WM 115: Review: Beza and Revelation 16:5

I have uploaded WM 115: Review: "Beza and Revelation 16:5" (Listen here). This episode has three parts: (1) Introduction; (2) A review of the online article "Beza and Revelation 16:5"; and (3) Three Final Thoughts/Reflections.

Introduction:

In WM 114 I offered ten observations on a recent lecture from apologist JW on “Text Criticism and the TR” which ended up being a review of a twitter exchange between JW and someone going under the name “Textus Receptus” regarding the text of Revelation 16:5, which is one of just a few places where there is significant divided reading in the printed editions of the TR. Beza’s 1598 TR reads “which art, and wast, and shalt be” (so rendered in the KJV), whereas earlier editions like Erasmus’ 1516 TR reads “which art, and wast,…and holy” (as in Tyndale, Geneva Bible, etc.).

Gathering from what I heard by email and text this was a much-discussed topic last week.

I discovered a couple things:

First: The twitter disputant with JW is a fellow from Australia named Nick Sayers.

Second: Nick has written an over 80-page booklet titled Revelation 16:5 and the Triadic Declaration in response to JW’s views on Revelation 16:5, which provides some background to the twitter exchange.

Third: One of Nick’s key sources for his booklet is an online article on the website kjvtoday.com titled “Beza and Revelation 16:5” (about 16 pages in length in a printer friendly version).

So, I thought it would be helpful to read this shorter article first and offer a review of and some reflections upon it.

This is a very well written and thoughtful article—hardly the mad ravings of the straw-man KJV Onlyist—though I do wish it had a name, date, and some better documentation, at points, of sources cited.

The article makes a generally reasonable and compelling argument as to why Beza’s reading at Revelation 16:5 should be taken seriously and not simply discarded or rejected without critical examination (and certainly not villainized, as JW does). There are also, however, some weaker and less compelling arguments within the article.

Review of online article: “Beza and Revelation 16:5”:

Here is a review of some of what I see as the stronger and weaker points made within the article:

First: Nice introductory statement:

“Since there is no existing manuscript with Beza's reading, critics dismiss Beza's reading as an unwarranted conjectural emendation.  However, an in-depth study of the issue will reveal enough evidence to validate Beza's conjectural emendation.”

Second: It provides an English translation of Beza’s footnote, but does not provide a transliteration of the original Latin note or identify the translator (the author? His credentials for making the translation?).

One of the things I would be most interested to know is whether Beza made a pure conjectural emendation or if he had some manuscript evidence to support this reading.

The article observes: “Although Beza is silent, he could have been influenced in making his change based on a minority Latin textual variant.  There are two Latin commentaries with readings of Revelation 16:5 which agree with Beza in referring to the future aspect of God.”

These are later identified as Beatus of Liebana (c. 8^th century) and Haimo Halberstadensis (9^th century).

Third: It provides references to two Church Fathers who made use of the Greek term ho esomenos in reference to God: Clement of Alexandria (third century), The Stromata, V.6; and Gregory of Nyssa (fourth century), On the Baptism of Christ (no reference notion given).

I agree that this information is by no means a “red herring.”

Fourth:  It rightly stresses the fact that the text of Revelation was perhaps the most corrupted of the NT books through the transmission process, and this has ramifications that would perhaps argue in favor of emendation [Though I’d still rather leave it as an open question as to whether Beza’s emendation was a “pure” conjecture].

 Opening statement here: “Conjectural emendations are justified if we know that the text we are dealing with has a history of extensive and early corruption. The book of Revelation is such a text… We trust that God was able to preserve the true reading of Revelation 16:5 until the advent of the printing press during the Reformation.”

Fifth: A good point was made related to a scribal error in p47 at Revelation 15:4 omitting the word “holy”: “If there is evidence of a scribal error involving "οσιος" at Revelation 15:4, it seems reasonable to suspect a scribal error involving the same word just one chapter later at Revelation 16:5.”

Sixth: Excellent point made about the parallel omission of kai ho erchomenos in the modern critical or Majority texts at Revelation 11:17, but, in this case, there is supporting Greek evidence for the TR reading.

