Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid For. Confirmation 16:8 Original

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JoeWallack
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The Latin from Son of Man Hatin

Post by JoeWallack »

JW:
It's been well established by now that the original Greek is clearly for 16:8 as original. The related Apologist son of Mantra is "99.9 % verses Sinaiticus/Vaticanus. The Latin witness in Apologist discussion here tends to get short (ending) changed. How bout a summary of the Latin witness.

Again, Jerome gives the early Textual Criticism comment:

Jerome witness to 16:8 as original (ending).
The solution of this question is two-fold; for either we do not accept the testimony of Mark, [1]that is carried in few gospels, [2]almost all the books of Greece not having this passage at the end, especially and since it seems to speak various and contrary things to the other evangelists; or this must be replied, that both speak truly: Matthew, when the Lord rose again on the evening of the Sabbath, Mark however, when Mary Magdalen saw him, that is, on the morning of the first day of the week.
Jerome witness to VLE (Very Long Ending) as original (ending).
In Against the Pelagians 2.15 he writes:
...[Latin]
[3]In certain manuscripts, and especially in the Greek codices, next to Mark, at the end of his gospel, it is written: Afterward, when the eleven were reclining, he appeared to them, and he reproached their incredulity and their hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen him risen. And they made excuses, saying: This age of iniquity and incredulity is {under Satan}, who through unclean spirits does not allow the true power of God to be apprehended. For this reason, reveal your righteousness now.
JW:
The evidence from the above (per Jerome) is as follows:
  • [1] 16:8 is original in most Gospels of Jerome's time that he was aware of, presumably Greek and Latin.

    [2] The LE (Long Ending) is rarer in Greek than Latin.

    [3] The VLE was more common in the Greek than the LE.
Keep in mind the important related criteria of Direction of Change and Coordination. Jerome is c. 400 here. Eusebius and Jerome have testified that to this time 16:8 is the domina Greek ending. Regarding the Latin, Jerome testifies that 16:8 is also dominant but more common in Greek than Latin. This is consistent with a 16:8 original in Greek as the nature of translations is that they force the translator to use different words from the original thus going beyond just translating to interpreting. The Old Latin Vetus Latina are Latin Manuscripts with a tradition that precedes Jerome's Vulgate. These show mixed evidence for and against 16:8 (mostly extant after Jerome). After Jerome adds the LE to the Vulgate the Latin Version starts to go all in against 16:8.

Apologists can be useful to Bible scholarship due to their motivation to scour the Earth and Heaven (and Hell) for evidence that supports their conclusion. Meet one James Snapp:

The Authenticity of Mark 16:9-20 © 2007 James Edward Snapp, J
Chapter Five: Versional Evidence
...
The Old Latin evidence should be approached cautiously because of the fragmentary nature of some Old Latin MSS and the diversity among Old Latin texts. Most extant Old Latin MSS of Mark 16 support the LE. However, the mutilation of some Old Latin MSS has rendered it difficult or impossible to discern their original contents at the end of Mark. 5-b
One Old Latin MS in the GNT’s textual apparatus for Mark 16:9-20 is listed separately as a text which contains the SE and does not contain the LE. That MS is Codex Bobiensis, itk.5-c Codex Bobiensis (sometimes spelled “Bobbiensis”) will be considered shortly. Another Old Latin MS, Codex Vercellensis, deserves a closer look. It is not listed in the dGNT either for or again the inclusion of 16:9-20. Although Codex Vercellensis (itst Eusebius of Vercelli, who died in 371.Eusebia) contains the LE, the passage is on a replacement-page, and the text on the replacement-page is derived from the Vulgate, not the exemplar that was used for the rest of Mark. C.H. Turner calculated (in a brief essay published in 1928) that originally it did not have sufficient room to contain the LE.5-d
In general than, we have extant Latin Manuscripts which support Jeromes' text critical observation in support of 16:8 and the oddities here are far greater than 99.9% to .1%. Specifically we appear to have caught against Christianity in flagrante derilictio of fiduciary responsibility to properly transmit as the evidence indicates that the critical Latin text of Codex Vercellensis was originally for and was changed to against.

So in summary judgement, the change from Greek to Latin also shows change of For to Against. Snapp! Oh no they di-int. Oh yes they di-id.


