Review of The Original Ending of Mark by Nicholas P. Lunn

[Secret Alias]

You are only demonstrating your hard-headed imbecilic mentality that comes from being a dogmatic apologist. The point at issue is that the Imperial government guided the acceptance of texts. So too with the rest of your beloved canon

[perseusomega9]

Am I reading this correctly that Steve Avery is advocating a 45AD date for GMark?

[Adam]

Yes, PO,
The original dates "45 AD to 200 AD" and "45 AD to 400 AD" came from Steven Avery, and he eventually clarified that he meant the former gives the date for "the gospel being distributed". That he does not mean thereby that preaching of this began in 45 is clear from the context of TEXTUAL divergence.
Now, this thread being about the missing Mark 16:9-20 implies that Avery is talking about a Gospel of Mark that's the real deal, virtually everything up to 16:8. Yes, he's out on a limb if he goes that far. Adolf Harnack has been picked up by evangelicals then (a century ago) and now giving a 44 A. D. date for Mark, yes, but Harnack meant Ur-Marcus, lacking about three chapters. Whatever argument there may be for GMark being written in 44 A. D. (based on Peter coming to John Mark's house, Acts 12:12), there is no "interest group" with an ox to be gored--Roman Catholics and conservative Protestants want to stand on external tradition for dating the gospel in the 60's.

Even I make no case for anything in Mark to be earlier than 45 A. D., except for the earliest draft of the Passion Narrative I see as written by John Mark right after the Crucifixion and best recoverable today from the S and G sources extracted by Howard M. Teeple in his 1974 Literary Origin of the Gospel of John. Additionally I go with Harnack for Ur-Marcus (best calling it "Proto-Mark" by current sensibilities) in 44 A. D. consisting of the 13 chapters of Mark paralleled in Luke. However, I have in recent years come (independently of someone else who has also seen the same thing) to regard John 21 as containing much from the "lost ending" of Mark that was written in 44 A. D. "Our" complete Mark through Mark 16:8 can be given the traditional date of the 60's.

Mark 16:9-20, however, is too clearly from the Jerusalem believers (see their versions of Luke and Acts and similarly John 20 that avoid any mention of going to Galilee), even going so far as to delete even Peter from a role. It cannot be that early, nor can it be properly "canonical" since its late perspective makes it irreconcilable with the basic four gospel Resurrection accounts. (I did Dan Barker's Easter Challenge on the old FTDB, but conceding that Mark 16:9-20 cannot be made to fit.)

[JoeWallack]

JW:
At Evangelical Textual Criticism[I know, an oxymoron] Peter Head has been doing a review of the offending book. My comment there:

I have faith that Lunn will be reading the reviews here so looking forward to the Internal evidence the Codex Elephantinus in the room is that Lunn’s Introduction is dominated by the problem that 16:8 creates for Christianity. Yet by the time he reaches his Summary and Conclusion he has forgotten about The Difficult Reading Principle.

Lunn's response:

One more specific comment, to do with lectio difficilior. This is just one component of the text-critical method that attempts to evaluate the probability of a reading, alongside numerous other factors. It is not, and was never proposed as, a determining canon of authenticity. It should be noted that Westcott and Hort themselves, who did so much to promote a scientific approach to textual criticism, in their lengthy and detailed discussion of the ending (’Notes on Select Readings, pp. 28-51) nowhere invoke the lectio difficilior principle. What they do speak of is ‘intrinsic probability’. And for them the incomplete nature of the passage ending at 16:8 and the final GAR make it highly improbable that this was the original ending. In fact the word they use is ‘incredible’. Contrary to what one of the above comments supposes, the lectio difficilior principle does surface as part of my argument. At the top of p. 115 I note how it would be difficult for a text to be later added to the Gospel and gain such widespread acceptance when that text speaks of matters such as picking up snakes and drinking poision. So to me the lectio difficilior principle is an argument in favour of vv. 9-20. But I do speak of this almost in passing. It doesn’t form a major part of the argument, which is founded upon much more objective considerations in other areas.

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

[Ben C. Smith]

JW:
At Evangelical Textual Criticism[I know, an oxymoron] Peter Head has been doing a review of the offending book. My comment there:

I have faith that Lunn will be reading the reviews here so looking forward to the Internal evidence the Codex Elephantinus in the room is that Lunn’s Introduction is dominated by the problem that 16:8 creates for Christianity. Yet by the time he reaches his Summary and Conclusion he has forgotten about The Difficult Reading Principle.

