Is Mark 16:9-20 Authentic?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Mark 16:9-20, John 8, Acts 28, Luke 10

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--is-mark-16-9-20-authentic
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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that's an important question and what we're talking about is what's known as textual criticism so let me answer by explaining what textual criticism is and then we'll go back to these two passages of scripture and for a detailed discussion I have a book called God's infallible word which is available at Pentecostal publishing.com and it covers things such as the inspiration of scripture the Canon you know what books belong in the Bible uh the text which is what we're talking about now how was the text transmitted over the centuries copied by hand and are there errors how do we know what is the original text and then translation how do we know what's a good translation and so forth and of course I take the position the Bible is God's word it's completely true in everything that it teaches us uh but the question of textual criticism is this we for the Old Testament uh we have uh you know books that were written thousands of years ago even for the New Testament there the books are written approximately 2,000 years ago and they were copied by hand because we didn't have modern uh printing or duplication and so when you copy a huge manuscript by hand there's likely going to be some small errors so how do you know if uh and to compound the problem the oldest manuscripts that we have so say for the Old Testament or are about a thousand years old so that means they're couple thousand years later than the original so there could be 2,000 years of transmission where we don't really know we we can't independently attest what happened then for the New Testament the situation is much much better but still we would have manuscripts say from the 300s 400s and later so you're still a couple hundred years from the original so how do you know what errors crept in so the study of textual criticism is trying to find out what is the original text and for most cases it's fairly straightforward uh now I I'll make some generalizations but for the Old Testament we have relatively few manuscripts but the ones we have were were copied with extraordinary Care by Jewish scribes and when I say extraordinary they would do things like counting every single letter on this portion of the scroll and noting it so that when they made a copy and they would count if they accidentally missed or added a letter the count would be off and so they they took almost fanatical care to double check triple check do all kind of numerical studies to make sure they had an accurate text um so our confidence in the Old Testament rest to a great extent on the extreme extraordinary care of the ancient Jewish scribes but also the um discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940s 50s and so forth we found Scrolls from the Dead Sea that were a thousand years older than what we had and so in one moment we could compare a thousand years of copying what did it do and what we found is the manuscripts we have are highly reliable that they were almost identical and where they were changes is mostly spelling or obvious errors or obvious changes that don't affect meaning now with the New Testament uh not all scribes were so careful you can see many errors however we have over 5,000 manuscripts of the Greek New Testament far more than any other ancient book of the time and we have a fragment we have fragments from the 2 Century there's one fragment from the Gospel of John that's possibly only 20 years after the book was written so in contrast to every other ancient book we have far more manuscripts of the Bible and we have much earlier manuscripts of the Bible so we can have a high degree of confidence so yes if you compare 5,000 manuscripts and that includes portions not total uh yeah you can see errors but just as a simplistic thing let's say two manuscripts have a different word in a certain place how do you know which is original well if a 100 manuscripts have the word and only one manuscript is different it's pretty obvious well that one guy made a mistake probably probably a hundred people didn't make a mistake probably one guy made a mistake so uh textual critics have developed a series of rules like this to how do you know which reading is more accurate so for all practical purposes we can get back to the original text just by using these scientific methods far more than any other book so for example whatever you have read about Caesar or whatever you've read about Roman history or Greek history um we those are based on a relatively few manuscripts much later so uh if if we discount the Bible's textual criticisms we would have to say everything you've ever read about Roman history Greek history is far more likely to be bogus because we have far more evidence for the text of the New Testament than any other historical book from that time or before now having said all that uh so in principle there could be um in in the New Testament there could be some phrases uh that maybe weren't original and that really disturbs some people and but the modern translations usually um will point that out and they will point if there's a phrase that was omitted or they feel like doesn't belong there they will put a footnote so you still have that phrase and some people you know get very indignant about this discussion but if you just step back and take a a look no Doctrine is affected by any of these question questionable phrases and in almost every case if one of the modern translations omits a phrase because they say it wasn't original what you usually find the same phrase or very close to it is in another place so it's not as if the statement is never made it's just a question of did a scribe add it somewhere did a scribe duplicate it so the error is not really one of should this concept be there the error is is it should be a this location or that location or is it repeated or and so really you not only are all the major doctrines of the Bible amply supported by the Undisputed text but even the phrases and comments um are going to be supported throughout the text but you pointed out two of the biggest questions where entire an entire passage is under dispute and I would say based on my study I do believe that the ending of Mark should be recognized and I do believe the story in John 