The Textual Problem of Mark 16:9-20

Introduction and Background to the Markan Exposition

0:02 The following message was given on December 16, 1990, in the Adult Sunday School class of the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now, I wish to begin the class this morning by giving a little bit of general background and Trinity Church history with reference to the public ministry of the Word of God. While the Phase I building was our meeting place for our stated seasons of worship, and while anticipating the beginnings of the construction of this place of worship that we call Phase II, on June 12, 1983, as I stood to preach in what was then our place of meeting for worship, I said the following words, Several Lord's Days ago, I announced to this assembly that we would soon begin a series of expositions from the Gospel according to Mark. The time to begin to fulfill that promise has come. Those words were said on June 12, 1983. So here we are, some seven years later, and I have averaged about 30 sermons per year.

1:27 working through Mark's spirit-inspired account of the life, ministry, deeds, words, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And there have been some briefer series breaking up the exposition in Mark, such series as a godly building program, the anatomy of a man of God, and others. However, in August of this year, I completed my exposition of Mark 16, verses 1 through 8, and then gave an additional exposition from Matthew 28, 11 to 15, entitled The Ludicrous Attempt to Cover Up the Fact of the Resurrection of Jesus. And then, at that point in my own personal history, I hardly know where I've been, when. I'm coming, when I'm going. It's been all over the place, Dominican Republic, the ministry in the UK, a visit to Pakistan, etc., etc.

2:40 And intermittently, as I have brought this briefer series on our public worship and what we do when we gather for worship, quite a few of you have asked me, are we done with Mark? Are you finished with Mark? And I've answered very cryptically, well, yes and no. That's always a safe answer.

3:05 And you have looked at me with some puzzlement, but with an element of trust, and I have said, in due course, in due time, the rationale for my apparently diplomatic answer will be evident. Well, hopefully, our study in the adult class in this hour, and then the ministry of the Word of God, in the next hour, will explain my strange yes-no response. Because ordinarily, of course, in the light of the Word of God, a Christian should never give such a response. We are told, let your yea be yea, and your nay be nay.

3:44 I read nowhere, let your yea-nay be found together. So, hopefully, this will clarify that response. And as we take up our study in this hour, I want to begin with what I'm calling some introductory affirmations. In other words, whatever I say in addressing the whole question of why I have completed our expositions, in what I regard to be the Spirit-inspired account of the life and ministry of Jesus by Mark, these affirmations undergird everything that is said.

Introductory Affirmations: Confidence in Scripture

4:25 Okay. We are not ignorant of Satan's devices. And the first question he posed to our parents in Eden, by which he sought to ensnare them and alienate them from God, was the question, yea, hath God said? He raised a question mark over the veracity and certainty of what God had spoken.

4:52 And he continues to build his kingdom, upon error, upon doubt, and upon denial of the Word of God. And so, before we move into the things that constitute the heart of our study in this hour, I want to give you three introductory affirmations. And these are affirmations that I make solemnly in the presence of God before whom I will stand in the last day. I make them with no mental effort.

5:26 I make them with no mental reservations. I make them with no double meaning intended with reference to any of the words that I speak. I solemnly affirm, first of all, my unreserved confidence in the unique inspiration and unqualified inerrancy of the Word of God as given in the original manuscripts. Okay.

5:56 In other words, when Mark sat down to write on parchment what we now have as the Gospel of Mark, I am affirming that there was a unique, one-of-a-kind operation of the Holy Spirit so superintending the activity of Mark's mind and the actions of his pen or quill, that what he wrote, was nothing less than the very words of the living God. Absolutely, unqualifiedly, inerrant and verbally inspired of the Holy Spirit. In other words, I believe the plain teaching of 2 Timothy 3.16 and 2 Peter 2.21.

6:50 All Scripture is given literally by the out-breathing, by the out-breathing, by the out-breathing, of God. Scripture is the breath of God. Holy men of God spoke as they were carried or borne along by the Holy Spirit. So that when Jesus said in John 17.17, Thy word is truth, there is no dash waiting for a qualifying statement, there is no comma leading to some other parenthetical statement, in the language of the Psalmist, the sum of thy word is truth. Take every word of God as originally given in the original manuscripts, total them all up, and you have nothing but truth. Undiluted, unmixed, unqualified truth. So that's my first affirmation.

