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Are the Last Twelve Verses of
Mark Really Mark’s?
Jeffrey Khoo
“The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not
have Mark 16:9-20” so says the NIV superscript. Its Study Bible goes on to
say, “serious doubt exists as to whether these verses belong to the Gospel
of Mark. They are absent from important early manuscripts and display
certain peculiarities of vocabulary, style and theological content that
are unlike the rest of Mark. His Gospel probably ended at 16:8, . . .”
Here is another NIV attempt at scission. Practically every modern English
version would insert this doubt over the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20. It
is only the KJV which accepts it without question.
We affirm the authenticity of the last 12 verses of Mark together with
Dean J W Burgon who wrote a scholarly 350-page defence of those celebrated
verses. Burgon argued that the codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus which are
said by many to be “most reliable” are actually “most corrupt.” Burgon
wrote, “Recent Editors of the New Testament insist that these ‘last Twelve
Verses’ are not genuine. . . . I am as convinced as I am of my life, that
the reverse is the truth. . . . I insist, on the contrary, that the
Evidence relied on is untrustworthy,--untrustworthy in every particular. .
. . I am able to prove that this portion of the Gospel has been declared
to be spurious on wholly mistaken grounds.”
Furthermore, there is abundant manuscript evidence supporting the
authenticity of Mark 16:9-20. E F Hills wrote, “They [Mark 16:9-20] are
found in all the Greek manuscripts except Aleph [i.e. Sinaiticus], and
B
[i.e. Vaticanus], . . . And more important, they were quoted as Scripture
by early Church Fathers who lived one hundred and fifty years before B
and
Aleph were written, namely, Justin Martyr (c. 150), Tatian (c. 175),
Irenaeus (c. 180), Hyppolytus (c. 200). Thus the earliest extant testimony
is on the side of these last twelve verses.”
How about the allegation that the last twelve verses are non-Marcan
because of the difference in literary style? Metzger, for instance, argues
against the last twelve verses because there are therein 17 words new to
the Gospel of Mark. Such an argument is often fallacious because it
wrongly assumes that an author has only one uniform style of writing. In
any case, Burgon, after a careful comparison of Mark’s first twelve verses
with his last twelve verses, concluded, “It has been proved . . . on the
contrary, the style of S. Mark xvi. 9-20 is exceedingly like the style of
S. Mark i. 9-20; and therefore, that it is rendered probable by the Style
that the Author of the beginning of this Gospel was also the Author of the
end of it. . . . these verses must needs be the work of S. Mark.”
Recommended Reference: John William Burgon,
The Last Twelve Verses of
Mark (Oxford, London: James Parker, 1871, reprinted in 1983 by The Bible
For Today); D A Waite, Dean John William Burgon’s Vindication of the Last
Twelve Verses of Mark (Collingswood, NJ: The Bible For Today, 1994); and
Edward F Hills, The King James Version Defended (Des Moines, IA: The
Christian Research Press, 1984), 159-68.
Dr Jeffrey Khoo is the academic dean of Far Eastern Bible College.
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