Unpicking a Misleading Meme on Mark 16 (Part 1)

INTRODUCTORY NOTE: This article does not argue one way or the other as to whether Mark 16:9-20 was originally part of the Biblical text. Helpful articles both for and against are available on the Text & Canon website. The concern of this post is about the accuracy of a recent Facebook post on a page with 123,000 followers — some of which is simply wrong, some of which is misleading, and all of which would require the rejection of other parts of the Textus Receptus, if the same arguments were applied consistently.

Introduction: The TBS and their Holy Mission

A couple of months ago, I bumped into someone who works for the Trinitarian Bible Society. He had preached for me in the past, though I hadn't seen him for years. It was lovely to catch up. He was telling me about some of the TBS's Bible translation work, and seeing thousands of people queueing up to get Bibles translated into their language for the first time. Who wouldn't rejoice in that? I in turn told him about our congregation's recent Bible distribution for World Book Day, and the man who came to church as a result.

However, when it comes to the TBS's work promoting the King James Version, and attacking other versions — even those based on the Textus Receptus — I have deep concerns.

Mark Ward — who routinely calls the TBS one of the "most responsible" KJV-only organisations — has recently described a 38,000 word "take down" of the NKJV on their website as "malicious" and full of "wilful misunderstanding" and "bizarre misinterpretations" of the NKJV translators' motives. He previously described it as "divisive character assassination covered with the veneer of philology":

It's divisive because what can readers who lack the capacity to read Greek and Hebrew, which is the great majority of Christians, what can they really do with his deluge of character assassination covered with the veneer of philology? They can only look askance at their brother's Bibles. They can only tribalize on a basis that they can't really know is faulty. They can only fill the internet with false and inflammatory memes.

He concludes:

Their mission to get the Bible to the nations is all important. But slander and untruth will not serve that holy mission.

Is Ward right? At the very least I think we can say that many of their materials seem more concerned with promoting an agenda than with accuracy. But we could also point to a number of statements which are simply untrue and should be corrected.

I will give examples of both kinds before introducing and analysing the meme in question.

"They did not question"

In our concluding post we will have reason to touch on 1 Timothy 3:16. Should it read "God was manifested in the flesh" or "He was manifested in the flesh"? To quote from a TBS booklet:

Many modern scholars insist, with the Unitarian Vance Smith, that misguided piety prompted some early copyists or their later correctors to insert these two distinguishing strokes in 1 Timothy 3.16 to make the verse testify to the deity of Christ.

The TBS imply that this perspective originated with modern scholars. But more than that, they specifically say:

The scholars responsible for the earlier Greek editions found “God was manifested” in practically all the manuscripts at their disposal, and they did not question that this was the true reading (emphasis mine).

Really? One of the scholars they mention in their next sentence was Erasmus. And what does he say in his annotation on the verse?

I suspect that 'God' was added against the Arian heretics. [1]

This information isn't hard to find. Luther (who says "I should prefer to have the ancient text ... rather than the reading “God was manifested") mentions in his commentary that "Some say that this was added because of the Arians". Calvin specifically names Erasmus as "on [the] side" of "leaving out the name of God".

The TBS says that the scholars who put together the TR did not question it. Erasmus — who shaped the TR far more than anyone else — most certainly did.

If the TBS were genuinely unaware of Erasmus's comments, I hope they will now correct the booklet I have quoted from, rather than let a false statement stand.

Politically Incorrect Words Removed?

In a recent TBS booklet, Christian McShaffrey claims that modern versions remove "politically incorrect words like hell, devils, sodomite, effeminate, damned, damnation, etc". This would of course be a surprise to someone who has read modern versions and found that they very much do use the word hell, and other politically incorrect words.

Yes there are places that the KJV uses "Hell" and modern versions use "the grave", etc. But in doing so at Psalm 16:10, for example, the modern versions actually match the Geneva Bible and the Scottish Metrical Psalter. "The grave" is simply a better translation for a prophecy of the resurrection of Christ's body. To insinuate that a change like that is due to political correctness is simply wrong. Are we to say that TBS Bibles with the 1650 Psalter at the back contain a politically correct Psalter which removes the word hell? If we are to judge it by the same standard as the they judge modern versions, we must.