7:51 I affirm my unreserved confidence in the unique inspiration and unqualified inerrancy of the word of God as given to us in the original manuscripts. Secondly, I affirm my unreserved confidence in the special providential care over the manuscripts by which God's original words are now preserved for us. I affirm my unreserved confidence in the special providential care of God over the manuscripts by which God's original words are preserved for us. We do not have the original parchment upon which Mark wrote. We do not have the original parchments upon which Paul or Peter wrote their letters and their epistles. But in the language of our confession, and this is found in paragraph 8, the Old Testament in Hebrew, which was the native language of the people of God of old, and the New Testament in Greek, which at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations, and perhaps we should add the word some Aramaic, for part of the Old Testament

9:19 came in Aramaic, being immediately inspired, God, by God, and by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentic. So what I am affirming is that though we have no collection of the original manuscripts, the God who gave us His inerrant, inspired word, plenary, verbally inspired, has, by His special providence, so watched over the hundreds of portions of that word found in many sources, along with the several complete manuscripts of that word, both the Old and the New Testaments, that we can say with confidence that we have preserved in those manuscripts the word of the living God. And we could look at many lines of evidence for this, but just the example of our Lord and of the Apostles is sufficient to establish this, for when they quoted from the Old Testament, they were not quoting from the original autographs, but from extant manuscripts from which translations had been made

10:46 or copies available. Then thirdly, I affirm my unreserved conviction that existing translations produced by sound translation principles are trustworthy representations of the original manuscripts and can therefore be called the word of God. I'm affirming that when I hold in my hands the American Standard Version, a translation translated with sound, not infallible, principles applied in every place infallibly, but sound principles, that we can say without reservation we hold in our hands the word of God. And we find this again affirmed in our confession in the chapter on Scripture in paragraph number 8, but because these original tongues are not known to all the people of God who have a right unto and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded in the fear of God to read and search them, therefore they are to be translated into the vulgar, that is, the common language of every nation into which they come, that the word of God, dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship him in an acceptable manner, etc.

The Problem of Mark's Gospel Ending: Stated

12:14 Our confession asserts that a translation into the common languages of the nations is the word of God. So I make those three introductory affirmations, lest anyone should have any question as to my own personal convictions and our own church confessional convictions with reference to the Scriptures. Now standing upon those affirmations without mental reservation, that brings us secondly to the problem of the ending of Mark's Gospel. The problem of the ending of Mark's Gospel.

12:57 And here I do not speak for all of my fellow elders, for there are differing opinions among our own elders on this matter. And we hold those differing opinions with mutual respect and without any suspicion of each other's orthodoxy. Let me first of all give you the problems stated, and then secondly, the problem as resolved in my conscience. So, having given you these introductory affirmations, we now move to consider the problem of the ending of Mark's Gospel.

13:36 That's Roman numeral number two. I gave you my affirmations. Now, the problem of the ending of Mark's Gospel. A, the problem stated.

13:49 B, the problem resolved in my own conscience. First of all then, the problem stated. In the many existing manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark or portions of that Gospel, and quotations found in various lectionaries and other sources, there is evidence which points to the fact, or I shouldn't say points to the fact, there is an abundance of evidence that there is, there is no overwhelming consensus as to precisely how Mark ended his Gospel. And the major textual evidence falls into three categories. Now, this is not exhaustive, but it is accurate in terms of a generalization. There is, first of all, the abrupt ending which stops at Mark 16, and verse 8. And that's where I concluded my expositions of the Gospel of Mark.

14:56 Very abruptly, we read, And when they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had come upon them, they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid full stop. And there is very solid manuscript evidence of very ancient origins that this is all we possess of the Spirit-inspired record penned by Mark himself. Now, why did it end so abruptly? Well, here the theories begin to multiply.

