6.2 Beyond the King James Version

Mondays I am writing about my journey with Scripture in college, seminary, and beyond. Earlier posts are at the bottom. The previous post started chapter 5, "Adventures with the King James Version."
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5. I did not change my mind about the King James version over night. I wrestled with the question for about a year and a half after that college paper before I finally accepted the scholarly consensus.

For one thing, I wasn't sure who to believe about the manuscripts. In the 1978 version of the NIV, there was a note in a couple places that went like this: "The earliest and most reliable manuscripts do not have verses..." It was a bold claim. It said that the further back in history you go, the less you find these verses in the handwritten copies of the New Testament.

More recent editions of the NIV have softened the tone a little. So with regard to John we now find this note: "The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53—8:11." This is the story of the woman caught in adultery. It does not appear in the oldest Greek manuscripts of John.

Whaat???

6. You can see how unsettling notes like these were at first. You'd grown up with the King James Version. You'd heard this story of the woman caught in adultery your whole life. As a pastor, maybe you'd preached from this story your whole ministry. And now some new Bible implies it doesn't belong in the Bible.

I heard a sermon on the woman caught in adultery this past year. And I still from time to time hear people quote the Great Commission from Mark 16:15 (as opposed to Matthew 28's version). I don't usually point out to them that the verse probably wasn't part of Mark originally. But there's the note in the NIV2011 of Mark 16: "The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have verses 9–20."

I get it. It looks sinister. "They're cutting verses out of the Bible," people said and then invoked the condemnations of Revelation 22:18-19 about removing things from the book. [1] A book came out in 1993 called New Age Bible Versions that was extremely convincing if you didn't know anything about the subject. [2] By the time it came out, I was starting my doctorate and knew a fair amount of the debate so I found it pretty funny. 

For example, it tries to malign a famous Bible scholar from the late 1800s because he wrote in his journal that he liked to have evening strolls talking about "metaphysics." The author didn't know what metaphysics is in philosophy, which is clearly what this scholar meant. But she assumed he was talking about spirit guides and the kinds of spiritualist trends that were taking place in the 90s. 

I had a really good laugh about that one. But on a much more serious note, she suggested some translators of the NIV got Alzheimer's as God's judgment on them. This book had immense impact among those who didn't really understand the subject.

7. What you should realize is that scholars are not trying to take verses out. They have concluded that verses like the longer ending of Mark and the story of the woman caught in adultery were added in during the first few centuries of Christianity. It is natural for us to think of the King James Version (KJV) as old and the NIV as relatively young (not so much any more). But when we are talking about the handwritten copies they are translated from, the NIV Greek manuscripts are older than the KJV ones -- generally much older.

The 1611 King James Version was good scholarship for its day. But we now have manuscripts that are 1000 years older than the ones they used. This is just another example of tradition resisting change. You grow up with a faith that involves a mixture of gold and hay, but it's hard to realize which is which. You feel like someone is attacking your faith when they are only refining it. It's perfectly understandable.

The tradition of the Greek behind the KJV was so strong that it prevailed long after scholars realized that it wasn't likely as original as the older manuscripts that were being discovered in the 1800s. It was two individuals in particular -- B. F. Westcott and Fenton Hort -- who finally managed to dislodge the Greek "textus receptus" behind the KJV in Greek editions of the New Testament.

They did focus their argument on two key manuscripts that dated from the early 300s. One was found in the Vatican, called Codex Vaticanus. The other was found at a monastery on the Sinai peninsula -- Codex Sinaiticus. Mind you, even earlier Greek manuscripts have been discovered since then, and they largely support the readings of these two.

I grew up with these two men being demonized -- Westcott and Hort. Books like the New Age Versions of the Bible seemed to think that they could undermine the newer versions of the Bible if they could malign Westcott and Hort (and apparently the translators of the NIV). This is called the ad hominem fallacy -- where you attack the people rather than making an actual argument.

But Westcott and Hort only systematized what most experts of the biblical text already thought at the time. And, as I mentioned, even earlier manuscripts have since been found.

8. I should note, there were some very educated hold outs in favor of the traditional Greek text, the "textus receptus" or "received text." In the late 1800s, John Burgon argued that the manuscripts Westcott and Hort most relied on were corrupted manuscripts. F. H.A. Scrivener argued similarly. In the mid-1900s, E. F. Hills wrote a book called The King James Defended that I already mentioned.

In this present time, there are Majority Text scholars who are quite knowledgeable of the manuscripts and who have some very clever arguments against the majority. Indeed, in this reactionary moment in history with so much information at our fingertips, I sense a possible resurgence of cleverly argued "Greek behind the King James" support. We are living in an upside down time, a decade of unreason and irrationality.

9. Let me return to my own pilgrimage. After I became committed to the truth rather than tradition, I still didn't know what to make of the manuscript situation. After all, Burgon could have been right that Sinaiticus and Vaticanus were bad manuscripts. "Maybe that's why they have survived," it occurred to me. "Because no one used them."

