Video Map with Time Stamps: 0:00 - Introduction 1. 3:45 Mike admits his bias 2. 7:39 Why this research was so hard 3. 10:04 Mike’s basic conclusions on the passage 4. 11:21 Here begins the external evidence analysis 5. 16:40 Codex Sinaiticus 6. 22:38 Codex Vaticanus 7. 33:55 How important are those 2 manuscripts really? 8. 36:18 Codex 304; a Byzantine MS that ends at vs. 8 9. 40:40 Other Greek manuscripts that weigh in on this 10. 52:00 Syriac translations 11. 54:30 Armenian translations 12. 55:49 Georgian translations 13. 56:42 Sahidic translations 14. 58:03 Latin translations 15. 1:00:13 Lectionary systems 16. 1:01:38 What church fathers have to say 17. 1:02:35 Irenaeus (c. 180) 18. 1:04:01 Tatian (c. 170) 19. 1:04:38 Eusebius (mid 300s) 20. 1:10:45 Jerome (early 400s) 21. 1:16:03 Victor of Antioch (5th or 6th century) 22. 1:17:22 Clement of Alexandria 23. 1:18:04 Origen 24. 1:19:11 1st Clement (c. 95) 25. 1:22:00 My thoughts on Lunn and Snapp 26. 1:22:34 Conclusion on the church fathers 27. 1:24:32 What is the “internal evidence”? 28. 1:28:58 How vs. 9 doesn’t fit with vs. 8 29. 1:33:16 Two common bad examples of internal evidence 30. 1:36:45 Kai is not like Mark 31. 1:41:29 The historical present 32. 1:43:06 The demonstrative pronoun 33. 1:44:46 Verbs for perception 34. 1:45:57 The strongest piece of internal evidence 35. 1:50:10 21 Markisms 36. 1:55:00 The million-dollar question of scribal motives 37. 2:03:55 Why I still want the longer ending in my Bible 38. 2:06:46 Lingering issues
Hey Mike! Do you think that verse 12 could be "inspired" if it can be seen to support the heresy of Docetism? Because according to Luke, Jesus did not "appear in a different form", but the disciples' eyes were restrained from recognizing Jesus. Let me know what you think. Thank you!
I was that Christian who went through doubt because of “contradictions”. I went through that over reaction to everything. It is actually worth going through the journey and coming out on the other side more confident in my faith than ever.
This is similar to what has happened to me about a year ago... After well over a thousand hours of research, I feel very confident in my conclusion. I still have things that will pop up that will cause me to scratch my head, but all I do now is pray for wisdom while I search the subject and by the truth of God, it always seems to further prove his existence
I'm amazed he managed to keep my attention for over 2 hours talking about only 12 verses in the bible that really don't change anything about christianity while it is 1 am here, eventhough he already told us the conclusion beforehand
@@Christy_Shongwe A Charismatic, in the most uncharitable terms that I would use, is someone who believes in 'Jesus + magic'. Not really 'magick', as in potions, spells, hexes, pentagrams and the like. I mean inexplicable supernatural stuff happening and being routinely accessible to Christians if you follow some specific method to 'switch it on'. They're typically the Christians who are referred to as 'Pentecostals'. Having grown up in a Christian home, I spent my childhood surrounded by Pentecostal theology. They generally believe that if you psyche yourself into "speaking in tongues", which I consider to be ecstatic gibberish, you will 'unlock' a 'secret' power of the Holy Spirit, which they call the "baptism of the Holy Spirit". At that point, Charismatics/Pentecostals wildly diversify, having a wide range of ideas, opinions, and practices. A few very strange outliers believe you should handle deadly snakes as some kind of test of faith. Others believe you should be "slain in the Spirit", where someone touches you and then you 'faint'. And most full-blown Charismatics believe that the Church should be lead by modern day prophets and even apostles.
@@desnock Was Gareth not joking? because I was being sarcastic. Of course not in a disrespectful manner, but me saying that it was "High IQ stuff" was definitely joking.
@@prototechnic1680 tone can be misconstrued, folks with confirmation bias tend to created generalized claims that then folks with low IQ take to heart :-) You don’t think some fundamentalist wouldn’t make this argument for EVERYTHING? sorry, was being observational. I take back that you missed the point, but rather people that might say the same thing might be missing the point? Does that make sense?
My brain works like yours with studying the bible! I can spend a week or a year to just study out something I might question. You don't know how much I appreciate the TIME you spend to study things out and then share it with all of us. You don't know how many times I've heard "somethings we just have to wait and ask Jesus" from leaders just because they don't want to take any time studying. Huge blessings to you!!
@@melodycapehartmedina2264 I think it would be interesting if you would also do some presentation like Mike is doing. Also your response to the other guy was passive-aggressive. If your goal was to "pray for your enemy" then that isn't the way to do it. If God were to love us according to basically any criteria of your choosing then we would all be in hell. Just wanted to point it out because sometimes we need people pointing stuff out.
@@melodycapehartmedina2264 If you ignored him, then it normally works better at stopping people from commenting and you also don't have to fear Proverbs 17:28.
Honestly sometimes it's just that those pastors don't know the answers. In those cases, the answer may be elsewhere. There are so many online resources for Christians these days.
I would rather learn everything I can about textual issues than be surprised by someone else bringing it to my attention. I want to be prepared for objections to scripture, not plug my ears and shout to block them out.
@@curious011 I'm saying I want to understand the issue and know where I stand on it. I don't want to be blindsided by someone hostile to my faith throwing this information at me.
I get what you mean. I have met many people who love to challenge me because I believe in Jesus and The Bible. I want to know how to have a conversation about this when it is brought up to me by nonbelievers.Glad I want be caught off guard with this one.
I remember the day in seminary when my new testament professor, as an aside, said," this part of Mark may not be part of Mark." And then he went on his merry way. In the back of my mind I have been obsessed with this for many many years, but did not want to do the work :-) thank you for doing the work I am grateful for your ministry to me. God bless you.
My husband and I had the opportunity of watching this sermon in person as Mike preached and we were able to fellowship with him as well! It was so eye opening to the amount of research he conducted on this specific topic as well as feeling nostalgic as he taught since we watch his videos frequently. We both in our mind we’re like “wait let me hit the ten second rewind button” 😂😂😂 it was a pleasure meeting you Mike. Thank you for speaking with us and guiding us to some helpful resources in our studying! May God continue to bless your ministry :)
@@MikeWinger same to you! you’re a huge inspiration to both of us! I haven’t stopped studying since the resources you gave me and my mind feels exactly how you described after conducting this sermon: fried 😂
Regarding Mike's closing comments about Jerome around 2:06:00 -- In Dialogue Against the Pelagians, 2:14, Jerome stated that the Freer Logion was found “in certain exemplars and especially in Greek codices near the end of the Gospel of Mark.” Also, Mike may want to consider telling his listeners that Jerome explicitly stated that a primary basis for his work making the Vulgate Gospels was ancient Greek manuscripts (i.e., MSS Jerome considered ancient in 383). Some words from D. C. Parker also pertain to Jerome's statements in Ad Hedibiam: "Jerome's work is simply a translation with some slight changes of what Eusebius had written. It is thus worthless for our purposes." (Living Text of the Gospels, 135) More could be said about this, but I await some acknowledgement from Mike.
@@steelborn1 Thanks. As long as guys like Mike Winger keep thinking they're reading a, evenly balanced presentation when they read Metzger's obsolete Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament - which was written under the heavy influence of Hort's bogus Lucianic recension theory (I doubt if brother Mike is aware of that) - you probably will.
Gonna be honest, I totally underestimated Mike on this Topic. I really didn't think you'd go into other fields of study like Biblical Textual Criticism. I knew this topic was going to be good, once Mike started saying it was taking longer then usual to have this topic ready, but I didn't think it was going to be this much of a deep dive. Keep doing what you're doing Mike. You've honestly impressed me.
It is cited (at least in part) by many of the early church fathers such as Justin (165 AD), Tertullian (220 AD), Hippolytus (235 AD), Ambrose (397 AD) and Augustine (430 AD). [5] In 177 AD Irenaeus wrote Against Heresies. In it he cites from Mark 16:19, establishing that the longer reading was in existence at this time and was considered canonical, at least by Irenaeus:
those same guys also thought the 7 apocrypha were legit... the 66 book canon was put together in 393 AD Irenaeus quotes from 1 Enoch 12-16 (Against Heresies, 4.16.2). Clement of Alexandria quotes from 1 Enoch 19.3; 7.1-8.3 (Selections from the Prophets 2.1; 53.4). He quotes the lost Apocalypse of Zephaniah as a prophet (Stromata 5.11), and he quotes the lost Apocalypse of Elias as “Scripture” (Exhortation 10.94.4).[2] so because Irenaeus(who quotes from the Apocrypha) is the person who decides what is Scripture and what isn't? Tertullian taught that baptism forgives sins and sins committed after are unforgivable, and he joined the Montanists later in life, is that who you trust to determine what belongs in Scripture? the early church fathers were help, but they too made errors they are not infallible regarding Scripture
I don’t know how to convey how clear this is. I have studied textual issues and higher critical methodology for years. I have advanced degrees in it and I can honestly say this guy did a great job without diminishing the texts authoritative nature. Hard to do.. kudos to you.. impressive.. and the article on methodology you recommended is excellent.. One of the biggest problems in biblical studies is the loss of rigorous methodology.
So God lost his Bible for 1800 years and we finally got it right in by finding Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. Vaticanus was already rejected for having way too many errors and omissions. All textual critics do is bring doubt to the word of God instead of faith.
@@That_Guy410 that’s irrelevant. What is important is the truth. Your and my opinion means nothing. The vast majority of manuscripts support the ending. It’s modern scholars enamored and fooled by the Jesuits and Wescott and Hort who conned Christianity to believe they actually found a better Greek text than what we had for 1800 years.
@David Chupp how is determining what is God's word vs what is forgery someone being cavalier? Should we just allow anyone to write anything into the word of God without any criticism of the text and continue to let scripture be corrupted over time? No. That's what textual criticism is about. Keeping true to the word. Stop throwing around your beliefs so nonchalantly and saying anyone who disagrees with what someone ought to do does not have a mind set on God.
Thanks for all the hard work you’ve put into this Mike. It’s inspiring how committed you are to deep study of the Word before presenting to your audience 🙏✝️
@@erictheawesomesthaha I might well join you on your question. This video lacked any clear conclusion that any one quickly perusing might easily find. Two hours and, at least at this point, we don't know what Mike really takes home. Maybe just that the original ending, if we can suppose one, is said to be lost, I guess, and so it's been dressed up. Not that the faithful of His need care. We know Who rules the kingdoms of men.
1:49:20 -- What exactly is the "bait and switch" of which Mike has cordially accused me? That I don't grant that an author who used πορεύομαι in a compounded form (eisporeuomenai, ekporeuomenoi, and the once-appearing prosporeuontai) would/could not, in an earlier, shorter composition, use the uncompounded form? Did not Burgon effectively pre-answer this kind of objection, on pages 153-155 of his 1871 book?
how i understood his objection is that he felt that it wasn't just based on "they use these words here but not there" but the non-use of the words seems to represent a large stylistic change, not just a word choice. that's how i understood him- but i havent read your work or the Burgeon book you reference.
Dr. Snapp, I appreciate your responses. To me at least, the tone of your responses does come off as a bit combative and not constructive, which could lead people to believe that you might have some of yourself tied up in this conslusion. Trying to prove a point, not just humbly seeking the truth of the matter. I don't mean this as an accusation of any sort, just the impression I got. Thank you for all your scholarly work on such a wonderful book of truth that we have!
MK. 16 verse 8 would be a poor way to end that gospel narrative. Nothing in the following verses distorts or contradicts basic scriptural doctrines, or the resurrection stories of the other gospels. As a KJV fundamentalist Christian, I don't really care if Mark is the true author of the gospel of Mark- or Mark ended the initial story at verse 8, and asked another "witness" to add verses 9 to the end? No idea and don't care. Scholars of every stripe fight among themselves and it seems to me that weak believers can have their faith overthrown. We HAVE the complete New Testament, based on the "received texts", The longer ending to Mark belongs in that gospel. God bless you, brother.
As an EFL teacher, the part about syntax and Mark sounding like a 6 year old using 1 tense and “and” a lot sounds very familiar because that is how almost all of my students write. They communicate well, can understand academic papers (in high levels), but it is clear English isn’t their first language when they write. So seeing the ending of Mark would be like seeing a paragraph copied from wikipedia at the end of a research report. It is very easy to spot the difference. Thanks for the information.
yeah, it litearally sounds like someone else wrote it the style and language is foreign to the rest of Mark and its tacked onto the end, this isn't like matthew where there is an added verse in the middle of a chapter in the middle of the book this is just verses add to the end of a gospel, that is suspicious on its own no other book has controversies regarding the endings...
Wow. Such great research. I am one hour into this and I already know you have saved me more than 150 hours of research. Your staff is spectacular in all of the links provided. A lifetime of content on your channel. Kudos.
Thanks, Mike! That was a deep dive into a relatively tiny pool in the scriptures. I appreciate all your time and effort. You put in 150 hours, but I only put in 2! Love your teachings!
I thank God for the hard work Mike put into this. Rarely does a TH-cam biblical issue video change my mind on an issue. It's a little too soon to say for sure (I need to let the info sit a little), but this video may cause me to shift from leaning heavily towards thinking the long ending was original to leaning heavily towards thinking it is not. Mike, may God continue to bless your study and teaching and bless many through you!
