Mark 16:9-20 – should it stay or should it go?
I believe the Bible is God’s inspired word to guide and instruct the people of God to live in the world as followers of Jesus. The Scriptures attest to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ and are fully reliable in that sense.
But what’s the deal with a chapter like Mark 16. Most of your Bible’s say something to the effect of “the earliest manuscripts and some other witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20,” between verses 8 and 9. Let me rephrase that. “The original copies of the bible that we have been able to get our hands on DO NOT CONTAIN Mark 16:9-20 which means that someone, specifically not Mark, added them at a later date because the ending of Mark’s gospel that we do have is just not ok, incongruent with the rest of Mark’s gospel, and doesn’t really make much sense in all honesty.”
Is this problematic for anyone? Especially Bereans who pride themselves on being biblicists? Someone has added something to scripture (refer to Revelation 22:18 and be prepared for plagues) and/or we have an error in the text, and/0r psuedonymous writing (which is where someone writes AS Mark but who really isn’t Mark) is completely within th realm of reasonable for the Bible.
However you deal with this particular instance in Mark’s gospel you are faced with some difficult hermenuetical questions that can and should guide your method and approach to scriptural interpretation as you read the Bible. Luke 24:12 is another one of these passages that many scholars believe was added by a later editor of the gospel. I could keep going here but I’ll stop in order that I might not hook us all up to a fire hose right out of the gate.
I’m teaching this next week in our Easter and Everything after series on the topic of Fear and I’m using Mark 16:1-8. In my study I have come to this text and have been wrestling with what the implications are and what the best way through the impasse might be. I’m interested to know if any of you have any thoughts before I share what mine are this coming sunday night?
This is absolutely problematic.
The additional verses steal away the mystery and apparently want to clean up what could be an otherwise messy situation. I mean, I can understand the motives of the editors to a degree…
But I would really be interested in learning exactly when these extra verses were added… funny we didn’t talk about this in my Gospels class.
If we were Catholic, we could explain the emendation as part of the tradition of the Church, which is equally authoritative as the scriptures themselves…
Perhaps to approach the problem, we can apply one of the verses in question:
When we question a textual issue like this, are we stubbornly refusing to believe those before us who wrestled with the text after they received it?
And does the warning in Revelation 22 *really* apply to the entire Bible as we know it in the 21st century, or was it specifically about the 1st century prophecies that John received? Just because Revelation was put at the back of the Bible doesn’t mean that this verse applies to the whole of God’s Word, right?
ElShaddai – my comment about Revelation was more tongue ‘n’ cheek and I think you are probably on the right track as per a good hermenuetical reading of Revelation. As for the Mark passage…I don’t think it’s an issue of not wanting to believe it for me. It’s more of a question with roots in the whole innerrancy dialogue that I have participated in and been subjected to at times. If the Bible is innerrant, what do we do with this text which WAS NOT THERE in the original manuscripts? I would like to offer less traditional understanding of innerrancy into the dialogue to see if that doesn’t help us. Also, I think the ending of Mark is absolutely fascinating without the additional passages. If you read them in light of the rest of Mark, they are so obviously not Mark’s original work, but most likely the work of a redactor who had access to the other accounts as it appears to be a sum of the other three.
The end of Mark as it appears in the original manuscripts is like a really good screenplay that leaves you hanging in the end. Have you seen Good Will Hunting? “Went to see about a girl…” With Elliot Smith playing in the background.
Like a good piece of Jazz with no resolving chord at the end. It leaves the imagination of the reader in tact and elicits questions like “what happened?” “did they tell anyone else?” “did others believe them?” “what do you know about this Jesus?” “did he really rise from the dead?”, and the stories and testimony of those who have experienced the resurrection life that Paul talks about are waiting in the wings to be brought to bear on the world. It’s quite beautiful really.
NT Wright and others have argued that Mark’s gospel would not have ended this way and the original ending was lost or damaged somehow. Either way, 9-20 is definitely not the work of Mark, and what we are left with if you delete 9-20 is in my opinion a better ending.
Stew – here’s a link to some web based dialogue that quotes some reputable NT Scholars
http://www.bible-researcher.com/endmark.html
(Agreed on Revelation)
I would liken the emended end of Mark with the supposedly emended end of 2 Chronicles (36:22-23) – verses that were added to avoid ending on a pessimistic note (remember that in the Hebrew Bible – not the Christian OT – 2 Chronicles was the last book of the entire Bible). Of course, the end of Mark is not the last word in the New Testament, so the parallel does break down somewhat, but it’s an interesting comparison to consider. Especially if you’re going to get into inerrancy!
Or to take the jazz metaphor: Mark/2 Chronicles without the added endings are perhaps like finishing with a Dorian v/i cadence instead of a standard V/I.
This topic stuck me this week as I am currently memorizing 2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is inspired by God…” What does this exactly mean if Mark 16:9-20 was added after the original manuscript. Was this author/editor receiving inspiration from God and were these words from God? It definitely makes me think and yes I see it as problematic, but then again I trust God that “all” scripture is inspired by him.
so what if someone were proposing to get rid of mark 16:9-20 in a new translation of the bible would anyone have a problem with this?
By “get rid of”, do you mean excise it completely or relegate it to a footnote as the various other endings of Mark sometimes are? I think that if you’re going to emend the text and remove a traditional passage, you at least need to put it in a footnote with your reasoning why. And then prepare for howls of protest!
One of my favorite translations, the New English Bible, has made scores of emendations, especially in the OT, in the name of critically clarifying passages – but each one is carefully documented so that I can easily compare it with other translations.
it was more of a question to prompt/prod us to think about how we view the “word” of God. I’ve been thinking about this all night and wonder what exactly do we mean when we use that terminology? I think traditionally I and others are referring to the canonical books of scripture. But in fact, would it be more beneficial to be referencing the logos, Jesus, which scripture then attests to and bear witness to? I know I’m running us into all sorts of possible questions about the authority of scripture then, but it’s just something i’ve been noodling on. I think if I were to take it out, I would definitely footnote it quite well and note the 3 major reasons why I think it should be left out being:
1. textual variants and the absence of it from the earliest manuscripts we have.
2. the early church fathers and their lack of comment on the passage (an argument from silence I know, but nonetheless…)
3. differences in greek and the phrases found in that section that are found no where else in Mark and also the obvious “flow” and in-congruency with the rest of the gospel.
Hmmmmm….. I think I need to think on this…
Isn’t this all speculation anyways?
Bottom line: God has inspired His word, through people, just like you and me, so that we may know Him more. Et voilà.
Caleb, yes at the end of the day no matter how much proof or not, one must commit an act of belief in the “knowing” process. People forget that no matter what kind of proof you have of something, the last step is an act of faith. When you say you “know something is true” you are making a faith claim. You believe it!
So for me, I believe God has revealed Himself to the world through Jesus which the scriptures bear witness to. The bible in this sense, is inspired by God and attests to the “WORD” of God spoken about in Jn 1