Bible version

[David1701]

For the first eight centuries

Good grief! That is complete and utter rubbish! Where did you get that piece of fiction?

 

[TB2]

Good grief! That is complete and utter rubbish! Where did you get that piece of fiction?

From a leading expert in NT textual criticism. The expert you claim was "lying." Published in a peer reviewed journal. A well respected evangelical scholar. Unfortunate you are so disparaging instead of countering with evidence:

Wallace, Daniel B. "The Majority-Text Theory: History, Methods and Critique." JOURNAL-EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 37 (1994): 185-185.

 

[TB2]

There certainly are nothing like a hundred. I've have only heard of three that contain Mark 16 that stop at verse 8; and one of those is not regarded as important by anyone.

---

Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart, 1971), pages 122-126.

16:9-20 The Ending(s) of Mark. Four endings of the Gospel according to Mark are current in the manuscripts. (1) The last twelve verses of the commonly received text of Mark are absent from the two oldest Greek manuscripts (א and B), from the Old Latin codex Bobiensis (it k), the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript, about one hundred Armenian manuscripts, and the two oldest Georgian manuscripts (written A.D. 897 and A.D. 913). Clement of Alexandria and Origen show no knowledge of the existence of these verses; furthermore Eusebius and Jerome attest that the passage was absent from almost all Greek copies of Mark known to them. The original form of the Eusebian sections (drawn up by Ammonius) makes no provision for numbering sections of the text after 16:8. Not a few manuscripts which contain the passage have scribal notes stating that older Greek copies lack it, and in other witnesses the passage is marked with asterisks or obeli, the conventional signs used by copyists to indicate a spurious addition to a document.

(2) Several witnesses, including four uncial Greek manuscripts of the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries (L Ψ 099 0112), as well as Old Latin k, the margin of the Harelean Syriac, several Sahidic and Bohairic manuscripts, and not a few Ethiopic manuscripts, continue after verse 8 as follows (with trifling variations): "But they reported briefly to Peter and those with him all that they had been told. And after this Jesus himself sent out by means of them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation." All of these witnesses except it k also continue with verses 9-20.

(3) The traditional ending of Mark, so familiar through the AV and other translations of the Textus Receptus, is present in the vast number of witnesses, including A C D K W X Δ Θ Π Ψ 099 0112 f 13 28 33 al. The earliest patristic witnesses to part or all of the long ending are Irenaeus and the Diatessaron. It is not certain whether Justin Martyr was acquainted with the passage; in his Apology (i.45) he includes five words that occur, in a different sequence, in ver. 20. (του λογου του ισχυρου ον απο ιερουσαλημ οι αποστολοι αυτου εξελθοντες πανταχου εκηρυξαν).

(4) In the fourth century the traditional ending also circulated, according to testimony preserved by Jerome, in an expanded form, preserved today in one Greek manuscript. Codex Washingtonianus includes the following after ver. 14: "And they excused themselves, saying, 'This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under Satan, who does not allow the truth and power of God to prevail over the unclean things of the spirits [or, does not allow what lies under the unclean spirits to understand the truth and power of God]. Therefore reveal thy righteousness now — thus they spoke to Christ. And Christ replied to them, 'The term of years of Satan's power has been fulfilled, but other terrible things draw near. And for those who have sinned I was delivered over to death, that they may return to the truth and sin no more, in order that they may inherit the spiritual and incorruptible glory of righteousness which is in heaven.' "

How should the evidence of each of these endings be evaluated? It is obvious that the expanded form of the long ending (4) has no claim to be original. Not only is the external evidence extremely limited, but the expansion contains several non-Markan words and expressions (including ο αιων ουτος, αμαρτανω, απολογεω, αληθινος, υποστρεφω) as well as several that occur nowhere else in the New Testament (δεινος, ορος, προσλεγω). The whole expansion has about it an unmistakable apocryphal flavor. It probably is the work of a second or third century scribe who wished to soften the severe condemnation of the Eleven in 16.14.

