Beginning today and for the next six weeks I will be engaging a formal debate here on my blog with Anglican autodidact Jonathan Sheffield over whether the long ending of Mark (verses 16:9-20), almost universally agreed to be a later interpolation not written by the author of Mark, was in fact in the original draft of Mark and not an interpolation after all. On that theory, the removal of that ending in early manuscripts was the corruption, not its later addition.

Sheffield himself has funded this exchange and we will share full non-exclusive rights to its content. The debate will operate from the assumption of having read my already rather thorough treatment of the question published in Hitler Homer Bible Christ. Anyone who really wants to familiarize themselves with the particulars, or check some of the references and other information that come up in this debate, might want to procure a copy of that in print or kindle.

The procedure we will follow is that Sheffield will begin with an opening statement. Which is now provided below. I will then reply in a following blog post. And he in turn. And so on until the debate closes on its final day, January 21st. Each entry will be limited to roughly the same word count. There will be no assigned pace—so we can each research our next entry before submitting it, and ensure as careful a wording as possible.

Comments on each of the entries in this debate series are open to anyone who submits polite and relevant remarks. Patreon patrons retain the privilege of their comments publishing immediately. Everyone else’s will wait in a moderation queue that I will have to check and clear every few days. Jonathan Sheffield specially asks that atheists engage with this debate, because it differs from the usual fundamentalist or Evangelical tack. So do feel free to comment. But please make your remarks polite, relevant, and informed.


That the Long Ending Was Original to Mark

by Jonathan Sheffield

The Aeneid was written in a period of history that is exceptionally well-documented, compared to the circumstances in which the Tso Chuan and Homeric epics were composed. This allows us to understand in good detail the context of the Aeneid’s formation. [Richard Carrier, Hitler Homer, p. 45]

Dr. Carrier, given that both the formation of the New Testament and the Aeneid occurred around the first century, under the control of the Roman Empire, a period of history that you assert is “exceptionally well documented” it would follow that we could also document and understand the historical formation of the New Testament. Consequently, If you reject the “Apostolic Polity” as evinced in the writings of Irenaeus of Lyons (in Against Heresies 3), Tertullian of Carthage (in Against Marcion 4), Eusebius of Caesarea (in History of the Church), and the Anglican Divine Richard Hooker, then you should be able to give some ancient documentation to trace when and where the commonly received texts of the Apostolic Churches were written and how copies of the originals were sent out; as Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Gaius during the late second century were able to name some of the authors and provide details for the formation of the so called Gnostic texts (e.g. Marcion, Valentinus, Basilides).

Therefore, Dr. Carrier, if you maintain the hypothesis that the original publications of Mark’s Gospel when received by the apostolic churches were indeed deficient these 12 verses, then by what natural mechanism did these 12 verses find their way into independent Apostolic Church texts that were of different theological positions, and were spread over a vast geographic area from Galilee and Jerusalem, to Britain in the West, India in the East, Ethiopia and North Africa in the South, and Germany in the North? These verses would have also had to be translated into multiple languages to include the Vetus (Old) Latin, Aramaic, Gothic, Geʿez, and Coptic.

We must also consider the following: Who created this passage? How did this individual gain access to physical texts in actual apostolic churches? Where and when did this process to update the texts first begin? Because if it wasn’t Peter’s disciple Mark, then who did it, and how? Surely, Dr. Carrier, you would not have us believe that the creation and appending of these 12 verses to actual physical texts came ex nihilo.

Even though I don’t agree with Anthony Fenton Hort and F.C. Burkett, as Anglicans, they did understand the need for a theoretical mechanism to help explain the existence of readings, for example, the long ending of Mark (or LE) that are in the commonly received texts of the Greek & Aramaic Apostolic churches. By proposing a recension by Lucan of Antioch in the Greek and a recension by Rebulla of Edessa in the Peshitta (see Pickering’s The Identity of the New Testament Text II, 3rd ed., 2003, p. 14) they could use both recensions to defend their so called best and earliest texts, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, that are deficient these 12 verses.