15:34 Up until more recent scholarship, it was felt that, well, perhaps persecution broke out, and before Mark could finish, the thing began to circulate, and he was unable to finish. So he had intentions that he could not fulfill in the providence of God. Others say, no, the ending was torn off and lost, and therefore copies could not be made. Others, such as Dr. Stonehouse, late professor of New Testament at Westminster and successor to Gresham Machen, and the modern scholars such as William Lane, and a modern scholar by the name of Lightfoot, not the famous Lightfoot of the 19th century, give what many regard are convincing arguments that there was a definite intention in Mark's abrupt ending of his Gospel, just as there was a definite intention in his very abrupt beginning. Unlike the other Gospel records which give us something of the background to the appearance of our Lord, either in Matthew and Luke from the birth accounts,

16:48 or John from the pre-incarnate existence of the Eternal Word, Mark plunges right in the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God. And they would argue from this and from other standpoints that the abrupt ending is all that Mark ever did write, all he ever intended to write, and it was in keeping with his overall purpose. So there's one manuscript position, the abrupt ending, which stops at verse 8. Then we have what is called the longer ending, which is very well known because it has been embodied in the authorized version, commonly called the King James Version, that includes verses 9 through 20. And if you have an American Standard or even the New King James Bible, it will be evident to you that this section is regarded as of worthy consideration since it is found in several ancient manuscripts, not the two oldest manuscripts, and it is found, portions of it or all of it, in a multitude of manuscripts and has very strong manuscript evidence. And there are people in the past and in the present who argue very cogently and powerfully for the inclusion

18:17 of this longer ending as being the inspired word of God, either actually written by Mark or by someone who had apostolic approval other than Mark. And a man such as Bergen in another century or generation argued very powerfully for the longer ending. And Lenski and a man by the name of Hills in our generation, they argue forcefully for this position. Then there is, thirdly, the short ending.

18:54 And this has much less manuscript evidence and it just states this. After verse 8 we read, 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. So basically the problem of the ending of Mark's gospel is you have the abrupt ending stopping at verse 8, you have the longer ending including verses 9 to 20 and you have the short ending. Now there is a convolution of various parts in other manuscript evidences but basically this is the problem of the ending of Mark. Now for any who wish to read further on these matters, let me commend the following reading. It is not technical, it is not difficult, and I know many of you have inquiring minds and would like to look into this further. May I commend to you, first of all, on the side of those who would include the longer ending as being the word of God, inspired, inerrant word of God would be such man as I mentioned as Lenski and I think his treatment as a brief treatment is one of the finest.

20:24 You will find it in his commentary on the gospel of Mark pages 750 to 755. Just six pages, not difficult, but Lenski presents the case for the longer ending. The case for the shorter ending I commend William Hendrickson's commentary on the gospel of Mark pages 682 to 687 and a little arithmetic will let you know that we pretty well have evened up the adversaries. We have given them six rounds each.

21:02 The difference is Hendrickson's pages are a bit fuller and have few more words. So it would be more like ten to six if we counted the words. But that's Hendrickson's commentary on the gospel of Mark which is in our church library pages 682 to 687. So that's the problem of Mark's ending.

The Problem Resolved in My Conscience

21:24 I've stated the problem. Now, how have I resolved in my own conscience to say that by completing the exposition at verse 8 I cannot preach any further into verses 9 through 20 with the conviction that I am handling the inspired, inerrant word of the living God? Well, Romans 14.23 is the fundamental text that has held my conscience and that text says whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

21:57 If I cannot be persuaded if I am not presently persuaded in my own judgment that the arguments for the longer ending are convincing if I have any doubt that those verses are the word of God then I certainly cannot stand and with a sense that God will be at my elbow attesting with power and with authority that which I preach whatsoever is not of faith is sin. And I cannot according to my present light and understanding preach those verses as the inspired word of God. And if you ask me why not I will answer very simply and very briefly because of that which those who wrestle and struggle and write and study in these areas have named the internal evidence that is what we find in the text itself and then the external evidence that is what we find in studying the various manuscripts and so-called families of manuscripts muttered much of which is arbitrarily determined by the bias of the scholar but it is my own conviction based upon primarily the internal evidence that Mark did not pen verses 9 to 20. And I first came to this conviction when in a second year Greek course