8 which is the story of the woman caught in adultery should be there so in both cases I believe that a scholarly yet conservative approach to to textual criticism would say yes these two should remain in the text the issue for them is uh they're they're not present in two or three of the oldest manuscripts although they are present in the majority of manuscripts so the thought is well the earlier ones should be um respected more than the lighter ones that are their are copies and that is an involved study which I do give all the evidence in my book God's infallible word but here's what I think is going on in Mark 16 if you didn't have that long ending it would end with the women coming to the tomb they find their tomb they find the angel saying he's risen he's not here and the women were frightened and that would be the end of the book it seems highly unlikely that the book would end on a note of fear and even though it mentions Christ's Resurrection it doesn't give his appearance so the climactic moment of the Gospel is gone so just on based on internal evidence I would say surely that can't be the end of Mark so maybe in in in some of the an text maybe a a portion the last page was cut off so to speak the last part of the scroll got damaged and so maybe when somebody copied it they had an incomplete copy so I can see where a few early copies could have ended up not having it but I believe that God would have preserved uh the text he would have kept his hand on it so that if there really is an ending it would have been just completely lost to to scholarship and when you study the ending of Mark it seems like the critics that are quick to to jump on it's because they really don't like the content so yes there is textual evidence but they're quick to jump to that evidence because it talks about miracles and signs it talks about speaking in tongues and uh Divine Healing and then there's this little statement they'll take up serpents and uh and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them and so because the vast majority of critics have no experience with the supernatural speaking in tongues Miracle signs wonders it's it's embarrassing to keep it in and it's easy to say you know what we don't like it of course my point there would be um once you get rid of an anti-s Supernatural bias it it make it's much more reasonable at it and even respected textual critics probably the most respected uh conservative text CRI Bruce Meer said well even though we don't have complete evidence that it was there in the ending of Mark we do find it so many times um in so many ways and by the time the councils actually there were councils that decided which books belong in the Bible and by the time those councils met that ending was already there so he feels like even though maybe it's questionable as to whether it was supposed to be at that location we should still accept it uh even if it was maybe some say Mark might have written his gospel and ended it early but then someone else wrote it but also under inspiration to finish it so he feels like it should still be accepted even though the question of who wrote it or what place it should be in might be open to scholarly dispute and I would simply say as far as taking up serpents it certainly is not talking about the practice of some Appalachian churches of picking up rattles Stakes to prove you have faith that'll make a lot of people a lot of people feel a lot better about I think it's it's not talking about you know the Bible tells us clearly we're not supposed to tempt God so even when the devil tried to tempt Jesus uh you know Jump Off The Pinacle of the temple and the angels will catch you and he quoted scripture for that and Jesus said don't tempt the Lord your God so yes angels will protect you but that doesn't mean you should run out in traffic and see if the angels are going to protect us from getting hit so that is so yes as in Acts 28 uh Paul was picking up sticks to make a fire and and a poisonous snake came out and bit him and everybody thought he would die but he just shook it off in the fire and God protected him that would be a perfect example uh not that you should deliberately handle snakes but if you get accidentally bitten or you get accidentally poisoned just like you trust God for healing you trust God for protection uh I I think that's an easy explanation for that passage and in addition uh in Luke chapter 10 Jesus said I give you power over serpents and scorpions and all the power of the enemy and clearly in that that context he was talking about spiritually so there could really be a spiritual application that he's talking more about in the same context of Mark it says you'll cast out demons so he could be talking about uh you will be able to overcome you know evil spirits serpent Spirits so either way both physically and uh spiritually there's a perfectly good understanding of the ending of Mark that fits the rest of the New Testament and and by the way if you want a fulllength book scholarly book that goes to great detail to explain why the ending should be there uh Nicholas Lun l u n n the original ending of Mark so I do believe we should accept the long ending of Mark as part of scripture the other passage John 8 it's really interesting because it's it's similar evidence in fact there's I think a little more textual evidence for the ending of Mark even than than the passage in John 8 and what you find it sometimes is in John 8 sometimes it's in Luke sometimes other places so there is some doubt as to where it really fit in but there the critics are much nicer and they will say something like well even though we're not sure if it was originally part of John um or maybe it was written separately but we do think it's an authentic uh story from Jesus probably written by some disciple probably inspired and maybe they later stuck it in John maybe somebody else suck it in Luke so maybe that's why it wasn't or in some of these ancient texts because it was written on its own but we should still accept it and of course because it's such a beautiful statement of divine forgiveness that you'd hate to take it out but actually the textual evidence is about the same and uh so my summary is textual criticism is a legitimate study uh we shouldn't just uh ignore it it is important but it's mostly for the experts it doesn't make a whole lot of difference for practical theology but those two passages are significant and I would argue they should be retained in the scripture