Interestingly, modern manuscript studies that are based on computer analysis have seemed to undermine to some extent the families and grouping of manuscripts that I studied in college and seminary. [3] When I took a course in textual criticism with Bob Lyon at Asbury, we heard about the Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine manuscript traditions. 

In my mind, I reduced them to 1) manuscripts that were like Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, 2) manuscripts that were like Codex Bezae, including many Latin manuscripts, and 3) all the medieval manuscripts that pretty much read the same way. The first group, I would later concede, had readings that were most likely original.

But to be frank, I didn't put as much stock in it as many did. It seemed to me like some wanted to systematize things a little too much. It was more of a trendline than anything you could absolutely depend on.

Majority Text scholars like James Snapp argue extensively from quotations by the church fathers and from early translations of the New Testament into other languages. This is very clever. It is to say, "There may not be early Greek manuscripts that support the traditional reading, but here's an early quote of it from so and so, and here is an early Syriac manuscript with it." Of course, you have to do textual criticism on the manuscripts of the church fathers too. [4]

10. So, the manuscripts -- or external evidence -- did not convince me. The arguments were far too complicated, far too minute. I have found over the years that minutia is often a tool to try to undermine the most likely. "The evidence looks like it supports x, but let me bombard you with a web of intricate details that show it's really y." 

Much of what is going around in political circles these days falls into this category. The result is that you feel really smart with secret knowledge when really it's just a smokescreen to wiggle out of the most likely conclusions. And you can smirk at your "uninformed friends" who think x seems right.

It was not the external evidence, which was very strong, but what is called the "internal evidence" that ultimately convinced me to change my mind.

Internal evidence is based on common sense. The most likely original reading is the one that would explain where the other readings came from. For example, take 1 John 2:23: "Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either, but the one who acknowledges the Son has the Father as well." Some copies of 1 John only have the first part: "Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either."

Was there some evil copyist who deliberately chopped this verse off? Not likely. The easiest explanation is an "eye skip." Two lines in the manuscript ended with "the Father." You copy the first line, looking from the original to the new copy. When you look back, your eye goes to the second line instead of the first (because they both end in "the Father"). Without realizing it, you have left a whole line of text out.

If you understand the scenario, this makes perfect sense. In fact, if you have ever copied something, you may have done this yourself. Most of the variations among the manuscripts are simple mistakes like this one. There was no evil fiend involved -- unlikely for someone whose job is to copy the Bible. 

Here's another one. In later Greek, the letter upsilon and the letter epsilon were both pronounced the same. That means that the Greek for "our" and the Greek for "your" sounded exactly the same. So, it is no surprise that the original text of 1 John 1:4 is uncertain. Some manuscripts say "our joy" and others say "your joy." Clearly, some copyist misheard what word was being said because the two words sound the same.

11. It was thus common sense that won out in the end for me. Why would anyone remove the story of the woman caught in adultery? It is a magnificent story that most find to resonate deeply with the character of Jesus. It might even be based on a story that actually happened. It makes much more sense that it was added in as an oral tradition about Jesus in search of a home -- rather than a story someone took out very early in church history.

Westcott and Hort suggested two rules that are not absolutes but more like trends. "Choose the more difficult reading" as more likely to be original (the lectio difficilior). Why? Because copyists were more likely to try to "fix" the unclear than to mess up the clear. "Choose the shorter text" because material was more likely to be added for clarity than to be cut out (the lectio brevior). Again, the second one is less powerful than the first, but it does seem to work much of the time.

Take Mark 16:9-20. Verse 9 starts the chapter all over again in a different style. We had already heard about the women at the tomb. Mark 16:9 acts like the first 8 verses weren't even there, like the copyist stepped out to use the restroom while the first eight verses were being read. 

We can have intricate arguments about the manuscript evidence (although not the Greek ones -- you have to bring in the fathers and the versions because the Greek tradition for this ending being early is very weak). But these verses don't read like they belong there. They summarize the resurrection appearances of the other Gospels. They don't continue the train of thought from 16:1-8.

Apparently, someone tacked an existing summary of resurrection appearances from elsewhere onto Mark 16:8. Why? Because otherwise the chapter ends saying, "The women told no one because they were afraid." It's a weird way to end the Gospel. You can see that someone would want to cap that tooth. In fact, there is another shorter ending as well among the manuscripts.

So choose the reading as original that would best explain how the other readings came about. Choose the more difficult reading. Well, the more difficult reading is for it to have ended at 16:8 with the women telling no one. It's obvious why the other readings would have arisen. 16:8 is just a strange way to end the story. It seems incomplete.

So amid all the intelligent sounding, clever arguments to the contrary, informed common sense time and time again comes out in support of the scholarly consensus and the text used in modern versions. There is no conspiracy here. In fact, it makes perfect sense that the church smoothed out the Greek text as the Bible was increasingly read as part of the liturgy of worship. In the 300s, as Christianity becomes legal and the church begins to standardize doctrine and canon, the text of the Bible becomes standardized as well.

12. Near the end of my textual criticism class at Asbury, Dr. Lyon asked me if I was a "closet textus receptus man." I was still a little unsure, but I fell off the log on his side in the moment. He was of course well-known in scholarly circles for his work with Codex Ephremi Rescriptus. Over time, my confidence in the scholarly consensus would only increase. Again, not because of the manuscripts but because of common sense.

Let me reveal the effect this pilgrimage had on me. I feel like I am particularly gifted at seeing the big picture and seeing connections and patterns. I have seen this pattern over and over again. There is a tradition. It is something a group has its identity strongly wrapped around. Then someone comes along with new evidence or a new perspective that seems to go against the tradition. That person perhaps has studied the subject more thoroughly. Perhaps they are somewhat of an expert on it.

Conservatism is, in its root meaning, a resistance to change, often in the name of preserving truth. But in my opinion, it is also often resistance to new insight. It is often the elephant that Jonathan Haidt writes about in The Righteous Mind. [5] The elephant is going to go where it wants to go. And when the stability of your world is based on the status quo, you're going to want to stick with the status quo. This is why the young are typically more open to new ideas than the old -- they have less invested in tradition and the status quo.

So, some very intelligent traditionalists -- perhaps I might even call them sentimentalists -- go to town trying to explain away the new data or the new evidence. It is an identity-preserving dynamic. It is exactly what Thomas Kuhn has said that "normal science" does in the face of new scientific theories. [6] It is entirely predictable and often ingenious.

I would see this pattern so often as I continued my education that I could smell it a mile away. Instead of pursuing the evidence to its most likely conclusion, one's intelligence is applied to try to argue for the traditional position. In Jonathan Haidt's imagery, the elephant rider comes up with smart-sounding reasons for why the elephant is going in the right direction.

I've called it "cooking the books." It's making arguments that might even seem silly to someone with an open mind. When you're in an echo chamber in a bubble, people are not looking necessarily for good arguments. You just need any argument that will give you an excuse to continue thinking what you already think. I would see this pattern over and over in seminary and in the years beyond.

13. There really aren't a lot of huge textual issues like the ending of Mark or the woman caught in adultery in John. No one need worry about losing their faith over this question of the text. Indeed, one of my takeaways from this journey is that God must be focused on the message of the Bible, not the minute details of the text. 

Of course this goes against some of the teaching you hear about how meticulous the copyists of the Hebrew Bible were. I hate that sort of stuff because it sets people up for a faith crisis later -- when there was no need for it. The meticulous copyists were the Masoretes in the Middle Ages. From what I can tell, some earlier copyists were more like The Message in temperament. The "Western" text of Acts is way longer and for no ideological reason. Someone just added a mess of details.

I want to end with 1 John 5:7. The KJV of this verse is the most Trinitarian verse in the Bible. The problem is that there isn't a Greek manuscript before the 1400s that has it. It is never mentioned as far as we know in any of the Trinitarian debates of the 300s -- rather odd if it had existed at the time. Even the man behind the Greek text of the KJV -- Erasmus -- didn't think it was original.

There's nothing wrong with the content of the verse. It's good theology. It just wasn't at all likely in the original version of 1 John. That's what the evidence and common sense say. 

Modern versions aren't part of some conspiracy to get rid of the Trinity. It's just that sometimes the facts don't say what we want them to say. 

[1] Of course, that verse was about removing teaching from the scroll of Revelation. The Bible wasn't packaged together when those verses were written. The scroll of Revelation traveled on its own then. And it is about the message of Revelation, not individual words. 

This is another example of what I have called a pre-modern or unreflective reading of the Bible. Our understandable default is to read the Bible as it appears to us, not as it actually is.

[2] G. A. Riplinger, New Age Bible Versions: An Exhaustive Documentation of the Message, Men & Manuscripts Moving Mankind to the Antichrist's One World Religion (A. V.. 1993).

[3] For example, by scholars using the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method or CBGM. My good friend Matt Whidden is deeply involved in such studies.

[4] I have worked a little with the Passion Translation of the Gospels. Its paraphraser, Brian Simmons, seems to consider the Syriac version of the Gospels almost a direct line to Jesus himself. By calling it the Aramaic text, he essentially claims to get behind the Greek to Jesus himself. It also allows him to consider original many of the traditional verses absent from the earliest Greek manuscripts. But ultimately, he is just finding a way to give priority to later Syriac manuscripts.

[5] Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (Vintage, 2013).

[6] Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago, 1962).

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1. The Memory Verse Approach

2.1 Adventures in Interpretation
2.2 Adventures in Jewelry

3.1 Beginnings of Context
3.2 Adventures in Hair
3.3 What was 1 Corinthians 11 really about?

4.1 Keeping the Sabbath
4.2 The Sabbath as Conviction
4.3 The New Testament and Old Testament Law 

5. An Easter Morning in Galatians

6.1 Adventures in the King James Version

Though the Bible -- Mark 16 (Easter)

Happy Easter! I have done a more detailed verse-by-verse analysis of the resurrection stories in the Gospels in Explanatory Notes on Jesus' Resurrection.

