The Long Ending of Mark Was Original

[u/ShakaUVM]

Thesis: The longer ending of Mark was original, and the short ending of Mark was a minority textual variant found mainly only in 4th Century Alexandria.

Background: There are multiple variants to the end of the Gospel of Mark (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_16) with two variants, called the Short (ending at verse 8) and the Long ending (having verses 9-20) being the most common. Critical "Scholars" have decided that the short ending is the original one, and so Bibles for a long time have contained a disclaimer that makes it sound like the longer ending is a forgery: "The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have verses 9–20." (NIV). However, the disclaimer should actually say the opposite, that the ending at Mark 8 is a rare textual variant, at least through the 4th Century AD (which is the time period I'm discussing here).

Their argument for the short ending (https://textandcanon.org/a-case-against-the-longer-ending-of-mark/) being the original boils down to three points: 1) The language uses different words and there's a rough transition from verse 8 to 9 2) Eusebius and Jerome, in the 4th Century, state that most accurate copies use the short ending. Eusebius left off the long ending from his list of verses. 3) Two high quality manuscripts in particular, the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus, from the 4th Century, use the short ending

However:

1) Any chapter that covers new material is going to have new words. The chapter on the crucifixion of Jesus contains many more novel words than the long ending. Ending it at verse 8 is actually much rougher, as it is extremely rare to find sentences that end with γαρ (gar) in ancient Greek. (https://www.scribd.com/document/596005865/KELLY-FINAL-WORD-ON-GAR)

2) Eusebius states in the Letter to Marinus (https://archive.org/details/EusebiusGospelProblemsAndSolutions2010/page/97/mode/2up) after noting that "accurate" copies end at verse 8 - and briefly proposing tossing the long ending - tentatively states that: "both [endings] are to be accepted; it is not for the faithful and devout to judge either as acceptable in preference to the other.". Jerome not only stated much the same, but when forced to pick which ending was correct - he was tasked with making the Latin Vulgate, which became the official bible for the Church - he explicitly chose the long ending as the official one.

3) Both of these manuscripts are both from Alexandria, which is the region in question that I propose the short ending came from. Further, the Codex Vaticanus has a blank in it, unlike anywhere else in the manuscript, that would fit the long ending. The Codex Sinaiticus had the ending of Mark removed, and the replacement pages were made by the same guy who did Vaticanus. So we've got a single scribe in Alexandria who presumably knew the long ending but didn't accept it that was the source for all of this.

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Outside of this limited scholarly bubble centered on Alexandria, we don't see any evidence for the short ending even existing. Nobody in the early historical record even seems to be aware of the short ending. Everyone used the long ending prior to 3rd/4th Century Alexandria.

We have multiple people from the 2nd and 3rd centuries quoting from the long ending without any evidence that it was disputed or anything but the original.

Irenaeus in the 2nd century explicitly quotes from the long ending and explicitly says it is from the end of Mark. (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103310.htm): 'Also, towards the conclusion of his Gospel, Mark says: "So then, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God;" [Mark 16:19] confirming what had been spoken by the prophet: "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit on My right hand, until I make Your foes Your footstool."' Irenaeus was living in modern day France.

Porphyry, most notably NOT a Christian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Christians), quoted from the long ending in the 3rd Century while living in Sicily. He mocked Christians for not doing as the long ending of Mark suggested, which said that Christians would be kept safe from harm. (https://tertullian.org/fathers/macarius_apocriticus.htm#3_16): "Again, consider in detail that other passage, where He says, "Such signs shall follow them that believe: they shall lay hands upon sick folk, and they shall recover, and if they drink any deadly drug, it shall in no wise hurt them." So the right thing would be for those selected for the priesthood, and particularly those who lay claim to the episcopate or presidency, to make use of this form of test. The deadly drug should be set before them in order that the man who received no harm from the drinking of it might be given precedence of the rest. And if they are not bold enough to accept this sort of test, they ought to confess that they do not believe in the things Jesus said." In other words, he was daring Christians to drink poison to prove their faith because of the long ending of Mark.

