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Friday, March 8, 2013

Random Chance

Although the idea of life forming by random chance isn't taken seriously right now among scientists, the idea is still very much alive at the popular level.

The problems with that theory is like as throwing Scrabble letters onto the floor and forming a simple book. Or imagine closing your eyes and picking Scrabble letters out of a bag. Are you going to produce Hamlet in anything like te time of the known universe? Even a simple protein molecule is so rich in information that the entire history of the universe since the Big Bang wouldn't give you the time you would need to generate that molecule by chance.

Our DNA

"Human DNA contain more information than the Encyclopedia Britannica. If the full text of the Encyclopedia were to arrive in human code from outer space, most people would regard this as proof of existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. But when seen in nature, it is explained as the workings of random forces." - George Sim Johnson

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Mark's ending (Internal Evidence)

Eusebius gives us our clearest evidence that most NT MSS known to him ended Mark in v. 8. Jerome (one of the early church fathers) repeats Eusebius' observation, although Jerome's Vulgate contain the longer ending; Jerome was also aware of a text we know as the Freer Logion (found in MS W within the longer ending).

We need to recall that Mark was not popular within the 2nd Century; hence this Gospel was seldom cited. Westott, Hort, and Cox, and others list fathers who knew of 16:9-20, of whom the most significant is Ireneaus. In A.D. 180, he knew of 16:19 to be from Mark. But many fathers did not quote from the longer ending and may therefore not have known about it. That is of course an argument from silence.

The external evidence shows quite clearly that from the earliest times we have reliable information that Mark's Gospel circulated in dfferent forms with differing endings. There is evidence that in the second century the longer ending wasn't even quoted; in the fourth century we have evidence that scribes were aware of a problem, the ending at v. 8 was known, as were the shorter ending and the longer ending; by the sixth centuy there is evidence of the shorter ending and longer ending together.

So what is it that caused the hesitation over vs. 9-20, or their omission? Why do most printed editions and modern versions go with the minority of witnesses, and exclude vv. 9-20?

The answer is that the contents and theology vv. 9-20 are uncharacteristic of Mark elsewhere.




Ending of Marrk

Versions   

1. The fourth-century Latin MS Bobbiensis (k) is textually the oldest witness to the Latin Bible, with a text going back to the early third century. Vv. 9-20 are absent, and are replaced by the shorter ending. (It is therefore no surprising to see there is nothing from this ending quoted by Tertullian or by Cyprian in North Africa.) Lvt (k) differs from NA from Mark 15:45 onwards, e.g., at v. 16:1; the additions to v.3; and the absence of v. 8b.

2. The Sahidic Coptic usually ends at 16:8. As well as the Sinaitic Syriac, early Arrmenian MSS also lack the verses.  The same is true for theGeogiaan witnesses.

3. The Byzantine lectionary system seems to have developed into a settled form by the eighth century - only after that time do most lectionaries contain a reading from the longer ending.