Psalm Sunday
Temple Monday
Debate Tuesday
Maundy Thursday
Good Friday

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1. The burial of Jesus is not the end of the story! In many ways, it is just the beginning.

We get the impression from the other Gospels that Jesus was buried somewhat hurriedly. Joseph of Arimathea secures the body. The women take note of where his body was put so that they can come back after the Sabbath and perform proper burial rites. What can be done is done before the Sabbath begins at sundown.

Accordingly, the women come early on Sunday morning to the tomb with spices to anoint Jesus' body. Present are Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome (16:1), the same three women mentioned in 15:40. In that world, they are overlooked and often unseen. The others are hiding, but they are still thinking about Jesus.

Who will roll the stone away? It is apparently a large stone in front of the tomb. They are not expecting there to be any other people around. It is barely sunrise. But to their surprise, the stone in front of the tomb is already rolled away.

As we have seen throughout Mark, his presentation is very to the point. The women go into the tomb. It is apparently big enough at least for four people, for when they go inside, there is a young man in white sitting there on the right. Although Mark does not tell us, Matthew tells us this was an angel.

2. "He is risen!" That is the message that the angel gives them. "Don't be amazed."

But the women are fearful. Mark 16:8 ends the Gospel as it has survived with the women telling no one out of fear. More on the ending of Mark in a moment. It is curious that Mark says the women tell no one out of fear. In Matthew, which almost all think used Mark as its main source, the women immediately tell the disciples, as also in Luke and John. 

Some have suggested that the women's reaction in Mark 16:8 fits with Mark's repeated sense of the disciples' misunderstanding. They repeatedly do not understand what is really going on. They don't understand the nature of Jesus' mission. They don't understand that he has to die. Here, they don't see that this is exactly what Jesus had been saying would happen.

Others have suggested that this ending is meant to urge us to tell about Jesus' resurrection. The women don't tell. Are you going to remain silent too? Go and tell that Jesus is risen!

3. Some have misread Mark as not teaching resurrection. But the angel clearly tells them that Jesus is risen. Just because Mark does not narrate any resurrection appearances doesn't mean he doesn't believe they happened. He clearly alludes to resurrection appearances in Galilee.

In Matthew and Mark, we only hear about resurrection appearances in Galilee. The fact that Peter is singled out probably alludes that the key resurrection appearance in Galilee was to him. The only candidate we have among the various appearances mentioned in the Gospels is John 21, along the Sea of Galilee. Luke syncopates the Galilee appearances out of his narrative, although he hints of the appearance to Peter in Luke 24:34.

These curiosities are a reminder that the picture is likely much clearer to us -- with four Gospels -- than it was to them as they lived through it. We wonder how anyone could question. But Jesus' appearances likely left room for both faith and doubt. As it is with us, there was enough evidence for faith if we have the heart for it. And there was enough room for doubt if someone had the heart for it.

4. The ending of Mark was quite a debate point when versions other than the King James began to come out. The earliest Greek manuscripts of Mark do not have 16:9-20. There is early evidence for it in the quotations of the Fathers, but these come to us by way of later manuscripts too. We can have fun debates about the external evidence for the ending. 

The internal evidence is definitive. Mark 16:9 starts the resurrection story all over again, as if 16:1-8 didn't exist. It is in a different style, giving a pop-pop-pop summary rather than a narrative unfolding like the rest of Mark. In short, it is an obvious tack-onto a version of Mark that seemed to end abruptly. It caps a tooth using an early summary of Jesus' resurrection appearances, a summary that draws from the endings of the other Gospels. The summary may indeed be as old as the second century. There is another shorter ending among the manuscripts that did the same thing.

There's thus nothing wrong with the content of Mark 16:9-20. I suspect it's all true. It just wasn't part of the original Gospel of Mark. Given how ancient and orthodox it is, I don't have a problem with pastors using it (for example, I have seen pastors quote it's version of the Great Commission). However, I suspect many do so without realizing it.

Did Mark really end at 16:8? Like the ancient church, 16:8 does seem like an odd way to end the Gospel. I personally lean toward a sense that the original ending was lost or removed very early on. I've heard some suggest that the ending of Matthew points toward how Mark orignally ended. 

Whatever the case, God has let it come to us as it is and there is nothing wrong with it. It does leave us with the question of what we will do. Will we be silent in fear or will we tell others that Jesus is risen. There is space for doubt. But there is space for faith too! What will you do?

Explanatory Notes -- Mark 16:1-8 (Resurrection)

Explanatory notes on Passion Week in the Gospel of Mark (still a few missing pieces). 

