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Subject: Kata Markon

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  • From: "Professor L.W. Hurtado" <L.Hurtado AT ed.ac.uk>
  • To: "Kata Markon" <gmark AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: long ending of Mark
  • Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 09:19:59 +0000


A few coments in response to John Lupia's email earlier this week:
1) Qumran 7Q5 is NOT a fragment of Mark (as has been shown by
scholars for 20 yrs or so since the identification was first
proposed). E.g., Fee, Gordon D. "Some Dissenting Notes on 7Q5 =
Mk. 6:52-53." Journal of biblical literature 92 (1973): 109-12. More
recently: Puech, E. "Des fragments grecs de la Grotte 7 et le Nouveau
Testament? 7Q4 et 7Q5, et le papyrus Magdalen grec 17 = P64." Revue
Biblique 102, no. 4 (1995): 570-84;Gundry, Robert H. "No Nu in Line 2 of
7Q5: A Final Disidentification of 7Q5 with Mark 6:52-53." JBL 118 (1999):
698-707. We should really lay this chestnut to rest.
2) Lupia assumes (incorrectly) that early Christians used scrolls for
transmission of their scriptures and other revered texts. The extant
evicence indicates that they overwhelmingly and programmatically
preferred the codex: see, e.g., Roberts, Colin H. Manuscript, Society and
Belief in Christian Egypt. London: Oxford University Press,
1979;Roberts, Colin H. and T. C. Skeat. The Birth of the Codex. London:
Oxford University Press, 1983;Gamble, Harry Y. Books and Readers in
the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts. New Haven: Yale
Univ. Press, 1995. So, a theory of Mark having a lost ending that
depends upon a final bit of a scroll going missing is fatally flawed.
3) The theory also presumes that there was ONE scroll that circulated
without being copied until it began to fall apart. From the earliest,
however, it's clear that Mark circulated widely and influentially (esp.
shown in helping to generate and shape Matt & Luke within a decade or
so). Again, bingo, fatal flaw in the theory.
4) James Kelhoffer's recent thorough study of the Markan "long ending"
shows that it is a secondary scribal creation drawing upon material in the
other canonical gospels, and that it was probably circulating by ca. 120
CE. The most likely explanation for it is that, once the other gospels
began to circulate along with/beside Mark, the Markan ending became
perceived as problematic, stark by comparison.
5) Assumptions about Mark's ending must be based on the best exegesis
of Mark 16:1-8, which, I with other contend, does NOT present the
women as disobeying the orders of the "young man", and is NOT an
account ending in failure. Rather, the women only avoid speaking to
ANYONE ELSE than those to whom they were told to go; see, e.g.,
Catchpole, David R. "The Fearful Silence of the Women At the Tomb: A
Study in Markan Theology." Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 18
(1977): 3-10; et alia. Intended (first-century Christian) readers are
expected to know traditions that the 11 WERE restored by the risen
Christ (there is no other tradition in the first century material!).
Larry Hurtado


L. W. Hurtado
University of Edinburgh,
New College
Mound Place
Edinburgh, Scotland EH1 2LX
Phone: (0)131-650-8920
Fax: (0)131-650-6579
E-mail: L.Hurtado AT ed.ac.uk




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