But here lies the problem with this school of thought that you lean on, Dr. Carrier, which is the basis for these interpolation theories of the LE and other traditional readings. Since the creation of these theories in the late 18th century that began with scholars such as Griesbach, as noted by Burgon (in Unholy Hands on the Bible, vol. 1, p. C-4), this scholarship has been unable to historically substantiate these theories, for this is what J.N. Birdsall is saying, in referring to his own work and the work of Lake, Lagrange, Colwell, and Streeter when he declares: “It is evident that all presuppositions concerning the Byzantine text—or texts—except its inferiority to other types, must be doubted and investigated de novo” (“The Text of the Gospels in Photius,” Journal of Theological Studies 7 [1956], p. 43).

Who maintains their conclusions when the hypothesis continues to fail? Kurt and Barbara Aland seem to agree with Birdsal when they state “no adequate history has yet been written of the Byzantine text (…) But this is a task we may well leave to a future generation” (in The Text of the New Testament, 2nd ed., 1995, p. 142). In other words, all this school of thought has provided is post-modern narratives to explain the creation of these readings like the LE.

To be fair, Dr. Carrier, you have suggested an alternative theory in your scholarship, identifying Ariston as a possible suspect for the LE (Hitler Homer, p. 286), but here are the problems with your theory.

First, Eusebius, who specifically addresses the question on the long ending of Mark to Marinus, also includes in his histories information on Ariston, but discusses this figure in another context and does not draw this conclusion you are asserting (see Williamson’s 1965 translation of Eusebius, History of the Church, p. 150).

Second, if Ariston did add the passage in the second century, why did it take until the 4th century for the LE to show up when you said it became popular? Since you discount the patristic testimony that possibly quotes the passage leading up to the fourth century, it betrays your theory; for if it was added by Ariston, then it would have explained why Irenaeus and others were quoting it—but since you reject their testimony, the position is weakened.

Third, you have no corroborating evidence to support the note added in the 13th century that was found in the Armenian manuscript. Where are the letters or synod from the ancient world speaking of the LE being added in by Ariston? Otherwise, this theory amounts to mere speculation. Your theory is still missing a mechanism like an Uthman, the third caliph, who made a revision of the Koran and burned the other copies for the Muslim communities (Sahih al-Bukhari, Meanings vol. 6, bk. 61, no. 510), to explain how it could have been done on a massive scale in Christianity to account for the LE in the Apostolic Greek, Aramaic and Latin textual traditions.

In addition, Dr. Carrier, you state at the beginning of your treatise that you won’t even explore the possibility the LE could have been removed (Hitler Homer, p. 233), but we have documentation from Nikon in the tenth century accusing the Armenians of casting out scriptures from their texts (see S.S. Patrum qui temporibus Apostolicis by J. B. Cotelerius, 1698 Antwerp ed., vol. i, p. 235), and Augustine offers corroborating testimony on the same passage in the 4th (see Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. xxxxi, p.387). You even cite an example of a late manuscript that omits the entire reference to serpents in the LE (Hitler Homer, p. 237). Logically you can’t rule it out a priori. According to Tertullian and Irenaeus, in the 2nd century Marcion removed large portions of Jewish readings from Luke and ten letters of Paul.

We can even provide documentation to establish motive as to why the LE would be removed, citing the greatest anti-Christian scholar of the ancient world Propher of Tyre who probably made fun of the LE (see Porphyry, Against the Christians, 2004 ed. by Harnack; cf. Macarius, Apocriticus III: 16).

Instead of using postmodern narratives invented in the late 18th century, why not accept the apostolic polity as described by Irenaeus, Tertullian, Eusebius and Richard Hooker which authenticates the LE as the official words of Mark’s Gospel?

-:-

Such is Sheffield’s opening statement. My response is now here. The debate has begun.

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