Um do your own research plz look up all the information you can find on the 2 text that do not contain it than ask yourself does God care about His word an us having it than why did we have the full ending for over 1000 yrs b4 the trash was dug up in egypt?
@@regularstan6212 that's because of Hebrew pronouns, translating them gets confusing, same thing happens when God is speaking in Zechariah chapter 10, one verse He refers to himself as I then as He, its grammatical and has to do with the words around it
The long ending of Mark is clearly not original and not authentic. If anyone wants to insist to call it "infallible scripture"...you might as well call the Gospel of Thomas "infallible scripture." At least the Gospel of Thomas contains SOME authentic sayings from Jesus. Mark's ending contains zero authentic words of Jesus.
Good gracious Mike! Such a deep, wonderful dive into the topic! I love how thorough and painstaking your research has been - this truly is your gift. I'm so glad to have a non-academic deliver this information in such a nuanced and clearly expressed way without falling too deep into jargon or difficult-to-understand phraseology. May God bless you and keep you always in grace and holiness. May your love for him be overshadowed by no other thing. May your voice continue to be a blessing to his heart and ours :)
If Mark didn't write the ending to the gospel bearing his name, then it wouldn't be much different than whoever had to finish the Torah after Moses died. At least, that's how I see it, starting this study.
@@JohnSmith-vp4ft Dr. D.A. Black in his book "Why four gospels"? gives a pretty good reason why he thinks it should be there (According to early church fathers Mark wrote down a "talk" that Peter gave in Rome about the life of Christ). D. A. Black writes: As long as Peter was alive, it seems to have circulated privately; but after his martyrdom, Mark himself probably published it as an act of pietas to the memory of his old master. In doing so, he probably added the last twelve verses to make a more fitting and rounded conclusion to Peter’s witness to the life and death of Jesus. According to an old tradition, Mark took his Gospel with him when he went to Alexandria; and at least until the end of the second century it remained very much in the shadow of the Gospel of Matthew. But Augustine of Hippo viewed it as the document that unified the Matthean conception of Jesus the Messiah King with the Lukan and Pauline view of Jesus as the High Priest and Savior of the world, though the peculiar circumstances of its origin appear to have been entirely forgotten in the intervening centuries. Black, David Alan. Why Four Gospels? . Energion Publications. Kindle-Version. Position 1261
@@seriouslyiknowhowtoread Rather, it is assumed that Joshua wrote it, both by Christians and Jews based on tradition and deduction. To assert that the Oral Torah existed back then is to go further than the evidence can take us. It may have done, but it may also not have done, the majority of rabbis and sages quoted in the various written versions of the Oral Torah are from the 2nd-5th Century CE. And the earliest extant copies of the manuscripts when it was written down are very late indeed. This makes the extant versions of the Oral Torah far too late to be reliable from a historical manuscript perspective. That doesn't mean they are false, they could be entirely true, it just means that we overstretch what we can assert with certainty if we claim the idea that Joshua wrote it as a fact. This entire video is a lesson in how necessary it is to not go beyond what manuscript evidence can prove for certain. We therefore can only say that Oral Torah tradition says it was written by Joshua, and that both Jews and Christians find that assertion satisfactory due to their religious convictions, but from a historical analysis perspective none of us can be sure. There is insufficient information available.
@@bethyngalw I could be totally wrong here, but I’m pretty sure there’s a difference between “oral torah” and “the totality of Jewish oral tradition surrounding the torah”. As I understand it, the oral torah is the rabbinical _interpretation_ of the meaning of the torah (its halacha), as well as some extrapolated and expounded ideas and applications. The tradition is that God have Moses the written torah and the oral torah at the same time on Mount Sinai and that they were needed together to understand the other correctly, and that the written torah must be written only and the oral torah must remain oral and not be written. That’s actually why the manuscripts don’t show up until so late-not because it didn’t exist, but because it was forbidden to be written. That being said, I can just tell you right now that the legend that God gave Moses the oral torah is bogus, but I digress. Basically, I say all that to say that the tradition that Joshua wrote the death of Moses into the torah (or that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, for that matter) I really don’t think would be considered “oral torah”. But again, who knows, I could be totally wrong here.
I wonder if the style change and passage of time can be attributed to Mark editing his own work? I have a diary that I got to document a difficult time in my life. Years after that time passed, I got the courage to reread it. I added text at the end that was basically a conclusion to my thoughts of that time. That text reflected my current handwriting style. If anyone were to read my diary, I think they would draw the erroneous conclusion that someone else added text to the end of my diary because of the handwriting style change, and the conclusion that I wrote that negated my previous feelings about the situation that I'd documented. I think the same could apply to Mark--he edited his own work.
This has been my thought as well. Could not Mark have gone back to the work and added a conclusion, maybe 20 years later… style can change, perspective can change… and 20 years pass in those last verses… glad I am not the only one who thought this.
I ask you all pray for me. The tenacity and genuine conviction of Mike is something I'd wish to become by morning. The passion in him burns so clearly.
Well worth the wait. I had to tap out after an hour on the live stream, but now I've watched it all. I really appreciate the depth and amount of work that went into this.
At 1:38:00 I don't believe and are meant to be interchangeable. I think is meant to connect consecutive ideas, whereas is meant to separate them. I've been working on a NT translation, and it entirely changes the flow of the passages if this is stuck to as a discipline. It connects teaching ideas and narratives that are meant to, and gives order to teachings and narratives that are meant to convey a more distinct logical progression. Just my opinion.
Mike you and your team have helped my family grow in Christ! This was obviously hard work. I can just hear my professors trying to ‘dance’ with you on this one! I wouldn’t want to be them. I thank the Lord for you.
I guess it COULD be like what you said at the end. Maybe a very very very early copy was lost/damaged. Then that was passed around and copied, then somebody who "memorized" the original put BACK the ending but then the verbiage was not consistent but the message itself was. In the early days it must have "gained traction" because others remembered that it WAS the original ending that they had heard so they kept it. I have no clue but looking forward to your next video where you touch on this.
Dr. D.A. Black in his book "Why four gospels"? gives a pretty good reason why he thinks it should be there (According to early church fathers Mark wrote down a "talk" that Peter gave in Rome about the life of Christ). D. A. Black writes: As long as Peter was alive, it seems to have circulated privately; but after his martyrdom, Mark himself probably published it as an act of pietas to the memory of his old master. In doing so, he probably added the last twelve verses to make a more fitting and rounded conclusion to Peter’s witness to the life and death of Jesus. According to an old tradition, Mark took his Gospel with him when he went to Alexandria; and at least until the end of the second century it remained very much in the shadow of the Gospel of Matthew. But Augustine of Hippo viewed it as the document that unified the Matthean conception of Jesus the Messiah King with the Lukan and Pauline view of Jesus as the High Priest and Savior of the world, though the peculiar circumstances of its origin appear to have been entirely forgotten in the intervening centuries. Black, David Alan. Why Four Gospels? . Energion Publications. Kindle-Version. Position 1261
_'...Maybe a very very very early copy was lost/damaged...'_ Hmm...after all the trouble of setting up the Jesus saga so he could get his message of salvation (and damnation) across to the world God apparently hadn't considered the possibility that his inspired manuscripts would be damaged, lost, or corrupted, and that in the end a questionable, divisive, document would be his legacy! Not to mention ending the original Gospel of Mark with the women deciding to tell no one what they had seen or heard (therefore leaving it open as to whether or not Jesus really had risen from the dead), with no hint or clue of those women doing anything else later - and then the following Gospels contradicting this! Yep, it all definitely looks divinely inspired! Lets see what Mike Winger makes of it all next week!
I really am glad I found this video. You obviously worked hard to be fair to the various views. Thanks also for showing Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and the other manuscripts. Loved that.
1:23:-- Mark 16:9-20 is, as Mike Winger grants, "extremely early." But he seems to avoid presenting the patristic evidence that shows that it was also extremely wide-ranging, both geographically and in terms of being present in varying forms of the text. I submit that what Mike Winger has presented as "not overstating things" (citing Wallace) is very much overstating things, because it focuses on what Eusebius said, in Caesarea, while ignoring what the situation was in over a dozen other locales.
Concerning what you said, "he seems to avoid presenting the patristic evidence that shows that it was also extremely wide-ranging, both geographically and in terms of being present in varying forms of the text.": Mike, in this very video, cites Iraneus, the Diatessaron, and early translations in support of the longer ending. Why misrepresent a brother?
Thank you Pastor Mike for another amazing video. It is 2am here in the UK and I could have sat through more than this 2hr video. Thank you for your thoroughness and your dedication. Glory to God for your ministry, may He continue to guide you and use you for the sharpening of His church and may His wisdom continue to shine through you. I couldn’t be more grateful for your ministry
So glad to have found this channel. I spent a lot of time way too invested in politics. My eyes were finally opened to how bad it was, and I started to pull away. This channel has given me something to help replace it, and helped me learn more about my faith at the same time!
Bro. I even stood as a political candidate (MP) in my country in 2013. Now I am very happy with Matt 4:8-10; John 18:36. But I may be back to politics in the future as the world is full of injustice. Have been following MW for 2 years now. Great teaching.
@@andywong9847 Politics is something good. But it can be dangerous since it can inspire division and pride. But when we look at the The Virtues of a Noble Woman Proverbs 31:23 _Her husband is known at the city gate, where he sits among the elders of the land._ The city gate was the center of city politics at that time. And often City was basically the highest political place you can be, if you don't move to the capital of the nearest empire. I think it is great that you noticed your problem and take a break. But having Christians in the "city gate" is a good thing.
@@benrex7775 Politics is a dangerous road for Christians to travel. I'm starting to think that the Anabaptists and other Christian groups who are non-political are making a better choice. Look at how so many millions of Christians have been led astray by an antichrist conman, and are now just stuck in his cult, heaping adulation upon him on-line, in their churches, and at his cult rallies. Many of Trump's deceived cult followers who attacked the Capitol were even deceived into thinking they we following Christ as they were violently beating and injuring 140 police officers on Jan 6th, 2 years ago. They were following antichrist, not Christ. Tragically, MAGA CULT deception has hijacked the American Church and deformed it into a a demonic pseudo-christian cult. It's heartbreaking.
@@eugenesanders3094 Any interest can turn into a cult. From football to BLM to Trump. From people who blindly trust whatever media tells them to people who blindly reject what media tells them. Anything and everything. So we should focus on the Bible and do our best to positively influence our environment. Whatever our environment is.
1:22:25 - Mike, could you be more specific? Like, could you give a few example of what you consider the "unhelpful" "pretty low standards" to which I've resorted?
WOW how deep you have delved into this. Your studies are just amazing. I'm 60 years old and just going through the entire Bible with Pastor Paul LeBoutiller at Calvary Chapel Ontario Oregon. I learn well from him. You take Biblical study in a completely different direction. The 2 of you paint a 360° picture of the Bible and everyone in it. God 🙏 Bless you pastor Mike. Thanks for your patient teaching, your diligent studying of Gods word and relaying the whole thing for free to those of us who Love Jesus and want to know Him more.
Wow Mike, this is a real marathon with outstanding materiel. Perhaps going forward, as this is too good to hide, an edited version to make this huge amount of learning widely available. Thank you for your amazing work
I want to make sure I understand what Mike Winger is proposing about the blank space in B after Mk 16:8: that a scribe in the Alexandrian text-stream, which is populated by MSS which have the Gospels in the order Mt-Mk-Lk-Jn (and we observe P75 with the order Lk-Jn), left a blank space to convey that his exemplar of the Gospels ended with Mark? Exactly what evidence does Winger give that the Western order (Mt-Jn-Lk-Mk) was ever followed in the (very non-Western) Alexandrian transmission-stream? And why would any scribe imagine that a blank space after Mark, in a MS in which the Gospels appear in the order Mt-Mk-Lk-Jn, would convey this?