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Re: Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid For. Confirmation 16:8 Origina

Post by JoeWallack »

JW:

Mark 16:8

Strong's Transliteration Greek English Morphology
2532 [e] kai καὶ And Conj
1831 [e] exelthousai ἐξελθοῦσαι having gone out, V-APA-NFP
5343 [e] ephygon ἔφυγον they fled V-AIA-3P
575 [e] apo ἀπὸ from Prep
3588 [e] tou τοῦ the Art-GNS
3419 [e] mnēmeiou μνημείου, tomb. N-GNS
2192 [e] eichen εἶχεν possessed V-IIA-3S
1063 [e] gar γὰρ indeed Conj
846 [e] autas αὐτὰς them PPro-AF3P
5156 [e] tromos τρόμος trembling N-NMS
2532 [e] kai καὶ and Conj
1611 [e] ekstasis ἔκστασις· amazement, N-NFS
2532 [e] kai καὶ and Conj
3762 [e] oudeni οὐδενὶ to none Adj-DMS
3762 [e] ouden οὐδὲν nothing Adj-ANS
3004 [e] eipan εἶπαν· they spoke; V-AIA-3P
5399 [e] ephobounto ἐφοβοῦντοthey were afraid V-IIM/P-3P
1063 [e] gar γάρ. indeed. Conj

Regarding the offending word εἶπαν "they spoke", Dirk Jongkind, points out that all extant Manuscripts except one, have "ειπον" = "was spoken" (singular):

Consistency is Highly Overrated
An example from the Gospel of Mark. Nine times we find the third person plural ‘they said’, ειπον / ειπαν. In NA26/27 it is spelled consistently ειπαν. In each of the nine cases there is manuscript support for ειπαν but in two cases this support is unusually slim, 11:6 and 16:8. In the latter ειπαν is only read by Bezae, all other witnesses read ειπον
Laparola
εἶπαν] WH
εἶπον] Byz ς
Thus the narrative of lack of historical witness to a supposed resurrected Jesus is absolute "and to none nothing was spoken" verses "and to none nothing they spoke" where it is relative to "the women". This supports 16:8 as the ending as the silence here is absolute and does not support any subsequent supposed historical witness to a resurrected Jesus in the same narrative.


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Re: Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid For. Confirmation 16:8 Origina

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Very interesting and good to know
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Re: Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid For. Confirmation 16:8 Origina

Post by JoeWallack »

JW:

I previously indicated that regarding Mark 16:8 the likely original is:

Strong's Transliteration Greek English Morphology
2532 [e] kai καὶ And Conj
1831 [e] exelthousai ἐξελθοῦσαι having gone out, V-APA-NFP
5343 [e] ephygon ἔφυγον they fled V-AIA-3P
575 [e] apo ἀπὸ from Prep
3588 [e] tou τοῦ the Art-GNS
3419 [e] mnēmeiou μνημείου, tomb. N-GNS
2192 [e] eichen εἶχεν possessed V-IIA-3S
1063 [e] gar γὰρ indeed Conj
846 [e] autas αὐτὰς them PPro-AF3P
5156 [e] tromos τρόμος trembling N-NMS
2532 [e] kai καὶ and Conj
1611 [e] ekstasis ἔκστασις· amazement, N-NFS
2532 [e] kai καὶ and Conj
3762 [e] oudeni οὐδενὶ to none Adj-DMS
3762 [e] ouden οὐδὲν nothing Adj-ANS
3004 [e] eipan ειπον· was spoken; V-AIA-S
5399 [e] ephobounto ἐφοβοῦντοthey were afraid V-IIM/P-3P
1063 [e] gar γάρ. indeed. Conj

where "to none nothing was spoken" is near the end and noted that the singular verb as opposed to the plural gives more of a meaning of absolute silence. Use of the singular also sounds like an editorial comment here. The offending phrase is followed by a reference back to the narrative, "they were afraid indeed", but Koine Greek is a synthetic language where inflection is more important than placement in determining meaning. Also, in a mostly narrative work GMark also starts with an editorial comment.


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Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid For. Confirmation 16:8 Original

Post by JoeWallack »

JW:
An important part of Lunn's book The Original Ending of Mark: A New Case for the Authenticity of Mark 16:9-20 by Nicholas P. Lunn is the following claimed direction and relationship in reasoning:
  • 1) Based on 1-16:8 the LE is expected.

    2) Is there a good explanation for why the LE was removed?
Note that this line of reasoning starts with a conclusion and than looks for supporting evidence. So it is Apologetics. Again, Lunn's preface is dominated by confessing the problem that 16:8 creates for Christian claims of supposed history so that is his motivation. Lunn is an Apologist. Above he is only looking at why the LE would have been removed. The proper Textual criticism question should be broader, which is more likely, that the LE was removed or added? Once again, Textual Critic Bart Ehrman explains the complete Difficult Reading Principle (DRP):

http://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-sweating-bl ... -evidence/
There are two kinds of internal evidence that are usually called (1) intrinsic probabilities and (2) transcriptional probabilities. For now, I’ll focus on the first.

