by John Carroll★★★★★
Ex-is-ten-tial –adjective: of or relating to existence, especially human existence.
This is Jesus, the way you’ve never read about him before. John Carroll draws primarily on the Gospel of Mark, a Gospel which rather quickly fell into disuse among early Christians as they favored the more majestic stories told by Matthew and the others.
Mark’s Jesus is far more human. He sometimes questions, sometimes fails. He is ridiculed by his family. Carroll portrays Jesus as a lonely, mysterious stranger with an obscure mission. By the end of his journey, he has lost all of his followers. “His life reaches its consummation in tragedy—a godless and profane one—and a great death scream from the cross, questioning the sense of it all.”
Mark’s story then closes with a mystery. An empty tomb, and three women fleeing in terror, told to tell no one of what they saw—or didn’t see. (Carroll is correct; the ending we have now in the book of Mark, describing the resurrection of Jesus, did not exist in the earliest manuscripts.)
Mark’s Gospel is, of course, one of four. Over time, the Jesus story grew in splendor, and by the time the fourth Gospel was written, Jesus had become God Himself. When I complete my book about John’s Gospel (yet a couple years away from publication), I am going to wander through every local bookstore and move my book next to Carroll’s, where the two extremes can sit side-by-side.
(click picture to buy on Amazon)
(click picture to buy on Amazon)
It's not telling the whole story to say that Mk. 16:9-20 isn't in the earliest manuscripts of Mark. The passage is not in Papyrus 45 -- the earliest extant copy of Mark -- because of extensive damage; P45 has no text at all from Mark chapter 16 (or from chapters 14 and 15). The next-oldest copy of Mark is in Codex Vaticanus -- and in that copy, made c. 325, the copyist left a blank column after 16:8, as if he was not sure what to do and attempted to reserve space for the missing verses. After Vaticanus, the third-oldest copy is Codex Sinaiticus, made c. 350. In Sinaiticus, the page on which Mark ends is a replacement-page; it contains Mk. 14:54 - Lk. 1:56; it was not made by the copyist who made the surrounding pages. All other copies of Mark, unless they have been damaged, include verses 9-20.
ReplyDeleteSo as far as Greek manuscripts are concerned, only two fourth-century copies conclude Mark 16 at the end of v. 8. Over a century earlier, Justin used the passage, including verbiage from 16:20 in First Apology ch. 45 (c. 160). Tatian included the passage in the Diatessaron (c. 172). And Irenaeus explicitly cited Mk. 16:19 in Against Heresies II:10 (c. 184). Another composition from the 100's, Epistula Apostolorum, probably bases its narrative framework on the passage in question.
There's more to this issue than a short vague reference to early copies can convey. I encourage you to look into it in more detail.
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
www.curtisvillechristian.org/MarkOne.html
Thank you, James!
ReplyDelete