Kata Markon

["Ralph Cox" <rmiltonc AT hotmail.com>]

From Ralph Cox (rmiltonc AT hotmail.com)

A few important points can be considered about the longer ending.  It starts by stating that the women were the first to see the risen Jesus, while the passage before has just said that they left before seeing him.  To combine the two says they reported his resurrection based on the word of the "young man....dressed in a white robe".  However, the Gospel of John gives an extensive account of the Magdaline's encounter with the risen Jesus, and this may be the earliest form of the oral tradition that stemmed from Mary (the) Magdaline.  John is very sympathetic about Mary Magdaline (and so is Luke), and such veneration would have its roots in the oral tradition of Mary herself. The current ending at verse 16.8 may have been an early attempt to quiet down the fame of the Magdaline's claim as the first witness, and this "Longer ending" attachment most certainly reinstates the claim, though not hesitating to remind us of her "seven demons".  The fact that the attachment repeats that the women were the first at to tomb shows that it was clipped from another account (or translated for another!), and that it is not created as a continuation to the original Markan narrative.  The hardest question of the whole "longer ending" issue is; did the original Mark have a more complete ending after verse 16.8?  We know there were many other endings, some including an encounter with James the Just, some containing large sermons of Jesus, some outlandish while others compliment the canonical gospels, even John's epilogue of the miraculous catch and subsequent dinner would be understood as occurring during the 40 days prior to the Assent ion.  So, might our Mark have once contained something embarrassing to a young church that wrestled to finalize the form of the Gospel, and removed the embarrassment to minimize an already rapid outbreak of diverse heresy?  In other words, the question of the longer ending is a question of diverse traditions, which can only be understood by examining the "heresies".

Ralph,  04-17-02       rmiltonc AT hotmail.com

 

 

>From: "Professor L.W. Hurtado"

>Reply-To: "Kata Markon"

>To: "Kata Markon"

>Subject: [gmark] 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

>

>---

>You are currently subscribed to gmark as: rmiltonc AT hotmail.com

>To unsubscribe send a blank email to $subst('Email.Unsub')

---

Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: Click Here