Intrinsic probabilities involve determining which of two (or more) forms of the text found in the manuscripts is the one that the author himself was more likely to have written. Suppose you have a verse worded in two different ways. If one of the ways uses the vocabulary and the writing style found elsewhere in the author, and presents ideas that he otherwise attests, whereas the other way includes words and grammatical constructions and ideas that are alien to the author, then the first is obviously more likely (though not certainly) the thing he wrote.
http://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-sweating-bl ... abilities/
The second kind of internal evidence is a kind of flip side of the coin, and it’s called “transcriptional probabilities.” With arguments/evidence of this kind the question is not which reading is more inherently likely to go back to the author; instead it is which reading is more inherently likely to have been created by a scribe or scribes.
Perhaps more amazing than Jesus' supposed resurrection is that Lunn never mentions DRP in his Introduction. As already demonstrated in this Thread Lunn's simple two-step's above are already backwards on the relationship between evidence and conclusions:
  • 1) Based on 1-16:8 the LE is not expected.

    2) "Is there a good explanation for why the LE was removed?" is not the question that should follow 1). The better question is why was it added. Both questions should be considered.
In the best article written on the subject Dr. Carrier demonstrates and than some that the LE parallels with subsequent resurrection narratives and therefore likely dates well after 1-16:8:

Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication by Richard Carrier, Ph.D. (2009)
Content Betrays Knowledge of the New Testament

The NT didn't exist when Mark wrote, yet the LE not only betrays knowledge of the Canonical NT (all four Gospels and Acts), it assumes the reader is aware of those contents of the NT or has access to them. As noted in section 4.2.1, this makes no sense coming from Mark, and very little sense coming from anyone at all, except someone who already knew all the stories related in the other three Gospels (and Acts) and who thus set out to quickly summarize them, knowing full well the reader could easily find those accounts and get all the details omitted here (or would already know them). Mark never writes with such an assumption. But a commentator writing a separate summary of the Gospel appearances in the NT would write something exactly like this. That the LE exhibits stylistic similarities with the whole NT, including the Epistles (as just surveyed in section 4.2), further supports the conclusion that the author of the LE knew the whole NT, and in fact was so influenced by it as to have adopted many elements of its diverse style. The author of the LE therefore cannot have been Mark.
Dr. Carrier goes beyond pointing out the parallels to observe that the LE reads as an attempted harmony for canonical Gospels written after GMark:
The LE is not only a pastiche of the other Gospel accounts, it's also an attempt at harmonization. To make the narrative consistent, the LE's author did not incorporate every element of the canonical stories (which would have been logically impossible, or preposterously convoluted). He also deliberately conflates several themes and elements in the interest of smoothing over the remaining contradictions, giving the appearance of a consistent sequence of events and forcing the whole into a narratively consistent triadic structure (examined below). This kind of harmonizing pastiche exemplified by the LE is an example of the very practice most famously exemplified in Tatian's Diatessaron (begun not long after the LE was probably composed), which took the same procedure and scaled it up to the entire Gospel (only copying words verbatim rather than writing in his own voice). Kelhoffer (in MAM, pp. 150-54) discusses other examples, demonstrating that the LE fits a literary fashion of the time.
Observe especially regarding the LE:
9 Now when he was risen early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.

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

11 And they, when they heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, disbelieved.

12 And after these things he was manifested in another form unto two of them, as they walked, on their way into the country.

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

14 And afterward he was manifested unto the eleven themselves as they sat at meat; and he upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them that had seen him after he was risen.

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

16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned.

17 And these signs shall accompany them that believe: in my name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues;

18 they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

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

20 And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen.
that the LE indicates that a resurrected Jesus appeared to the eleven but has exorcised the where. The biggest contradiction in the canonical resurrection appearances is that GMatthew explicitly says the where was Galilee while GLuke explicitly says the where was Jerusalem. So the LE has removed the problem at the source (so to speak). As Dr. Carrier points out, late second century is the time of harmonization for orthodox Christianity allah Irenaeus of Lyons (yes, "lyons") and Tatian.