Seventh: The article rightly points out the paucity of extant early mss. evidence for Revelation. It states that there are only 4 ms. of Rev 16:4 from before the tenth century and that p47 is the only papyrus ms. to include Rev 16:5.

I made a similar point in WM 114 in observation # 8 citing, Tobias Niklas, “The Early Text of Revelation” in Charles E. Hill & Michael J. Kruger, Eds., The Early Text of the New Testament (Oxford, 2012): 225-238.

I think the article errs, however, in suggesting a degenerating chain from

p47 kai hosios

to Sinaiticus ho hosios

to Alexandrinus hosios

This is speculative and assumes without proof a connection between these three mss. These changes are more likely to have evolved independently.

Eighth: The article provides four theories for how Revelation 16:5 might have become corrupted.

Theory 1: John wrote ho esomenos in nomen sacrum from.

Theory 2: Bad conditions gave rise to corruption.

Theory 3: A scribe harmonized 16:5 with 11:17.

Theory 4: A Hebraist imposed Hebraic style onto the text.

Of these I find Theories 2 and 3 to be credible, and Theories 1 and 4 to be suspect.

Theory 1 is highly speculative. Examples:

“Perhaps the Apostle John himself wrote the words that refer to God in "κυριε ει ο ων και ο ην και ο εσομενος" (O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be) in an abbreviated nomina sacra form.”

“In nomen sacrum form, ‘ο εσομενος’ might be abbreviated as OЄC.”

The problem: This seems highly speculative to me. Just note how many times the words “may” “perhaps” or “might” is used by the article’s author. This is not one of the usual nomina sacra and there are no extant examples of it (see James Snapp’s online article). The argument for this in Sinaiticus without overlining seems strained to me.

Theory 4 based on the suggestion that Jewish readers would have taken the future participle as superfluous to indicating the name of God also seems strained and speculative.

Three Final Thoughts/Reflections:

First: Revelation 16:5, the Textus Receptus, and the KJV

Interpretation of Revelation 16:5 raises the question of what the standard text of the TR should be.

I think there is room in the TR camp both for those who follow the Erasmus/Tyndale reading and those who follow the Beza/KJV reading here.

I think the best reasons to accept the Beza/KJV reading at Revelation 16:5 are the following:

-The text of Revelation was corrupted in its early transmission and it is admitted by all to be difficult to reconstruct.

-p47 at least provides evidence for the conjunction kai in the earliest extant mss.

-Internal evidence in Revelation argues for a three-fold description of God as present, past, future (see Rev 1:4, 8; 4:8; and 11:17).

-The reading ho esomenos, however, argues for originality, in part, based on its uniqueness. If invented for the purposes of harmonization why would it not have read ho erchomenos, as at Rev 1:4, 8; 4:8; and 11:17?

-We do not completely understand all the evidence and reasoning of Beza and the KJV translators in choosing this reading, but we might reasonably assume they had compelling reasons to adopt it, especially since it went against the tide of respected earlier editions of the TR and, especially, English translations of it.

-One can see the inclusion of this reading in the KJV as of providential importance without arguing for the KJV as a product of special revelation (a view which would be contrary to WCF 1:8).

Second: On the most difficult to defend TR readings and the propriety of conjectures:

I think that in general we would prefer to have TR readings supported by at least some extant Greek NT mss, even if they represent a minority of mss., which may also be late mss. In addition, we would prefer to have early versional and Patristic evidence. Thankfully, we usually have this.

We should recognize, however, that the NT books which were acknowledged the latest in the canonical recognition process will provide the least sufficient and reliable extant evidence. Our most difficult texts to defend will not most generally be with the Gospels or Pauline epistles but with Acts, the Catholic Epistles, and Revelation.

This admission goes against a standard conservative evangelical apologetic which has typically stressed the great number of existing NT mss. whatever their date, content, and condition.

Finally, this raises the question of the propriety of conjectures. As the author of the article noted, this was not a problem of Bruce Metzger (see the quote in the article from The Text of the NT, 182). It is not a problem for the modern editors of the NA28 using the CBGM (see the rendering of 2 Peter 3:10). So, it is affirmed in both modern and post-modern text criticism.