23:27 many decades ago 1953 to be precise our second year Greek course was a matter of doing our own translation of the Gospel of Mark and we would be given at the beginning of one week all the vocabulary words in Mark chapter 1 that did not occur in our first year Greek course we used Davis' basic Greek grammar and by Friday we had a test on all those vocabulary words and then the following Monday we would start doing our own translation parsing the verbs and giving a justification for our translation about 10 to 12 verses three times a week and I can remember the profound impression after living for months in the Gospel of Mark when I came to those verses of feeling so keenly that there was a different author here and Hendrickson lays much weight upon this and I hold the position since way back in 1953 long before I knew a man Hendrickson existed had any acquaintance with reformed commentary but Hendrickson very helpfully tabulates those elements of the internal evidence that Mark did not write verses 9 through 20 and then secondly the external evidence

24:55 my understanding of such matters of the manuscripts I admit is very limited but what I do understand and what I have sought to re-read from those who are much more knowledgeable than I I find that my judgment is carried by those who take the position that the abrupt ending does have the weightier manuscript evidence so that's how I resolve the problem in my own mind and that's why when you ask the question are you done with Mark I said yes but then I also said no now you'll understand now you'll understand when we come to the third heading of our time together I made some affirmations then I tried to set before you the problem of the ending of Mark the problem stated B the problem as resolved in my own conscience according to my own present light if I'm alive and preaching here ten years from now I may stand up and say I've changed my judgment and here's why and preach those verses I've not closed my mind to the issue but now thirdly some practical questions arising from this position this raises some practical questions I'm going to anticipate two of them and I believe we're going to have time to take more from you number one is any fundamental truth of scripture lost if we do not regard

Practical Questions: Loss of Truth and Preaching Integrity

26:24 Mark 16 9 through 20 as scripture is any fundamental truth of scripture lost if we do not regard Mark 16 9 to 20 as scripture and according to my present light and understanding shared by many more knowledgeable and godly capable men than myself is a resounding no believing that scripture is its own final infallible interpreter and the only responsible exposition of these verses brings no fundamentally new material that is not found in the other gospel records or in the book of Acts for example if you'll now look in your own Bibles at verse 9 we have the record of his appearance to Mary Magdalene which is recorded in other gospels and it is recorded in the book of Acts in the book of Acts we have the record in verse 12 of his manifestation in another form to two of them who walked in the country you have the full the full account of that in Luke's gospel verse 14 he was manifested to the eleven as they sat at meet and then we have what's called the great commission and there you have several accounts

27:54 of his post resurrection appearances to his own particularly in the gospel of John and then you have the commission that we'll be studying God willing in the next hour the commission in Luke's gospel in John's gospel and in the first chapter of Acts and and if the section verses 16 through 18 is responsibly expounded in the light of the rest of scripture we do not come up with a strange doctrine of religious snake handling and religious poison drinking you see these verses unique to Mark when interpreted in isolation from the analogy of scripture have been used to justify some of the most bizarre ungodly and demonic practices the text he that believeth in is baptized has been brought into service to justify the horrendous doctrine of baptismal regeneration the text he that believeth in is baptized in the word of God and if it were interpreted in the light of the analogy of scripture it contains no doctrine no fundamental teaching or even facts that are not to be found elsewhere in the word of God either in the gospels or in the book of the Acts so

29:23 the first practical question arising from the position I presently hold is this is any fundamental truth of scripture lost if we do not regard Mark 16 9 to 20 as scripture I answer no second practical question what about those who have in the past and in the present preach these verses as the word of God what do we say of them well since the passage teaches nothing that is not taught elsewhere in scripture they are proclaiming the truth of God we who hold the position I do may judge that they are proving something that is biblical from the wrong place but they are not teaching heresy they are teaching the truth of God and just as the spirit of God may not even be quoting a verse but he is affirming a truth taught throughout the scriptures and the spirit of God bears witness to that truth with power so those men who in the past and the present have preached and expounded this section convinced that it

