Problem of Mark 16:9-20

[Guest]

"The most reliable early manuscript and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20."
(http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... ersion=31;)

Now my concern to this corruption and 'answer-the-problem-away' statement is that what are those so-called "reliable early manuscript(s)" and who are the "ancient witnesses"?

Further regarding this Gospel, we read the following commentary about Mark 16:9-20:

"Serious doubts exists as to whether these verses belong to the Gospel of Mark. They are absent from important early manuscripts and display certain peculiarities of vocabulary, style and theological content that are unlike the rest of Mark. His Gospel probably ended at 16:8, or its original ending has been lost. (From the NIV Bible Foot Notes, page 1528)"

If John Mark wasn't the one who wrote Mark 16:9-20, then who did? And how can you prove the ownership of the other person?

 

[Guest]

Who is author of Gospel of Mark?

First of all it is important to keep in mind that the original manuscripts donot even exit according to the bible's own theologians!

"Christians readily admit, however, that there have been 'scribal errors' in the copies of the Old and New Testament. It is beyond the capability of anyone to avoid any and every slip of the pen in copying page after page from any book, sacred or secular. Yet we may be sure that the original manuscript (better known as autograph) of each book of the Bible, being directly inspired by God, was free from all error. Those originals, however, because of the early date of their inception no longer exist."

"Because we are dealing with accounts which were written thousands of years ago, we would not expect to have the originals in our possession today, as they would have disintegrated long ago. We are therefore dependent on the copies taken from copies of those originals, which were in turn continually copied out over a period of centuries. Those who did the copying were prone to making two types of scribal errors. One concerned the spelling of proper names, and the other had to do with numbers."
(http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/transinsp.html)

Now let us move to who is author of so-called Gospel of Mark.

The Gospel of Mark:
"Although there is no direct internal evidence of authorship, it was the unanimous testimony of the early church that this Gospel was written by John Mark. (From the NIV Bible Commentary, page 1488)"

So, in reality, we don't really know whether Mark was the sole author of this Gospel or not. And since The New Testament wasn't even documented on paper until 150-300 years (depending on what Christian you talk to) after Jesus, then how are we to know for sure that the current "Gospel of Mark" wasn't written by some pro of Mark?

 

[Timf]

Mark 16:15-18
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They 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.

These signs were recorded in the book of Acts.

While I do not hold to the KJV only view, I do not consider the "earlier" manuscripts to be automatically superior. Even the argument that Alexandria suffered the error of allegorism and so would be less likely to alter the text is not as strong a support as many would suppose.

 

[samuel]

There are no real proofs, that these verses did not exist. The older manuscripts referred to are the Codex Sanaiticus, and Vaticanus. The first of which was found in a trash dump, at a small Catholic Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai, the second in the Vaults of the Vatican. They are indeed some 300 years older, than the manuscripts used for the KJV.

The one at Mt. Sinai was pretty well intact, but did show some revisions in text had been made, the one at the Vatican was so corrupted and incomplete it was hardly usable. Neither agreed with the other.

These are the texts for all the modern translations except the KJV, and NKJV. I used to use the New American Standard in our Bible studies for a back up for the KJV, for clarifying some of the older words of the KJV. But after some real study, and comparison, I found many variances, some really misleading ones. I no longer use it, I replaced it with the NKJV. Which is the only other Bible version made from the KJV manuscripts.

I used to laugh at the radical KJV only crowd, until I made these close comparisons, and found they were RIGHT!. I am not as radical as some about it, but if you don't mind that all the modern translations are misleading to a great extent, then you can use them.
But if you want the most accurate translation it is the KJV. Even the NKJV falls under some criticism because of its gender inclusiveness in a few places, but as a back up for clarifying some of the older KJV words its ok. At least it is form the same group of manuscripts, and where the gender problems occur, if you use the KJV as your main Bible, these really pose no problems.

Truly the KJV in its original 1611 edition contained many language, and typo errors. I have seen one, and the old kings English is almost unreadable from modern standards, but the KJV went through two other refinements, the last in the 1800's that corrected for all but a few insignificant spelling errors. When the Dead Sea scrolls were found a copy of the book Isaiah was also found, much older than any previous copies. After checking against the KJV, one error was found, that one being the word "and" dropped in one single verse. In a paragraph where it posed no problem.

Now I am not saying any translation we have is perfect, you can't translate from one language to another with 100% perfection, but the KJV is the closest to it we have.

 

[mondar]

Samuel,
I know this is a thread about Mark 16:9-20, and I do not wish to change the topic. I am not quite as familiar with the textual authority of Mark as I am other portions of scripture. I am curious to your opinion on 1 John 5:7. Was Erasmus correct in including 1 John 5:7 in the textus receptus? If you incude the longer reading of 1 John 5:7, upon what basis do you think it represents the autographs?

Mondar

 

[samuel]

I recall having seen some discussion over these verses - 1 John 5:7, and 5:8. Personally I have never given it much thought, and cannot really comment on it.

 

[Free]

First of all it is important to keep in mind that the original manuscripts donot even exit according to the bible's own theologians!

And this proves what exactly?

And since The New Testament wasn't even documented on paper until 150-300 years

What precisely do you mean this statement?

 

[mondar]

I recall having seen some discussion over these verses - 1 John 5:7, and 5:8. Personally I have never given it much thought, and cannot really comment on it.

Erasmus placed the verse in the TR because of a promise. He originally did not include the what the KJV translates as verse 7. When a friend asked him why, Erasmus said if his friend could find one greek manuscript, he would include verse 7. When the friend came up with one late MSS, Erasmus included this reading. There is nearly no manuscript evidence behind the KJV reading, or Erasmus's TR.