Unfortunately, Dr. Carrier does not explicitly identify the DRP to explain why the LE was added (which is more likely, that the LE was added or removed) but does explain why the LE was created and when it was likely created (late second century). A second century creation coordinates well with the other evidence but there is no quality evidence that the LE was attached to GMark at this time (Irenaeus' Greek evidence is suspect as is Tatian's and Origen shows no awareness of its existence).

Word


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Re: Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid For. Confirmation 16:8 Origina

Post by MrMacSon »

JoeWallack wrote: ... Origen shows no awareness of its existence [ie. existence of the LE of Mark 1]
Interesting. Thanks for this and other interesting points.
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Re: Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid For. Confirmation 16:8 Origina

Post by Secret Alias »

And let's not ignore the fact that if there was another ending we wouldn't know the allusions to it among the Church Fathers because - well - we have lost all points of contact with the underlying text.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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Re: Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid For. Confirmation 16:8 Origina

Post by andrewcriddle »

FWIW I have recently been reading James A. Kelhoffer Miracle and Mission: The Authentication of Missionaries and Their Message in the Longer Ending of Mark which attempts to link the long ending with ideas about miracles and Christian missionary activity in 2nd century Christian writings.

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Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid For. Confirmation 16:8 Original

Post by JoeWallack »

JW:

Lunn writes in his conclusion:
This situation radically changed in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Primarily it seems to have been the impetus given to NT textual criticism by the publication and study of Codices Vaticanus and Sinaiticus that led to a scholarly revision of the traditional position.
Thus he has created a strawman position for Against LE, that it is largely based on S & V. His own emphasis on the quantity advantage of LE is more over developed than Arnold Swarzenegger’s muscles and smile. Regarding Eusebius and Jerome, somehow their text critical observations are limited to when they wrote and the age of the many Manuscripts likely in front of them has been exorcised.

Lunn postures that there is little early quantity evidence for Against LE yet the related Patristic textual criticism comments remind one of Duncan Idaho in the classic Dune when asked about the existence of Fremen, said “I believe they exist in vast, vast, numbers.“:

In the original language - Eusebius indicates most manuscripts are against LE (you also have the later scribal notes indicating early against in quantity).

The endings of the gospel of Mark
As far as Eusebius is aware, then, the following statements are both true:
  • The majority (σχεδον εν απασι) of the copies of Mark end at 16.8.
    The accurate (ακριβη) copies of Mark end at 16.8.
In the most important Version - Jerome indicates most manuscripts are against LE
Of which question the solution is twofold. For either we do not receive the testimony of Mark, which is extant in rare gospels, almost all of the Greek books not having this chapter at the end, especially since it looks like it narrates things diverse from and contrary to certain evangelists....
In the second most important Version - By an Act of Providence, the Syriac article here:

Book Review: The Gospel of Mark in the Syriac Harklean Version (2015)

indicates manuscripts against LE in quantity.
Peter J. GurryJuly 27, 2015 4:58 p.m.

Of the eight manuscripts that have Syriac marginalia, it appears that all introduce the shorter ending in the margin with “It is given somewhere...” All but two of these same eight mark the longer ending with the marginal note: “In a few of those more accurate manuscripts, the Gospel of Mark finishes at ‘for [they were afraid].’ But in others, instead, they add even...”
There is no earlier Textual Criticism comment going the other way (before E and J). The lesser Versions have even more evidence of extant quantity of Manuscripts Against. Thus we have early quantity evidence Against LE in vast, vast, numbers.

Lunn fails to note the coordination of the evidence here. We have few extant Manuscripts when the Patristics tell us Against LE dominated. We also have a clear Direction of Change from Against LE to For LE in every major category of evidence.

Regrettably, Lunn’s treatment of the External evidence (since it is more objective than Internal) is the best part of his book.

Word.


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Re: Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid For. Confirmation 16:8 Origina

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Mark 16:9
Ἀναστὰς δὲ πρωῒ πρώτῃ σαββάτου ἐφάνη πρῶτον Μαρίᾳ τῇ Μαγδαληνῇ, ἀφ’ ἧς ἐκβεβλήκει ἑπτὰ δαιμόνια.
Having risen moreover early [the] first [day] of the week, he appeared first to Mary the Magdalene, from whom he had cast ou seven demons.
variant readings via laparola
παρ' - C* D L W 083 33 892 pc WH
ἀφ’ - A C3 Θ Ψ f1 f13 Byz ς
But both - παρ' and ἀφ' - are completely "wrong".

puzzle question ;) : If one tries to copy Mark, what would be - clearly - the "correct" preposition?
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