QUOTE from a Muslim
"And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." Mark 16:15"
hey buddy... i hate to tell u this but this verse IS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND IN CODEX SINAITICUS!
http://www.codex-sinaiticus.net/en/
ENDQUOTE
You are looking at Biblical manuscripts--very impressive. That is an excellent site for Sinaiticus. The answer to your question is that Mark 16:9-20 is not found in Codex Sinaiticus or in several other manuscripts:
"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)"
Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart, 1971)
Therefore, doctrine cannot be built on these verses alone.
However, the doctrine contained in Mark 16:15 is repeated in the following verses which are in all manuscripts:
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Matt 28:19
if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul,
have become a servant. Col 1:23
The rule in textual criticism is that if a verse is not conatined in all manuscripts (and VERY few verses are not) you cannot build doctrine on that verse unless that doctrine it is supported by other verses.
The person who notices that Mark 16:9-20 is not in Codex Sinaiticus needs to notice a few other things:
ReplyDelete(1) All four pages in Codex Sinaiticus containing Mk. 14:65-Lk. 1:56 are not the pages that were produced by the copyist who made the surrounding pages. These four pages -- constituting a single parchment-sheet, folded in the middle (like a church-bulletin) -- were produced by someone else, probably the supervisor of the scriptorium where the codex was made, during a final proof-reading stage of production.
(2) The individual who made the replacement-pages in Codex Sinaiticus was also involved in the production of Codex Vaticanus (the other ancient Greek manuscript in which the text of Mark ends at the end of 16:8). In Codex Vaticanus, there is a prolonged blank space after 16:8, as if the copyist was aware of the existence of 16:9-20 but was unsure whether it should be included or not; by concluding at 16:8 but leaving space for 16:9-20, he left the decision up to the eventual owner of the codex.
(3) The contents of Mark 16:9-20 were used by church writers significantly earlier than Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus: Irenaeus (184), Tatian (172), Justin (160), and, possibly, the unknown author of Epistula Apostolorum (150), made use of it in various ways. So did the anti-Christian writer Porphyry (270) and some other early writers in the 200's, 300's, and 400's, such as Ambrose, Augustine, Marcus Eremita, Patrick, Aphraates, "Acts of Pilate," "Apostolic Constitutions," and so forth. (Plus, the passage was included in early versions such as several Old Latin copies, the Peshitta, and the Gothic version.)
(4) The citation from Metzger's Textual Commentary, by itself, is somewhat misleading, since he says nothing about the blank space in Vaticanus; he says nothing about the replacement-pages in Sinaiticus; he says nothing about the close historical link between Vaticanus and Sinaiticus (probably they were both produced at Caesarea, in c. 325 and c. 350); he mentions one Old Latin copy without listing the other Old Latin copies that include the passage; he does not mention, in his comments about 16:9-20, that Codex Bobbiensis has an anomalous text of Mark 16 that includes an interpolation between 16:3 and 16:4 in which Jesus ascends to heaven as He is resurrected. He mentions the Sinaitic Syriac without balancing this by mentioning the Curetonian Syriac and the Peshitta. He mentions "about one hundred Armenian manuscripts" that lack 16:9-20 without mentioning the over 1,000 that include it. And he mentions two Old Georgian MSS without mentioning that the Old Georgian was translated from the Armenian version; when this is added to the equation, the Old Georgian evidence is seen as simply an echo of one of the revisions of the Armenian version. Metzger also fails to mentions a lot of the patristic support for 16:9-20. His comments are very one-sided.
(5) If Mark 16:9-20 was not added by Mark himself, but was added by an inspired colleague of him while the Gospel of Mark was still in its production-stage, the passage would still qualify as an original, authentic part of the Gospel of Mark, similar to the way in which Jeremiah 52 is considered part of the book of Jeremiah.
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.