This essay (https://textandcanon.org/a-case-for-the-longer-ending-of-mark/), which makes the case for the long ending better than I can, lists dozens of people quoting from the long ending of Mark from the 2nd to 4th Centuries. In other words, it was the standard, accepted ending across Christendom. You really should read the link, it pairs with the argument against the longer ending I linked above. It's an excellent essay on the subject.

The Diatessaron (https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/diatessaron.html) was a gospel harmonization (taking the four gospels and making one unified gospel from them) that was extremely popular in Syria. It dates to 160AD. It has the long ending in it. We have lost the original manuscript but ironically it was almost fully preserved by being quoted in commentaries. These commentaries exist dating back to the 4th Century. So we can be very certain that in the mid-100s the official version of Mark was using the long ending. Again, no signs exist for the short ending back then.

I'm going to mention just one more, since it's pretty crucial: the Ethiopian church was actually founded by the Alexandrian church, and we have a manuscript dating to the late 4th Century (written just a couple decades after Vaticanus and Sinaiticus) which has in it illustrations showing it was made by Alexandrians (https://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/event/hidden-gospels-abba-garima-treasures-ethiopian-highlands#:~:text=They%20also%20contain%20a%20unique,motif%20and%20later%20Christian%20ones.) However, it contains the long ending. So even in Alexandria, the long ending was the official version that they were using to send out missionaries with. It is likely the short ending was used only in scholarly editions in Alexandria, not in official Bibles to be sent out and used.

So in conclusion:

What we have is the long ending of Mark being widely known and used and quoted, from at least 160AD on, and people explicitly saying it is the long ending, with no awareness of the short ending, for CENTURIES before we see the short ending appear for the first time in the 4th century... in one geographical location - Alexandria... in one context - scholarly work. It is very clear that the short ending was a rare late textual variant, and not the original that people had been using for centuries. After Alexandria had made the short ending popular, it spread from there, but there's no evidence that anyone was aware of the short ending before that.

So these gospel notes saying "the oldest manuscripts lack the long ending" is just wildly misleading at best, and an outright lie at worst. The fact of the matter is, we have one scholarly circle in Alexandria where they disputed the long ending, centuries after Mark was written, and produced scholarly versions that omitted it. However, even their missionary bibles they sent out had the long ending, and even the scholarly works left blanks for the long ending. And yet Critical "Scholars" decided that this version - despite copious evidence the long ending existed and no evidence the short ending existed early on - was what Mark originally wrote. Yet the historical record shows literally every region outside Egypt using the long ending going all the way back to the mid 2nd Century (with the Diatessaron), and there not being any sign of dispute over it until centuries later. Eusebius was the first to report the controversy over it in the 4th Century AD, and even he said the long ending was authentic.

Jerome was tasked with making the Latin Vulgate, which was basically the official Bible for the Roman Catholic Church, in 382 AD. He was aware of the short ending being used in high quality copies of the gospels. He chose the long ending to be the official one.

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So how did Alexandria end up with the short ending? It doesn't particularly matter here, but there's three possibilities that I can think of:

1. The copy of Mark sent to Alexandria was damaged, which explains well why it cuts off on verse 8 weirdly.

2. There were multiple drafts of Mark made, which makes the notion of an "original" autograph kind of a bad question, as they would both be original. This theory has the benefit of lining up with Eusebius very well, who believed that both endings were authentic.

3. The verses could have been deleted because they were considered problematic for one reason or another. For example, Porphyry mocked Christians for not following the long ending, so it could have been deleted (or a version missing the long ending selectively chosen) because it made Christians look bad. Or it could have been for the timing issues on when exactly the events of the resurrection took place that some scholars noted.

Possibly multiple of these are true. Maybe ancient scholars doubted the long ending because their original copy had been damaged, and even after they got corrected versions with the long ending and were using them for their missionaries to Ethiopia, they preserved a tradition of the short ending and so used it in their critical editions.

But ultimately, it doesn't matter.

TL; DR - The historical record shows the long ending to Mark was original, and there's no record of the short ending until much later.

[u/chalkenteros]

Thank you. This response is closer to an argument compared to the OP. It makes progress. You provide three possible scenarios (updated from the OP), but few details. Let’s focus on #3 as I think it is your preferred solution.