30:53 was indeed the word of God because they have done so in a manner consistent though we might judge they were teaching it from a wrong platform it seems to me that those are the two burning questions that arise from my own position and those who would hold it and I'll give you a chance to raise other questions finally how do I propose then to the gospel of Mark I will not be preaching verses 9-20 as part of the gospel of Mark but I've also said no and I've said no because it is my purpose in the next hour to conclude our studies on the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God is given to us in the gospel of Mark in Matthew where what is prophesied in verse 7 of Mark 16 is described in its fulfillment in a passage concerning which there is no textual variant verse 7 of Mark 16 says go tell his disciples

Concluding the Markan Exposition and Open Questions

32:23 in Peter he goes before you into Galilee and there you shall see him we will then this morning God willing go to Matthew's account of that visit of our Lord with his friends and disciples at Galilee and conclude and round out and finalize and tie up I hope in a neat package our consideration of the gospel of Mark with an appendix from the gospel of Mark in verse 6 verse 7 and verse 8 verse 9 verse 10 verse 11 verse 12 verse 13 verse 14 verse 15 verse 16 verse 17 verse 18 verse 19 verse 20 verse 30 verse 24 verse 50 verse 28 verse 33 verse 35 verse 36 verse 37 verse 38 verse 39

33:52 verse 40 verse 41 verse 42 Beware, beware, beware, incipient liberalism. That simply is not true. That's breaking the ninth commandment. And I trust that by the grace of God, this matter will not become a matter over which there is any disruption of our fellowship, our unity.

34:17 Let each man be fully persuaded in his own mind. By sticking closely to my notes, I did get through all I had hoped to say to you. And it still leaves us 20 minutes for questions that this may raise in your mind. And many of them I may not be able to answer. Some of them, brethren amongst us more knowledgeable than I, Dr. Bob, Pastor Nichols, Pastor Lamar is away.

35:09 These brethren may be able to answer those questions, but please feel free to raise them as they've occurred to you. As I've given my presentation. Yes, Dean?

Discussion: Internal Evidence Explained

35:25 Yes, internal evidence has to do with such matters as style, vocabulary, syntax, grammar. For example, one of the stylistic characteristics of Mark, and it's evident in any good, accurate English translation, is that Mark is continually hanging everything together with the conjunction and, chi. It's not uncommon in a relatively brief paragraph to have four, five, six chi's, and, and, and. Mark just wears you out, taking you from one thing to another.

36:04 Well, the moment you step into those other verses in the original, you see a marked difference in the frequency of the use of the little conjunction chi. You find the intention. You find the introduction of vocabulary that is strange to Mark. You find, for example, just starting with verse nine.

36:26 Now, when he was risen early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She's introduced in verse nine as though he hadn't been introduced to her before, but she was already spoken of in verse one of this very chapter. You see? And when the Sabbath was passed.

36:45 Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and Salome, brought spices. So that internal evidence, it seems as though another hand was at work here, adding something. So it's not any one of those things. The Spirit of God is free to move Mark or John or anyone else at any given point to use ten words in one paragraph not found in all the rest of their writing.

37:09 And this is where some so-called textual critics go bonkers. And they set up arbitration. Very standards. I may use a word in a given sermon four or five times in the space of a minute and never use that word again for three years.

37:25 Then someone could transcribe the tapes and say that paragraph was never preached by Pastor Martin because that word was used three times in the space of a minute. And I've listened to every tape over a course of three years and never heard him use it before or since. So you see, the internal evidence has to be cumulative and not arbitrarily selective. But by internal...

37:45 By internal evidence, that's basically what we mean. Would you like to add to that, Pastor Nichols? Well, just perhaps a word of confirmation. Though I have not myself personally studied the matter which is spoken about today, I have strong opinion on it of any kind.

38:08 But just I have had the opportunity in times past, and now the course is taught by Pastor Mark. But I have had...

38:16 I have had the opportunity in times past to teach a course of the Gospels. And in doing that, I went through the Gospel of Mark in the Greek as Pastor Martin did years ago. And one of the things that is particularly striking, and it's hard to explain this unless you've actually done that in the Greek, but one of the things that's particularly striking is the connectives that Mark uses. And as Pastor Martin said, they use a tie.