• Palm Sunday (Mark 11:1-11)
• Monday Money Changers (Mark 11:12-19)
• Tuesday Debates I (Mark 11:20-33)
• Parable of the Tenants (Mark 12:1-12)
• Tuesday Debates II (Taxes and Resurrection, Mark 12:13-27)
• Tuesday Debates III (Great Commandment and David's Son, Mark 12:28-44)
• Prophecy on Destruction (Mark 13:1-23)
• Second Coming (Mark 13:24-37)
• Jesus' Anointing (Mark 14:1-11)
• The Last Supper (Mark 14:12-26)
• Gethsemane, Trial, Arrest (Mark 14:27-72)
• Friday Morning (Mark 15:1-15)
• The Crucifixion (Mark 15:16-37)
• The Burial (Mark 15:38-47)

Today for Easter, we conclude with the resurrection in Mark 16. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

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16:1 And when the Sabbath had passed, Mary the Magdalene and Mary the [mother] of James and Salome bought spices in order that, having come, they might anoint him. 2. And very early on the first [day] of the week they come to the tomb, the sun having risen.

The women observed where they had put the body of Jesus on Friday (15:47). But they do not anoint him in observance of the Jewish Sabbath from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. They now come to finish the burial process on Sunday morning. 

Nothing in these verses transfers the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. The expression, “on the first of Sabbaths,” is an idiom for “on the first day of the week.” They buy spices on Sunday and do not treat the day as they have just treated Saturday.

However, this first day is an eighth day—it is a day of new creation. This day will be the “Lord’s Day.” For Christians, every Sunday is a little Easter, another day of Christ rising from the dead. The sun has risen, and the Son has risen.

The women who come are the same women we saw in Mark 15:40 who looked on as Jesus died. Mark makes no mention of Jesus’ mother Mary. We know from that verse that the Mary here is the mother of James “the less” or “the younger,” presumably James the son of Alphaeus.

16:3 And they were saying to themselves, “Who will roll away for us the stone from the door of the tomb?" 4. And having looked up, they see that the stone has been rolled away (for it was very large). 5. And having entered into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right, having worn a white robe, and they were alarmed.

They understandably wonder who will roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb. The tomb has been cut out of a rock face, and a rock has been used to secure the entrance. Such rocks at times sat into grooves in the bedrock so that they stayed in place when in position.

However, when they arrive, they not only find that the rock has been rolled away from the entrance. There is a man in white inside the vault. Presumably, he is an angel.

16:6 And he says to them, “Do not be alarmed. You are seeking Jesus the Nazarene, the one having been crucified. He is risen and is not here. Behold, the place where they put him."

The angel announces Jesus’ resurrection. “He is risen!” The women are understandably alarmed. This is neither the first nor the last time that an angel tells someone not to be afraid when appearing to them.

Jesus’ resurrection is a bodily resurrection. Because he is risen, his body is no longer there. Resurrection is not a spirit going to heaven. For the earliest Christians, like the Pharisees and other Jews of the time, resurrection involved a body (cf. 1 Cor. 15).

16:7 "But depart, tell his disciples and Peter that he goes ahead of you into the Galilee. There you will see him, just as he spoke to you."

Interestingly, the angel points to Galilee as the place where Jesus will appear to the disciples. However, in Matthew, Luke, and John, Jesus’ first appearance is in Jerusalem. In Matthew, he appears there to the women on their way (Matt. 28:9). In John, he appears near the tomb to Mary Magdalene (John 20:14). In Luke and John, he appears to them on the night of his resurrection (Luke 24:36; John 20:19). 

Assuming that the original ending of Mark is lost, it is of course possible that Mark also told of a Sunday night appearance. However, as the text of Mark stands, we are left to expect the primary appearance to be in Galilee. In Matthew, this appearance is when Jesus gives the Great Commission.

In Mark 14:28, Jesus tells the disciples that he will meet them in Galilee after he is raised. At the time, they have no real understanding of what he has told them. Here, Mark makes it clear that this promise was fulfilled, even though in the verses we have he does not go on to narrate the event. He only indicates here that it would indeed take place.

16:8 And having gone out, they fled from the tomb, for trembling and amazement was taking hold of them. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

In its current form, Mark does not narrate the women going on to tell the disciples what had happened, although Matthew does (28:8). The women are understandably confused and frightened. On a historical note, it is unlikely that someone would invent this account if it were not true. It is a strong historical argument that Jesus’ tomb was indeed empty when the women came to anoint him.

The reaction of the women also fits two key features of Mark’s narrative. First, it fits the hiddenness of Jesus’ messianic identity. He did not rise publically in front of everyone. His resurrection took place in a way of which only a few were initially aware. He required faith.

Secondly, his followers do not immediately understand what was going on. This fact fits with the lack of understanding his followers have in general. Their lacking may have provided hope for the audience of Mark, especially if Mark was written around the time of the Jewish War or the destruction of Jerusalem. Even the first disciples did not get it right the first time.

Some believe that Mark ended his Gospel at this point to prompt the audience to consider its response to Jesus, his death and resurrection. Are they going to be like these women or are they going to go tell someone? My personal hunch is that more verses sat here originally, but that they were lost at an early date. 

Other Endings

Most scholars consider it quite unlikely that the ending of Mark in the King James was part of the original Gospel of Mark. We of course do not have any original manuscript of any book of the Bible. So scholars look at the copies we have and try to determine the most likely conclusion, using both internal and external evidence.

External evidence is what we see in the manuscripts. Here, the oldest Greek biblical manuscripts we have do not have verses 9-20. There are mentions of the ending that seem to be quite old, but Eusebius in the early 300s indicates it is not a prevalent reading of the Greek manuscripts in his day. There is a "shorter ending" that exists in some manuscripts, indicating that someone capped the book at one point because there was no ending they found pleasing there.

In the end, the internal evidence is determinative. Verse 9 effectively starts the whole chapter over again, like verses 1-8 didn't exist. It proceeds in a summary rather than narrative fashion--there is a sudden style change and the text forgets anything about what was said about the women in 16:8.

I personally think it likely that there was another ending to Mark after verse 9, but one that was lost to history at a very early date indeed. Since Matthew used Mark as a source, it may give us some hints as to what was originally there.

Why modern versions are different from the KJV

I was explaining to a class what the issue is with regard to verses that are in the KJV but not in other versions. I decided to explain in story form:
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In my version of the story, in the first three centuries of Christianity, the books of the New Testament were copied everywhere. They were not all in one book but on separate scrolls (the precise contents of the NT were not fully agreed on yet). Churches copied these scrolls as they were able to get hold of them from other churches. Most people, of course, were illiterate and so only heard the text read or had passages memorized. The vast majority of Christians would not have had personal copies of these scrolls. Perhaps not even many house churches would have copies of them.

There were no doubt many minor variations between all these scrolls, although not nearly the free-for-all that some might make us fear. When Christianity became legal in AD313, the next century turned to the standardization of many things. It was in the 300s that the Trinity was settled. Near the end of the 300s Christians finally agreed on what books belonged in the New Testament. And, I would argue, there was increasing standardization of the wording of the New Testament text.

This standardized text focused on clarity, both in style and in meaning. The text that resulted was a magnificent text, more or less the Greek text behind the King James Version (KJV). It is the text used by Christians everywhere for the next 1500 years and is still used by those who read the King James Version or its offshoots. I want to make it clear that I think it is perfectly acceptable to read the Bible from this text. If God was okay with it for 1500 years, it must be okay!

It includes passages like Mark 16:9-20, which most think was added to fill out Mark's ending. It includes the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8, which many think may be a historical story even if it would prove not to have been in the original edition of John. It included a few other famous instances like Acts 8:37 and an extended 1 John 1:7.

It is no surprise that the majority of manuscripts read like this textual tradition. Most of the manuscripts we have date from the Middle Ages. We have only a handful of texts from the 300s and before. The discovery of much older copies of the NT than were available at the time of the KJV in the 1800s and 1900s prompted a re-examination of how the original texts might exactly have read.

So the earliest witnesses and internal evidence suggest that Mark 16:9-20 probably wasn't the original ending of Mark. But the verses mentioned above are the main differences. The overwhelming majority of the text is the same whether you use the KJV or a modern translation, almost all of which are based on the re-examination prompted in the 1700s and 1800s.
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So that's my storied version of what I think happened and why the underlying Greek text is slightly different between the KJV and almost all the other versions.

2.3 Common Sense Textual Criticism

My weekend series of hermeneutical biography.  It started with...

1. My early realizations about context...

and continued with last weekend's start of discussing issues of the biblical text:
2.1 Issues of the Biblical Text
2.2 Manuscripts, Manuscripts

We now join that show in progress...
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In the end, it was not the so called "external evidence" of the manuscripts that convinced me to switch sides on matters of the biblical text. I was nowhere near knowledgeable enough to know whether the majority model about manuscript traditions was correct when I took the course in textual criticism at Asbury with Bob Lyon. I still don't know all the details.  The consensus model is basically that at Alexandria, as especially embodied by manuscripts like Sinaiticus and Vaticanus and even earlier papyri, there was a fairly conservative copying tradition, the Alexandrian tradition.  This is the most reliable manuscript tradition.

Then there is the Byzantine tradition, which generally corresponds to the Majority Text and what would become the Textus Receptus, the "received text" first put together when Erasmus first set the Greek New Testament to type. There was also the "Western" tradition of the Italic manuscripts and a few key Greek manuscripts like D, Codex Bezae. From time to time other textual traditions are also suggested.

This was all a fine story but I had no clue whether it was true or not when I went to seminary.  I remember Dr. Lyon asking me after class once if I was a closet textus receptus guy. ;-) It made sense to me in general that an older manuscript was closer to the original than a later one. But in the end, it was common sense that prevailed.  The basic rules of textual criticism, collected and perfected by Westcott and Hort, but originated in the years before them, made consummate sense. "Manuscripts must be weighed, not counted," because a thousand copies can be made of a bad manuscript.

Here's the mother of all rules: That reading is most likely to be original that best explains how the other variations would have arisen.  There it is, so simple, so commonsensical.  If one manuscript is missing a line other manuscripts have, and you can see that the same word would have been located about a line apart, then it's reasonable to assume that some copyist's eye skipped, from the end of one line to the end of the next, leaving out a line.