Lunn's response:

One more specific comment, to do with lectio difficilior. This is just one component of the text-critical method that attempts to evaluate the probability of a reading, alongside numerous other factors. It is not, and was never proposed as, a determining canon of authenticity. It should be noted that Westcott and Hort themselves, who did so much to promote a scientific approach to textual criticism, in their lengthy and detailed discussion of the ending (’Notes on Select Readings, pp. 28-51) nowhere invoke the lectio difficilior principle. What they do speak of is ‘intrinsic probability’. And for them the incomplete nature of the passage ending at 16:8 and the final GAR make it highly improbable that this was the original ending. In fact the word they use is ‘incredible’. Contrary to what one of the above comments supposes, the lectio difficilior principle does surface as part of my argument. At the top of p. 115 I note how it would be difficult for a text to be later added to the Gospel and gain such widespread acceptance when that text speaks of matters such as picking up snakes and drinking poision. So to me the lectio difficilior principle is an argument in favour of vv. 9-20. But I do speak of this almost in passing. It doesn’t form a major part of the argument, which is founded upon much more objective considerations in other areas.

The principle of the lectio difficilior can work only with respect to what the original transmitters of the text or tradition thought was difficult. Modern Christians who view Appalachian faith healers with suspicion may well consider the passages about handling snakes and drinking poison to be difficult, but did early Christians? One might then ask the same question concerning the ending at 16.8: did early Christians consider the abrupt ending at 16.8 to be difficult?

For the former, we have Papias (according to Eusebius, History of the Church 3.39.9) handing on a story about Justus Barsabbas drinking a deadly poison and yet, through the grace of the Lord, suffering no harm. We have Acts 28.1-6 relating how a viper bit the apostle Paul to no ill effect except that residents of Malta started considering him a god. We have Luke 10.19 promising authority over snakes and scorpions. We have a variant of this promise, one involving scolopendras, in Justin Martyr, Dialogue 76.6. One wonders how Mark 16.18 could possibly be considered difficult by the likes of early Christians like Luke, Papias, and Justin.

For the latter, do we have any other gospels which end at the burial? Not that I know of. (A sayings gospel which ignores the death and resurrection altogether would be a different matter altogether; we are inquiring how difficult it might seem to go all the way to the burial without forging on to give a resurrection appearance or two.) And do we have indications (besides Mark 16.9-20 itself) that the ending at 16.8 might have been considered difficult by early Christians? Yes, we do; we have the shorter ending ("And all that had been commanded them they promptly announced to those around Peter. And after these things Jesus himself appeared to them, and from the east as far as the west he sent out through them the sacred and incorruptible proclamation of eternal salvation. Amen.") And we have an emphasis on resurrection appearances in passages such as 1 Corinthians 15.3-8. And we have discussions of the matter by Eusebius.

For my money, the principle of the lectio difficilior works far better against the longer ending than against the abrupt ending. On the other hand, this principle is hardly the main argument, IMHO, against the longer ending. The internal evidence is so firmly against it having been the originally intended conclusion to the rest of Mark that it would be evident even without any manuscript support at all. Throw in its absence in a few reliable manuscripts and in the judgment of a few of the more scholastically minded church fathers, and it is game over, lights off, don't let The Doors hit you on the way out.

Ben.

[JoeWallack]

don't let The Doors hit you on the way out.
Ben.

JW:
Now that's an ending!


Joseph

ErrancyWiki

[outhouse]

My money is on the ending being exactly like a fictional story book ending that was a bit to obvious. The resurrection redacted in to address the quickly changing theology due to more gospels being added into circulation.

[Adam]

Well, that's not irreconcilable with my own opinion I expressed above on August 6th.
I favor regarding some earlier version of John 21 (Jesus cooking fish on the shore of the Lake of Tiberias) as what followed Mark 16:8.
You are free to regard that as a too-pat fictionalization.

[gmx]

I have read opinions that affirm Mark's knowledge of the resurrection, regardless of whether 16:9-20 is fake or not. For example, Herod's belief that Jesus was John resurrected from the dead, is a bit of a coincidence, and other opinion that the premature end at 16:8 lends support to Mark having been translated from a damaged Latin original / copy. Thoughts?

[Steven Avery]

Am I reading this correctly that Steve Avery is advocating a 45AD date for GMark?

Yep. The corruption omission likely occurred within a century.

There is large use of the section in the Ante-Nicene era.

Steven Avery