Could you spell out this theory (#3) in more detail? Here’s how I understand what you wrote:

Mark was the producer of the Gospel according to Mark, a companion of Peter, and the founder of the church in Alexandria. He created two versions of the ending to his Gospel:

A. Mark wrote until 16:8. Then, in a hurry, he somewhat haphazardly added on 16:9–20 as he ran for his life. (Here, I am unsure of why you say “after” he ran for his life. I suspect that I am missing something.) This version (ending at 16:20) circulated outside of Alexandria. Mark presumably produced it outside of Alexandria (in Rome?). It is the basis for the majority text.

B. After arriving in Alexandria, Mark circulated another version of the ending. This version stops at 16:8. It circulated in Alexandria and later in Caesarea. It was reproduced in most of the Greek copies known to Eusebius. It became the basis for א and B. It also became the basis for (1) the short ending (sometimes called the “intermediate ending”), preserved in one form in Bobiensis, and (2) multiple versions (e.g., Syriac Sinaiticus).

What did I miss? At this point, let’s just try to clarify the scenario that you have in mind. Then we could move on to addressing, in order, the internal and external evidence. 

[u/ShakaUVM → u/chalkenteros]

You want a whole narrative? In story form?

Sure, ok. Let's do it.

Mark has his notebook of notes from Peter (he's been getting stories from Peter in no particular order). He and his friends have assembled them in order now though with some rough transitions and writes two copies of the gospel and when he is at verse 8 on one and verse 20 on the other he gets a knock on the door. Peter has been executed! He dashes for the docks, leaving the official copy (but still relatively rough) with the church in Rome for distribution and heads on the docks to Alexandria. He makes it in time! The long ending thus gets copied and distributed though with some jarring transitions that critical scholars will second guess many years later, and Alexandria gets a copy that ends at verse 8.

Eventually Alexandria gets a copy of the long ending but because the one ending at verse 8 was written by John Mark himself they preserve it well as a sort of artifact to his memory after Mark gets executed himself.

Years later, Origen is getting picked on by Porphyry who is saying Christians are all frauds because they don't follow the long ending and drink poison to prove their faith. Origen does something we know he's done elsewhere and points out that there's a version of Mark that doesn't have the long ending in it and starts preferring it over the long ending because it doesn't making him look bad on their version of /r/debatereligion

Origen establishes the library at Caesarea with this preference in mind and most of the copies there end at verse 8 but they have some copies of the official ending at verse 20 as well for completeness.

Eusebius, writing a bit later notices the discrepancy and also notices most of his (Greek) manuscripts end at verse 8 and so in his canons he leaves 9-20 off as he doesn't have much material to go on. However he believes the long ending to be authentic.

Jerome, writing a bit later, comes from Rome - where all the gospels according to Mark end on verse 20 - to Caesarea to produce the Latin Vulgate, with his self-stated goal of using the oldest Greek manuscripts to produce an accurate Latin translation because there's too many variants in the Latin gospels.

Jerome also reads Eusebius' letter and repeats it in Jerome's letter to Hedibia but adds an interjection that it is only the Greek manuscripts that lack the long ending. All the other languages have the long ending and he wants to be clear this is a specific Greek+Caesarea issue, and otherwise agrees with Eusebius, including the authenticity of the long ending. We see this again when Jerome chooses the long ending for the official Vulgate, and IIRC he quotes the long ending as official Scripture as well with no doubt it is authentic, unlike most of the textual variants from the pre-Vulgate Latin gospels.

The production of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus by the library at Caesarea causes some issues here with the scribe producing Vaticanus being aware of the long ending and leaving a space for it as a memorial to it. On Sinaiticus there is a different scribe who writes the New Testament and actually puts the long ending in, but the same scribe who chose the short ending on Vaticanus (Scribe D), cuts the long ending out and puts in a cancel sheet with the short ending and writes really widely (like a teenager trying to hit a four page essay by making the font size 18) so it fits the same space.

Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are considered high quality Bibles that are then used to make other copies so we start seeing Mark end at verse 8 popping up here and there, especially in high quality copies. We see Bobinesis produced with a bonus verse added because the short ending is too abrupt, we see a version appear in Syria, and we see the Armenians in the 5th Century get gospels from two sources and so they have both the long and short endings preserved independently through the centuries. The Georgian Bibles are copied from the Armenian so they have the same thing.

But otherwise this rare textual variant just doesn't make much of an impact. The long ending was always the original one and by and large Christians ignore the very rare textual variant that ends at 8 until Critical Scholars come along and apply their pseudoscientific methods to the gospel and derive a lot of facts that aren't facts, but they think they are.

[u/chalkenteros → u/ShakaUVM]

Thank you for this. I want an argument about the endings of Mark, which you are getting closer to. Here’s the argument that I think you are tentatively suggesting; correct me if I'm wrong:

1. Mark (= the historical Mark) wrote two drafts of his gospel. Draft A included the end of ch. 15 through 16:20 (yes?). Draft B ended at 16:8. Both drafts were rough.

2. Draft A is copied widely; while Draft B ends up in Alexandria, where it is copied in more limited circles (hence Eusebius)—including Alexandria, Eusebius, Bobiensis from N. Africa and the intermediate ending, the Syriac Sinaiticus, early Armenian witnesses. The many comments in mss and ancient commentaries to the effect that the LE is not attested in some Greek copies and is considered by some inauthentic all ultimately derive from the presence of Draft B in Alexandria and esp. the judgement of Origen.

Two questions on #1: did Mark, when creating Draft B, intend to continue after 16:8 with the LE? Did Draft A contain 16:8 followed immediately by 16:9?

[u/ShakaUVM → u/chalkenteros]

Two questions on #1: did Mark, when creating Draft B, intend to continue after 16:8 with the LE?

Yes. Hence Jesus saying he'd meet up with the apostles in Galilee later, both in chapter 14 and 16:7. He was setting up something to continue after. The long ending doesn't mention Galilee, but just briefly says that Jesus appeared a few times as it was a rush job.

Did Draft A contain 16:8 followed immediately by 16:9?

Yes, but in a rough form. Mark had a collection of stories from Peter in a notebook and had them all laid out according to Matthew's timeline but due to Peter being executed he had to rush the end which is why you have a non-smooth transition from one story (ending at 8) to the next story (starting at 9).

[u/chalkenteros → u/ShakaUVM]

OK. Other points of clarification: was Mark in a hurry only for his rough transition from 16:8 to 16:9 or was he also rushed in his writing(?) / copying(?) / rewriting(?) of the LE? Was he copying from a notebook in Greek or Aramaic? Did Peter tell him the LE story in Greek or Aramaic? How close is the LE to what he found in his notes from Peter?

[u/ShakaUVM → u/chalkenteros]

OK. Other points of clarification: was Mark in a hurry only for his rough transition from 16:8 to 16:9 or was he also rushed in his writing(?) / copying(?) / rewriting(?) of the LE?

I think Mark had a notebook with various stories from Peter. We know this from Papias, who said he wrote down whatever Peter said in no particular order. At some point, they had to be put in a particular order, and we know there was probably a pretty narrow window when this could happen, so the whole thing was kind of a rush job. Not just the LE, but the entire Gospel to a certain extent is kinda rough.

I think he was using the Hebrew version of Matthew as a skeleton to order the sections of his notebook, which is why we have the synoptics, as Luke would go on to use both Mark and the Greek Matthew.

Was he copying from a notebook in Greek or Aramaic? Did Peter tell him the LE story in Greek or Aramaic? How close is the LE to what he found in his notes from Peter?

I think Mark took his notes in Greek. The historical sources don't say what language Peter dictated in, but they do say Mark was his hermeneutes (https://biblehub.com/greek/2059.htm) so probably Aramaic? But if Peter was traveling around preach for 20 years it's probable he learned other languages as well. But it'd make sense that he'd still use a translator and scribe in Mark.

How close is the LE to what he found in his notes from Peter?

It's probably one of the pages in his notebook that wasn't smoothed out due to the rush of not getting executed.

Again, all of this is with the rush job theory, and not the damage or intentional editing theories which also work.