Similarly, the ESV changes "effeminate" to the more accurate "men who practice homosexuality" at 1 Cor 6:9, because that's what the verse is talking about. And it's actually the New King James that has "sodomites" instead of the KJV's much more obscure "abusers of themselves with mankind". Why not call the KJV politically correct for weakening the Geneva Bible's "buggerers"? Why not suggest that such a word offended the Anglican sensibilities of the KJV translators?

When it comes to evil spirits, modern translations use "demon" rather than "devil", reflecting the fact that the underlying Greek words are different: there is only one devil. But the word devil is still used to refer to Satan. (For a fuller critique, see Mark Ward's video on the booklet).

For another example of a TBS statement that only tells part of the story, let me quote from my recent journal article about Textual Criticism in the Free Church Fathers.

Scrivener and the Missing Preface

In the section below I compare what the TBS say about the origins of F. H. A. Scrivener's Textus Receptus (which they republish) with the actual reason for it being published.

'The only Textus Receptus (TR) editions in print today are republications of the 1881/1894 TR produced by another Anglican, F. H. A. Scrivener. The most well-known is published by the Trinitarian Bible Society (TBS), but with Scrivener’s original preface (and appendix) removed. In its place, the TBS add their own preface which claims:

In the nineteenth century, numerous scholars set out to produce Greek texts which would reflect new principles of textual criticism…and resulted in a new English Version, the English Revised Version of 1881. Late in the century, F. H. A. Scrivener went against this trend.

What they fail to note, however, is that Scrivener himself was on the Revision Committee, that his work was a companion volume to the Revised Version, and that he agreed with his fellow Revisers over against the TR in many places. The TBS preface implies that Scrivener published the TR because he agreed with it or wanted to promote it. The real reason is quite different. Rather, he compiled it because the revisers had been charged to note alterations from the Authorised Version. It was decided, however, that rather than “crowd and obscure the margin of the Revised Version”, it would be best to note changes in a separate volume. To do so, Scrivener tells us in the omitted preface, the Greek text “presumed to underlie the Authorised Version” had to be produced for the first time. This was necessary as:

The Authorised Version was not a translation of any one Greek text then in existence, and no Greek text intended to reproduce in any way the original of the Authorised Version has ever been printed.

Scrivener's TR, therefore, is a reverse-engineered Greek text, based on the text critical choices of an English translation, the KJV. Places where the Revisers disagreed with it were marked in the text and with footnotes, though these are removed in the TBS edition. While differing in some respects from his fellow revisers, Scrivener’s aim had not changed since 1845. He “hope[d] to purge the received text of its grosser corruptions, and to approach more nearly to the Apostolic autographs.” Examples of those "grosser corruptions" include the “Johannine Comma”, which the TBS spends much energy trying to defend, but of which Scrivener said was “probably no longer regarded as genuine by any one who is capable of forming an independent judgment on the state of the evidence.”'

(For an extended critique of the TBS's treatment of Scrivener, by someone who knows more about the KJV and Scrivener than most people alive today, see Tim Berg's article: The Preface To The Greek TR Of F.H.A. Scrivener)

This brings us to a recent social media post which contains the four images reproduced below.

Unpicking the Post

First up — I'm not aware of any Bibles that "omit" any part of Mark 16. I've checked the Revised Version (1881), RSV, NIV, ESV, NLT, NASB, NET Bible, and more. I assume — and I think that readers will assume — that the claim refers to English Bibles. But even if we extend it to Greek ones, not even the "Critical Text", whether of today or Westcott & Hort's day, omit it.

Yes, part of it is usually included within square brackets — but it's not omitted, or even relegated to a footnote.

The TBS should provide evidence of which Bibles omit any part of Mark 16 — or else post a correction.

Indeed, even if there were Bibles that stopped at Mark 16:8, they would still contain Mark 16 — just a shorter (and, arguably, more accurate version of it).

The real question, therefore, is whether Mark 16 should conclude at verse 8, or whether it should finish with the "Shorter Ending" or the "Longer Ending".