This is THE best video I’ve found on this topic. Recently, I found this article (below) from Got Questions that was an interesting read as well. “Although the vast majority of later Greek manuscripts contain Mark 16:9-20, the Gospel of Mark ends at verse 8 in two of the oldest and most respected manuscripts, the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. As the oldest manuscripts are known to be the most accurate because there were fewer generations of copies from the original autographs (i.e., they are much closer in time to the originals), and the oldest manuscripts do not contain vv. 9-20, we can conclude that these verses were added later by scribes. The King James Version of the Bible, as well as the New King James, contains vv. 9-20 because the King James used medieval manuscripts as the basis of its translation. Since 1611, however, older and more accurate manuscripts have been discovered and they affirm that vv. 9-20 were not in the original Gospel of Mark. In addition, the fourth-century church fathers Eusebius and Jerome noted that almost all Greek manuscripts available to them lacked vv. 9-20, although they doubtless knew those other endings existed. In the second century, Justin Martyr and Tatian knew about other endings. Irenaeus, also, in A.D. 150 to 200, must have known about this long ending because he quotes verse 19 from it. So, the early church fathers knew of the added verses, but even by the fourth century, Eusebius said the Greek manuscripts did not include these endings in the originals. The internal evidence from this passage also casts doubt on Mark as the author. For one thing, the transition between verses 8 and 9 is abrupt and awkward. The Greek word translated “now” that begins v. 9 should link it to what follows, as the use of the word “now” does in the other synoptic Gospels. However, what follows doesn’t continue the story of the women referred to in v. 8, describing instead Jesus’ appearing to Mary Magdalene. There’s no transition there, but rather an abrupt and bizarre change, lacking the continuity typical of Mark’s narrative. The author should be continuing the story of the women based on the word “now,” not jumping to the appearance to Mary Magdalene. Further, for Mark to introduce Mary Magdalene here as though for the very first time (v. 9) is odd because she had already been introduced in Mark’s narrative (Mark 15:40, 47, 16:1), another evidence that this section was not written by Mark. Furthermore, the vocabulary is not consistent with Mark’s Gospel. These last verses don’t read like Mark’s. There are eighteen words here that are never used anywhere by Mark, and the structure is very different from the familiar structure of his writing. The title “Lord Jesus,” used in verse 19, is never used anywhere else by Mark. Also, the reference to signs in vv. 17-18 doesn’t appear in any of the four Gospels. In no account, post-resurrection of Jesus, is there any discussion of signs like picking up serpents, speaking with tongues, casting out demons, drinking poison, or laying hands on the sick. So, both internally and externally, this is foreign to Mark. While the added ending offers no new information, nor does it contradict previously revealed events and/or doctrine, both the external and internal evidence make it quite certain that Mark did not write it. In reality, ending his Gospel in verse 8 with the description of the amazement of the women at the tomb is entirely consistent with the rest of the narrative. Amazement at the Lord Jesus seems to be a theme with Mark. “They were amazed at his teaching” (Mark 1:22); “They were all amazed, so that they debated among themselves” (Mark 1:27); “He healed the paralytic, and they were all amazed and were glorifying God saying, ‘We’ve never seen anything like this’” (Mark 2:12). Astonishment at the work of Jesus is revealed throughout Mark’s narrative (Mark 4:41; 5:15, 33, 42; 6:51; 9:6, 15, 32; 10:24, 32; 11:18; 12:17; 16:5). Some, or even one, of the early scribes, however, apparently missed the thematic evidence and felt the need to add a more conventional ending.”
Thank you so much, Mike!! You put your heart into studying these things and I just want you to know from a Christian Sister how grateful I am that you study and pray before you share your thoughts on any issue you share. This is a big deal and very touchy to some people. You are an absolute blessing and we love you!!!
As always, I am really grateful for your dedication and scholarship. I am reading Mark with my son and it was important to me to know about the ending. God bless your work.
@@kyleisbored7465 i meant in terms of what scripture is biblical, like the longer ending of Mark. James E Snapp has proven without a doubt that it is authentic, idk why Mike misrepresents Snapp this badly. But even more obvious is where Mike commented (in comment section) that "tobit and judith was important to people but not part of scripture". I refer u to read Gary Michuta's books and subscribe to his YT channel "apocrypha apocalypse", Long story short: the church believed the "apocrypha" (deuterocanon) is inspired scripture. People only went off track when Jerome had his idea of "hebrew truth" which protestants used to justify the removal , but Jerome's claim has been proven wrong since the Dead Sea scrolls discoveries. The deuterocanon is God's Word. And im not catholic or orthodox.
If you're looking for the final conclusion Mike comes to then go to 2:03:55 He says the shorter end of Mark (ending at Mark 16 : 8) is the correct ending, but Mike still wants the longer ending (Mark 16 : 9 - 20) to be included in his Bible with notes about it.
1:21:45 - Mike, could you be a bit more specific? Especially since I build absolutely nothing on any supposed connection between Clement of Rome and Mk 16:9-20)??
Thank you for such long in-depth videos such as these. It is such a blessing to me. As a stay-at-home mom with tiny children on me nearly 24/7, I don’t have a lot of time to focus on reading/research. I’m grateful for all of the “meat” in your videos. Your efforts, thought, and time put into your videos is far reaching. I thank you and praise God for your channel which has been such a good and convenient resource. I also share your videos with others and have felt much more equipped with answers and resources when communicating with both fellow believers and non-believers.
With all the work you've put into this it almost makes me feel bad for not really understanding most of it. I started with a little mystery that does not really alter my understanding of the gospel in any way, and ended up with an overly complicated mystery that still does not really alter my understanding of the gospel in any way.
Thank you Mike for all you do. I trust your opinion because of all the research you do. I have listened to all of the Mark Series. I’m from Long Beach and I’m seventy= six years old. You are a blessing to me. I love apologetics. When I retired from forty years of teaching, I wanted to research the question of how is the Jesus story believable. I have read many things in the fourteen years I’ve been retired. So, again, I am happy I found you online and am happy and blessed by your studies. Love listening to you.
45:00 - About MS 22 -- it must be pointed out that the wording shown isn't wording from the copyist of MS 22; 22 (along with 15, 1110, 1192, and 1210) merely perpetuates a shortened form of the note found in its fuller form in 1, 205, 2886, 209, and 1582. It goes back to an ancestor of family-1, probably made in the 400s.
Hi Mike, I started listening to you a couple months ago and enjoy your perspective. Some colleagues and I are doing a study of Mark. Knew this subject would come up. Thanks for the dispassionate and thoughtfully compiled overview of these verses. I listened to this straight through! 😊
if Mark is the oldest gospel and Matthew and Luke borrow from it or reference it, why don't Matthew or Mark mention anything about the signs of the followers? that seems like a HUGE thing to leave out for Matthew and Luke? Why wouldn't Matthew or Luke mention the whole "17 These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” part?
Okay, so what do people think about about 5:30 onwards, where he says that he would prefer people don't watch the video if it will shake their faith. I am a Christian, but I find this sort of thinking one of the reasons I get so frustrated with people who talk about the Bible. You would NEVER hear someone in a university in a field like math or science or archaeology say "oh, so we know there is this likely conclusion out there based on the evidence...but we don't want you to know about it if it's going to lead you to a different conclusion, so we're going to hide the truth and evidence from you" How is this sort of thinking helpful? How is discipleship helpful if it willfully desires people to remain in the dark about truth so that they can come to an a priori conclusion. I would rather people in my church to engage with the evidence and leave the faith if that is intellectually honest instead of willfully not wanting them to engage with reality, but live in a false reality because it better supports their thinking. If people have false assumptions about the Bible that don't relate to reality and the evidence, then they need to be challenged and changed. The truth is like a lion. Let it roar.
It would appear Mike knows his conclusion will not be well accepted by faithful Christians and is trying to mitigate the impact of overly trusting in biased, skeptical scholars rather than the inspired, inerrant Word of God. Bible teachers and BibleThinkers should stick to the text faithfully transmitted to us rather than spending inordinate amounts of time in unfruitful scholarly debates. The long ending of Mark is in the majority of manuscripts and is quoted extensively by the early church fathers even before the first manuscript that has it missing. Good study as always, but wrong conclusion by an otherwise great teacher of the Word.
So, Mike has data for days! I’m impressed this video is only two hours. I really appreciate how you give voice to multiple views when you teach and share the journey of coming to your conclusion; it’s so helpful!
The very fact that there has been a raging debate over the gospel of Mark going on since the early centuries is a testament to how important this document, and the NT documents in general, are. Wherever you look, you see people who have a fervent desire to "get it right." It shows that the vast majority of scribes took their job very seriously. For many, they weren't sure the longer ending was authentic, but they also didn't want it to be lost to history just in case it was authentic. This is encouraging to me. What would have been much worse is if we had evidence that there use to be a longer ending, but we know not what it was, because it is lost forever. So it is definitely better that we have it, even if we're not sure of its authenticity.
The longer ending of Mark doesn't seem authentic to me. The part after 16:9 where the author feels the need to reiterate to the reader who Mary Magdalene is, even though she's mentioned earlier in the book, and even a paragraphs earlier, gives it away that it's not authentic, and was most likely added later.
Thanks for providing the details, can you please, give the verse number of the paragraph that gives it away that its not authentic? And which bible has these chapters/verse, i assume its not in our regular bible.
@@michi-bi its Mark 16:9 "Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. ESV,. I'm sure its probably the same verse in the other mainstream bibles. Long story short, it's a short reference, but I think it's more like a read between the lines situation that because the author felt the need to remind us of what Jesus did to Mary Magdalene for casting out the demons. Also which I don't think was mentioned in Mark. But is instead mentioned in Luke 8 tells me that the author wasnt the same author of Mark chapters 1 to 16:8. Most likely a different author adding those extra verses later, maybe even years later who by that time had knowledge of the gospel of Luke. Either way, agree to disagree
@@MediocreUkulelePlayer Not exactly a defense to stand on. You see in all 4 gospels they reiterate multiple times "Judas, the betrayer" over and over again. If you take that stance you would have to not trust the gospels because of repetition. It just doesn't sound like a good argument to me. I take it more as clarification. You can see clarifying repetition in other people in the bible as well. An example of this is John 18:2, then THREE verses later, he states the same thing, with the same phrasing in verse 5.
@@paytons6767 It's strange though because several verses earlier she's called "Mary Magdelene" without the clarifier. If you start with the clarifier and drop it, that makes sense. If you always have the clarifier, that makes sense. If you reintroduce the clarifier because it's necessary to the content of what's happening, that makes sense. What doesn't make sense is to not have it then introduce it later for no reason.
In light of the recent Billy Carson debacle, it’s so incredibly refreshing to have people like Mike very seriously and carefully look at the data from a clearly academic and organized manner to arrive at these conclusions. Thanks bro for an educational and informative breakdown!
A bible scholar I met informed me that the ending seems abrupt because it's a literary device common in jewish drama literature. The book consistently proves Jesus as the messiah, and after so many times that Jesus builds tension telling his followers not to tell anyone who he is, He finally does and it's exciting... but the disciples hide. In my opinion it's a masterful way to end the book because a reader of this would be motivated to then do what Jesus finally called us all to do, spread the good news. We have to study not just the language, context, geography, history of the text, but also the cultural devices used at the time. That's my two cents.
Jesus said we have two possible masters/ teachers. You can't get truth from both, only one. Whatever you hear or read, it has to be interpreted by one or the other. So truth is revealed in our mind, not in a book.
I've noticed I came back to this video a couple of times to refresh my memory on the ending of Marcus. So I decided to leave a comment for the algorithm. Very good video Mike 👍
21:04 whoa whoa wait a minute here . . . [ question ] were these books that were not a part of the bible only appear in these older manuscripts ? such as the book of Tobit or other mentioned books you mentioned ? Because what does it say if one group of manuscripts contains books that are not a part of the bible and also these same manuscripts have verses and chapters missing from some books of the bible ? and .... where were these manuscripts found ? If the majority texts are closer to KJV and the KJV uses manuscripts that don't have these so called missing or removed books of the bible but the older ones do . Why would that affect the reliability and trustworthiness of these older manuscripts ?
Mike, big thanks for the teaching. In a parallel thought, in John chapter 7, the Pharisees raise what seems to be a legitimate objection to Jesus as Messiah - he is from Galilee and the Christ is prophesied to be from David’s line and from Bethlehem. The Gospel of John never answers that objection. If all we had was the gospel of John, we might have a problem. However, Scripture is inspired by God himself, and the four Gospels (and the whole of Scripture) fill in the gaps for one another so that the whole picture gives us a canon that is perfect and sufficient. In the same way, Mark doesn’t need to tell post-resurrection narratives because the other Gospels and Acts cover it. None of the Truth of the Bible hinges on a single passage (or lack thereof). As such we have confidence that our faith is rooted in the Word of God, not the writings of men.
@preyr631 yes, there have been entire denominations(Pentecostals/charismatics) who base half their theology on a few single verses taken out of context
Thanks so much for this Mike. This is so interesting, balanced, thorough and level headed. I’m intelectually stimulated and spiritually blessed. Thanks so much for your whole hearted service. Big love from 🇬🇧
Hey Mike, on Sam Shamoun's channel, James Snapp goes through things you may have left out of Mark 16:9-20. What are your thoughts about this? Also, Sam claims to have contacted you about having a discussion about it. Can you confirm this?
Dear Mike, thanks SO much for your marathon. Diligent, thorough, honest, funny, yet serious. God bless you for doing the work for me, for being so faithful that, I’m sorry, I Do trust you (even though I hear and try to remember your warnings). I love that scholars are responding to you. Tells me they respect you as a serious researcher who loves your subject (the Word) I love that you put in 150 hours, retained it all (respect!) and then produce it all coherently, fluently. Wow! Thanks so much. When is someone going to give you a PhD, I wonder! Glad your next project is on women in the church, as that does trouble me. I bought The Handmaidens Conspiracy, hoping to be convinced, but….Paul is so clear! So I’m waiting! Thank you
Most translations come to exactly this solution and for this reason. It’s included but footnoted because we don’t know for absolute certain that God doesn’t want it there. I already held this position but Mike did a great job of researching it.
Everything that happens, happens because God wants it to. There are no exceptions. The rebellion, sin, death. All because He wanted it to. He just wanted to create things and write a book.
@@Mutantcy1992 What about that is new or surprising to you? God isnt fooled and knows everything before it happens. We all know this. So, He didn't not know they would eat the fruit, in fact I knee it was only going to be a matter of time. Telling people to not do something only makes them want to do it more. And if you dont substitute that with something else that blame is on you. You weren't paying attention to your kids and this is what happens. Thats on every parent out there. Parents should always pay attention to whatvtheir kids are doing and where they are anf who their friends are.
Mike if the early church fathers have the ending and they are older than your oldest and greatest manuscripts then why do we place these manuscripts in such high reguard why? I dont understand why these 3 manuscriptsbthat contradict each other thousands of times have so much weight? If there are older writtings that have the ending. Do you see my frustration?
If you are going to admit that the long ending of Mark was not written by Mark and not originally included as part of the Bible (which are both true), but then suggest that it should be included in the Bible anyway, then what you are saying is that the "Word of God" as originally written was not complete and warranted improvement.
