Last 12 verses of Mark

There are many who hold to this. My Pastor will not preach from that passage.

 

To say that verses 9ff in Mark 16 were never meant to be there would cast doubt on all verses concerning the Resurrection.

Mark's Gospel would leave the Apostles cowering in fear. If that were not questioned, then it should be questioned why the Resurrection is to be allowed in other Gospels and Epistles in our Holy Bibles.

No, Mark's account of our risen Savior was put there for a reason. Christ did rise from that borrowed tomb. And Mark recorded it.

 

Not if you believe that all Scripture is inspired.

Why is that?

If what were not questioned? The resurrection is not in every book of the Bible. But that doesn't mean it isn't true.

 

All Scripture is inspired. That includes those verses after verse 8 in Mark 16.

 

To avoid double posting, here is the link to my post on another thread concerning the last 12 verses in Mark 16:

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1155646&postcount=36

 

Jer, I think their issue is with the "taking up serpents," "drinking poison" but living, etc. I believe that these speak of the MK, "signs" being for the dispensations of law and Messiah's millennial reign.

Don't worry about whether these things should have been included or not -- consider the era to which they apply. We KNOW that the lamb lays down with the lion and the infant plays with an asp in the MK. Just follow those "signs" to ascertain the truth.

You're not the JerryL from ZB are you?

skypair

 

Always wondered about that...

When people say the lamb will lay down with the lion, or they sing it in the popular song "Peace in the Valley".

I have searched and searched and still cannot find that phrase, 'lamb shall lay down with the lion' in the Bible anywhere.

Closest I can get to it is here:

Isaiah 11:6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

Why do we automatically change this to 'the lamb and the lion shall lie down together'?

 

Perhaps not, since the evidence that God has preserved for us indicates that those verse may not have been written by Mark.

But the point is that the truthfulness of the resurrection isn't compromised not having those verse.

 

I personally think this is dangerous thinking. If we doubt one word of written text then we might as well surrender to doubt regarding the entire book.

As one read those verses it does appear to be penned by a different hand. Or could this be an older Mark later added these verses? In either case I don't believe the God of Heaven would allow text to be in His pages that don't belong. After all, we do serve an Able God. If He can't even guarantee authenticity of His written Word, why then would we put in Him all our trust and hope?

I personally think this is dangerous thinking.

 

Agreed, LeBuick.

 

Evidence? We have some manuscripts with those verses included and some (older not oldest) manuscripts with those verses missing. We also know God is not the author of confusion so it would seem another force at work and not God.

Any thought's on why man has not found the original manuscripts? Then we'd know this and if Paul wrote Heb etc... The more I ponder the lack of original documents the more I understand this verse;

Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

How do you feel these verses applies to those who either use or don't use these versess???

Rev. 22:18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: 19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book

 

Exactly ... Some have those verses and some do not. Which do you trust?

Sure, but not of any significance.

"This book" in Rev 22:18 is the book of Revelation. The principle may well extend to the whole of Scripture.

But notice that no one should add to the words. That means that we should not add the last verses of Mark 16.

So the verses against adding or subtracting do not prove anything.

 

I find nothing in those 12 verses that is not true according to other scripture, so why would I even want to question them??? To what end would it lead me???

BBob,

 

As I said and LeBuick pointed out also...

If the resurrection account is doubted in Mark's Gospel, it leaves opening for doubt in other Gospel's as well.

It even gives credence to tossing out the whole Bible as it cannot be trusted to be consistent among the Gospels that recorded the life of Christ.

 

To show how things are on this passage....this I post from the ESV

Which one is right?

 

And as I pointed out, this is simply not true. There are many books in the Bible that do not have the resurrection accoutn in it. The resurrection is no less true because it is not in those books.

All Scripture is inspired.

Not in the least. It does no such thing.

 

==Actually that is incorrect. The short ending of the Gospel of Mark does include the Resurrection of Jesus:

"And 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, here is the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples and Peter, He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you" -Mk 16:6-7

So we see that the short ending includes the empty tomb, the resurrection, and a promise of an appearance that we see fulfilled in Matthew, Luke, and John. So saying that the short ending is the correct ending, the ending God intended, is not casting doubt on any major doctrine.

==The reaction of fear is natural and recorded in the other Gospels (Matt 28:8). Why do you think Jesus had to keep saying that they should not fear? Because they were afraid. The short ending of the Gospel of Mark ends with the empty tomb, the announcement of the resurrection, and the promise of appearance.

==The long ending of the Gospel of Mark, which we have in most of our Bibles, can be traced to the second half of the second century. It is missing from the two most important manuscripts of the New Testament, Church fathers such as Jerome say that the longer ending was not in their Bibles, and two other endings are known to have existed (one even longer and one even shorter). So it seems that the long ending we have was written later to give the Gospel what someone thought was an “appropriate ending”. I believe they had good intentions and motives. However I see no problem with the short ending and I see no historical/textual reason to believe the long ending is original to Mark.

The shorter ending, I believe, is what Mark actually ended his Gospel with. It may not be how we, or people in the past, think it should end. However that seems to be the way Mark ended it. His Gospel ends with a simple and direct statement of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

 

==Either of those are possible answers, but it is also possible that Mark intended to end his Gospel with verse 8.

==Technically speaking inspiration does not include copies of copies and translations. Technically inspiration only includes the original autographs. So a translation/copy is only as inspired as it is true to the original autographs. How do I know that inspiration only applies to the original autographs? Any study of the history of the text shows that errors have found their way into the text. Most of those errors, whatever their source, have been found and deleted by scholars. That is why most scholars today agree that the New Testament is around 98% exactly like the original manuscripts. However there are a few places where scholars still are not sure. Most of those are simple things such as how a word was spelled or something like that. However a few of them are a bit more involved (John 7:53-8:11, Mark 16:9-20,21, etc). Should those few questions spoil our trust in our Bibles? Certainly not! In fact, as a historian, I find the accuracy of our copies to be amazing. Certainly God has worked, through scholars, to preserve His Word through the many centuries. However it is clear that He has not given these copies inspiration.

The Chicago Confession:

Article X
We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original. We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant. SOURCE