38:46 In my own opinion, extremely significant, the use of that conjunction, tie, which is just simply translated, and. I would be prepared to assert that every major section that Mark introduces is begun with the use of the word tie, with the exception of major divisions of the book where he uses another Greek conjunction, the word...

39:16 which could be translated now, or and, or but, depends on the context. And that is so striking, it literally leaps out of the page after what you're studying. And I remember my own...

39:32 I don't know what word to use, amazement, when I came to Mark 16, 9 to 20, and I've seen that structure all the way through, the word dead introducing a major division, and tie every significant... sub-division, or a paragraph of the book, and when you come to chapter 16, verses 9 to 20, that radically changes, it's no longer true.

39:57 Now that's a striking fact, and I remember the impression it made on my own mind when I studied it. So this, the only thing I can say is that the standpoint of observation, that is clearly, evidently, my observation of truth. All right. And that's a vital aspect of...

40:16 internal evidence. Now, Pastor Bob, would you want to add anything on the matter of internal evidence? Where are you sitting? I...

40:26 Yes. Particularly with regard to Mark, but in general, in addition to what I've said to Dean, that the internal evidence takes into such matters as vocabulary, structure, syntax, and it's a cumulative thing, and we don't take any one thing in isolation.

40:48 All right. Dean, does that answer your question? Do you...

Discussion: Motives for the Longer Ending

40:52 Your satisfaction. All right. Further question. Yes.

40:56 Joe? One of the things I've thought about is what the motives would be, because the truths that are said to work here are basically the same as those that are in the Scripture. What would be the motives of...

41:11 Yes. The question is, what might be some of the motives for someone writing these verses? Well, here again, it's all speculation. And when one reads...

41:22 When one reads the material of serious authors, men who are devout, I only read liberal authors when duty demands it, the same way I only come close to garbage when duty demands it. Now, that's right. You're tempting God to come close to error unless duty brings you there. But devout men who have wrestled with this have said, perhaps the abruptness so struck people that they felt there was a necessity very early to introduce, as it were, a summary of some of the other well-attested post-resurrection events in the life of the Lord Jesus to round the thing out. See, the same way I feel awkward stopping my expositions at verse 8 and leaving it there, I want to round it out with the Galilean appearance in the Great Commission. Having looked for these years at the good news concerning Jesus Christ, I want to lay out the challenge. Now let's take that good news to the nations.

42:32 So the motive might have been, in some, a felt necessity to round the thing out, that the abruptness just didn't fit. And others perhaps who may have witnessed a torn manuscript said, well, obviously the ending is torn away. And should be added in some of the very earliest manuscript evidence has little asterisks by this indicating that there was doubt even in the mind of the copyist that what he was copying was really part of the original autograph. But they did so, again, feeling that there was an awkwardness in the abruptness of the ending.

43:13 So there could have been very noble motives since, as I've said, there are no truths introduced here. That as far as we know, any early heretical movements in the church would like to have introduced or in response to which others would have introduced trying to defend the church against a heresy. So that's what makes the problem even more complex. Unlike some other textual things, you can see where a given heresy that had arisen would find a text very, very uncomfortable.

43:50 And how people. Who in that part of the Christian church had in great measure gone over to that heresy would do their best to try to alter the word of God. And you'll find certain affinity, certain affinities of changes in manuscript differences. And that's where the whole concept of families of manuscripts begins to emerge among the scholars.

44:15 All right. All right. Further question. All right.

Discussion: God's Purpose in Allowing Textual Problems

44:19 Yes. Yes, Ron's question is, what do I believe might be the purpose of God in allowing such a thing like this when there are those who will use it as the basis of a fanatical belief? Yes. Yes.

44:50 And those who will use it as a basis of a fanatical position and go head hunting and they will make, just like their people who will make the acceptance of the authorized version, a test of orthodoxy, and say if you do not believe that the word of God for this English-speaking world as it now exists is the authorized version, the so-called King James, you are, well, something close to a heretic. Right. Right. Right.

