with Ed about Mark’s ending that its a judgment call, but not likely the original ending of Mark. One of the challenges with the ending of Mark is the fact that the last pages of any manuscript are the most likely to be lost due to wear. If an early witness to Mark lost its last page, it would explain why other endings might have arisen as scribes copied from the damaged manuscript. Even so, the evidence for the longer endings of Mark, as a whole, are a bit stronger than the pericope adulterae. The first time this appears anywhere extant is Codex Bezae, an erratic manuscript known for extra long additions. And the PA was very slow to gain ground. It appears in several manuscripts of Luke’s gospel, and so it seems like this ancient account was looking for a permanent home. By my count, even by the tenth century, it is found in only half of the manuscripts dated to that century. I tend to think that it may well be a true ancient account that was preserved from a non-Scriptural source and then found its way into John’s gospel eventually. I would not preach it as authoritative Scripture because it does not appear to have been in the Text penned by the Apostle John.

All this talk has resurrected memories of another conversation that is related to Tyler’s article - inerrancy, and what it really means to us.

We rightfully proclaim inerrancy in the autographs, of course. But what use is the doctrine of inerrancy if we do not have the autographs? The various points of conversation in this very thread validate this reality: inerrancy is irrelevant.

Besides, we were never told to convince unbelievers that the Bible is God’s word - we were commanded to proclaim the Gospel. God does the rest. Once the Spirit opens the eyes of an unbeliever and he turns from his sin and turns to Christ and God transforms him, his eternity is sealed. He, like all of us, have God’s Word to teach us all we need for life and all we need for godly living. It doesn’t really matter if we have a Bible that may, seemingly, contradict itself at times (it never does in areas that matter), and it doesn’t really matter if we don’t have the autographs, either. God will complete his sanctifying work in his timing, even if we don’t have those autographs. Our lives must always be characterized by faith, and trusting that the Bibles we have in our hands are exactly what we need, from Genesis to Revelation, is part of that.

Those of you who are pastors have the awesome privilege of helping us lay-people understand the sense of scripture. You do so through your professional, occupational-level, Spirit-filled study, and we are grateful to have men who are skilled in the Word. I am thankful for my pastors, and I am thankful for those of you who are doing the same - faithfully and humbly proclaiming the Word.