Or that it should be included because there is an honest debate as to whether it is authentic, and Christians should not be prevented from seeing it in the Bible when many solid saints believe it should be there.
That is a good argument. What I think would change that though is if the material within what was added is itself scriptural. (That meaning the material is not new but is pulled from other passages of scripture.) If this can be said, then there is nothing truly added. Another point to add is that chapters and verses were not part of the original. Should we then remove them? Now I know these are just numbers to help navigate and not actually helpful, but if the argument is that adding to the Bible means it wasn't finished and needed improvement then that argument also applies to chapters and verses
Thank you so much for taking the time to document so much information and so thoroughly. You’ve saved me, well, apparently hundreds of hours (though I would have given up after maybe 5)
@@nsptech9773Yes, reliably not written by John. It is sad when faith can blind us to the truth. There is nothing to fear from truth so have courage and open your eyes.
@@nsptech9773It is one of the most beautiful stories in the bible and wasn't easy for me to accept that perhaps my favourite passage was indeed a much later addition but accept it I had to as we can not hide from truth and the fact that it was not any part of John's gospel does not necessarily make it untrue.
Mike Winger’s conclusion is ambiguous. I get that he likes the long ending of Mark and wants to keep it in the Bible, and that he thinks Mark didn’t write it himself; but is the longer ending of Mark inspired by God (meaning that God himself spoke these words either through Mark or through whoever else) or not? In other words, do 2 Timothy 3:16 (“All scripture is given by inspiration of God”) and 2 Peter 1:21 (“Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”) apply to the long ending of Mark or not? Is it legit scripture, or just a nice story that God thought we should hear?
Seems that distinction is fuzzier than black and white. Are translations still God’s Word? What about rephrasings of translations? I think in a world where all truth is God’s truth we are equipped to discern what is key and what is peripheral.
@@geoffstemen3652 Uh of course translations are still God’s word. If you translate something I say, is it still my word? Duh. It’s really not a difficult question. Did God speak Mark 16:9-20, in any language, or not?
@@Santiago_Fernandez “It gradually became part of Mark for everyone. And maybe that was God’s design.” His conclusion is, it is early enough to be nearly canonical-so better safe than sorry.
Thank you for your work on this. Extremely interesting. Regarding the internal evidence, the usage of Greek as "kai" together with "present form past tense" sounds a lot like the Hebrew "we+qatal" formulation. The external evidence you brought up regarding second century witnesses to the controversy seems to me to outweigh even the fourth century manuscripts. After listening to this it sounds to me like Peter's witness goes to v8, and the younger Mark who interpreted for Peter added the remainder. People who only wanted Peter's words cut it off at v8 and later Mark himself added the longer ending with a less Hebraic wording. Complete speculation I know, but I agree with the conclusion that perhaps this should be maintained in the Bible with clear footnoting. I wonder how this style study would hold up compared to the letters attributed to Peter.
@Mike Winger Are you aware of Nabeel Qureahi’s thesis he was working on prior to his death that looked at the ending of Mark as being for oral presentation by individual speakers in its original context. That is each “preacher” would give their own eyewitness testimony.
While I am not sure about Mike specifically, but that is similar to David Alan Black's position, if I remember correctly. He thinks that Mark was Peter's sermon notes and the ending was simply him talking. This would allow him to change it with different audiences. Since Mike is using Black's material, I am sure he read about it somewhere.
That would make sense to me as the use of kai is a Hebrewism but IIRC Mark was Greek, Peter was definitely Jewish. Hence the longer ending is more Greek l, the rest of Mark seems more likely to be written by a Hebrew author.
Thank you for all the effort and time put in this. The respectful handling of the word is what shines throughout all the video. Its a very high preach of inspiration, it's not a download of information, its God using the very person and its uniqueness to give His message, so its God's word, but mediated and reflected toward us in "the surface" one of his faithful servants, as John says "Nobody has seen God, The Son has shown it to us" (saving the distance that the trinity brings, of course).
Luke in his gospel implies that there is already a published gospel that is "unordered" that seems to fit the gospel of Mark.Mark was probably alive many years afterward. It makes sense to me if the first publication preceded the long ending this could be added and lots of both manuscripts could exist and still be genuine.
The writers names on the gospels were not there when they were first in circulation. Names were added later. there are plenty of written sources for that.
@@bassmanjr100 they had no names. Also nothing in any gospel states the author. It was very common to put the name of an apostle or the name of one of their companions on anonymous books. It gave them authenticity. It's all tradition. It also made them eyewitnesses. But you can tell in the gospel stories thAt they were not eyewitnesses.
Mike, now that you've finally covered the whole gospel of Mark all the way up to the ending and the longer ending, will you do a series on Luke or Matthew? I deal like I've learned more about what makes Mark unique and special from your videos than I have anywhere else and I'd love to learn more on the unique things about the other gospels from you. If Mark makes sandwiches what kind of dish does Matthew and Luke prepare? I've recently learned the phrase "Lukian Question". How many "what shall I do?" Questions are in Luke? Does Matthew really not have parables with the "what shall I do?" question in them? Please keep making your amazing content!
If I remove verses 9-20 of Mark 16 from my Bible and then I total the number of verses of Mark with these supposed controversial verses removed, what is the final sum? There is a reason that textual criticism by modern day scribes does not supercede the very word of God that I hold in my hand.
There has been much controversy over the final 12 verses of the Gospel of Mark. Behind this dispute lies some astonishing discoveries of profound significance. The oldest existing manuscripts of the Greek New Testament text are three that had their origins in Alexandria in the 4th and 5th centuries.1 Since they are the oldest (in our present possession), many regard them as having an eclipsing authority. There are a number of passages that do not appear in these Alexandrian manuscripts, and therein lies an intense ecclesiastical debate. Textus Receptus At the end of the 3rd century, Lucian of Antioch compiled a Greek text that achieved considerable popularity and became the dominant text throughout Christendom. It was produced prior to the Diocletain persecution (~303), during which many copies of the New Testament were confiscated and destroyed. After Constantine came to power, the Lucian text was propagated by bishops going out from the Antiochan school throughout the eastern world, and it soon became the standard text of the Eastern church, forming the basis of the Byzantine text. From the 6th to the 14th century, the great majority of New Testament manuscripts were produced in Byzantium, in Greek. It was in 1525 that Erasmus, using five or six Byzantine manuscripts dating from the 10th to the 13th centuries, compiled the first Greek text to be produced on a printing press, subsequently known as Textus Receptus ("Received Text"). The translators of the King James Version had over 5,000 manuscripts available to them, but they leaned most heavily on the major Byzantine manuscripts, particularly Textus Receptus. Textus Receptus Dethroned Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort were Anglican churchmen who had contempt for the Textus Receptus and began a work in 1853 that resulted, after 28 years, in a Greek New Testament based on the earlier Alexandrian manuscripts. Both men were strongly influenced by Origen and others who denied the deity of Jesus Christ and embraced the prevalent Gnostic heresies of the period. There are over 3,000 contradictions in the four gospels alone between these manuscripts. They deviated from the traditional Greek text in 8,413 places. They conspired to influence the committee that produced The New Testament in the Original Greek (1881 revision), and, thus, their work has been a major influence in most modern translations, dethroning the Textus Receptus. Detractors of the traditional King James Version regard the Westcott and Hort as a more academically acceptable literary source for guidance than the venerated Textus Receptus. They argue that the disputed passages were added later as scribal errors or amendments. Defenders of the Textus Receptus attack Westcott and Hort (and the Alexandrian manuscripts) as having expurgated these many passages, noting that these disputed passages underscore the deity of Christ, His atonement, His resurrection, and other key doctrines. They note that Alexandria was a major headquarters for the Gnostics, heretical sects that had begun to emerge even while John was still alive.2 (It is also evident that Westcott and Hort were not believers and opposed taking the Bible literally concerning the Atonement, Salvation, etc. If you read their personal writings you wouldn't dream of letting them lead your Sunday School class!)3 The Last 12 Verses of Mark Among the disputed passages are the final verses of the Gospel of Mark (16:9-20). (Look in your own Bible: you are likely to find an annotation that these were "added later.") The insistence that Mark's Gospel ends at 16:8 leaves the women afraid and fails to record the resurrection, Christ's final instructions, and the Ascension. It is understandable why these verses are an embarrassment to the Gnostics, and why Westcott and Hort would advocate their exclusion, and insist that they were "added later." However, it seems that Irenaeus in 150 A.D., and also Hypolytus in the 2nd century, each quote from these disputed verses, so the documentary evidence is that they were deleted later in the Alexandrian texts, not added subsequently.) But there is even more astonishing evidence for their original inclusion that is also profoundly instructive for broader reasons. The Fingerprints of the Author Let's examine these verses and explore their underlying design. Just as we encounter fingerprint or retinal scanners to verify an identity in today's technological environment, it seems that there is an astonishingly equivalent "fingerprint" hidden beneath the Biblical text that is still visible despite the veil of the centuries. (Fasten your seat belts!) The Heptadic Structure of Scripture Everyone who explores their Bible quickly discovers the pervasiveness of Seven: there are over 600 explicit occurrences of "sevens" throughout both the Old and New Testaments. As many of our readers are aware, there are also prevalent evidences of design hidden behind the text.4 The "Heptadic" (sevenfold) structure of Biblical text is one of the remarkable characteristics of its authenticity. What about these disputed 12 verses? There are 175 (7 x 25) words in the Greek text of Mark 16:9-20. Curious. These words use a total vocabulary of 98 different words (7 x 14), also an exact multiple of seven. That's also rather striking. Try constructing a passage in which both the number of words and the number of letters are precisely divisible by seven (with no remainder)! The random chance of a number being precisely divisible by 7 is one chance in seven. In seven tries, there will be an average of six failures. The chance of two numbers both being divisible by 7 exactly is one in 72, or one in 49. (This is a convenient simplification; some mathematical statisticians would argue the chance is one in 91.5 ) This still might be viewed as an accidental occurrence, or the casual contrivance of a clever scribe. But let's look further. The number of letters in this passage is 553, also a precise multiple of seven (7 x 79). This is getting a bit more tricky. The chance of three numbers accidentally being precisely divisible by seven is one in 73, or one in 343. This increasingly appears to be suspiciously deliberate. In fact, the number of vowels is 294 (7 x 42); and the number of consonants is 259 (7 x 37). Do you sense that someone has gone through a lot of trouble to hide a design or signature behind this text? As we examine the vocabulary of those 98 (7 x 14) words: 84 (7 x 12) are found before in Mark; 14 (7 x 2) are found only here. 42 (7 x 6) are found in the Lord's address (vv.15-18); 56 (7 x 8) are not part of His vocabulary here. This is, conspicuously, not random chance at work, but highly skillful design. But just how skillful? With 10 such heptadic features, it would take 710, or 282,475,249 attempts for these to occur by chance alone. How long would it take the composer to redraft an alternative attempt to obtain the result he was looking for? If he could accomplish an attempt in only 10 minutes, working 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, these would take him over 23,540 years! But there's more. The total word forms in the passage are 133 (7 x 19). 112 of them (7 x 16) occur only once, leaving 21 (7 x 3) of them occurring more than once; in fact, these occur 63 (7 x 9) times. If we examine more closely the 175 words (7x 25), we discover that 56 (7 x 8) words appear in the address of the Lord and 119 (7 x 17) appear in the rest of the passage. The natural divisions of the passage would be the appearance to Mary, verses 9-11; His subsequent appearances, verses 12-14; Christ's discourse, verses 15-18; and the conclusion in verses 19-20. We discover that verses 9-11 involve 35 words (7 x 5). Verses 12-18, 105 (7 x 15) words; verse 12, 14 (7 x 2) words; verses 13-15, 35 (7 x 5) words; verses 16-18, 56 (7 x 8) words. The conclusion, verses 19-20, contains 35 (7 x 5) words. It gets worse. Greek, like Hebrew, has assigned numerical values to each letter of its alphabet. Thus, each word also has a numerical ("gematrical") value. The total numerical value of the passage is 103,656 (7 x 14,808). The value of v.9 is 11,795 (7 x 1,685); v.10 is 5,418 (7 x 774); v.11 is 11,795 (7 x 1,685); vv.12-20, 86,450 (7 x 12,350). In verse 10, the first word is 98 (7 x 14), the middle word is 4,529 (7 x 647), and the last word is 791 (7 x 113). The value of the total word forms is 89,663 (7 x 12,809). And so on. Individual words also tell a tale. (click for Greek), deadly (v.18) is not found elsewhere in the New Testament. It has a numeric value of 581 (7 x 83), and is preceded in the vocabulary list by 42 (6 x 7) words, and in the passage itself by 126 (7 x 18) words. This all is among the legendary results of the work by Dr. Ivan Panin. (See inset below). In fact, he identified 75 heptadic features of the last 12 verses of Mark.7 We have highlighted only 34 heptadic features. If a supercomputer could be programmed to attempt 400 million attempts/second, working day and night, it would take one million of them over four million years to identify a combination of 734 heptadic features by unaided chance alone.7 Authentication Codes Just as we encounter coding devices in our high technology environments, here we have an automatic security system that monitors every letter of every word, that never rusts or wears out, and has remained in service for almost two thousand years! It is a signature that can't be erased and which counterfeiters can't simulate. Why are we surprised? God has declared that He "has magnified His word even above His name!"8 We can, indeed, have confidence that, in fact, the Bible is God's Holy Word, despite the errors man has introduced and the abuse it has suffered throughout the centuries. It is our most precious possession-individually as well as collectively. And it never ceases to unveil surprises to anyone that diligently inquires into it.