So there are actually three options. The KJV (along with almost all modern versions) omits the Shorter Ending, which reads as follows:

"And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. Amen."

(Most modern versions will contain the Shorter Ending in a footnote, and the NLT includes it in their main text. So modern versions actually include more text in Mark 16 than the KJV — whether in their main text or in the footnotes.)

What they should have asked

A more accurate question, still arguing from the TR perspective, would be to say:

"Some Bible translations contain notes questioning the originality of Mark 16:9-20. Why do they do this?"

Though at the same time, someone arguing against the originality of Mark 16:9-20 could flip the question on its head. Biblical manuscripts (ie the handwritten copies which our printed editions come from) which don't contain Mark 16:9-20 were once someone's (or a community's) Bible. So the question is more:

"Why does an English Bible translation produced in 1611 contain extra text that isn't in the two oldest Greek Bibles we have (which are almost a millennium older than the manuscripts the KJV is based on)?"

"An unsettling note"

Is stating facts unsettling?

Is it unsettling that the KJV contains the following note at Luke 17:36?

This 36th verse is wanting [missing] in most of the Greek copies

Those are genuine questions that I would like the TBS to answer.

We are often told that modern versions "cast doubt" on God's word by including textual footnotes (the TBS level that claim at the NKJV here). Why is the KJV never accused of doing the same?

Pooyan Mehrshahi, a regular speaker for the TBS, asks:

"How can we put our trust in a Bible which questions the authenticity of certain verses within its own pages?" [2]

And yet the KJV questions the authenticity of a verse within its own pages. Should we then not trust the KJV? By such logic, we should not.

An "unsettling note" was already there in a key manuscript used to produce the Textus Receptus

One of the few manuscripts used by Erasmus to produce the Textus Receptus — dated to the 12th century — contains the following note after Mark 16:8:

“In some of the copies, the evangelist finishes here, up to which (point) also Eusebius of Pamphilus made canon sections. But in many the following is also contained.”

Why does the TBS post make it sound as if notes like this originated with modern Bible versions, when copies of Mark's gospel have had similar notes for a thousand years, and more?

Eusebius — who is the first person footnoted in the second TBS booklet quoted above — lived from AD 260/265 to AD 339. So what's quoted above is a 12th century note pointing out that someone living in the 3rd/4th centuries did not regard what we today call Mark 9:16-20 as Scripture.

In fact, when asked about an apparent contradiction between Matthew 28:1 and Mark 16:9 , Eusebius noted in his reply that both "the accurate" copies and "nearly all" the copies ended at v. 8. [3]

"The issue stems from..."

"The issue" presumably refers to the doubt that modern versions express about Mark 16:9-20. And yet in light of the above, it is misleading to say that the issue "stems from" knowledge of two fourth century manuscripts (even if we set aside Minuscule 304, from the 12th century, which also ends at Mark 16:8).

Even if Sinaiticus and Vaticanus had never been discovered, all it would have taken for "the issue" to be there was for someone to have translated and printed the note from Erasmus's minuscule 1.

In fact, the issue was already there long before that. People knew about the comments of Jerome, the great fourth-century Bible translator: "nearly all the Greek manuscripts do not have this section to the end". [4]

Indeed:

"At least 23 Greek manuscripts that include Mark 16:9–20 also have anomalies like extra endings or notes that express doubts concerning the authenticity of these verses". [5]

And that's before we get to evidence from other languages.

To say that the issue stems from just two Greek manuscripts is therefore misleading. "The issue" had been around before the text of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus were known. As one recent analysis of the history puts it:

"The moment Codex Vaticanus enters the discussion [Sinaiticus would come later], it does not tip the balance in favour of a Gospel ending with 16:8, but merely intensifies the problem. Therefore, to see Birch's publications [in 1785 & 1788 - reporting its absence in Vaticanus] as the turning point of this issue does not seem to be historically accurate. It is another building block to the century-long debate." [6]

Even before he knew that Vaticanus lacked what we call verses 9-20, Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745-1812) said of v. 9: "This and the remaining verses of Mark are dubious".

