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June 2024

The Text That Was Added (Mark’s Longer Ending)

With this post my reflections of the Gospel According to Mark come to a close. When I started this project I mistakenly, perhaps foolishly, thought that it would be approximately 16 posts (give or take) on Mark’s Gospel. That was 7 years ago. I did not realize then that the Lord would lead me on a long journey to more fully grasp who he was and what he was revealing in the words of Mark. Such is the nature of faith and the Christian life. Anyone who is in a real relationship with the God of all creation is also in an ongoing conversation with the Creator.

That is the phrase that my Old Testament professor, Andy Dearman, used to describe the Bible on the first day of my Into to the Old Testament class. He said that we were being invited into the longest ongoing conversation in the history of the world. The conversation between God and his creation.

Read Mark 16:9-20.

I have two very old family Bibles. One belonged to my maternal great-grandmother and the other to a paternal relative. I do not know which one, only that it predates my father’s father. In both instances they simply have Mark 16:9-20 as the completion of the Gospel of Mark. My own Bibles, regardless of translation, indicate that scholars disagree that these verses were penned by Mark. Chances are good that your Bible (particularly if it is a Study Bible) has similar notes and annotations.

Why is this significant? Modern scholarship has settled on the theory that these verses were added to the gospel and are not penned by Mark. The implication is that they are not to be considered original. For many this opens the question of whether they should be held as authoritative. This leads some to conclude if we cannot trust these verses how can we trust any of the rest of the Gospel of Mark; and, if we cannot trust any of the Gospel of Mark, how do we trust any of the scriptures as the authoritative word of God?

Full disclosure: I am not a trained textual critic. What you receive in this post are the reflections of a trained theological thinker and fellow sojourner in the faith. I will seek to explain a little bit of how textual criticism of the Bible works (from an elementary understanding), the conclusions that have been drawn, and a suggest an approach to the last 12 verses of the Gospel of Mark for the believer.

Textual Criticism is the study of the transmission and authenticity of the scriptures. In other words, it is a mostly scientific study of how we got the Bible that we have and whether or not what we are reading is reliably close to the original text.

What we have as the Bible (New and Old Testaments) are copies of copies of copies, because until the advent of the printing press the only way to get a copy of any written document was for someone to make a handwritten copy of the original. Therefore, one of the fundamental principles of textual criticism is that the older a copy is the more likely it reflects the original version. As it happens, two of the oldest total copies of the entire Bible known as Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus (from the 4th century AD), both of which include the entire New Testament written in Greek, do not contain Mark 9-20. This has led many scholars to conclude that these verses were not original to Mark. This is why your modern Study Bible puts brackets around or has footnotes concerning these verses.

This seems reasonable. This is not the whole story.

Allow me to dig a little deeper. The New Testament is the single most well-attested ancient document in existence. What do I mean by that? There are more fragments, sections, complete copies of individual New Testament Books, and entire copies of the New Testament in existence today than any other work from ancient times. And it is not even close. The next most well documented ancient work that is not the New Testament are the writings of Homer. There are just shy of 650 copies of Homer reflecting 95% of the current text dated to within 500 years of the original. We have around 5600 ancient copies of the New Testament reflecting 99.5% of the current text dated to within 200 years of the life of Jesus!

Wow! When you add fragments (portions of a text) and incomplete copies of books or the whole NT the number skyrockets even further. All this is to say the reliability of the New Testament text that you have on your shelf, your nightstand, and on your iPhone is astronomically high. So read with certainty fellow Christians and Seekers!

I will not bore you with a lot of details, a google search and curiosity will give you more than enough information about the 12 verses at the end of Mark’s Gospel. I will point three things that you will learn if you undertake the aforementioned Google search.

One, there are over 1600 copies of Greek manuscripts of Mark that contain verses 9-20 as the conclusion of chapter 16. Two, many 2nd century Christian writers quoted portions of Mark 9-20 indicating that they were familiar with it as a part of the Gospel of Mark and considered it scripture. Three, there are other portions of the New Testament that Codex Sinaiticus omits that no one questions are a part of scripture indicating that the copyist who produced Sinaiticus had an agenda at work perhaps for the intended patron of the copy.

The other argument that is made against 9-20 being original is that it is different in language and grammar from the rest of Mark. This argument falters because other textual critics have pointed out that a person can choose different 12 verse sections of the rest of Mark and conclude that there is a difference in grammar and word choice from the rest of the gospel.

It is true that the Gospel of Mark can end at verse 16:8 without any problems. This has troubled some because the tomb is empty, but the women leave afraid and speaking to no one. Therefore, they conclude that later copyists also concerned about this ending compared to Matthew, Luke and John chose to add another ancient reflection on the resurrection of Jesus to make Mark align more with the other three.

Needless to say, this is all speculation and the stuff of doctoral dissertations!

I suggest the following two conclusions.

Let’s assume for a moment that a later copyist sought to enhance Mark’s gospel with a resurrection appearance (9-20) by borrowing from some other ancient source. If that is the case (and some scholars think that 9-20 is a reading for 1st century churches to use after Easter during worship) then what we have in our New Testament are 6 witnesses to the resurrection instead of 5 (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul) which would make the story of the empty tomb more authentic not less.

The second conclusion is one that is admittedly faith-based and may not satisfy any critic of the New Testament. I believe that the New Testament remembers the person and significance of Jesus of Nazareth. I believe it shares with us that he was God with us, and that his death and resurrection was the action of God to redeem the entire creation. I believe that the tomb was in fact empty and that in reflecting on this reality the first Christians came to understand that in some way he was YHWH among us. I believe that he has ascended into heaven and has the name above all names. I believe that there is no other name under heaven by which people can be saved. I believe that he intercedes on behalf of believers, and he will come again to usher in the final age of history wherein he shall reign forevermore. Since I believe all of this, it is no small thing to also believe that God can ensure that the 27 books of the New Testament as I have received them are precisely what he wanted me to receive in their entirety.

Finally, is there anything in verses 9-20 that should give me pause?

vss 9-14: Jesus revealed himself alive to Mary Magdalene, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and the 11 members of the inner circle of Jesus? Check.

vss 15-16: Jesus instructed them to go and preach the gospel and baptize? Check.

vss 17-18: amazing things accompanied them as they followed the command to spread the gospel? Check.

verse 19-20: He sat down at the right hand of the Father and signs and wonders confirmed the preaching of the first Apostles? Check

If verses 9-20 are original to Mark, there is nothing therein that is not in accordance with the rest of scripture that is accepted as authentic and authoritative. If they are not original to Mark, there is nothing therein that is not in accordance with the rest of scripture that is accepted as authentic and authoritative.

We are left with the same outcome.

The tomb is empty. Jesus has risen.

What decision will you make in living your life in response to this truth?

Please consider sharing this site with just one friend.  Remember that if you wish to use this post or any of the others as a bible study, or meditation at the start of a meeting, or for any other purpose all I ask is that you let people know from where you got it in the first place.

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The Most Significant Person Ever

In the previous post, I suggested that the most significant day in history was the day of the resurrection since it is the only historical day that has significant impact for both the world and the individual. No other day in history until the end of the world is going to be as globally significant.

While at the end of the last post I zoned in on the reality that if Christ rose from the dead, every person has a decision to make. If Jesus rose from the dead, then everything else he said is true. That’s significant.

If Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, then he is the most significant person to ever live.

Before we plunge into that pool more deeply, a bit of housekeeping. When I began this blog many years ago, and I fully admit I have been an inconsistent blogger, the outline I was following was simply to go through the gospel of Mark. Not an exhaustive study of Mark but somewhat of an overview. I have reached the end of Mark and so there will be one more Mark centric post after today with a little look at the end of chapter 16 which may or may not have originally been written by Mark. After that I will begin a new and somewhat ambitious journey that the Lord has put on my heart born from a series of Bible Studies I led over the past several years for friends of mine. Normally, I say this at the end but, this blog is freely written and freely given. Share it or even use it for yourself, but please let others know where you got it. If any of the posts herein bless you then share those with friends that they might also benefit. My goal is simply to utilize a gifting and help people understand Jesus better and the Bible along the way.

If Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, then he is the most significant person to ever live.

What we read in the New Testament is a series of books that in various ways try to explain the significance of the Resurrected Jesus. The gospels seek to explain this using his words and recollections of his actions leading up to and in some cases after the empty tomb. Acts seeks to explain that significance through stories of how the good news of the resurrection event spread form Jerusalem around the Roman Empire. Pauls’ letters to the various churches and the other epistles all try to answer practical implications for believers all the while sharing the significance of who Jesus is. Finally, the Revelation of John, shares the future return of Jesus but even still seeks to explain what happened because of the Jesus event. So there is a theme running through the entirety of the New Testament.

Here is a small sampling of things said about Jesus in the New Testament:

  • “In Christ Jesus God was reconciling the world to himself” 2 Corinthians 5:19
  • “while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.” Romans 5:6
  • “He is the radiance of His Glory and the exact representation of His nature and upholds all things through the power of His Word.” Hebrews 1:3
  • “He himself will come to have first place in everything for it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him.” Colossians 1:18-19
  • “When I saw him I fell at his feet like a dead man. He placed his right hand on me saying, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the Living One: and I was dead and behold I am alive forevermore…'” Revelation 1:17-18.
  • “awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ who will also confirm you to the end blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” 1 Corinthians 1:8

The most significant person to ever live.

I would be remiss if I did not explain two words used so often with Jesus. Christ is the Greek word for Messiah which means “anointed one” and indicates someone on who God has placed a special status or blessing. It is a title and that is why we see it used on either side of the name Jesus by the various writers of the New Testament. Conversely Lord, is from the Greek word kurios, and while it can be used as a title in the sense of master or as a knight might refer to their Queen as “my Lord” in the Greek translation of the Old Testament the word is used almost exclusively for the place of YHWH, the name of God. Scholars argue, but the New Testament makes a lot more sense when we assume that these Jewish writers writing to Greek listeners about the significance of Jesus knew exactly how they would hear it as a statement of divinity.

Back to those verses. In order they lay out these truths of the significance of Jesus. The purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection was to reconcile God and sinners (Ephesians 2). This happened at the right time in the history of the universe and nothing about us as individuals or a community warranted it (Galatians 4). God anointed Jesus, the Man, with the Spirit and the fullness of who He is (two natures human and divine) and in him we can know the very nature of God (John 1). He has all power and authority (Phillipians2). On the last day those who believe in Him and trust him will be found blameless and like Jesus himself will live forevermore (1 John 2:25).

There you go the theme of the New Testament in 5 verses. You might note that the summary contains references that are different from the verses. I did that so you would know I wasn’t cherry-picking or simply proof-texting. Now let’s go just a little deeper into the concept of a New Testament.

The earliest use of the term New Testament to describe these writings is from the Second century (think years that are in the 100s) and is a translation from Latin. We tend to hear two things from that phrase. One we think testimony because testament is not a word that we use often in English anymore outside of the phrase last will and testament. It is true that testimony is from the same Latin root that we get the word testament. It is also true that there is a “witnessing” element throughout much of the New Testament. There is however another meaning that is locked away in the word.

Back to the example of a will. A will is at its core a covenant agreement. The deceased has shared that these are their wishes after death for the matters of their estate. The covenant is with those who have been named in the will as executor and beneficiaries to carry out those wishes. It is not a contract. Dear old Grandma doesn’t call you in and say here sign with me a contractual promise that when I die you get my rocking chair. No, she has her lawyer write a clause saying Sally I leave you my rocking chair. The expectation is that everyone, including cousin Julie who always wanted the rocking chair, will abide by the wishes of the dearly departed. What does this have to do with the significance of Jesus? The older meaning of the word Testament as it is used in Latin during the second century is covenant.

Covenant is a rich Biblical word. God makes a covenant, most famously with Abraham, but also with Adam, Noah, Moses, and David. They are promises made by God that He pledges to keep regardless of what the other party does. Starting with Adam and going forward these are the pledges of YHWH. To Adam he promises that one day there will be a descendant of humanity that will overcome the curse of sin. Noah is promised that never again will YHWH seek to destroy every living thing and start over. Abraham is promised that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars of the sky. Moses is promised that when it comes to the people who have been brought out of Egypt YHWH will be their God and they will be his people. David is promised that one of his heirs will reign forever.

In Jeremiah, the prophet shares the word of the Lord: “Behold the days are surely coming… when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with them when I brought them out of Egypt…this is the covenant that I will make… I will put my law in their hearts; I will be their God and they will be my people.”

The New Covenant is promised.

What we call the New Testament is the good news that the New Covenant has begun!

You can read a little more about the time that Jesus made the arrival of the new covenant explicit here.

The second thing we here is concerning the word new. We have been conditioned by marketing to assume that new means better than the old. With the exception of New Coke, there is an assumption that the new formula, the new car model, the new iPhone, etc. is always a replacement of the old. This was also the assumption of many second century Christians. The New Testament replaced the Old Testament. Except that is not true. The promises of God exist eternally so those previous covenants are all still in effect.

In this case the title New Testament is a collective proof that the covenant promised by the prophets has arrived in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The most significant person to ever live.

A theologian of the last century summarized it thus: “he has assumed human nature… united it to his Divine person so that our humanity belongs to him…. from the standpoint of reconciliation and justification effected in him, it means that, bearing our punishment, achieving the obedience we did not achieve and keeping the faith we did not keep, he acted once and for all in our place.”

Put a different way. Jesus is the one promised to Adam. Jesus is the first born of a new Creation whereby God will make all things new without simply destroying every living thing. Through Jesus the children of Abraham spans millions around the world. Jesus is the one who can keep the covenant law promised to Moses. Jesus is the heir of David who shall reign forever.

The most significant person to ever live.

And one of the great miracles of God is that you can know this Jesus, not like you know George Washington or William Shakespeare or Elenore Roosevelt, but like you know your best friend. Even better, you can know Jesus as you know yourself. It starts with the smallest amount of faith and seeking him while he can be found.

The most significant person to ever live is Jesus.

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The Most Significant Day Ever

What is the most significant day in history?

For Americans, there are lots of contenders whether it be the day the towers fell or the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Other Americans might choose the moon landing or the day the Beatles played on the Ed Sullivan show. July 4th,1776, makes a strong case for the most significant day in history.

Other countries and nationalities would have their own days of significance. Days of foundings, of significant battles fought, of independence from colonial powers, all special days awash with extra meaning for those peoples.

Then there are the individual days people might choose when asked the question. The day they were married. The day a loved one died. Maybe even the day that they won the lottery. The least humble among us might suggest their own birthday!

There is only one day in all of human history that is so significant that it is literally celebrated around the world on every continent not just annually but every single week. That is the day Jesus rose from the dead.

Read Mark 16: 1-8

We do not know the exact date with any certainty. We can do a little historical triangulation and narrow it down to a year within the range of 30-34 CE (the renamed A.D.) and we know that because it was around the celebration of Passover we are in the Springtime of year in Jerusalem.

Ancient burial practices being what they were it was common for a body to be buried in a cave in those days and for loved ones and family members to bring spices and anoint the body. This was done to help cover the smells associated with decomposition. Eventually, the bones of the person would be collected and stored in a stone box called an ossuary. This is precisely what Mark says the women were heading out to the tomb to do in the early hours of the morning.

This is one of the ways in which this story with an incredible ending rings true. First, the suggested task of the women is precisely what we would expect to be going on based on what we know about 1 century burial practices in Jerusalem. Secondly, it rings more than a bit true, that none of the men are there because they have left this important yet menial task to the women. No doubt this anointing would have been followed up by going to the well for the daily water supply, getting the “kitchen” fire started for the days cooking and all the other never-ending tasks that fell on their shoulders.

They must have been experiencing a swirl of emotions. Jesus was dead. They had followed him and hung on his words, wondered what it might all mean, worried that they or their husbands, brothers, and friends might also experience retribution at the hands of the Sanhedrin or the Romans. Maybe they felt some resentment that they were having to “fit” this task into the rest of an always busy day. The only thing we do know for certain is that they wondered about how they were going to get into the tomb because there was the matter of the large stone that sealed the entrance.

This is when the story turns to the unexpected.

The stone is already moved away from the entrance! Mark notes that it was extremely large. Now, the ladies are probably thinking that someone else has come to anoint the body. They may have reasoned that one of the disciples had come to pay respects. They may even have considered the possibility that someone was coming to take the body away.

They mustered up the courage to go into the cave without knowing who was in there ahead of them. They were unprepared for what they found.

In our day, the idea that the tomb is empty that Jesus rose is so ingrained in us that we are inoculated from the sense of fear, trembling, and awestruck wonder those women experienced.

“Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right wearing a white robe and they were amazed. He said to them ‘do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen. He is not here; behold, the place where they laid him.’“

The word translated as amazed gives the sense of awestruck wonder or befuddlement. It is like the time my son came home from school around the age of 8 to learn that we now had a Wii. His young brain could not wrap itself around what was happening at all. He had gone to school like any other day and when he came home it was now a home with a Wii. What was this new world he was in that something like this could happen.

That is the befuddlement of joy. I think you will agree with me that there was a not inconsiderable amount of fear wrapped up in the astonishment that the two Marys and Salome were experiencing. Angels have this effect on people. American culture pictures angels as beautiful, serene women, who are dressed in white and gold. Oh! and they have wings. Angels, based on scripture, may resemble humans but there must be something fearsome about them because everyone is either astonished or scared in their presence. It must be that they are obviously other-worldly at the sight. We know this because the Angel always has to remind the persons that they manifest before to not be afraid.

Angels do a great many things in the scripture, but when the Angel appears as a herald it is always to clarify that God is acting in the current event. The Angel is there to assure the witnesses that any other “rational” explanation will not do. The Lord God has raised Jesus the Nazarene who was crucified from the dead.

In Greek, like English, the verb to rise has many meanings and connotations. It is used for a person getting up in the morning or for the sun at dawn. It is used for the bringing forth of something new. Just as we might say a new generation is rising. Or in our culture we speak of rising freshman or rising seniors as the students of one year of school matriculate to the next year. Normally in the New Testament the verb is coupled with the word for dead body to indicate someone being raised from the dead, like the times Jesus brought a dead people back to life. The word for dead body is not present here. Not to get too far into the weeds the verb tense is Aorist Passive. That’s fancy talk for something was done to Jesus between the Crucifixion and the Empty Tomb. The one whom Jesus referred to as Father raised him from the dead.

In terms of the meanings of the word Jesus is risen and something new is afoot in the world. Later Christians would come to understand that a new Age was also rising with Jesus. An Age that included Jesus as Lord and Savior for all who would put their faith and trust in him. An Age where salvation is promised to all who profess with their mouth and believe in their hearts that Jesus Christ is Lord. This Age lasts until the God appointed time when Christ returns and the “Age of the World to come” begins. You can read all about the future glories of that Age in Revelation 21 and 22.

The women are told to go and tell Peter and the others to meet Jesus in Galilee. Mark records that they fled with fear and trembling and told no one because they were so afraid and astonished. An empty tomb will do that to you.

They eventually told someone. No doubt later the same day. Maybe it was the second person that asked them what was wrong, maybe the third. Most likely they talked it over amongst themselves and decided that they best do what the Angel told them to do!

The most significant day in the History of the world. Why you say? Two reasons really. One, it is the only day that is both significant for the entire world. If Jesus Christ walked out of the grave then everything that he said about himself is true. It means that when he says that “all power and authority on heaven and earth have been given to me” that that is true. It means that he is the only true Lord and Savior. It means he reigns as the true ruler of every nation and all peoples. It means that there is no other God besides the One.

Two, it means that the day is significant for every single person who hears the story. For if Jesus Christ walked out of the grave then you have a decision to make. Do you believe the story? If so, then there exists roadmap on how to live in the teachings of Jesus. It means you can experience the fruits of the Spirit and life in the Kingdom of God. You can live in the sure and certain hope of the life of the world to come. If you believe, you can trust in the promise of Jesus that he is “the resurrection and the life, those who believe in me though they die yet shall they live.”

But it is a truth that demands a choice. And that makes the day even more significant. Anyone can ponder the day that Battle of Hastings was fought and go on about their lives without making a decision. It matters not what I think about the day Julius Ceasar crossed the Rubicon. The day that Salk perfected is vaccine has no claim upon me to make a decision. The Resurrection does demand a decision.

There is no half-way here. Its either true or it is not. If it is true then time is short for you to decide if you will proclaim Christ as Lord and experience renewal in this life and everlasting life one day. If you choose not to then this life is all there is and to paraphrase the Apostle Paul you will be the most to be pitied.

There is no halfhearted believing either. You cannot simply rely on the historical record and go to Church on the regular and try and be a good person and hope for the best. It is not enough to understand the faith and its ways. It has to be believed. The faith must be lived.

The Christian life is not about knowledge it is about a relationship with a living savior. “He is going ahead of you to Galilee there you will see Him.” Christ is always and forever on the move. God is waiting for you to find him.

Just as there are 2 possible lives (the present one and the prooffered eternal one) there are 2 deaths. The one that ends this life and in the last day the one that is everlasting separation from God.

If you have never called upon the Name of the Lord, do it today. Do it now.

Feel free to use this Bible Study for your own groups or discussion.  It is freely given. If you do I merely ask that you acknowledge where you got it and if you find it useful that you encourage others to seek it out. It is freely given and written with fear, foreboding, and prayer by a fellow hypocrite who is simply trying to figure out the road ahead.

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