This brought to my mind the modern historical-critical study of the Synoptic Gospels and the conjecture of a hypothetical reconstructed sayings source Q. Such a view is embraced by evangelical scholars like Craig A Evans, who argued for the “two source” in the recent book The Synoptic Gospel: Four Views (Baker Academic, 2016). I find it ironic that Evans’s and others’s embrace of Q (an entire hypothetical book with no external support) does not raise an eyebrow, while Beza’s supposed conjecture of perhaps few words in Revelation 16:5 is pilloried as outrageous and absurd?

This is another reason I was puzzled by JW’s stated rejection of any conjectural emendations. Does this mean he rejects Metzger? The CBGM? The NA28, 29, 30…?

Third: On Method:

First, I think the historical study of the text of the Bible (textual criticism) is vital and a discipline from which we have nothing to fear. Second, I think defenders of the TR can and should make able use of historical evidence yielded by this field of study. Given this, however, I also think we should be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking we might simply use the modern reconstructionist method to defend the TR. This is perhaps the biggest problem I perceive with the article reviewed. It does not explicitly rely on a confessional method. If you try to fight the modern “methodists” only with their method, in their eyes you will always come up short.

I thought this comment from Maurice Robinson on the Evangelical Text Criticism blog related to the discussion of my review of the THGNT (here) was perceptive:

In terms of attempting to establish the original text (or the Ausgangstext if one is so inclined), a "TR-priority" position indeed is illogical, as Mr Spock would say. 

However, within the "Confessional Bibliology" or "Ecclesiastical Text" framework, holding such a position actually appears quite reasonable to its practitioners, much in the same way that the Greek Orthodox church remains quite content to use a form of the 1904/1912 Antoniades text for all their practical purposes, even though from a more scientific text-critical standpoint (including my own) their position is equally defective.

JTR

WM 120: White, Krans, Erasmus, and Beza: "One Volume Destruction"?

I have posted WM 120: White, Krans, Erasmus, and Beza: "One Volume Destruction"?

Here are my notes:

After recent interactions with Calvinistic apologist JW regarding the 2019 Text and Canon Conference in Atlanta, scheduled for October 25-26, 2019 in Atlanta, I had been weighing the value of attempting to respond to any more of his misunderstandingsand misrepresentations of the traditional text position.

On one hand, I think there are diminishing returns to these interactions, especially since JW does not seem to be making much effort or progress toward attempting to understand or represent our position. When I have offered critiques in the past of JW’s views as expressed on the DL it has usually been in response to those who have asked me to do so.

On the other hand, I have been told that some have profited from these rejoinders and that the issues we will discuss in this issue might be helpful to some. I hope so.

Again, after the recent Atlanta controversy, I did listen to at least parts of several episodes of the DL, in which JW makes reference to an academic book by Jan Krans that supposedly serves as a “one volume destruction” of the confessional or traditional text position.

The book to which JW refers:

Jan Krans, Beyond What is Written: Erasmus and Beza as Conjectural Critics of the New Testament (Brill Academic, 2006).

Ironically enough, this book appears in the “New Testament Tools and Studies”, co-edited by Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, as Volume 35.

In the acknowledgements, the author notes that this work is a revised edition of his 2004 PhD dissertation under professor Martin de Boer. Among those on his committee he lists text critic David Parker.

In light of what I believe are some problems, misunderstandings and inconsistencies in JW’s use of Krans, I thought it might be helpful to offer some analysis.

Beyond What is Written has a brief five-page General Introduction (1-5), and if you read that introduction you will immediately begin to see some of the problems inherent in JW’s attempt to use this book as a supposed “one volume destruction” of the confessional text position.

I will point to at least three important inconsistencies in JW’s use of Krans’s book:

First: JW does not acknowledge the underlying methodology represented in the Krans book, nor does he acknowledge its inconsistency with JW’s own methodology for doing text criticism.