The longer ending (3), though current in a variety of witnesses, some of them ancient, must also be judged by internal evidence to be secondary. (a) The vocabulary and style of verses 9-20 are non-Markan. (e.g. απιστεω, βλαπτω, βεβαιοω, επακολουθεω, θεαομαι, μετα ταυτα, πορευομαι, συνεργεω, υστερον are found nowhere else in Mark; and θανασιμον and τοις μετ αυτου γενομενοις, as designations of the disciples, occur only here in the New Testament). (b) The connection between ver. 8 and verses 9-20 is so awkward that it is difficult to believe that the evangelist intended the section to be a continuation of the Gospel. Thus, the subject of ver. 8 is the women, whereas Jesus is the presumed subject in ver. 9; in ver. 9 Mary Magdalene is identified even though she has been mentioned only a few lines before (15.47 and 16.1); the other women of verses 1-8 are now forgotten; the use of αναστας δε and the position of πρωτον are appropriate at the beginning of a comprehensive narrative, but they are ill-suited in a continuation of verses 1-8. In short, all these features indicate that the section was added by someone who knew a form of Mark that ended abruptly with ver. 8 and who wished to supply a more appropriate conclusion. In view of the inconcinnities between verses 1-8 and 9-20, it is unlikely that the long ending was composed ad hoc to fill up an obvious gap; it is more likely that the section was excerpted from another document, dating perhaps from the first half of the second century.

The internal evidence for the shorter ending (2) is decidedly against its being genuine. Besides containing a high percentage of non-Markan words, its rhetorical tone differs totally from the simple style of Mark's Gospel.

Finally it should be observed that the external evidence for the shorter ending (2) resolves itself into additional testimony supporting the omission of verses 9-20. No one who had available as the conclusion of the Second Gospel the twelve verses 9-20, so rich in interesting material, would have deliberately replaced them with four lines of a colorless and generalized summary. Therefore, the documentary evidence supporting (2) should be added to that supporting (1). Thus, on the basis of good external evidence and strong internal considerations it appears that the earliest ascertainable form of the Gospel of Mark ended with 16.8. At the same time, however out of deference to the evident antiquity of the longer ending and its importance in the textual tradition of the Gospel, the Committee decided to include verses 9-20 as part of the text, but to enclose them within double square brackets to indicate that they are the work of an author other than the evangelist.


Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: its Origin, Development, and Significance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), pp. 269-270.

... we may find it instructive to consider the attitude of Church Fathers toward variant readings in the text of the New Testament. On the one hand, as far as certain readings involve sensitive points of doctrine, the Fathers customarily alleged that heretics had tampered with the accuracy of the text. On the other hand, however, the question of the canonicity of a document apparently did not arise in connection with discussion of such variant readings, even though they might involve quite considerable sections of text. Today we know that the last twelve verses of the Gospel according to Mark (xvi. 9-20) are absent from the oldest Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and Armenian manuscripts, and that in other manuscripts asterisks or obeli mark the verses as doubtful or spurious. Eusebius and Jerome, well aware of such variation in the witnesses, discussed which form of text was to be preferred. It is noteworthy, however, that neither Father suggested that one form was canonical and the other was not. Furthermore, the perception that the canon was basically closed did not lead to a slavish fixing of the text of the canonical books. Thus, the category of 'canonical' appears to have been broad enough to include all variant readings (as well as variant renderings in early versions) that emerged during the course of the transmission of the New Testament documents while apostolic tradition was still a living entity, with an intermingling of written and oral forms of that tradition. Already in the second century, for example, the so-called long ending of Mark was known to Justin Martyr and to Tatian, who incorporated it into his Diatesseron. There seems to be good reason, therefore, to conclude that, though external and internal evidence is conclusive against the authenticity of the last twelve verses as coming from the same pen as the rest of the Gospel, the passage ought to be accepted as part of the canonical text of Mark."

 

[David1701]

From a leading expert in NT textual criticism. The expert you claim was "lying." Published in a peer reviewed journal. A well respected evangelical scholar. Unfortunate you are so disparaging instead of countering with evidence:

Wallace, Daniel B. "The Majority-Text Theory: History, Methods and Critique." JOURNAL-EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 37 (1994): 185-185.

I see that you paid no attention to the evidence (a small portion of the evidence available) that I gave you previously. Did you forget, or is this deliberate?

I told you about "The Great Transliteration", in which a huge number of ancient uncial (in capital letters) manuscripts, which were wearing out through age and use, were copied to cursives (in lower case letters), starting in the 9th C. A.D.. This is the Majority Text that I told you about. It obviously did not start to be the majority in the 9th C., since it had been the majority since those ancient uncials were first copied (and, since there are so many of them, the generation before that was the majority as well). This takes the majority back centuries and makes a complete nonsense of Wallace's graph.

There is much more that I could say, but I'll keep it simple for now.

 

[David1701]

---

Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart, 1971), pages 122-126.

16:9-20 The Ending(s) of Mark. Four endings of the Gospel according to Mark are current in the manuscripts. (1) The last twelve verses of the commonly received text of Mark are absent from the two oldest Greek manuscripts (א and B), from the Old Latin codex Bobiensis (it k), the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript, about one hundred Armenian manuscripts, and the two oldest Georgian manuscripts (written A.D. 897 and A.D. 913). Clement of Alexandria and Origen show no knowledge of the existence of these verses; furthermore Eusebius and Jerome attest that the passage was absent from almost all Greek copies of Mark known to them. The original form of the Eusebian sections (drawn up by Ammonius) makes no provision for numbering sections of the text after 16:8. Not a few manuscripts which contain the passage have scribal notes stating that older Greek copies lack it, and in other witnesses the passage is marked with asterisks or obeli, the conventional signs used by copyists to indicate a spurious addition to a document.

(2) Several witnesses, including four uncial Greek manuscripts of the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries (L Ψ 099 0112), as well as Old Latin k, the margin of the Harelean Syriac, several Sahidic and Bohairic manuscripts, and not a few Ethiopic manuscripts, continue after verse 8 as follows (with trifling variations): "But they reported briefly to Peter and those with him all that they had been told. And after this Jesus himself sent out by means of them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation." All of these witnesses except it k also continue with verses 9-20.

(3) The traditional ending of Mark, so familiar through the AV and other translations of the Textus Receptus, is present in the vast number of witnesses, including A C D K W X Δ Θ Π Ψ 099 0112 f 13 28 33 al. The earliest patristic witnesses to part or all of the long ending are Irenaeus and the Diatessaron. It is not certain whether Justin Martyr was acquainted with the passage; in his Apology (i.45) he includes five words that occur, in a different sequence, in ver. 20. (του λογου του ισχυρου ον απο ιερουσαλημ οι αποστολοι αυτου εξελθοντες πανταχου εκηρυξαν).

(4) In the fourth century the traditional ending also circulated, according to testimony preserved by Jerome, in an expanded form, preserved today in one Greek manuscript. Codex Washingtonianus includes the following after ver. 14: "And they excused themselves, saying, 'This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under Satan, who does not allow the truth and power of God to prevail over the unclean things of the spirits [or, does not allow what lies under the unclean spirits to understand the truth and power of God]. Therefore reveal thy righteousness now — thus they spoke to Christ. And Christ replied to them, 'The term of years of Satan's power has been fulfilled, but other terrible things draw near. And for those who have sinned I was delivered over to death, that they may return to the truth and sin no more, in order that they may inherit the spiritual and incorruptible glory of righteousness which is in heaven.' "

How should the evidence of each of these endings be evaluated? It is obvious that the expanded form of the long ending (4) has no claim to be original. Not only is the external evidence extremely limited, but the expansion contains several non-Markan words and expressions (including ο αιων ουτος, αμαρτανω, απολογεω, αληθινος, υποστρεφω) as well as several that occur nowhere else in the New Testament (δεινος, ορος, προσλεγω). The whole expansion has about it an unmistakable apocryphal flavor. It probably is the work of a second or third century scribe who wished to soften the severe condemnation of the Eleven in 16.14.

The longer ending (3), though current in a variety of witnesses, some of them ancient, must also be judged by internal evidence to be secondary. (a) The vocabulary and style of verses 9-20 are non-Markan. (e.g. απιστεω, βλαπτω, βεβαιοω, επακολουθεω, θεαομαι, μετα ταυτα, πορευομαι, συνεργεω, υστερον are found nowhere else in Mark; and θανασιμον and τοις μετ αυτου γενομενοις, as designations of the disciples, occur only here in the New Testament). (b) The connection between ver. 8 and verses 9-20 is so awkward that it is difficult to believe that the evangelist intended the section to be a continuation of the Gospel. Thus, the subject of ver. 8 is the women, whereas Jesus is the presumed subject in ver. 9; in ver. 9 Mary Magdalene is identified even though she has been mentioned only a few lines before (15.47 and 16.1); the other women of verses 1-8 are now forgotten; the use of αναστας δε and the position of πρωτον are appropriate at the beginning of a comprehensive narrative, but they are ill-suited in a continuation of verses 1-8. In short, all these features indicate that the section was added by someone who knew a form of Mark that ended abruptly with ver. 8 and who wished to supply a more appropriate conclusion. In view of the inconcinnities between verses 1-8 and 9-20, it is unlikely that the long ending was composed ad hoc to fill up an obvious gap; it is more likely that the section was excerpted from another document, dating perhaps from the first half of the second century.

The internal evidence for the shorter ending (2) is decidedly against its being genuine. Besides containing a high percentage of non-Markan words, its rhetorical tone differs totally from the simple style of Mark's Gospel.

Finally it should be observed that the external evidence for the shorter ending (2) resolves itself into additional testimony supporting the omission of verses 9-20. No one who had available as the conclusion of the Second Gospel the twelve verses 9-20, so rich in interesting material, would have deliberately replaced them with four lines of a colorless and generalized summary. Therefore, the documentary evidence supporting (2) should be added to that supporting (1). Thus, on the basis of good external evidence and strong internal considerations it appears that the earliest ascertainable form of the Gospel of Mark ended with 16.8. At the same time, however out of deference to the evident antiquity of the longer ending and its importance in the textual tradition of the Gospel, the Committee decided to include verses 9-20 as part of the text, but to enclose them within double square brackets to indicate that they are the work of an author other than the evangelist.


Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: its Origin, Development, and Significance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), pp. 269-270.

... we may find it instructive to consider the attitude of Church Fathers toward variant readings in the text of the New Testament. On the one hand, as far as certain readings involve sensitive points of doctrine, the Fathers customarily alleged that heretics had tampered with the accuracy of the text. On the other hand, however, the question of the canonicity of a document apparently did not arise in connection with discussion of such variant readings, even though they might involve quite considerable sections of text. Today we know that the last twelve verses of the Gospel according to Mark (xvi. 9-20) are absent from the oldest Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and Armenian manuscripts, and that in other manuscripts asterisks or obeli mark the verses as doubtful or spurious. Eusebius and Jerome, well aware of such variation in the witnesses, discussed which form of text was to be preferred. It is noteworthy, however, that neither Father suggested that one form was canonical and the other was not. Furthermore, the perception that the canon was basically closed did not lead to a slavish fixing of the text of the canonical books. Thus, the category of 'canonical' appears to have been broad enough to include all variant readings (as well as variant renderings in early versions) that emerged during the course of the transmission of the New Testament documents while apostolic tradition was still a living entity, with an intermingling of written and oral forms of that tradition. Already in the second century, for example, the so-called long ending of Mark was known to Justin Martyr and to Tatian, who incorporated it into his Diatesseron. There seems to be good reason, therefore, to conclude that, though external and internal evidence is conclusive against the authenticity of the last twelve verses as coming from the same pen as the rest of the Gospel, the passage ought to be accepted as part of the canonical text of Mark."

Now you're going to the heretic Metzger; why am I not surprised?

Origen, and his disciple, Eusebius, mentioned by Metzger, were also known heretics.

There is nothing in this about your alleged one hundred Greek manuscripts that end at Mark 16:8!

Metzger's discussion here, as with most heretics, is not based on faith in God, but in applying Rationalism to the biblical text and treating it like any secular book.

Have you ever read any books on the underlying text, by people who actually base their findings on faith in God, because you haven't mentioned any so far.

 

[Fred]

Now you're going to the heretic Metzger; why am I not surprised?

Is that your excuse for not dealing with the evidence presented?

 

[TB2]

I told you about "The Great Transliteration", in which a huge number of ancient uncial (in capital letters) manuscripts, which were wearing out through age and use, were copied to cursives (in lower case letters), starting in the 9th C. A.D.. This is the Majority Text that I told you about. It obviously did not start to be the majority in the 9th C., since it had been the majority since those ancient uncials were first copied (and, since there are so many of them, the generation before that was the majority as well). This takes the majority back centuries and makes a complete nonsense of Wallace's graph

Please provide a peer reviewed source

 

[David1701]

Please provide a peer reviewed source

Peer reviewed? That's for scientific research papers.

Anyway, here is a quote from "The Identity of the New Testament Text" (4th ed., p87,88 - it can be found, free, in PDF format, online), by Dr. Wilbur Pickering (an expert on textual criticism).

"The ninth century transliteration process

Van Bruggen discusses yet another relevant consideration.
"In the codicology the great value of the transliteration process in the 9th century and
thereafter is recognized. At that time the most important New Testament manuscripts
written in majuscule script were carefully transcribed into minuscule script. It is assumed
that after this transliteration-process the majuscule was taken out of circulation. . . . The
import of this datum has not been taken into account enough in the present New
Testament textual criticism. For it implies, that just the oldest, best and most customary
manuscripts come to us in the new uniform of the minuscule script, does it not? This is
even more cogent since it appears that various archetypes can be detected in this
transliteration-process for the New Testament. Therefore we do not receive one mother-
manuscript through the flood-gates of the transliteration, but several. The originals have,
however, disappeared! This throws a totally different light on the situation that we are
confronted with regarding the manuscripts. Why do the surviving ancient manuscripts
show another text-type? Because they are the only survivors of their generation, and
because their survival is due to the fact that they were of a different kind. Even though
one continues to maintain that the copyists at the time of the transliteration handed
down the wrong text-type to the Middle Ages, one can still never prove this
codicologically with the remark that older majuscules have a different text. This would be
circular reasoning. There certainly were majuscules just as venerable and ancient as the
surviving Vaticanus or Sinaiticus, which, like a section of the Alexandrinus, presented a
Byzantine text. But they have been renewed into minuscule script and their majuscule
appearance has vanished. Historically it seems as though the most ancient majuscule
manuscripts exclusively contain a non-Byzantine text, but the prespective [sic] is
falsified here just like it is regarding church-building in the Middle Ages and at present."1

The significance of the transliteration process was explained by A. Dain as follows: "The
transliterated copy, carefully written and securely bound, became the reference point for the
subsequent tradition. The old papyrus and parchment exemplars that had been copied, doubtless
quite worn out, were of no further interest and were usually discarded or destroyed."2

Apparently there was an organized movement to ‘transliterate’ uncial MSS into minuscule form or script. Note
that Dain agrees with Lake that the "worn out" exemplars were then destroyed (some may have
been ‘recycled’, becoming palimpsests). What if those exemplars were ancient "Byzantine" uncials?
Come to think of it, they must have been since the cursives are “Byzantine”.

Yes indeed, let’s stop and think. To copy a document by hand takes time (and skill) and parchment
was hard to come by. If a monastery had only the parchment made from the skins of the animals
they ate, the material would always be in short supply. To buy it from others would take money, and
where did a monastery get money? So who is going to waste good parchment making a copy of a
text considered to be deficient? Yet they might hesitate to destroy it, so it survived, but left no
‘children’. Consider the ninth century uncials that we know of: almost all of them are clearly
“Byzantine”, but not super-good, and none belong to Family 35. I would say that they were not
considered to be good enough to deserve putting into minuscule form, and thus survived—had they
been ‘transliterated’ they would have been scraped and turned into a palimpsest.

C.H. Roberts comments upon a practice of early Christians that would have had a similar effect.
"It was a Jewish habit both to preserve manuscripts by placing them in jars . . . and also
to dispose of defective, worn-out, or heretical scriptures by burying them near a
cemetery, not to preserve them but because anything that might contain the name of
God might not be destroyed. . . . It certainly looks as if this institution of a morgue for
sacred but unwanted manuscripts was taken over from Judaism by the early Church."3

Note that the effect of this practice in any but an arid climate would be the decomposition of the
MSS. If "Byzantine" exemplars, worn out through use, were disposed of in this way (as seems
likely), they would certainly perish. All of this reduces our chances of finding really ancient
"Byzantine" MSS....

1 Van Bruggen, pp. 26-27.
2 A. Dain, Les Manuscrits (Paris, 1949), p. 115.
3 C.H. Roberts, p. 7."

The Van Bruggen quote above is from, "The Ancient Text of the New Testament", by Prof. Jakob van Bruggen (also a textual criticism expert). This book is also available free, in PDF format, online.

 

[TB2]

Peer reviewed? That's for scientific research papers.

All academic journals are peer reviewed, like Wallace's peer reviewed article

(I haven't had a chance to read the rest of your comment but will and get back to you. Best)

 

[David1701]

All academic journals are peer reviewed, like Wallace's peer reviewed article

(I haven't had a chance to read the rest of your comment but will and get back to you. Best)

But not necessarily books. I don't know if the contents of the books I've cited were peer reviewed or not, but it's the best I can do just now.

 

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

I use the King James, but I'm not an adherent of the King-James-Only idea.

The NRSV is a better Bible. The ESV is also solid. But I've got the KJV half-memorized, and when I remember a verse, it's in the KJV. So that's where I go looking first.

-Jarrod

 

[TrevorL]

Greetings Carbon,

Which bible version(s) do you use most?

I read a portion each morning from a RV/KJV Interlinear which gives a ready comparison to the changes that the RV made. I prefer the OT portion of the RV rather than some of the NT changes. I also use this Bible to follow the actual reading at our meeting and any exposition on this chapter, but if the speaker moves to another chapter I use my NASB Study Bible while most expositors quote the KJV in our meeting.

I have many print and electronic Bibles, and often at home I am running a Bible Program which has the KJV as the primary Bible, but when looking at a particular verse the "power lookup" gives a quick reference to all the Bibles loaded in the Bible Program to enable comparison.

So, in a sense, I use the KJV the most.

Kind regards
Trevor

 

[David1701]

I use the King James, but I'm not an adherent of the King-James-Only idea.

The NRSV is a better Bible. The ESV is also solid. But I've got the KJV half-memorized, and when I remember a verse, it's in the KJV. So that's where I go looking first.

-Jarrod

The NRSV is Liberal.

The ESV is better than the NRSV, but still suffers from using a greatly inferior Greek NT text.

The KJV is antiquated and imperfect but is generally excellent, as long as you can understand the old expressions and obsolete words, and know about the few inaccuracies (e.g. Easter should be Passover).

 

[Rockerduck]

I use both the KJV and NKJV. Anybody and everyone who quote John 3:16 comes from the KJV. Also the Lord's Prayer when read in church. Also, many other quote worthy passages.; The KJV says the most in less words than any version I've used. It is obvious to me that God has blessed the KJV since it has been in use for over 400 yrs. and it is still the most selling version today.

 

[David1701]

I use both the KJV and NKJV. Anybody and everyone who quote John 3:16 comes from the KJV. Also the Lord's Prayer when read in church. Also, many other quote worthy passages.; The KJV says the most in less words than any version I've used. It is obvious to me that God has blessed the KJV since it has been in use for over 400 yrs. and it is still the most selling version today.

The KJV is not perfect, but it is very good and very memorable.

 

[Rockerduck]

The KJV is not perfect, but it is very good and very memorable.

That's astute. We aren't perfect either, and God blessed the KJV for us.