Is Mark 16:9-20 Authentic?

(Read this first!) Here is How I Would Explain This In Simple Man’s Terms:

2) Mark 16:9-20 is not the authentic end to Mark. This is because: a) the best ancient copies of Mark exclude it, b) to those who know Mark’s voice it sounds like a different author, and c) because big time church leaders in the early church shortly after Mark’s time did not think it was part of Mark.

3) Mark 16:9-20 was in “some” old Mark manuscripts (which is how this whole debate came about). The actual content of 16:9-20 does seem all true and relatively harmless, therefore it is left in most translations of the English Bible with a big bracket around it and explanatory footnotes.

4) I appreciate the carefulness and openness of Biblical Scholarship on issues like these. You don’t see any conversations like this with Mormons or Muslims. This makes me trust my Bible more, not less.

Keep reading if you ant to get more technical with this…. 

3 Reasons Mark 16:9-20 is not the end of Mark and is to be bracketed as such: 

1. The Manuscript Evidence clearly supports that Mark ended in 16:8.
To understand this part of the evidence we have to understand how we got the Gospels and how we got English Translations into our hands.
Here is how we got English Translations of Gospels:

• The events of the Bible happen in history, eye witnesses see and experience the events, etc… (the event is not the Word of God, the written Scripture is, see next point)
• The eye witness, Apostle, or writer writes his/her Greek manuscript (note- God inspires human authors and writes his Holy Word through them. It is the written text that is Divinely inspired. It is not robotic dictation or scrolls and tablets delivered by meteorite.)
• Starting from the original manuscript the Scribes meticulously make hand copies and over time accumulate thousands of copies with only slight variants (note- there was no printing press until 1440s.
• Of course we no longer have the actual originals as that is impossible- given the ware and tear over time. We have good and accurate copies.
• There are thousands of copies of Marks Gospel brought together and laid out in pile
  • Manuscript Pile A- the 950 oldest copies of Mark from several languages that end in verse 8
  • Manuscript Pile B- 45 copies of Mark that end in verse 16 and seem to say some things that are true but it seems a bit off from the rest of Mark
  • Manuscript Pile C- 5 copies that talk about the Davinici Code and Sponge Bob and Square Pants (immediately thrown away)
  • Conclusion- The Manuscript Evidence (i.e. age, quality, and quantity of copies in pile A) clearly supports that Mark ended in 16:8

2. The Style of 9-20 is different from the entire rest of Mark.

• Mark chapters 1-16 had an established style. The trained eye can especially see this style. 16:9-20 uses several brand new vocabulary words and a certain style that is foreign to the rest of Mark. This makes 16:9-20 feel like the work of a well intended Scribe who made the addition in an attempt to round out the resurrection narrative.

3. Church Fathers believed ‘authentic’ Mark ended in 16:8. They included but bracketed 9-20.

• Eusebius (260-339AD) “at those words, in almost all copies of the Gospel according to Mark, comes the end…what follows” (i.e. vss. 9-20) is found “rarely in some but not in all” (Questions to Marinus)
• Jerome (347-420AD) “is carried in few gospels, almost all the books of Greece not having this passage at the end” (Letter to Hedibia)
• These church Fathers did not condemn or reject 16:9-20, but they did talk about it in a way that seemed to bracket it as different from the rest of Authentic Mark. Most English Translations follow suit.
   

Conclusion: 

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

“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.”

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