What this implies is that the "more difficult reading" is more likely to be original, because it is more likely that a copyist would smooth out roughness of some sort rather than mess it up.  So, ironically, the Byzantine tradition is a smoother, more harmonized text than the Alexandrian.  The majority of manuscripts at Colossians 1:14 read, "in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins."  The fact that modern translations omit the italicized phrase is no conspiracy, some lack of faith in the blood (after all, the blood is mentioned in 1:20). Rather, the earliest manuscripts lack the phrase and some scribe likely added it accidentally because he was thinking of Ephesians 1:7 where all manuscripts, including the earliest ones, have the phrase.

Conspiracy theories about modern translators are thus pure nonsense, based on ignorance of the manuscript situation. Disagree with textual scholars you may, but don't vilify them.

Let me use as an example the most famous of manuscript issues, the longer ending of Mark, Mark 16:9-20.  The words of this text are attested early in some church fathers. However, it is not clear that those earliest church fathers were quoting Mark. They could have been drawing from something else. The earliest Greek manuscripts we have of Mark don't have these verses, and a couple key church fathers from the 300s and 400s indicate it was a minority reading at the time. The earliest manuscripts have nothing after 16:8 and there is another shorter ending in some manuscripts.

It was not the preceding paragraph that convinced me that 16:9-20 were not in the original.  It was simply reading the flow.  In Mark 16:1-8 the women, including Mary Magdalene, come to the tomb and find the stone rolled away. A young man appears to them, announces Jesus' resurrection, and instructs the women to go tell Peter to go to Galilee to meet him. But they don't. They tell know one because they were afraid...

And then it begins all over again: "Now after he had risen early on the first day of the week..."  Now he is appearing to Mary Magdalene (with no mention of the earlier scene), who did you know he had cast seven demons out of? She goes and tells the disciples. Wait, what about the earlier statement that the women told no one?  The verses that follow read like a summary of stories from other gospels (e.g., the men on the road to Emmaus from Luke 24 are in Mark 16:12. The Great Commission from Matthew 28 is in 16:15).

In short, Mark 16:9-20 know nothing about Mark 1:1-8. It reads like someone has inserted this summary of resurrection appearances from somewhere else. It is thus the "internal evidence" that convinced me that the vast majority of textual scholars were right on this issue.  And it was the consistent alliance of the internal evidence with the textual traditions of the so called Alexandrian tradition that brought my secondary confidence in the prevailing sense of the external evidence. If you apply the commonsense model to the variations in the text, it consistently aligns with the manuscript tradition Westcott and Hort considered most reliable.

So in the case of Mark, the best explanation of the situation, in my opinion, is that the original ending of Mark was lost very, very early. It's possible Mark originally ended at 16:8 but I suspect there was originally more here. Two endings were added over time to try to make up for the abrupt sense of ending. The longer ending was taken from some early second century synopsis of the gospels, but a shorter one was created as well.

Since the longer ending is a more pleasing ending than an abrupt ending with the women telling no one, it was the reading that gained currency in worship and in copying. Thus the majority of manuscripts--mostly medieval since the older ones wore out--have the longer ending. But the older and more reliable ones don't. There's no conspiracy to take words out. There's no fiendishness to try to end the gospel on a dubious note. There is simply the following of the evidence to its most likely conclusion...

Monday BCS (Bible as Christian Scripture) 2.3

2.3 The New Testament Text
At the beginning of the chapter, we suggested that it seemed somehow fitting that Christians would read the New Testament in the textual form that it seems to have taken in the fourth and fifth centuries. This is the form of the text that became the basis for the Christian lectionary and the text as it was read for over a millennium in the church. In the East, this was the so called "Byzantine" text, the text of the Eastern Church.

In the West, the Vulgate served as the biblical text of the Roman Catholic Church until Vatican 2. Significantly, while its translator, Jerome, was aware of textual issues with the Latin text most in use, he largely retained it. Thus while he could find few Greek manuscripts with the so called "longer ending" of Mark (16:9-20), he reproduced it in the Vulgate. While the Vulgate textual has even more variation even than the Greek, it often includes key passages now recognized to be later additions.

The "received text" or textus receptus of the English Protestant tradition largely agrees with the Byzantine text, except at a few points, such as 1 John 5:7 where its compiler, Erasmus, was pressured to follow a reading of many Vulgate manuscripts. Not until the late twentieth century did the bulk of Christians begin to use a vernacular biblical text oriented around the more likely original reading of the New Testament.

The so called "majority text"--the reading of most surviving New Testament manuscripts--has the best claim to be the text used by the majority of Christians who have lived. To be sure, we do not have all the manuscripts that have disintegrated over the years. But it is a safe conclusion that the "majority text" represents the overwhelming majority of manuscripts from the 400's to the invention of the printing press.

We should be clear here. We would not dispute the conclusion of the overwhelming majority of textual scholars. The rules of textual criticism collected and systematically presented by B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort are completely appropriate for determining the most likely original reading of a text insofar as the idea of an "original manuscript" makes sense. Choose the reading as original that best explains how the other variants might have arisen. The more difficult reading (lectio difficilior) is more likely original. The shorter reading (lectio brevior) is more likely the original. The so called "Alexandrian" textual tradition represented by fourth century manuscripts Codex Sinaiticus (א) and Codex Vaticanus (B), now supplemented by even earlier papyrus manuscripts like p46 (ca. AD200, Paul's writings), seems a fairly reliable textual tradition.

It seems reasonably established that Mark 16:9-20 was not in the early text of Mark, nor was Acts 8:37 in that of Acts. Romans 16:25-27 is not likely original, nor is the woman caught in adultery pericope of John 7:53-8:11. It is unimaginable that 1 John 5:7 in its extended version was original. We are not questioning the science of textual criticism, only the paradigm that assumes the early text is obviously the more Christian text.

For example, Acts 8:37 gives the content of the Ethiopian eunuch's confession of faith before Philip, "And he [Philip] said to him, 'If you believe from your whole heart, it is allowed.' And he [the eunuch] answered and said, 'I believe Jesus Christ to be the Son of God.'" Is this verse Christian? Certainly. Is it more Christian than the text without it? In the sense that 8:37 demonstrates that the eunuch confessed Jesus as king--rather than simply going through a baptism--it arguably is a clearer embodiment of Christian faith and practice. Indeed, when the phrase "Son of God" is read in the light of later Christian belief, the Ethiopian eunuch comes to sound as if he believes Jesus to be the second person of the Trinity.

The text of Acts with the verse is thus a fuller embodiment of Christian faith and arguably a slightly better text of Christian Scripture than the earliest text of Acts. Was Acts 8:37 in the earliest text of Acts? It is not at all likely. We can understand why someone would add the verse but not why a Christian copyist would take it out. The text without it is the shorter reading and, from the standpoint of the developing church, the more problematic. Both Sinaiticus and Vaticanus omit the verse, as does a papyrus manuscript from the 200's (p45).

But we are not asking the question of what reading was most likely original. We are asking which text serves best as Christian Scripture. Would it not be the text that best embodies Christian faith and practice? Why would it not be the text that the majority of Christians have used throughout the ages? Why would it be a text particular to Acts' time of origin, when it directly addressed a more limited time and place, as its original meaning did?

We do not mean to suggest that the earliest text is of no interest to Christians at all. It too was a moment in the flow of revelation and a prime candidate for catalyzing the church always reforming. But it seems less significant than the text used by most Christians throughout the ages, a text that the church came to use in worship not least because it was cleaner and more orthodox than earlier forms.

We thus find greater harmony between the four gospels in the majority tradition than the earliest forms of the gospels. This harmony is not of interest because historical harmonization is important. Indeed, the idea of historical harmonization is absurd from the standpoint of reading the New Testament with the eyes of the church. But the gospel tradition gives a more unified story embodying its faith in the common textual tradition.

The case of 1 John 5:7 is of particular interest, since it stands on the outskirts of the issue at hand. Erasmus did not include the bulk of this verse in the first two printed editions of his Greek New Testament. It is not found in the main text of any Greek manuscript prior to the 1500's. Of the over 5,000 known Greek manuscripts, only eight have it. It does not appear in any Vulgate manuscripts before about 800. Its earliest mention is in the 300's in a Latin author.

This verse reads, "three witnessing in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one." Is this a Christian statement? Absolutely! Does it more fully embody Christian faith that the more likely original, "there are three who witness"? Yes, given that the three in the original are "the Spirit and the water and the blood" (5:8). Is the later variant original? Not a chance. It is preposterous to think for one minute that this most Trinitarian verse in the entire Bible, if it had existed, would never be mentioned in the Trinitarian debates of the 300's. It is not original.

But it is Christian. Should it be in Scripture? This is a much more difficult question. While the verse is considered officially a part of the Roman Catholic version of the Vulgate, no one would consider it original today. And it was never a part of the Byzantine text. We cannot safely say, therefore, whether it belongs to the majority tradition of the church or not. Christians who wish to include it surely may do so, but those who wish not may not.

So as we mentioned earlier, the precise text of the Christian canon is really secondary to the Christian meaning of that text. Legends abound of the care with which copyists made copies of biblical manuscripts, but these legends really apply only to the Jewish Masoretes of the medieval period. All the evidence suggests that the pre-Christian copiers and translators of the Old Testament--including the New Testament authors--felt free to adjust the wording of the original as they saw fit. The early period of New Testament copying also seems to have been a time in which some exercised significant freedom in copying.

When did the biblical text take on a more fixed quality in both Jewish and Christian circles? This would seem to be the period after Constantine, when Christianity became a legal religion and attention turned toward standardization of belief, practice, and indeed of text. The period when Christian orthodoxy was established went hand in hand with the period when a common text was more or less established. To be sure, variation continued. But the most notorious variations by that time had reached the form they would have for the next millennium. It is hard to see how this text is not the more Christian text vis-a-vis the earliest text in the same way that the Trinitarian affirmations of Nicaea and Chalcedon are not fuller Christian affirmations than any Christological statement we find in the New Testament.