A great book on textual criticism IMO is a 2019 publication called: “Myths and mistakes in New Testament textual Criticism” by Elijah Hixson and Peter Gurry. Forward by Daniel Wallace. The Logos version is particularly good due to cross references etc.
Seconded, Hixdon & Gurry' book is an excellent work & a must read for anyone who needs to understand why what we have is God's uncorrupted word to this planet.
@@biblethumper6284 In the book mentioned above. The majority of what is written is about correcting misconceptions that some scholars and apologists have about the biblical text and it’s transmission. If you have a good book recommendation refuting the need for textual criticism happy to read it.
@@T_Mike I wasn't necessarily bashing the book that was referenced, if you want anything that will put to silence the idea of being critical of God's word, read literally anything (about the Bible) by Dr. Peter S. Ruckman.
Video Map with Time Stamps:
0:00 - Introduction
1. 3:45 Mike admits his bias
2. 7:39 Why this research was so hard
3. 10:04 Mike’s basic conclusions on the passage
4. 11:21 Here begins the external evidence analysis
5. 16:40 Codex Sinaiticus
6. 22:38 Codex Vaticanus
7. 33:55 How important are those 2 manuscripts really?
8. 36:18 Codex 304; a Byzantine MS that ends at vs. 8
9. 40:40 Other Greek manuscripts that weigh in on this
10. 52:00 Syriac translations
11. 54:30 Armenian translations
12. 55:49 Georgian translations
13. 56:42 Sahidic translations
14. 58:03 Latin translations
15. 1:00:13 Lectionary systems
16. 1:01:38 What church fathers have to say
17. 1:02:35 Irenaeus (c. 180)
18. 1:04:01 Tatian (c. 170)
19. 1:04:38 Eusebius (mid 300s)
20. 1:10:45 Jerome (early 400s)
21. 1:16:03 Victor of Antioch (5th or 6th century)
22. 1:17:22 Clement of Alexandria
23. 1:18:04 Origen
24. 1:19:11 1st Clement (c. 95)
25. 1:22:00 My thoughts on Lunn and Snapp
26. 1:22:34 Conclusion on the church fathers
27. 1:24:32 What is the “internal evidence”?
28. 1:28:58 How vs. 9 doesn’t fit with vs. 8
29. 1:33:16 Two common bad examples of internal evidence
30. 1:36:45 Kai is not like Mark
31. 1:41:29 The historical present
32. 1:43:06 The demonstrative pronoun
33. 1:44:46 Verbs for perception
34. 1:45:57 The strongest piece of internal evidence
35. 1:50:10 21 Markisms
36. 1:55:00 The million-dollar question of scribal motives
37. 2:03:55 Why I still want the longer ending in my Bible
38. 2:06:46 Lingering issues
Thank you 🙏
Hey Mike! Do you think that verse 12 could be "inspired" if it can be seen to support the heresy of Docetism? Because according to Luke, Jesus did not "appear in a different form", but the disciples' eyes were restrained from recognizing Jesus. Let me know what you think. Thank you!
@Sarahzimmermann you are always on point!
Thanks for the timeline. It makes it so much easier for me to go back & review some things.
You rock Sarah! Thanks so much for the time stamps :)
I was that Christian who went through doubt because of “contradictions”. I went through that over reaction to everything. It is actually worth going through the journey and coming out on the other side more confident in my faith than ever.
This is similar to what has happened to me about a year ago... After well over a thousand hours of research, I feel very confident in my conclusion. I still have things that will pop up that will cause me to scratch my head, but all I do now is pray for wisdom while I search the subject and by the truth of God, it always seems to further prove his existence
@@WillhideOnIce used to be an atheist trying to bring down Christianity and other beliefs but turned to the lord after looking into the evidences
@@justinsmart5870 Always love hearing Jesus make his enemies his friends. God Bless you sir.
@@justinsmart5870 this type of comment always make my spirit on fire for our Lord Jesus Christ. God bless you brother!❤
Me too. So glad you posted your comment.
Cheers from Alaska.
You know it’s a Mike Winger video when he says “we’re just getting started” 40 minutes in 😅
I'm amazed he managed to keep my attention for over 2 hours talking about only 12 verses in the bible that really don't change anything about christianity while it is 1 am here, eventhough he already told us the conclusion beforehand
Well, it does change things for some charismatics.
@@plasmatikification I've been hearing "charismatic" a lot. What's that exactly?
@@Christy_Shongwe A Charismatic, in the most uncharitable terms that I would use, is someone who believes in 'Jesus + magic'. Not really 'magick', as in potions, spells, hexes, pentagrams and the like. I mean inexplicable supernatural stuff happening and being routinely accessible to Christians if you follow some specific method to 'switch it on'. They're typically the Christians who are referred to as 'Pentecostals'. Having grown up in a Christian home, I spent my childhood surrounded by Pentecostal theology. They generally believe that if you psyche yourself into "speaking in tongues", which I consider to be ecstatic gibberish, you will 'unlock' a 'secret' power of the Holy Spirit, which they call the "baptism of the Holy Spirit". At that point, Charismatics/Pentecostals wildly diversify, having a wide range of ideas, opinions, and practices. A few very strange outliers believe you should handle deadly snakes as some kind of test of faith. Others believe you should be "slain in the Spirit", where someone touches you and then you 'faint'. And most full-blown Charismatics believe that the Church should be lead by modern day prophets and even apostles.
@@ethanhocking8229 thank you for explaining this
it makes quite a difference to Christianity since Chrisitans use it to determine who the TrueChristians(tm) are.
From now on whenever I disagree with anyone I'm going to accuse them of having Egyptian influence.
That’s some High IQ stuff right there
@@prototechnic1680 I think you missed the point, but confirmation bias generally tends to that.
@@desnock Was Gareth not joking? because I was being sarcastic. Of course not in a disrespectful manner, but me saying that it was "High IQ stuff" was definitely joking.
@@prototechnic1680 tone can be misconstrued, folks with confirmation bias tend to created generalized claims that then folks with low IQ take to heart :-)
You don’t think some fundamentalist wouldn’t make this argument for EVERYTHING?
sorry, was being observational.
I take back that you missed the point, but rather people that might say the same thing might be missing the point? Does that make sense?
@@desnock Totally Understandable, was just trying to insert extra humor, as one does
Here’s a quick comment for the algorithm. Also thank you for all your hard work. I’ve prayed for you last week and today Mike.
My brain works like yours with studying the bible! I can spend a week or a year to just study out something I might question. You don't know how much I appreciate the TIME you spend to study things out and then share it with all of us. You don't know how many times I've heard "somethings we just have to wait and ask Jesus" from leaders just because they don't want to take any time studying. Huge blessings to you!!
@@HarryNicNicholas Well bless your heart, may God bless you according to your kindness to others
@@melodycapehartmedina2264 I think it would be interesting if you would also do some presentation like Mike is doing.
Also your response to the other guy was passive-aggressive. If your goal was to "pray for your enemy" then that isn't the way to do it. If God were to love us according to basically any criteria of your choosing then we would all be in hell.
Just wanted to point it out because sometimes we need people pointing stuff out.
@@benrex7775 My goal was not to pray for him only to stop his unwanted comments. 😇
@@melodycapehartmedina2264 If you ignored him, then it normally works better at stopping people from commenting and you also don't have to fear Proverbs 17:28.
Honestly sometimes it's just that those pastors don't know the answers. In those cases, the answer may be elsewhere. There are so many online resources for Christians these days.
I would rather learn everything I can about textual issues than be surprised by someone else bringing it to my attention. I want to be prepared for objections to scripture, not plug my ears and shout to block them out.
Are you saying you don't believe the evidence and you want to be prepared to argue against it? I'm not sure what you mean.
@@curious011 I'm saying I want to understand the issue and know where I stand on it. I don't want to be blindsided by someone hostile to my faith throwing this information at me.
@@HarryNicNicholas "You don't get to choose." Could you specify what you mean?
I get what you mean. I have met many people who love to challenge me because I believe in Jesus and The Bible. I want to know how to have a conversation about this when it is brought up to me by nonbelievers.Glad I want be caught off guard with this one.
I remember the day in seminary when my new testament professor, as an aside, said," this part of Mark may not be part of Mark." And then he went on his merry way. In the back of my mind I have been obsessed with this for many many years, but did not want to do the work :-) thank you for doing the work I am grateful for your ministry to me. God bless you.
My husband and I had the opportunity of watching this sermon in person as Mike preached and we were able to fellowship with him as well! It was so eye opening to the amount of research he conducted on this specific topic as well as feeling nostalgic as he taught since we watch his videos frequently. We both in our mind we’re like “wait let me hit the ten second rewind button” 😂😂😂 it was a pleasure meeting you Mike. Thank you for speaking with us and guiding us to some helpful resources in our studying! May God continue to bless your ministry :)
It was really nice meeting both of you Sunday night. :)
@@MikeWinger same to you! you’re a huge inspiration to both of us! I haven’t stopped studying since the resources you gave me and my mind feels exactly how you described after conducting this sermon: fried 😂
@@MikeWinger it was amazing seeing you teach in person!! I am definitely coming back one day, despite being far away!
@@sailorhannah 😅
Regarding Mike's closing comments about Jerome around 2:06:00 -- In Dialogue Against the Pelagians, 2:14, Jerome stated that the Freer Logion was found “in certain exemplars and especially in Greek codices near the end of the Gospel of Mark.” Also, Mike may want to consider telling his listeners that Jerome explicitly stated that a primary basis for his work making the Vulgate Gospels was ancient Greek manuscripts (i.e., MSS Jerome considered ancient in 383).
Some words from D. C. Parker also pertain to Jerome's statements in Ad Hedibiam: "Jerome's work is
simply a translation with some slight changes of what Eusebius had written. It is thus worthless for our purposes." (Living Text of the Gospels, 135) More could be said about this, but I await some acknowledgement from Mike.
James thank you for your great defense on the ending of Mark. Keep doing what you do please, I don't wanna hear nobody say that this is added ❤😂
@@steelborn1 Thanks. As long as guys like Mike Winger keep thinking they're reading a, evenly balanced presentation when they read Metzger's obsolete Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament - which was written under the heavy influence of Hort's bogus Lucianic recension theory (I doubt if brother Mike is aware of that) - you probably will.
Gonna be honest, I totally underestimated Mike on this Topic. I really didn't think you'd go into other fields of study like Biblical Textual Criticism. I knew this topic was going to be good, once Mike started saying it was taking longer then usual to have this topic ready, but I didn't think it was going to be this much of a deep dive.
Keep doing what you're doing Mike. You've honestly impressed me.
@Burning7One I agree. This, along with his work on the Passion "translation," are some great works and resources. Soli Deo Gloria!
It is cited (at least in part) by many of the early church fathers such as Justin (165 AD), Tertullian (220 AD), Hippolytus (235 AD), Ambrose (397 AD) and Augustine (430 AD). [5]
In 177 AD Irenaeus wrote Against Heresies. In it he cites from Mark 16:19, establishing that the longer reading was in existence at this time and was considered canonical, at least by Irenaeus:
Talked about and addressed in the video
Justin martyr quoted the exact same verse, but neither mentioned any of the other 11...
those same guys also thought the 7 apocrypha were legit... the 66 book canon was put together in 393 AD
Irenaeus quotes from 1 Enoch 12-16 (Against Heresies, 4.16.2).
Clement of Alexandria quotes from 1 Enoch 19.3; 7.1-8.3 (Selections from the Prophets 2.1; 53.4). He quotes the lost Apocalypse of Zephaniah as a prophet (Stromata 5.11), and he quotes the lost Apocalypse of Elias as “Scripture” (Exhortation 10.94.4).[2]
so because Irenaeus(who quotes from the Apocrypha) is the person who decides what is Scripture and what isn't?
Tertullian taught that baptism forgives sins and sins committed after are unforgivable, and he joined the Montanists later in life, is that who you trust to determine what belongs in Scripture? the early church fathers were help, but they too made errors
they are not infallible regarding Scripture
The great church historian Eusebius stated it was not in the majority of Greek manuscripts at the time (4th century).
I don’t know how to convey how clear this is. I have studied textual issues and higher critical methodology for years. I have advanced degrees in it and I can honestly say this guy did a great job without diminishing the texts authoritative nature. Hard to do.. kudos to you.. impressive.. and the article on methodology you recommended is excellent.. One of the biggest problems in biblical studies is the loss of rigorous methodology.
So God lost his Bible for 1800 years and we finally got it right in by finding Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. Vaticanus was already rejected for having way too many errors and omissions. All textual critics do is bring doubt to the word of God instead of faith.
@David Chupp God didn't lose anything and whether the passage is intended to be there or not has no bearing on the Gospel
@@That_Guy410 that’s irrelevant. What is important is the truth. Your and my opinion means nothing. The vast majority of manuscripts support the ending. It’s modern scholars enamored and fooled by the Jesuits and Wescott and Hort who conned Christianity to believe they actually found a better Greek text than what we had for 1800 years.
@@That_Guy410 God says his word is of very high regard and held higher than his name. Anyone being cavalier about it doesn’t have the mind of Christ.
@David Chupp how is determining what is God's word vs what is forgery someone being cavalier? Should we just allow anyone to write anything into the word of God without any criticism of the text and continue to let scripture be corrupted over time? No. That's what textual criticism is about. Keeping true to the word. Stop throwing around your beliefs so nonchalantly and saying anyone who disagrees with what someone ought to do does not have a mind set on God.
“Germs can not pass through microphones yet.. they’re working on it”
Lol
I was thinking, that certainly qualifies as "gain of function."
Thanks for all the hard work you’ve put into this Mike. It’s inspiring how committed you are to deep study of the Word before presenting to your audience 🙏✝️
@@HarryNicNicholas how so?
@@erictheawesomesthaha I might well join you on your question. This video lacked any clear conclusion that any one quickly perusing might easily find. Two hours and, at least at this point, we don't know what Mike really takes home. Maybe just that the original ending, if we can suppose one, is said to be lost, I guess, and so it's been dressed up. Not that the faithful of His need care. We know Who rules the kingdoms of men.
1:49:20 -- What exactly is the "bait and switch" of which Mike has cordially accused me? That I don't grant that an author who used πορεύομαι in a compounded form (eisporeuomenai, ekporeuomenoi, and the once-appearing prosporeuontai) would/could not, in an earlier, shorter composition, use the uncompounded form? Did not Burgon effectively pre-answer this kind of objection, on pages 153-155 of his 1871 book?
how i understood his objection is that he felt that it wasn't just based on "they use these words here but not there" but the non-use of the words seems to represent a large stylistic change, not just a word choice. that's how i understood him- but i havent read your work or the Burgeon book you reference.
Dr. Snapp, I appreciate your responses. To me at least, the tone of your responses does come off as a bit combative and not constructive, which could lead people to believe that you might have some of yourself tied up in this conslusion. Trying to prove a point, not just humbly seeking the truth of the matter. I don't mean this as an accusation of any sort, just the impression I got. Thank you for all your scholarly work on such a wonderful book of truth that we have!
MK. 16 verse 8 would be a poor way to end that gospel narrative. Nothing in the following verses distorts or contradicts basic scriptural doctrines, or the resurrection stories of the other gospels.
As a KJV fundamentalist Christian, I don't really care if Mark is the true author of the gospel of Mark- or Mark ended the initial story at verse 8, and asked another "witness" to add verses 9 to the end? No idea and don't care.
Scholars of every stripe fight among themselves and it seems to me that weak believers can have their faith overthrown.
We HAVE the complete New Testament, based on the "received texts", The longer ending to Mark belongs in that gospel.
God bless you, brother.
Mike Winger expected you here but probably did not notice this comment.
As an EFL teacher, the part about syntax and Mark sounding like a 6 year old using 1 tense and “and” a lot sounds very familiar because that is how almost all of my students write. They communicate well, can understand academic papers (in high levels), but it is clear English isn’t their first language when they write. So seeing the ending of Mark would be like seeing a paragraph copied from wikipedia at the end of a research report. It is very easy to spot the difference.
Thanks for the information.
yeah, it litearally sounds like someone else wrote it
the style and language is foreign to the rest of Mark and its tacked onto the end, this isn't like matthew where there is an added verse in the middle of a chapter in the middle of the book
this is just verses add to the end of a gospel, that is suspicious on its own
no other book has controversies regarding the endings...
Wow. Such great research. I am one hour into this and I already know you have saved me more than 150 hours of research. Your staff is spectacular in all of the links provided. A lifetime of content on your channel. Kudos.
Thanks, Mike! That was a deep dive into a relatively tiny pool in the scriptures. I appreciate all your time and effort. You put in 150 hours, but I only put in 2! Love your teachings!
I thank God for the hard work Mike put into this. Rarely does a TH-cam biblical issue video change my mind on an issue. It's a little too soon to say for sure (I need to let the info sit a little), but this video may cause me to shift from leaning heavily towards thinking the long ending was original to leaning heavily towards thinking it is not. Mike, may God continue to bless your study and teaching and bless many through you!
Nonsense, editorial evidence does NOT negate Devine inspiration. Ezekiel will refer himself in the 1st person and 3rd person in the SAME chapter.
Um do your own research plz look up all the information you can find on the 2 text that do not contain it than ask yourself does God care about His word an us having it than why did we have the full ending for over 1000 yrs b4 the trash was dug up in egypt?
@@regularstan6212 that's because of Hebrew pronouns, translating them gets confusing, same thing happens when God is speaking in Zechariah chapter 10, one verse He refers to himself as I then as He, its grammatical and has to do with the words around it
@@samuelthomas9036 amen
The long ending of Mark is clearly not original and not authentic. If anyone wants to insist to call it "infallible scripture"...you might as well call the Gospel of Thomas "infallible scripture." At least the Gospel of Thomas contains SOME authentic sayings from Jesus. Mark's ending contains zero authentic words of Jesus.
I really appreciate your intellectual honesty and your willingness to tackle tough subjects like this.
Good gracious Mike! Such a deep, wonderful dive into the topic! I love how thorough and painstaking your research has been - this truly is your gift. I'm so glad to have a non-academic deliver this information in such a nuanced and clearly expressed way without falling too deep into jargon or difficult-to-understand phraseology. May God bless you and keep you always in grace and holiness. May your love for him be overshadowed by no other thing. May your voice continue to be a blessing to his heart and ours :)
If Mark didn't write the ending to the gospel bearing his name, then it wouldn't be much different than whoever had to finish the Torah after Moses died. At least, that's how I see it, starting this study.
Just a thought but if Mark was Peter's scribe or secretary he might have brought his gospel to Peter and Peter added the ending.
@@JohnSmith-vp4ft Dr. D.A. Black in his book "Why four gospels"? gives a pretty good reason why he thinks it should be there (According to early church fathers Mark wrote down a "talk" that Peter gave in Rome about the life of Christ). D. A. Black writes:
As long as Peter was alive, it seems to have circulated privately; but after his martyrdom, Mark himself probably published it as an act of pietas to the memory of his old master. In doing so, he probably added the last twelve verses to make a more fitting and rounded conclusion to Peter’s witness to the life and death of Jesus. According to an old tradition, Mark took his Gospel with him when he went to Alexandria; and at least until the end of the second century it remained very much in the shadow of the Gospel of Matthew. But Augustine of Hippo viewed it as the document that unified the Matthean conception of Jesus the Messiah King with the Lukan and Pauline view of Jesus as the High Priest and Savior of the world, though the peculiar circumstances of its origin appear to have been entirely forgotten in the intervening centuries.
Black, David Alan. Why Four Gospels? . Energion Publications. Kindle-Version. Position 1261
@@seriouslyiknowhowtoread Rather, it is assumed that Joshua wrote it, both by Christians and Jews based on tradition and deduction. To assert that the Oral Torah existed back then is to go further than the evidence can take us. It may have done, but it may also not have done, the majority of rabbis and sages quoted in the various written versions of the Oral Torah are from the 2nd-5th Century CE. And the earliest extant copies of the manuscripts when it was written down are very late indeed. This makes the extant versions of the Oral Torah far too late to be reliable from a historical manuscript perspective. That doesn't mean they are false, they could be entirely true, it just means that we overstretch what we can assert with certainty if we claim the idea that Joshua wrote it as a fact. This entire video is a lesson in how necessary it is to not go beyond what manuscript evidence can prove for certain. We therefore can only say that Oral Torah tradition says it was written by Joshua, and that both Jews and Christians find that assertion satisfactory due to their religious convictions, but from a historical analysis perspective none of us can be sure. There is insufficient information available.
@@seriouslyiknowhowtoread you didn't fully read what I said, did you?
@@bethyngalw
I could be totally wrong here, but I’m pretty sure there’s a difference between “oral torah” and “the totality of Jewish oral tradition surrounding the torah”. As I understand it, the oral torah is the rabbinical _interpretation_ of the meaning of the torah (its halacha), as well as some extrapolated and expounded ideas and applications. The tradition is that God have Moses the written torah and the oral torah at the same time on Mount Sinai and that they were needed together to understand the other correctly, and that the written torah must be written only and the oral torah must remain oral and not be written. That’s actually why the manuscripts don’t show up until so late-not because it didn’t exist, but because it was forbidden to be written. That being said, I can just tell you right now that the legend that God gave Moses the oral torah is bogus, but I digress.
Basically, I say all that to say that the tradition that Joshua wrote the death of Moses into the torah (or that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, for that matter) I really don’t think would be considered “oral torah”. But again, who knows, I could be totally wrong here.
I wonder if the style change and passage of time can be attributed to Mark editing his own work? I have a diary that I got to document a difficult time in my life. Years after that time passed, I got the courage to reread it. I added text at the end that was basically a conclusion to my thoughts of that time. That text reflected my current handwriting style. If anyone were to read my diary, I think they would draw the erroneous conclusion that someone else added text to the end of my diary because of the handwriting style change, and the conclusion that I wrote that negated my previous feelings about the situation that I'd documented. I think the same could apply to Mark--he edited his own work.
This has been my thought as well. Could not Mark have gone back to the work and added a conclusion, maybe 20 years later… style can change, perspective can change… and 20 years pass in those last verses… glad I am not the only one who thought this.
I ask you all pray for me.
The tenacity and genuine conviction of Mike is something I'd wish to become by morning.
The passion in him burns so clearly.
Well worth the wait. I had to tap out after an hour on the live stream, but now I've watched it all. I really appreciate the depth and amount of work that went into this.
Thank you Mike for your careful scholarly work. You pin all sides of this debate thoughtfully with grace and intent.
At 1:38:00 I don't believe and are meant to be interchangeable. I think is meant to connect consecutive ideas, whereas is meant to separate them. I've been working on a NT translation, and it entirely changes the flow of the passages if this is stuck to as a discipline. It connects teaching ideas and narratives that are meant to, and gives order to teachings and narratives that are meant to convey a more distinct logical progression. Just my opinion.
Mike you and your team have helped my family grow in Christ! This was obviously hard work. I can just hear my professors trying to ‘dance’ with you on this one! I wouldn’t want to be them. I thank the Lord for you.
I guess it COULD be like what you said at the end. Maybe a very very very early copy was lost/damaged. Then that was passed around and copied, then somebody who "memorized" the original put BACK the ending but then the verbiage was not consistent but the message itself was. In the early days it must have "gained traction" because others remembered that it WAS the original ending that they had heard so they kept it.
I have no clue but looking forward to your next video where you touch on this.
Yes, humans are very fallible creatures.
Dr. D.A. Black in his book "Why four gospels"? gives a pretty good reason why he thinks it should be there (According to early church fathers Mark wrote down a "talk" that Peter gave in Rome about the life of Christ). D. A. Black writes:
As long as Peter was alive, it seems to have circulated privately; but after his martyrdom, Mark himself probably published it as an act of pietas to the memory of his old master. In doing so, he probably added the last twelve verses to make a more fitting and rounded conclusion to Peter’s witness to the life and death of Jesus. According to an old tradition, Mark took his Gospel with him when he went to Alexandria; and at least until the end of the second century it remained very much in the shadow of the Gospel of Matthew. But Augustine of Hippo viewed it as the document that unified the Matthean conception of Jesus the Messiah King with the Lukan and Pauline view of Jesus as the High Priest and Savior of the world, though the peculiar circumstances of its origin appear to have been entirely forgotten in the intervening centuries.
Black, David Alan. Why Four Gospels? . Energion Publications. Kindle-Version. Position 1261
_'...Maybe a very very very early copy was lost/damaged...'_
Hmm...after all the trouble of setting up the Jesus saga so he could get his message of salvation (and damnation) across to the world God apparently hadn't considered the possibility that his inspired manuscripts would be damaged, lost, or corrupted, and that in the end a questionable, divisive, document would be his legacy!
Not to mention ending the original Gospel of Mark with the women deciding to tell no one what they had seen or heard (therefore leaving it open as to whether or not Jesus really had risen from the dead), with no hint or clue of those women doing anything else later - and then the following Gospels contradicting this!
Yep, it all definitely looks divinely inspired!
Lets see what Mike Winger makes of it all next week!
@@cardcounter21 God did not write His word so the Holy Spirit could be ignored.
No. It's original. The "unique words" argument is a canard and can be applied to virtually every passage of the Bible.
Excellent analysis in so many ways. Thank you. This type of content is nearly impossible to find.
I really am glad I found this video. You obviously worked hard to be fair to the various views. Thanks also for showing Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and the other manuscripts. Loved that.
1:23:-- Mark 16:9-20 is, as Mike Winger grants, "extremely early." But he seems to avoid presenting the patristic evidence that shows that it was also extremely wide-ranging, both geographically and in terms of being present in varying forms of the text. I submit that what Mike Winger has presented as "not overstating things" (citing Wallace) is very much overstating things, because it focuses on what Eusebius said, in Caesarea, while ignoring what the situation was in over a dozen other locales.
Powerful point
Concerning what you said, "he seems to avoid presenting the patristic evidence that shows that it was also extremely wide-ranging, both geographically and in terms of being present in varying forms of the text.":
Mike, in this very video, cites Iraneus, the Diatessaron, and early translations in support of the longer ending. Why misrepresent a brother?
great job breaking it down and summarizing hundreds of hours into 2 hours with all important info still intact. God bless your ministry, Mike.
Wow MW you did it again Your so incredibly thorough. I have so much respect for this
Thank you Pastor Mike for another amazing video. It is 2am here in the UK and I could have sat through more than this 2hr video. Thank you for your thoroughness and your dedication. Glory to God for your ministry, may He continue to guide you and use you for the sharpening of His church and may His wisdom continue to shine through you. I couldn’t be more grateful for your ministry
Shalom from the US !
So glad to have found this channel.
I spent a lot of time way too invested in politics. My eyes were finally opened to how bad it was, and I started to pull away. This channel has given me something to help replace it, and helped me learn more about my faith at the same time!
Bro. I even stood as a political candidate (MP) in my country in 2013. Now I am very happy with Matt 4:8-10; John 18:36. But I may be back to politics in the future as the world is full of injustice.
Have been following MW for 2 years now. Great teaching.
@@andywong9847 Politics is something good. But it can be dangerous since it can inspire division and pride. But when we look at the The Virtues of a Noble Woman
Proverbs 31:23
_Her husband is known at the city gate, where he sits among the elders of the land._
The city gate was the center of city politics at that time. And often City was basically the highest political place you can be, if you don't move to the capital of the nearest empire. I think it is great that you noticed your problem and take a break. But having Christians in the "city gate" is a good thing.
@@benrex7775 Politics is a dangerous road for Christians to travel. I'm starting to think that the Anabaptists and other Christian groups who are non-political are making a better choice. Look at how so many millions of Christians have been led astray by an antichrist conman, and are now just stuck in his cult, heaping adulation upon him on-line, in their churches, and at his cult rallies. Many of Trump's deceived cult followers who attacked the Capitol were even deceived into thinking they we following Christ as they were violently beating and injuring 140 police officers on Jan 6th, 2 years ago. They were following antichrist, not Christ. Tragically, MAGA CULT deception has hijacked the American Church and deformed it into a a demonic pseudo-christian cult. It's heartbreaking.
@@eugenesanders3094 Any interest can turn into a cult. From football to BLM to Trump. From people who blindly trust whatever media tells them to people who blindly reject what media tells them. Anything and everything. So we should focus on the Bible and do our best to positively influence our environment. Whatever our environment is.
Political junkie here. I appreciate this comment.
Unexpected, but nice.
Let's search for gold...eternal gold, for sure.
1:22:25 - Mike, could you be more specific? Like, could you give a few example of what you consider the "unhelpful" "pretty low standards" to which I've resorted?
Indeed. I wish he would do so.
WOW how deep you have delved into this. Your studies are just amazing. I'm 60 years old and just going through the entire Bible with Pastor Paul LeBoutiller at Calvary Chapel Ontario Oregon. I learn well from him. You take Biblical study in a completely different direction. The 2 of you paint a 360° picture of the Bible and everyone in it. God 🙏 Bless you pastor Mike. Thanks for your patient teaching, your diligent studying of Gods word and relaying the whole thing for free to those of us who Love Jesus and want to know Him more.
Wow Mike, this is a real marathon with outstanding materiel. Perhaps going forward, as this is too good to hide, an edited version to make this huge amount of learning widely available. Thank you for your amazing work
I want to make sure I understand what Mike Winger is proposing about the blank space in B after Mk 16:8: that a scribe in the Alexandrian text-stream, which is populated by MSS which have the Gospels in the order Mt-Mk-Lk-Jn (and we observe P75 with the order Lk-Jn), left a blank space to convey that his exemplar of the Gospels ended with Mark? Exactly what evidence does Winger give that the Western order (Mt-Jn-Lk-Mk) was ever followed in the (very non-Western) Alexandrian transmission-stream? And why would any scribe imagine that a blank space after Mark, in a MS in which the Gospels appear in the order Mt-Mk-Lk-Jn, would convey this?
This is THE best video I’ve found on this topic. Recently, I found this article (below) from Got Questions that was an interesting read as well.
“Although the vast majority of later Greek manuscripts contain Mark 16:9-20, the Gospel of Mark ends at verse 8 in two of the oldest and most respected manuscripts, the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. As the oldest manuscripts are known to be the most accurate because there were fewer generations of copies from the original autographs (i.e., they are much closer in time to the originals), and the oldest manuscripts do not contain vv. 9-20, we can conclude that these verses were added later by scribes. The King James Version of the Bible, as well as the New King James, contains vv. 9-20 because the King James used medieval manuscripts as the basis of its translation. Since 1611, however, older and more accurate manuscripts have been discovered and they affirm that vv. 9-20 were not in the original Gospel of Mark.
In addition, the fourth-century church fathers Eusebius and Jerome noted that almost all Greek manuscripts available to them lacked vv. 9-20, although they doubtless knew those other endings existed. In the second century, Justin Martyr and Tatian knew about other endings. Irenaeus, also, in A.D. 150 to 200, must have known about this long ending because he quotes verse 19 from it. So, the early church fathers knew of the added verses, but even by the fourth century, Eusebius said the Greek manuscripts did not include these endings in the originals.
The internal evidence from this passage also casts doubt on Mark as the author. For one thing, the transition between verses 8 and 9 is abrupt and awkward. The Greek word translated “now” that begins v. 9 should link it to what follows, as the use of the word “now” does in the other synoptic Gospels. However, what follows doesn’t continue the story of the women referred to in v. 8, describing instead Jesus’ appearing to Mary Magdalene. There’s no transition there, but rather an abrupt and bizarre change, lacking the continuity typical of Mark’s narrative. The author should be continuing the story of the women based on the word “now,” not jumping to the appearance to Mary Magdalene. Further, for Mark to introduce Mary Magdalene here as though for the very first time (v. 9) is odd because she had already been introduced in Mark’s narrative (Mark 15:40, 47, 16:1), another evidence that this section was not written by Mark.
Furthermore, the vocabulary is not consistent with Mark’s Gospel. These last verses don’t read like Mark’s. There are eighteen words here that are never used anywhere by Mark, and the structure is very different from the familiar structure of his writing. The title “Lord Jesus,” used in verse 19, is never used anywhere else by Mark. Also, the reference to signs in vv. 17-18 doesn’t appear in any of the four Gospels. In no account, post-resurrection of Jesus, is there any discussion of signs like picking up serpents, speaking with tongues, casting out demons, drinking poison, or laying hands on the sick. So, both internally and externally, this is foreign to Mark.
While the added ending offers no new information, nor does it contradict previously revealed events and/or doctrine, both the external and internal evidence make it quite certain that Mark did not write it. In reality, ending his Gospel in verse 8 with the description of the amazement of the women at the tomb is entirely consistent with the rest of the narrative. Amazement at the Lord Jesus seems to be a theme with Mark. “They were amazed at his teaching” (Mark 1:22); “They were all amazed, so that they debated among themselves” (Mark 1:27); “He healed the paralytic, and they were all amazed and were glorifying God saying, ‘We’ve never seen anything like this’” (Mark 2:12). Astonishment at the work of Jesus is revealed throughout Mark’s narrative (Mark 4:41; 5:15, 33, 42; 6:51; 9:6, 15, 32; 10:24, 32; 11:18; 12:17; 16:5). Some, or even one, of the early scribes, however, apparently missed the thematic evidence and felt the need to add a more conventional ending.”
Thank you so much, Mike!! You put your heart into studying these things and I just want you to know from a Christian Sister how grateful I am that you study and pray before you share your thoughts on any issue you share. This is a big deal and very touchy to some people. You are an absolute blessing and we love you!!!
As always, I am really grateful for your dedication and scholarship. I am reading Mark with my son and it was important to me to know about the ending. God bless your work.
What I love about Mike is that he's always got a healthy level of skepticism
Lol
Skepticism where he denies what is biblical
@@justsomevids4541 ooh David Wood reuploads. nice. I mean, I don't agree with everything Mike teaches. Where would you say he errs?
@@kyleisbored7465 i meant in terms of what scripture is biblical, like the longer ending of Mark.
James E Snapp has proven without a doubt that it is authentic, idk why Mike misrepresents Snapp this badly.
But even more obvious is where Mike commented (in comment section) that "tobit and judith was important to people but not part of scripture".
I refer u to read Gary Michuta's books and subscribe to his YT channel "apocrypha apocalypse",
Long story short: the church believed the "apocrypha" (deuterocanon) is inspired scripture. People only went off track when Jerome had his idea of "hebrew truth" which protestants used to justify the removal , but Jerome's claim has been proven wrong since the Dead Sea scrolls discoveries.
The deuterocanon is God's Word.
And im not catholic or orthodox.
@@justsomevids4541 ah on this topic I see. Interesting take
If you're looking for the final conclusion Mike comes to then go to 2:03:55
He says the shorter end of Mark (ending at Mark 16 : 8) is the correct ending,
but Mike still wants the longer ending (Mark 16 : 9 - 20) to be included in his Bible with notes about it.
1:21:45 - Mike, could you be a bit more specific? Especially since I build absolutely nothing on any supposed connection between Clement of Rome and Mk 16:9-20)??
Thank you for such long in-depth videos such as these. It is such a blessing to me. As a stay-at-home mom with tiny children on me nearly 24/7, I don’t have a lot of time to focus on reading/research. I’m grateful for all of the “meat” in your videos. Your efforts, thought, and time put into your videos is far reaching. I thank you and praise God for your channel which has been such a good and convenient resource. I also share your videos with others and have felt much more equipped with answers and resources when communicating with both fellow believers and non-believers.
With all the work you've put into this it almost makes me feel bad for not really understanding most of it. I started with a little mystery that does not really alter my understanding of the gospel in any way, and ended up with an overly complicated mystery that still does not really alter my understanding of the gospel in any way.
Thank you Mike for all you do. I trust your opinion because of all the research you do. I have listened to all of the Mark Series. I’m from Long Beach and I’m seventy= six years old. You are a blessing to me. I love apologetics. When I retired from forty years of teaching, I wanted to research the question of how is the Jesus story believable. I have read many things in the fourteen years I’ve been retired. So, again, I am happy I found you online and am happy and blessed by your studies. Love listening to you.
45:00 - About MS 22 -- it must be pointed out that the wording shown isn't wording from the copyist of MS 22; 22 (along with 15, 1110, 1192, and 1210) merely perpetuates a shortened form of the note found in its fuller form in 1, 205, 2886, 209, and 1582. It goes back to an ancestor of family-1, probably made in the 400s.
Hi Mike, I started listening to you a couple months ago and enjoy your perspective. Some colleagues and I are doing a study of Mark. Knew this subject would come up. Thanks for the dispassionate and thoughtfully compiled overview of these verses. I listened to this straight through! 😊
In the paraphrased words of a famous Cecilian "...so I clearly can't choose the wine in front of me/you." 🤣
Inconceivable!
Lol
Well said, outsmarting the wise is what God does best with simple easy truth, like one bible, one God , and one faith.
You mean Sicilian. Caecilians are amphibians, similar to salamanders.
I'd be equally happy if Vizzini was a caecilian, though!
if Mark is the oldest gospel and Matthew and Luke borrow from it or reference it, why don't Matthew or Mark mention anything about the signs of the followers? that seems like a HUGE thing to leave out for Matthew and Luke? Why wouldn't Matthew or Luke mention the whole "17 These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” part?
Okay, so what do people think about about 5:30 onwards, where he says that he would prefer people don't watch the video if it will shake their faith.
I am a Christian, but I find this sort of thinking one of the reasons I get so frustrated with people who talk about the Bible. You would NEVER hear someone in a university in a field like math or science or archaeology say "oh, so we know there is this likely conclusion out there based on the evidence...but we don't want you to know about it if it's going to lead you to a different conclusion, so we're going to hide the truth and evidence from you"
How is this sort of thinking helpful? How is discipleship helpful if it willfully desires people to remain in the dark about truth so that they can come to an a priori conclusion.
I would rather people in my church to engage with the evidence and leave the faith if that is intellectually honest instead of willfully not wanting them to engage with reality, but live in a false reality because it better supports their thinking. If people have false assumptions about the Bible that don't relate to reality and the evidence, then they need to be challenged and changed.
The truth is like a lion. Let it roar.
It would appear Mike knows his conclusion will not be well accepted by faithful Christians and is trying to mitigate the impact of overly trusting in biased, skeptical scholars rather than the inspired, inerrant Word of God. Bible teachers and BibleThinkers should stick to the text faithfully transmitted to us rather than spending inordinate amounts of time in unfruitful scholarly debates. The long ending of Mark is in the majority of manuscripts and is quoted extensively by the early church fathers even before the first manuscript that has it missing. Good study as always, but wrong conclusion by an otherwise great teacher of the Word.
@@scottsimon9435 Hit the nail on the head, Scott. God bless.
So, Mike has data for days! I’m impressed this video is only two hours. I really appreciate how you give voice to multiple views when you teach and share the journey of coming to your conclusion; it’s so helpful!
God bless you Pastor Mike, thanks for all the effort you put into your videos
This was really good Mike. I know you put in a lot of time to be able to do this so thank you for it brother.
Thanks Mike for that wonderful and in depth study! I'm looking forward to the women in ministry study. But please enjoy your break. Be blessed !
The very fact that there has been a raging debate over the gospel of Mark going on since the early centuries is a testament to how important this document, and the NT documents in general, are. Wherever you look, you see people who have a fervent desire to "get it right." It shows that the vast majority of scribes took their job very seriously. For many, they weren't sure the longer ending was authentic, but they also didn't want it to be lost to history just in case it was authentic. This is encouraging to me. What would have been much worse is if we had evidence that there use to be a longer ending, but we know not what it was, because it is lost forever. So it is definitely better that we have it, even if we're not sure of its authenticity.
The longer ending of Mark doesn't seem authentic to me. The part after 16:9 where the author feels the need to reiterate to the reader who Mary Magdalene is, even though she's mentioned earlier in the book, and even a paragraphs earlier, gives it away that it's not authentic, and was most likely added later.
Thanks for providing the details, can you please, give the verse number of the paragraph that gives it away that its not authentic? And which bible has these chapters/verse, i assume its not in our regular bible.
@@michi-bi its Mark 16:9 "Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. ESV,.
I'm sure its probably the same verse in the other mainstream bibles.
Long story short, it's a short reference, but I think it's more like a read between the lines situation that because the author felt the need to remind us of what Jesus did to Mary Magdalene for casting out the demons. Also which I don't think was mentioned in Mark. But is instead mentioned in Luke 8 tells me that the author wasnt the same author of Mark chapters 1 to 16:8. Most likely a different author adding those extra verses later, maybe even years later who by that time had knowledge of the gospel of Luke. Either way, agree to disagree
@@MediocreUkulelePlayer Not exactly a defense to stand on. You see in all 4 gospels they reiterate multiple times "Judas, the betrayer" over and over again. If you take that stance you would have to not trust the gospels because of repetition. It just doesn't sound like a good argument to me. I take it more as clarification. You can see clarifying repetition in other people in the bible as well.
An example of this is John 18:2, then THREE verses later, he states the same thing, with the same phrasing in verse 5.
@@paytons6767 It's strange though because several verses earlier she's called "Mary Magdelene" without the clarifier.
If you start with the clarifier and drop it, that makes sense. If you always have the clarifier, that makes sense. If you reintroduce the clarifier because it's necessary to the content of what's happening, that makes sense.
What doesn't make sense is to not have it then introduce it later for no reason.
@@sivad1025 it's a pity I can't like your comment twice. That is reasonable analyses in my opinion.
In light of the recent Billy Carson debacle, it’s so incredibly refreshing to have people like Mike very seriously and carefully look at the data from a clearly academic and organized manner to arrive at these conclusions. Thanks bro for an educational and informative breakdown!
A bible scholar I met informed me that the ending seems abrupt because it's a literary device common in jewish drama literature. The book consistently proves Jesus as the messiah, and after so many times that Jesus builds tension telling his followers not to tell anyone who he is, He finally does and it's exciting... but the disciples hide. In my opinion it's a masterful way to end the book because a reader of this would be motivated to then do what Jesus finally called us all to do, spread the good news.
We have to study not just the language, context, geography, history of the text, but also the cultural devices used at the time.
That's my two cents.
Wow! Lots of very good work! Thank you so much. The Lord answered our prayers for you! This was amazing!!!
This is a BIG one!!!
We need to see God as *revealed in the Bible* , not as we believe him in our minds, or in our Christian culture. 😊🙏👆🏼🔥
Jesus said we have two possible masters/ teachers. You can't get truth from both, only one. Whatever you hear or read, it has to be interpreted by one or the other. So truth is revealed in our mind, not in a book.
@@robertdouglas8895 the heart is deceitful above all things
@@robertdouglas8895 what?
@@samichjpg correction..My being evil seems to let you off the hook like Jesus taking the blame for you. Then I'm the deceived one, not you.
@@samichjpg Trust God to speak with you personally then you won't have to trust in a book.
I've noticed I came back to this video a couple of times to refresh my memory on the ending of Marcus. So I decided to leave a comment for the algorithm. Very good video Mike 👍
I love your search for truth. Any honest man wants the truth even if it starves his desires. God's truth feeds the need :)
21:04 whoa whoa wait a minute here . . . [ question ] were these books that were not a part of the bible only appear in these older manuscripts ? such as the book of Tobit or other mentioned books you mentioned ? Because what does it say if one group of manuscripts contains books that are not a part of the bible and also these same manuscripts have verses and chapters missing from some books of the bible ? and .... where were these manuscripts found ?
If the majority texts are closer to KJV and the KJV uses manuscripts that don't have these so called missing or removed books of the bible but the older ones do .
Why would that affect the reliability and trustworthiness of these older manuscripts ?
Mike, big thanks for the teaching. In a parallel thought, in John chapter 7, the Pharisees raise what seems to be a legitimate objection to Jesus as Messiah - he is from Galilee and the Christ is prophesied to be from David’s line and from Bethlehem. The Gospel of John never answers that objection. If all we had was the gospel of John, we might have a problem. However, Scripture is inspired by God himself, and the four Gospels (and the whole of Scripture) fill in the gaps for one another so that the whole picture gives us a canon that is perfect and sufficient. In the same way, Mark doesn’t need to tell post-resurrection narratives because the other Gospels and Acts cover it. None of the Truth of the Bible hinges on a single passage (or lack thereof). As such we have confidence that our faith is rooted in the Word of God, not the writings of men.
Amen
@preyr631 yes, there have been entire denominations(Pentecostals/charismatics) who base half their theology on a few single verses taken out of context
Thanks so much for this Mike. This is so interesting, balanced, thorough and level headed. I’m intelectually stimulated and spiritually blessed. Thanks so much for your whole hearted service. Big love from 🇬🇧
I've always felt the end of Mark did not fit just right the way it was written, but I totally believe it and am glad it is there.
This was outstanding. Like, truly a job well done. You did the best job of anyone I've ever heard of.
Hey Mike, on Sam Shamoun's channel, James Snapp goes through things you may have left out of Mark 16:9-20. What are your thoughts about this?
Also, Sam claims to have contacted you about having a discussion about it. Can you confirm this?
This right here. James Snapp should be invited for a live video and discussion on Winger's channel.
I wish Sam's video had time stamps on it. Most of the two hours have nothing to do with responding to this video. Can you help us out with that?
Dear Mike, thanks SO much for your marathon. Diligent, thorough, honest, funny, yet serious. God bless you for doing the work for me, for being so faithful that, I’m sorry, I Do trust you (even though I hear and try to remember your warnings). I love that scholars are responding to you. Tells me they respect you as a serious researcher who loves your subject (the Word)
I love that you put in 150 hours, retained it all (respect!) and then produce it all coherently, fluently. Wow! Thanks so much. When is someone going to give you a PhD, I wonder!
Glad your next project is on women in the church, as that does trouble me. I bought The Handmaidens Conspiracy, hoping to be convinced, but….Paul is so clear! So I’m waiting! Thank you
Most translations come to exactly this solution and for this reason. It’s included but footnoted because we don’t know for absolute certain that God doesn’t want it there. I already held this position but Mike did a great job of researching it.
Everything that happens, happens because God wants it to. There are no exceptions. The rebellion, sin, death. All because He wanted it to. He just wanted to create things and write a book.
@@BD-cv3wu wait what? He wanted the fall?
@@Mutantcy1992 What about that is new or surprising to you? God isnt fooled and knows everything before it happens. We all know this. So, He didn't not know they would eat the fruit, in fact I knee it was only going to be a matter of time. Telling people to not do something only makes them want to do it more. And if you dont substitute that with something else that blame is on you. You weren't paying attention to your kids and this is what happens. Thats on every parent out there. Parents should always pay attention to whatvtheir kids are doing and where they are anf who their friends are.
@Jake LaGotta Every man is a blind person that needs guidance from God. The great lie is that we make choices. Jesus says they are made for us.
@@BD-cv3wu are you a Calvinist?
Amazing job on this, thank you for the hard work, dedication, and thoroughness! Keep the faith and keep on doing what God has called you to do
An outstanding example of why Mike Winger has become popular: accessible, learned and engaging just Great !!
Mike if the early church fathers have the ending and they are older than your oldest and greatest manuscripts then why do we place these manuscripts in such high reguard why? I dont understand why these 3 manuscriptsbthat contradict each other thousands of times have so much weight? If there are older writtings that have the ending. Do you see my frustration?
If you are going to admit that the long ending of Mark was not written by Mark and not originally included as part of the Bible (which are both true), but then suggest that it should be included in the Bible anyway, then what you are saying is that the "Word of God" as originally written was not complete and warranted improvement.
Or that it should be included because there is an honest debate as to whether it is authentic, and Christians should not be prevented from seeing it in the Bible when many solid saints believe it should be there.
That is a good argument. What I think would change that though is if the material within what was added is itself scriptural. (That meaning the material is not new but is pulled from other passages of scripture.) If this can be said, then there is nothing truly added.
Another point to add is that chapters and verses were not part of the original. Should we then remove them? Now I know these are just numbers to help navigate and not actually helpful, but if the argument is that adding to the Bible means it wasn't finished and needed improvement then that argument also applies to chapters and verses
Thank you so much for taking the time to document so much information and so thoroughly. You’ve saved me, well, apparently hundreds of hours (though I would have given up after maybe 5)
The "tricksy hobbit" references 🤣. Also, thank you for this well-researched, interesting video.
just did the marathon study with you pastor! Love it, praise the Lord! Love pastor Mike. today is March 1st 2023
Amazing! Can you make a similar video about the reliability of the passage in John about the woman caught in adultery?
It's reliable
@@nsptech9773Yes, reliably not written by John. It is sad when faith can blind us to the truth. There is nothing to fear from truth so have courage and open your eyes.
@@nsptech9773BTW if it is "reliable", why is it not in the early manuscripts? Why does it not appear until centuries after the rest of John?
@@nsptech9773It is one of the most beautiful stories in the bible and wasn't easy for me to accept that perhaps my favourite passage was indeed a much later addition but accept it I had to as we can not hide from truth and the fact that it was not any part of John's gospel does not necessarily make it untrue.
@Mike Winger what an awesome, valuable resource this video is!
Mike Winger’s conclusion is ambiguous. I get that he likes the long ending of Mark and wants to keep it in the Bible, and that he thinks Mark didn’t write it himself; but is the longer ending of Mark inspired by God (meaning that God himself spoke these words either through Mark or through whoever else) or not? In other words, do 2 Timothy 3:16 (“All scripture is given by inspiration of God”) and 2 Peter 1:21 (“Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”) apply to the long ending of Mark or not? Is it legit scripture, or just a nice story that God thought we should hear?
Seems that distinction is fuzzier than black and white. Are translations still God’s Word? What about rephrasings of translations? I think in a world where all truth is God’s truth we are equipped to discern what is key and what is peripheral.
@@geoffstemen3652 Uh of course translations are still God’s word. If you translate something I say, is it still my word? Duh.
It’s really not a difficult question. Did God speak Mark 16:9-20, in any language, or not?
@@Santiago_Fernandez Some Christians take the deuterocanonical books as Scripture. Clearly, the word is organic and not clinically exact.
@@geoffstemen3652 Bro, did Mike Winger, as an individual, conclude that God Almighty spoke the words written in Mark 16:9-20, or not?
@@Santiago_Fernandez “It gradually became part of Mark for everyone. And maybe that was God’s design.” His conclusion is, it is early enough to be nearly canonical-so better safe than sorry.
1:08:30 would the fact that Eusebius was an Arian cause him any bias about the authenticity of the passage in Mark 16?
Mike Winger: Germs can not pass through microphones yet.
They're working on It.
LOL
The next invention to come out of Wuhan
This video is AMAZING. Wow! I thought I knew pretty much about the LE of Mark but this was totally worth the whole watch. Thank you Mike!
Thank you for your work on this. Extremely interesting. Regarding the internal evidence, the usage of Greek as "kai" together with "present form past tense" sounds a lot like the Hebrew "we+qatal" formulation. The external evidence you brought up regarding second century witnesses to the controversy seems to me to outweigh even the fourth century manuscripts. After listening to this it sounds to me like Peter's witness goes to v8, and the younger Mark who interpreted for Peter added the remainder. People who only wanted Peter's words cut it off at v8 and later Mark himself added the longer ending with a less Hebraic wording. Complete speculation I know, but I agree with the conclusion that perhaps this should be maintained in the Bible with clear footnoting. I wonder how this style study would hold up compared to the letters attributed to Peter.
Thank you Mike for for all the work that you do. May the Lord fill you with wisdom, knowledge and understanding
Germs don't pass through microphones yet.
"they're working on it" 😆🤣😆🤣
I'm surprised this innocuous Bible study wasn't pulled from TH-cam for that joke
Ive been excited for this video, looking forward to watching after I get off work tonight
@Mike Winger Are you aware of Nabeel Qureahi’s thesis he was working on prior to his death that looked at the ending of Mark as being for oral presentation by individual speakers in its original context. That is each “preacher” would give their own eyewitness testimony.
That is interesting.
While I am not sure about Mike specifically, but that is similar to David Alan Black's position, if I remember correctly. He thinks that Mark was Peter's sermon notes and the ending was simply him talking. This would allow him to change it with different audiences. Since Mike is using Black's material, I am sure he read about it somewhere.
That would make sense to me as the use of kai is a Hebrewism but IIRC Mark was Greek, Peter was definitely Jewish. Hence the longer ending is more Greek l, the rest of Mark seems more likely to be written by a Hebrew author.
Thank you for all the effort and time put in this. The respectful handling of the word is what shines throughout all the video. Its a very high preach of inspiration, it's not a download of information, its God using the very person and its uniqueness to give His message, so its God's word, but mediated and reflected toward us in "the surface" one of his faithful servants, as John says "Nobody has seen God, The Son has shown it to us" (saving the distance that the trinity brings, of course).
Luke in his gospel implies that there is already a published gospel that is "unordered" that seems to fit the gospel of Mark.Mark was probably alive many years afterward. It makes sense to me if the first publication preceded the long ending this could be added and lots of both manuscripts could exist and still be genuine.
He could equally have been referring to the document known as ‘Q’
The writers names on the gospels were not there when they were first in circulation. Names were added later. there are plenty of written sources for that.
I was wondering if the ending of Mark had any similarities to the writings of Luke.
@@curious011 If you have other suggestions for the names that should be on them I would be interested to know what you think.
@@bassmanjr100 they had no names. