Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!lll-winken!sun-barr!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ph600fev@sdcc14.ucsd.edu (Robert O'Barr) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Is the Bible 100% correct? Message-ID: Date: 22 Jan 91 07:47:47 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of California, San Diego Lines: 51 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu >[The case against Mk 16:16 being part of the original document is >quite convincing. > >--clh] Could you explicitly explain the evidence for this? It was my understanding that we don't have any of the original manuscripts of Paul, Luke, John, etc but rather copies and most possibly copies of copies or even copies of copies of copies etc. etc. ( If I am wrong please direct me to these originals that were penned by the apostles of Christ.) If two manuscripts disagree, who is to say that the oldest manuscript is therefore the least corrupted. It is quite possible that the older manuscript is a corrupted or altered (or edited) version of the original and that the more recent manuscript is a more faithfull copy of the original. Other than the dates of various manuscripts, what is the *case* that clearly demonstrates that Mk 16:16 was not in the original version ( which we don't have to compare with) that was written by the apostle Mark? Robert O'Barr [In this case there's more reason to be suspicious. Not only do the early documents not have the longer ending, but some of the later ones that do have it also have it with asterisks or a critical note. There are two additions, the "short ending" (one verse, which does not seem to have a number), and the "long ending", 9-20. Some have one, some have the other, and some have both. This all suggests strongly that it's a late addition. Here is Vincent Taylor's comment in his commentary on Mark: "Both the external and internal evidence are decisive. The passage is omitted by aleph B k sy(a), and important MSS of the Georgian, Armenian, and Aethiopic versions, and Eusebius and Jerome attest that it was wanting in almost all the Gk MSS known to them. It is also significantly combined with the 'Shorter Ending' in L and phi and in Sahidic, Syriac, and Aethiopic MSS. W inserts a third passage, the Freer ending, after xvi. 14, and a tenth-century Armenian MS contains the rubric 'Aristonos the Presbyter' which by wide consent ascribes xvi. 9-20 to the Ariston mentioned by Papias in the well-known quotations given by Eusebius in his Historia Eccclesiastica, iii. 39. 15. 'In the whole Greek Ante-Nicene literature', Hort, 37, writes, 'there are at most but two traces of vv 9-20, and in the extant writings of Clem. al. and Origen they are wholly wanting.' The two exceptions are a possible allusion in Justin Martyr, Apol i.45 ... and the express quotation of Irenaeus, iii. 10. 6. ... With this evidence, the internal evidence, based on vocabulary, style, and subject-matter of the section, is in complete agreement, as will be seen ..." --clh]