I find it interesting that JW is making of the Krans book to attempt to refute the traditional text position given that Krans would see JW’s reconstructionist approach to recovering the “original autograph” as outdated.

That Krans sees his own work as part of the current shift in “postmodern” text criticism is made clear in the General Introduction to the work:

“With the method adopted here, the present study takes part in the current paradigm shift in New Testament Textual Criticism. Manuscripts are no longer seen as mere sources for variant readings, but also as historical products that deserve to be studied as wholes. Moreover, variants readings as such no longer function as stepping stones towards the ‘original’ text, to be disposed of once this (chimeric) goal has been attained, but they acquire historical importance as mirrors of scribal convictions and conventions” (3).

Note that Krans says that he has abandoned the “chimeric” goal of finding the original text. Chimeric definition: “hoped for but illusory and impossible to achieve.”

So, JW is using a source to fight against the traditional text position that is diametrically opposed to his own modern reconstructionist text position!

I recall hearing JW lamenting when Muslims use liberal, rationalistic scholarship on the Bible that they would never apply to the Koran. But, by using Krans he is essentially doing the same thing (making use of liberal, rationalistic scholarship) to refute the traditional text position. It is absolutely no surprise to learn that Krans’s work will not support the traditional text position, grounded as it is in a relativistic, naturalistic worldview. The irony is that JW could not use Krans’s method to support his own position. This is inconsistent.

Now, this is not meant to say that we cannot appreciate many aspects of Krans’s study. It is a formidable scholarly work. We would, however, be naïve if we did not consider the author’s method and worldview.

Second: JW fails to notice the distinction that Krans draws in the General Introduction between two distinct types of emendations which he suggests would have been used by scholars like Erasmus and Beza in their study of the text, and which JW might well have applied with profit to his study of the texts like Revelation 16:5.

Krans says, “In this period, emendation, the adoption of alternative readings, was done in two distinct ways, depending on the way these readings were found: they could either be derived from manuscripts or be arrived at by rational argument. Hence a distinction was made between emendatio codice ope (‘emendation by means of manuscripts’) and emendatio ingenii ope (‘emendation by means of reasoning’)” (4).

This takes us back to the question of Revelation 16:5 and how Beza arrived at the reading, “which art, and wast and shalt be [kai ho esomenos].”

In WM 117, I suggested that a key statement made by Beza himself in this textual commentary on the Greek text had apparently been misunderstood not only by KJV advocates (like the author of the KJVToday.com article, “Beza and Revelation 16:5”; see WM 115) but also, especially, by JW in his discussion of this verse in his book The King James Version Only Controversy (2009).

Here is the statement by Beza with my translation:

Itaque ambigere non possum quin germana sit scriptura quam ex vetusto bonae fidei manuscripto codice restitui, nempe ο εσομενος.

“Therefore, I am not able to doubt but that the true reading should be as I have restored it from an ancient manuscript [hand-written] codex of good faith, truly ο εσομενος.”

The problem is that both the KJV advocate and JW misunderstand this statement. They both think that Beza adopted this reading as an emendatio ingenii ope (‘emendation by means of reasoning’), rather than, as Beza clearly describes it, an  emendatio codice ope (‘emendation by means of manuscripts’).

To see clearly how clearly misunderstands this statement see what he writes:

“So why does the KJV read ‘and shalt be’? Because John Calvin’s successor at Geneva, Theodore Beza, conjectured that [sic] the original reading differently. To use his words, ‘ex vetusto bonae fidei manuscripto codice restitui.’ Beza believed that there was sufficient similarity between the Greek terms hosios and esomenos (the future form, ‘shall be’) to allow him to make the change to harmonize the text with other such language in Revelation. But he had no manuscript evidence in support of his conjecture” (The King James Only Controversy, 2009: 237).

Clearly, JW did not properly understand the Latin text he quotes from Beza, as Beza clearly states that he got this reading “from an ancient manuscript [hand-written] codex of good faith.” JW, instead, offers this faulty conclusion, “But he had no manuscript evidence in support of his conjecture.” Hopefully, JW will correct this error if he ever issues a third edition of this work.