45:17 I think that the perfect version of a king James is to have a lot of women in the church. What most of them don't know is that the so-called authorized version they have is about the fourth or fifth revision, which was done in 1767, I believe. They don't hold the original 1611. Someone gave me a page of the first edition of the authorized version.

45:39 I don't know what the thing is worth.

45:42 But that has undergone four revisions, and what they hold and say, you know, the King James Bible is the word of God, and they're ready to go headhunting. Why has God allowed that? I have to answer. I don't know.

45:56 I don't know. Any more than I don't know. I can speculate. I don't know why the God who can preserve the bones of a man all those years that when his people are going out of Egypt, they can carry his bones, the bones of...

46:16 of old Jacob with them. Why God did not preserve the original manuscripts? I don't know. I've got some theories as to why he didn't.

46:27 If people will take what they think is a splinter from the cross and make a relic of it, what in the world would they do with the original manuscripts? They'd be building temples around them. So, but I just have to say, brother, I don't know. I just have to reckon with what is, and I'm thankful that the way God is...

46:46 has put me together, and maybe being second oldest in a family of ten and born in the Depression and living through the war years, you just didn't have a lot of time to sit around and think about, you know, how many angels on the head of a pin type question. There were too many tasks to be done, too many chores to be fulfilled, that I'm of a very practical bent in questions like that. I really don't spend much time thinking about them, and so I'm afraid I can't give you much of an answer, Ron.

47:15 One of the other brethren may have, something to answer. I'm sorry to disappoint you, brother, but I can't say any more than that. All right. Further questions growing out of this.

Discussion: Further Clarification on Internal Evidence and Translation

47:26 Yes, Elmer? Did I miss something when you answered the theme of the internal question? That starting with verse 9, you do not find the and, and, and, but verse 11 starts with the and, verse 12 starts with the and, verse 13, verse 14. Yes.

47:48 13, verse 17. Yes. The whole story. Yes.

47:52 So that's that thing in itself. When you tabulate, I can't pull up the exact numbers, but if you take throughout the Gospel of Mark, any grouping of 20 verses, say you will average within 20 verses, 8 chais or 10 chais, that average considerably drops when you come into this grouping of verses. It doesn't totally disappear, but it considerably, but it considerably drops as well as I believe the use of his word straightway, euthus. And so that's why, again, that cannot, any one factor of internal evidence cannot be used as conclusive.

48:33 It must be a cumulative thing. Vocabulary enters into it. Stylistic elements that enter in. And so it's a combination of factors and many times, that's why there's an element, of subjectivity, sight is in the eye of the beholder.

48:53 And one must be very careful about being dogmatic on these matters. But I think if you'll just read the tabulated section that Hendrickson has, you'll find it very, very helpful. And of course, Hendrickson's reverent commitment to the inerrancy of the word of God is so impeccably established that no one could ever accuse him of being irrational, nationalist, or liberal, et cetera. So I think you'd find that helpful for anyone to pursue that further.

49:24 Yes, Pastor Nichols. Can I just answer Elmer's question?

49:31 The first, the second, if you look at the ASV, those who have the ASV, the second major section would be verse 12, you see a paragraph of the ASV. The third major section would be verse 14, you see a paragraph, you see a paragraph, you see a paragraph, you see a paragraph, you see a paragraph of the ASV. The next major section would be verse 19, you see a paragraph of the ASV. Now you see verse 12 begins in the English translation with and, verse 14 begins in the English translation, and, however, in the Greek, the word chi is not used in those verses.

50:06 Yeah, I meant to bring my Greek text thinking there might be some questions. I'm glad you have yours. Verse 12 begins with verse 14 begins also with the word chi, but there's a question as to whether there's even a debt in there. It's in brackets in my Greek New Testament.

50:23 And verse 19 begins with so that it's not it's not the use of time. Yeah, so here you have a translational problem and that's why we go back to the matter of in some of these things one must be dealing in the original in order to be able to perceive those differences. And that's where they really leap out. As I said, they did for me as a second year Greek student, and having lived with 12 to 14 verses three times a week in Mark, when I came in, I just felt like I was it's like coming home and your wife didn't tell you she's rearranging the furniture.

51:01 The basic furniture is there, but I mean, it just you're disoriented. You say something's not right. And so that could be a little bit misleading in the English. Yes.

51:12 It's translated in some ways in the Greek for advice, huh? Yeah. Okay. Well, if I may just add this little aside, you see, now do you see why God has instituted an official teaching office in his church while in no way undermining anything that I preached a couple of weeks ago out of Matthew 23 of your responsibility to stand before God with his word.

51:40 When you get into some of these things, the necessity for having the kind of background and training that will help you make a man competent to make some of these judgments is vital if there's to be a biblically accurate ministry. And I hope that's becoming clear as we carry on our discussion. And I do not claim to be a scholar in these things. I'm just an old meat and taters preacher.

52:05 I hope I have sufficient knowledge to do that responsibly, but I am by no means a scholar in these things and I don't want to give the impression that I am because that just ain't, excuse me, that just is not so.

52:22 Picking up bad habits by the example of others.

52:33 For those of you who weren't here, that's an in-joke. One of the public preachers to help something stick last week used the word ain't and so we're just having a little innocent by-play, that's all. All right. Further questions.

Discussion: Unique Details and Oral Tradition

52:50 We've got one, two more minutes left.

52:55 Well, if not, then I do trust. Yes. There's a question.

53:01 Yes, David. Yes, David. In verse 14, I hear a prayer. I come up with the other gospel and it's the other gospel where Jesus got down to the 11th.

53:20 He had a great event.

53:25 Yeah. The other time, he didn't get a great deal so he pulled him back. Yes. He didn't get a great deal.

53:35 Yes.

53:44 Now, that would be what I would call an inconsequential detail whether he upbraided just the two or then he upbraided others. The great issue was that they did not believe what the scriptures had said concerning the necessity of his death prior to his entering into his glory. So, I don't know. I didn't mean to give the impression that there is no thought whatsoever introduced here that is unique to the passage.

54:16 But I said there's no major issue, no major doctrine, no major element in the life, history, and ministry of the Lord Jesus that is not to be found elsewhere. And you do find him on the road to Emmaus saying to those two fools and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have said. And likewise, when he has those private appearances of be not faithless but believing and he shows himself to Thomas, it may be on that occasion that there was further upbraiding. And some of this may well have come from the oral tradition.

54:54 See, I'm not saying that what is in these verses may not have happened and was part of the oral tradition. The question is, is it part of the oral tradition that the Holy Spirit moved Mark to write as the Word of God? Because John says there are many other things Jesus did. And if we try to write them all down, the books would fill the world.

55:18 So we're not saying that this contains false statements. They may all be true statements. That's not the question. Because the oral tradition, as we taught in our introductory sermons on Mark, is not all embodied in any one or all of the Gospels.

55:36 And we have the very statement of John, to that effect. Well, our time is gone, but I hope this has been helpful. And as we talked about this matter as elders, we felt that dealing with this was far more appropriate to a class. So now, God willing, when we come into the next hour and I preach from Matthew 28, it will be more of a devotional preaching unto edification rather than wrestling with some of these more technical things.

Conclusion and Prayer

56:05 But I hope this has been helpful to you. And, if any of you have any questions, if in any way the devil uses anything we've said to create the slightest doubt of your confidence in the Word of God, please come to us. We're not going to treat you like you're some kind of second cousin to the devil. We want to help you.

56:26 So please, please, feel free to come and we will help you at the point that we're able to. Well, let's pray and thank God for His presence with us.

56:37 Father, we are, so grateful that You've given us Your Word. And we do believe with all of our hearts that the sum of Your Word is truth. And while we confess that in seeking to ascertain precisely every single word that You originally inspired, we do occasionally encounter difficulties, how we praise You that the portion of Your Word over which there is any question is so, so minute compared to that concerning which there is absolute certainty that we this day can rejoice that we have a revelation that is able to make us completely furnished unto every good work. Bless then the matters we've considered today. May we be strengthened in our faith. May we be enlarged in our capacity to be gracious where legitimate differences, exist among those who truly love You and lead us continually in the path of truth and righteousness we ask in Jesus' name.

57:49 Amen. Amen.