Indeed such was the knowledge of "the issue", that for the above-mentioned Danish scholar Andreas Birch (1758-1829), the absence of it in Codex Vaticanus was evidence, not primarily that the Longer Ending wasn't original, but that Vaticanus was really old. As Krans and Yi summarise: "[I]t must be very ancient since this omission confirms the information given by Jerome and (indirectly) by the Eusebian Canons". [7]

Even if it did stem from two manuscripts

Even if the issue of doubt over Mark 16:8-20 did stem from Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, would that TR editors have had a problem with updating their text to reflect that?

Erasmus (the first and primary TR editor) famously inserted the Johannine Comma (one of the TR's "grosser corruptions" according to Scrivener) in his third edition, because one Greek manuscript appeared that contained it.

If he revised the TR at that place based on new evidence (even evidence he suspected had been manufactured), what's to say he wouldn't have done the same here?

Indeed, while these articles will not argue against the Majority/Byzantine text, it is worth noting that our Reformed forefathers didn't see minority readings as a problem. For example, John Calvin says of the Majority (and TR) reading of "Spirit" (supported by 93.9% of manuscripts) instead of "light" at Ephesians 5:9:

I wonder how the word Spirit (πνεύματος) has crept into many Greek manuscripts, as the other reading is more consistent,—the fruit of the light.

Or as Luther put it:

Because he is here talking about light, it would sound better if he had said “the fruit of the light” (as the Latin books have it), rather than “the fruit of the Spirit” (as the Greek books have it). Who knows whether it was changed in the Greek because he wrote to the Galatians about “the fruit of the Spirit”. 

In another TBS booklet, the difference between Ephesians 5:9 in the KJV and most modern versions is listed as one of the textual changes which "alter[s] the structure of Scripture". Whereas according to the great Free Church theologian Robert Candlish: "the verse should run [light], not 'of the Spirit,' as in the received text".

Even today, just 5.4% of manuscripts support the reading preferred by Calvin, Luther and Candlish — and this includes manuscripts like Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, whose readings were not available to Luther or Calvin.

"Only two fourth-century manuscripts"

To be precise, two is only the number of Greek manuscripts. The earliest manuscripts in Old Latin, Syriac, Sahidic, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Armenian, and Georgian, all end at 16:8. [8]

"Many modern scholars often cite"

They do; but they also cite far more evidence — notes in manuscripts that contain the longer ending, church fathers, early translations into other languages, etc. And then there's the internal evidence which suggests that the longer ending of Mark is an awkward fit which "draws upon parallel material in the other gospels".

In fact, such is the apparent change between Mark 16:8 and what follows that even one of the most recent defences of the Longer Ending hypothesises that Mark:

"unintentionally stopped writing his gospel account in 16:8 due to a permanent interruption (likely persecution)" and that it was completed by his colleagues, attaching material that Mark had previously written for a different occasion ("perhaps for Roman churches to use at Easter").

The above quotation is from someone who believes that Mark 16:9-20 is "original, authentic, and canonical". And yet he also points to "compelling evidence" that these verses were not Mark's original intended ending, including:

• The reintroduction of Mary Magdalene (as if she hadn't just been mentioned in 15:40, 47, and 16:1).
• The restating of the day and time (in v. 9, when it has already been mentioned in v. 2).
• The sudden absence of those who accompanied Mary Magdalene in 16:8.

To be continued...

[1] Cited in Jan Krans, Beyond what is written: Erasmus and Beza as conjectural critics of the New Testament (Leiden and Boston, 2006), p. 314, n. 166.

[2] Pooyan Mehrshahi, ‘The Christian Bible Can Be Trusted’ in Why I Preach from the Received Text (Winter Springs, FL: 2022), p. 148.

[3] cited in Amy M. Donaldson, 'Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings among Greek and Latin Church Fathers' (PhD thesis, University of Notre Dame), ii, p. 398.

[4] Ibid, p. 402.

[5] https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/was-mark-16-9-20-originally-mark-gospel/

[6] Jan Krans and An-Ting Yi, 'Trajectories in the History of Textual Scholarship on Mark's Endings: A Reconsideration', in COMst, viii, no. 2 (2022), p. 726.

[7] Ibid., p. 724.

[8] https://textandcanon.org/a-case-against-the-longer-ending-of-mark/