Note also that according to the Scripture index in Beyond What is Written, Krans never addresses Revelation 16:5 as a conjecture.

BTW, after WM 117 came out, I corresponded with James Snapp, Jr. about my translation of Beza’s statement on Revelation 16:5.

And Snapp contracted Jan Krans to ask about this verse. I got this email from JSJ on 2.23.19:

Jeff, 

Puzzled by Beza's note, I contacted Jan Krans and asked him about it.  Here's what he said:

" I will have a new book this year, with among other things an update on the Beza part, and a lengthy treatment of this case [in Rev. 16:5] in particular. Shortest version: Beza states that he had a manuscript, but wrongly so, because he misinterpreted one of his own handwritten notes. It is therefore a conjecture, by Beza, but he would probably not have changed his text, had he not misunderstood his notes. In that case he would also have written a different annotation, probably with the conjecture as a suggestion only."

The points to take into consideration:

Jan Krans apparently agrees with my translation of Beza. Beza wrote that he got the reading he uses in his text from a manuscript.

Despite this, Krans apparently will make an argument in a forthcoming work that Beza was mistaken when he made this statement. He will argue that Beza misread his notes. We’ll have to wait to see what he writes, but it is hard to conceive that he will be able definitively to prove that Beza merely misread his notes. The more obvious conclusion is that he had what he says he had: a handwritten Greek codex that read ho esemenos. Beza’s reading at Revelation 16:5 came from a manuscript and not from bare reasoning.

The burden is on JW:

First, if he persists in saying my translation is wrong, he should provide his own translation of the Latin sentence he quotes in his book to show that my translation (supported by Krans) of Beza is wrong.

Second, he should concede that it is by no means fantastical to conceive the possibility that Beza had a Greek ms. which reflected the reading he adopted at Revelation 16:5 and that this ms. might have been lost. To deny the latter would be grossly inconsistent given that JW makes much of Erasmus’s supposedly faulty use of ms. 2814 for the ending of Revelation which, according to Kranz, “was lost for a long time” and was only “rediscovered in the middle of the nineteenth century by Franz Delitzsch” (Beyond What is Written, 54). Clearly, mss. used by the likes of Erasmus and Beza could be lost (and might also be recovered)!

Krans, for example, is much, much more judicious than JW, and rightly so, when he makes his argument. For example, at the close of his discussion of Erasmus’s text of Revelation, he says the following: “In conclusion, Erasmus treats the Greek text of the book of Revelation in a special way, at times providing Greek readings for which no manuscript sources is known” (58). That sentence reflects proper humility and circumspection. No manuscript sources may be known, but that does not mean they did not exist and were available to Erasmus in some form.

Third, JW fails to acknowledge one of the central themes of Krans’s work: that although Erasmus and Beza offered many conjectures (of both types as previously described) in their various writings, notes, and annotations, when it came to their printed texts of the Greek NT they were exceedingly careful and “conservative” in their transmission of the Greek received text.

Krans concludes his General Introduction with these words:

“It should finally be noted that most conjectures discussed in this study were never printed as part of the Greek New Testament. They have their Sitz-im-leben in annotations and commentaries. Indeed, a recurrent theme of this study is the tendency of Erasmus and Beza to propose conjectures without actually implementing them” (5).

Regarding Erasmus’s Greek text, Krans observes:

“Erasmus often insisted on both points, the subservient place of his translation vis-à-vis the ecclesiastical text, and his unwillingness to print a Greek text that differs from his manuscripts.” Krans’s point: Eramus had a high view of the Greek text and did not want to provide readings in his Greek text that were not based on extant Greek mss.” (20).

Krans then provides several quotes from Erasmus’s correspondence with Edward Lee on this point (see n. 32, 20), including:

“I only offer what I find in the Greek manuscripts.”

“Besides, we had not taken up the task of correcting Greek manuscripts, but of rendering faithfully what would be in them.”

