Talk:Mark 16

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"This is an argument from silence that assumes that the Gospels were written down before any of their content was shared; i.e., it does not allow for an oral tradition to have been maintained among Christians before the Gospels were recorded. There is good evidence for such an oral tradition, as many Christian leaders make reference to it in their writings."

No, it doesn't assume that: the contents of the Gospels were obviously shared and there must have been an oral tradition before any Gospel was written down. The a.f.s. suggests that if the original oral tradition contained mention of something as important as the Virgin Birth, it would have been mentioned by Mark, John, and Paul. Jacquerie27 22:09 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

I changed the "Conclusion" because it was POV: in a signed essay it would be appropriate to give evidence and pronounce on it, but not here. Jacquerie27 12:04, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Question?

What was written first? The "Longer Ending"? Or the "Shorter Ending"? Or did the author originally ended the gospel at 16:8?

[edit] Social psychology

deleted phrase: "Social psychology teaches: It is not the objective but subjective situations that influence people." I don't think this point is really relevant to this article. I think I get what they are saying, i.e. "that this issue (which is the right ending of Mark) isn't really important, what is important is the social reasons why people have religious beliefs", but such an observation doesn't belong in an article on such a specific religious topic, but rather a more general discussion of the relationship between scholarly questions such as this, and the religious beliefs of social individuals.

[edit] POVness

This is the kind of article for which it is very difficult to be objective. Either one believes in the Marcan authorship of Mark 16:9-20, or one does not. The majority of web pages with an opinion on the issue in question seem to support this; this is not surprising, because ther people who believe in Mark 16:9-20 have more to lose than the people who do not believe in Mark 16:9-20 have to gain by not believing in it.

I will make my POV clear here: I do not believe in Mark 16:9-20; I feel the article has a bit of pro-16:9-20 POV; I want to minimize this POV while making the article one that Mark 16:9-20 supporters can live with.

This article suffers from a terrible lack of perspective. The view that the original text of Mark lacked 16:9-20 is hardly controversial among reputable text critics. For example, the committee behind United Bible Societies's standard edition of the Greek text of the New Testament (from which almost all modern translations are made) ends the original text of Mark 16:8, giving their decision the highest rating of "A" which stands for "certain." The lopsided treatment this article gives to what is generally regarded as a crankish position does little to bolster Wikipedia's credibility. --scc 04:18, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Mark 16 and Ancient World "Reading"

To my mind, this article could do with a section explaining the function(s) of the Markan ending(s). In my own personal view, vv.9-20 are an addition to Mark by a community familiar with Luke-Acts. The article also lacks an overall understanding of "reading" in the ancient world. People wouldn't have sat down by themselves and read a book; reading was performed out loud and public, not silently in private. The best estimate I have seen for ancient world literacy is around 15% - I stress best! So, if one sees Mark in this context of ancient world "reading", then 16:8 is the ideal ending - it requires interactivity from the hearer! What better way to end the "good news" (1:1) than to require a response to it?

And I agree with scc - as a whole, the article seems very much in favour of 16:9-20. For starters, where is the discussion about the vocabulary and style of 16:9-20 being out of touch with the rest of Mark? There seems plenty about the grammatical structure of v.8!

If no-one has any objections, I would like to add these ideas to the article at some point in the next 2 weeks, and also attempt to eliminate the POVness. --MHazell 03:25, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, no-one seemed to have any objections, so I've reworked almost the entire article. I edited out a lot of the early church fathers information - in my view, there was too much of it, and a lot of it was useless - and have also eliminated a lot of the (unneeded) Greek quotations. Detailed discussion of the different manuscripts has also gone. Reading Mark 16 as it stood, I got the feeling that far too much information about manuscripts was being dealt with in too brief a manner, and the discussion was suffering badly as a result - perhaps separate entries for each manuscript could be created or edited (like Codex Sinaiticus)? I have incorporated my ideas above and have attempted to give a fair treatment to both sides of the debate (though in scholarship, there isn't actually a debate: the longer and shorter endings are not original!). Books have also been cited, with ISBNs - and the blatantly biased external websites have disappeared. --MHazell 21:17, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mark 16:9

This section is not relevant to the topic, but is instead an apologetic. Unless anyone can think of a reason why it should stay, it should be deleted.

[edit] Jesus as God

At first I thought Rjcarver's edits might be original research too, but it is a fact that Jesus is regarded as God in many books of the New Testament, perhaps even Mark, and most Christians regard Jesus as God, so whether God raised Jesus or Jesus raised himself might be a distinction without a difference, and so his edits would simply follow logically from this fact and would not be original research. Roy Brumback 07:09, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Roy,. You reinstated these sentences:
This is not seen as a contridiction to other verses which state God raised him from the dead, as Christian writers considered Christ to be God manifest in flesh 1 Tim, Col 2:9, John 20:28, Tit 2:13 (original Greek "our Great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ", etc.</ref>, quoting Jesus himself, so the change of terminology does not necessarily indicate a change of mentality of Mark, nor as a change of authorship, but can be seen as simply a statement of fact in line with what Jesus himself said would occur, without any contradiction to verse 6, as the two concepts are synonymous (see Note 2).
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that because Christians believe Jesus to be God, there is no effective distinction between God raising Jesus from the dead, and Jesus raising himself from the dead.
According to Wikipedia's policy on original research you can only include this passage in the article if you can identify a published reliable source that advances this argument (i.e. arrives at the same conclusion from the same premise). Otherwise this section falls foul, at the very least, of the prohibition on synthesizing published material to advance a position. Until you can find such a source, I'm reverting again. Thanks. Grover cleveland 07:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What gives with the NRSV?

I have a few questions. First, why is it that the explanation of the longer ending is based on a translation which relegates it to a footnote? Second, why is the NRSV used while citing Kilgallen, when Kilgallen could not have used the NRSV for his work (the NRSV was published at the same time as his commentary on Mark)? I understand wanting to maintain a NPOV and all, but come on, this is a bit over the top and marginalizes the text quite severely. Especially when one considers that the changes made in the RSV and NRSV introduce some rather serious contradictions to the Bible's text. El Cubano 20:39, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean with the first question. As for the second, I simply cite what Kilgallen says in his book and I didn't use the NRSV, someone put that in later, and I'm not sure that he is using a translation for his analysis, as he's a scholar who presumably knows the ancient greek words involved. I suppose we need an analysis of the two greek wordings used, but that's beyond me as I don't know ancient greek. Anyone got a source on the words and their tenses and meaning involved here? Roy Brumback 04:26, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Popular translations always lag scholarly research. The NRSV merely reflects the scholarship of Kilgallen and others before them. 68.123.65.34 19:00, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
My point with the first question was the NRSV include Mark 16:9-20 only as a footnote. It seems hardly neutral to use it as the basis for the explanations given in the article. Would there be opposition to changing the text quotations to something like the KJV (or at least a translation that doesn't contradict itself)? El Cubano 14:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Can you explain what you mean by the NRSV "contradicting itself"? Thanks. Grover cleveland 14:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
For example, in the NRSV, John 3:16 reads For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. However, in John 1:12 (again NRSV) it says But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God. So does God have only one Son? Does that make the rest of us daughters? I think the problem is that NRSV eliminates the distinction of Jesus being the begotten Son of God. The NIV, Living Bible and many other translations exhibit this problem. The KJV maintains the distinction (which is in fact quite important), as do the NKJV, ASV and even the NASB (not that I would actually recommend any of the last three). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by El Cubano (talk • contribs) 17:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

The article you are looking for is: King-James-Only Movement. Have fun. 75.14.220.78 19:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

While I personally hold to a KJVO view, I did point out that there are several other Bible translations which are closer to getting it right than does the NRSV. I think that the translastion that is chosen for explaining the Mark 16:9-20 text should be one that doesn't relegate it to a footnote. If it must be one that relegates the text to a footnote, it should at least be a translation that does not contradict itself. El Cubano 18:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Your alleged contradiction is irrelevant to this article. 64.149.82.96 20:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It is more than alleged. It is a fact. Of course, you can choose to deny it. Besides, that was in answer to the request for an explanation. The initial concern stands and is still valid. Why use a translation that has chosen to relegate the text in question to a footnote? El Cubano 22:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
For that matter, why use a translation that gives no indication of the controversy over the verse?Nyttend 14:28, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
For a non-believer especially, El Cubano gives a humorous argument. Rather than appealing to ancient Greek versions of Mark or other sources from antiquity, El Cubano is referring to a 1611 A.D. English translation of John for authoritative reference. Wouldn't this requires a special theological argument for special status of English? From someone calling themselves "The Cuban"? (or is that a cigar brand?) The controversy of Mark 16 is in regard to the original Greek, and therefore calls for an English translation that specifically addresses the distinctions within the earliest Greek texts. While translations other than NSRV, or even in addition to NSRV, are certainly appropriate, I would say King James Version, which was based on sources no earlier than the 1550 Greek Textus Receptus of Stephanus, is not. Cuvtixo (talk) 19:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Earliest MARK 16:9+ text is from 1100s?

"The final twelve verses, 16:9-20, are not present in two fourth-century Greek manuscripts, the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.[17] The only other Greek manuscript without the ending is a twelfth century commentary on Matthew and Mark, known as "304".[18] As such, verses 9-20 are present in 99% of the Greek manuscripts,[19]"

It is confusing as to qualify all these texts as "Greek" as if that were their only significance, and the statemenst are a bit misleading. To my limited knowledge the earliest appearance of 16:9-20 in ANY language is also from 12th century. The main significance of the earlier texts being in Greek is that the original, and intervening copies are presumed to be written in Greek. This is not made clear in the above statements.

What is the Earliest appearance of the text in question? What does the percentage of Greek manuscripts-- without reference to dates, have relevance to? Cuvtixo (talk) 19:45, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Metzger's Textual Commentary lists A (Codex Alexandrinus 5th century), C (Codex Ephraemi 5th century), D (Codex Bezae 5th century), K (9th century), W (Codex Washingtonianus 5th century), X (10th century) ... The argument about "most of the Greek manuscripts" is one usually made by proponents of the Majority Text, this argument has no weight among serious scholars. 75.15.202.250 (talk) 21:19, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mess

This article is a total mess now that someone's added an essay to the bottom of it. Evercat (talk) 22:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

So I deleted it. Evercat (talk) 23:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)