In Krans’s conclusion to his study of Erasmus (chapter seven), he returns to this key theme of his work, noting “the place (or even Sitz-im-Leben) of most conjectures is in the Annotations, not the printed Greek or Latin text” (189). He adds: “The real conjectures are found somewhat hidden in a wealth of text-critical commentary, philological (semantic and grammatical) remarks, exegetical information and in fact all kinds of contemporary reflections and polemics that their versatile author was capable of producing” (189). Later, he even suggests that Erasmus “was also handicapped by his concept of the Graeca veritas, which he at least initially sought one-sidedly in the (Byzantine) Greek text” (189). Of course, what Krans sees as a handicap, we see as an advantage.

JW clearly does not acknowledge this central theme in Krans’s study, since it does not support his attack on the TR by way of attacking the scholarship of Erasmus.

Concluding thoughts:

These responses, of course, only touch the surface. Much, much more could be said.

Attacks on Erasmus have been taken up by many since the nineteenth century in their zeal to unseat the dominance of the TR. Although in the providence of God, Erasmus was used to bring the traditional text into print for the first time in 1516, the TR does not depend solely on him or his erudition. Nor does it depend on his theological orthodoxy, his theology of Scripture, or his view of canon (including the canonicity of Revelation). The text printed by Erasmus was studied, (in some cases) improved, in other cases simply affirmed, and published by sound Protestant and Reformed men (like Stephanus and Beza), till by 1633 it could be called by the Elzevirs the Textus Receptus. It was the basis of the Protestant Bible translations of the Reformation and post-Reformation period, as well as the prooftexts of the Protestant and Reformed confessions of faith. It remains formidable to this day, despite its critics, past and present.

For those interested in reading more about attempts to undermine the credibility of the TR by means of attacking Erasmus, see my article “Erasmus Anecdotes” in PRJ, vol. 9, no. 1 (2017): 101-112.

In a footnote in that article, I note that further work needs to be done on other Erasmus anecdotes (or scholarly legends): “This article has surveyed two such frequently shared anecdotes. Others, however, may also be worthy of further scrutiny, including the question of the number and quality of the Greek mss. which Erasmus used to create his Greek text, the origins of Codex 61, the mss. Erasmus made use of for his text of Revelation, and the supposed back-translation of the final verses of Revelation 22” (n. 41, p. 112).

For now, suffice to say that I believe there are many good reasons to believe that the entire back-translation of the final verses of Revelation account does not rest on solid foundations but was likely promoted, beginning in the nineteenth century, like other anti-Erasmus anecdotes, in order to undermine the reliability of the TR in favor of the then-emerging critical text. That study, however, will have to wait for another day….

JTR

Word Magazine # 61: Review: Sermon on the Ending of Mark.Part Two: External Evidence

Image:  The Ending of Mark in Codex Alexandrinus, c. AD 5th century.  This is one of the oldest uncial witnesses to the traditional ending of Mark (Mark 16:9-20).

I recorded yesterday and posted today WM # 61 continuing the review of Pastor Carey Hardy’s 2012 sermon “The Added Ending” on the ending of Mark’s Gospel in which he rejects the inspiration and authenticity of Mark 16:9-20.  In this episode I offer analysis of the sermon’s covering of the external evidence for the ending of Mark.

As do most who reject the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20, Hardy gives central importance to the fact that two early Greek mss. end the Gospel at Mark 16:8.  Those two are codices Vaticanus (B) and Sinaiticus (Aleph).  Here is a table of the Greek mss. for the ending of Mark:

Ending	Greek manuscripts
End at 16:8 (“Abrupt Ending”)	Aleph, B
16:1-8 plus “Shorter Ending”	None
16:1-8 plus “Shorter Ending” plus 16:9-20 (“Longer Ending”)	L, Psi, 083, 099, 579, L-1602, plus 274 [in margin]
End at 16:20 with “Freer Logion” after v. 14	W
End at 16:20 (“Longer Ending”)	A, C, D, Q, family 13, and about a thousand other Greek mss.

Even Vaticanus and Sinaiticus give evidence that they knew of the longer ending.  See my blog post on the odd ending of Mark in Vaticanus and in Sinaiticus.

Hardy also calls attention to the versional evidence, citing one Old Latin codex k [as Lunn points out, this ms. has notable irregularities even in its transmission of Mark 16:1-8:  it omits the names of the women at the tomb, v. 1; it omits the clause “and they said nothing to anyone in v. 8; it inserts a lengthy text between vv. 3 and 4, describing darkness and angels, possibly taken from the apocryphal Gospel of Peter]; one Syriac ms. Sinaitic; about a hundred Armenian mss; and two Georgian mss.

Hardy does not cite, however, the significant versional evidence in favor of Mark 16:9-20, which includes:  the Old Latin, the Vulgate, the Syriac (the Ditessaron, the Curetonian, the Peshitta, and the Harklean), etc.

When it comes to the Church Fathers, Hardy cites evidence from Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, and Victor ofAntioch.

Responses:  The references to Clement of Alexandria and Origen are arguments ex silencio.  Clement of Alexndria also offers no references from Matthew 28 or Mark 16:1-8, though these are not challenged.  We have neither a commentary or a collection of sermons from Origen on Mark, so it is not surprising that we find no references to them in his writings.

The often cited reference from Eusebius’ epistle Ad Marinum concerning Mark’s ending must be read in context of Eusebius addressing a perceived conflict between the resurrection accounts in Matthew and Mark, and his suggestion of one hypothetical option [which he does not necessarily endorse] which would be to deny the authenticity of Mark’s ending.

The supposed evidence from Jerome and Victor of Antioch is simply their citation from Eusebius.

With regard to Jerome, he clearly did not reject the traditional ending of Mark, as chiefly evidenced by the fact that he included it in the Vulgate.

Hardy concedes reference to the traditional ending of Mark in the writings of the early Church Fathers, including Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian.

He downplays, however, the significance of and does not quote the direct citation of Mark 16:19 in Irenaeus and his clear reference to the fact that it comes from Mark’s ending [as cited in Lunn, The Original Ending of Mark p. 82]:

Also, towards the conclusion of his Gospel, Mark says, “So then, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God”; confirming what had been spoken by the prophet [Ps. 110:1]. (Haer. 3.10.5).

This citation from c. AD 175, makes it the earliest witness to the ending of Mark.

I close this episode by citing Lunn’s conclusion after his discussion of the external evidence for the ending of Mark:

For the vast majority of its history the church as a body has pronounced in favor of this passage.  The indications of doubt on the part of Eusebius and the copyists of a small number of manuscripts do not reflect the view of the church in general.  Its inclusion was unambiguously accepted from the earliest times, with the second century fathers.  The Byzantine, Vulgate, and Peshitta texts, which were to hold sway in the principle sections of the church for a thousand years or more, each embraced it.  The humanist scholars and reformers of the early sixteenth century all received it as authentic, it being published in the Greek NT editions of Erasmus, Stephanus, Elzivir, and Beza.  The Bible translation tradition set in motion by Tyndale included it, the passage appearing in Coverdale’s version, the Great Bible, the Anglican Bishops’ Bible, the Puritan Geneva Bible, the Catholic Rheims-Douai version, as well as the King James Bible which came to dominate the English-speaking world for the next three centuries.  In the Great Awakening of the mid-eighteenth century and other subsequent revivals of the Gospels were preached and read in a form contained the final verses of Mark.  The great missionary movement of the early nineteenth century brought about the translation of the NT into numerous languages of Africa, Asia, Australasia, and the Americas.  With the received Greek text and the King James Bible as the only possible, and indeed the only known base-texts, the longer version of Mark’s Gospel passed into the hands of the indigenous churches.  It was not until the latter half of the nineteenth century that the long-established acceptance of Mark 16:9-20 began to be seriously challenged in certain academic quarters of the Western world.  This turn-around found its impetus in the re-discovery of Codices Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, two manuscripts which, it should be remarked, had long lain unused by the church.  History shows therefore that also in the matter of ecclesiastical tradition, or what may be termed “canonicity,” the longer ending has received a clear stamp of approval (p. 115).

Lunn closes by noting the superiority of the longer ending, based on external evidence, including its antiquity, ubiquity, diversity, quantity, and canonicity (pp. 115-116).

JTR

Note:  For a pdf of this post, look here.

Word Magazine # 57: Did the Gospels "plagiarize" Pagan Myths?

I have recorded and posted WM # 57 Did the Gospels “plagiarize” Pagan Myths?  Below are some notes from this episode:

I recently stumbled upon a youtube video by a young atheist apologist named Jaclyn Glenn titled “Disproving Christianity:  Jesus is a Lie” (posted in 2013).  I thought it might be worthwhile to offer a brief critique.

Her main argument:  She claims that that Christians plagiarized the life of Jesus from myths of various pagan deities, including:

The Egyptian god Horus,

The Hindu/Indian god Krishna,

And the Persian/Roman god Mithras.

Here are five logical and factual problems with this claim:

1.  She does not use primary sources to make these claims but biased and inaccurate summaries.

She makes reference to only one original source (the Egyptian Book of the Dead for Horus), and that in name only with no direct citations.  Her other references are to either her own summaries of these accounts or to those made by others, all of which are surely hostile to historical Christianity.

For an example of a refutation of Horus/Jesus parallels see this site.

There is a major difference between pagan mythological accounts and the Biblical narrative which are rooted in recognizable reality.

Example:  She suggests that Horus also may have experienced a virgin birth.  This is how the Wikipedia article on Horus summarizes the myth of his origin:

Horus was born to the goddess Isis after she retrieved all the dismembered body parts of her murdered husband Osiris, except his penis, which was thrown into the Nile and eaten by a catfish, or sometimes by a crab, and according to Plutarch’s account used her magic powers to resurrect Osiris and fashion a golden phallus to conceive her son (older Egyptian accounts have the penis of Osiris surviving).

Once Isis knew she was pregnant with Horus, she fled to the Nile Delta marshlands to hide from her brother Set, who jealously killed Osiris and who she knew would want to kill their son.  There Isis bore a divine son, Horus.

This is hardly comparable to the virginal conception in the historical Biblical narratives of Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2.

2.  She makes the unsubstantiated claim that the wide circulation of these myths pre-date Christianity.

In fact, though there were pre-Christian myths of various deities, those in the Western world did not come to know many of them until they were written about by Greek and Roman authors.  Example: Those in the Greco-Roman world would most likely have come to know about Horus not by reading the Egyptian Book of the Dead but by reading Plutarch’s retelling of the Isis, Osiris, Horus myth in his Moralia.  Plutarch lived from c. 40-120 AD.  Those in the larger Greco-Roman world might not have even heard of Horus till long after the Christian movement began and the NT Gospels had been written.

For a similar problem with supposed parallels between Christianity and Mithraism, see Ronald H. Nash’s book The Gospel and the Greeks (P&R, 1992, 2003):  pp. 133-138. Nash concludes that the major problem with this theory is “the fact that the timing is all wrong,” since “the flowering of Mithraism occurred after the close of the NT canon, too late for it to have influenced the development of first-century Christianity” (p. 137).

3.  She ignores the possibility that the influence may have run in the opposite direction.

Pagan articulation of their divine myth may have been influenced by the rising popularity of the Christian Gospels.

4.  She wrongly assumes that there would have been a large gap of time between the life of the historical Jesus and the development of myths borrowed from other religions.

She does not deny the historicity of the life of Jesus.  But she does not acknowledge that the Gospels and other Christian writings were written soon after his life, that they share in wide agreement about the basic facts of Jesus’ life across multiple sources, and that contemporary eyewitnesses might easily have challenged anything that was inaccurate.

5.  It does not make sense to posit that monotheistic Jewish Christians would have borrowed from polytheistic pagan myth to enhance the story of Jesus.

For Israelite hostility to paganism read Isaiah’s attack on idolatry in Isaiah 44 or the Psalmist’s in Psalm 115.  Then read about Paul’s visit to pagan Athens in Acts 17.

 Conclusion:  You may embrace or reject the Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus but to claim that they have their origin in pagan myths is illogical and historically inaccurate.

JTR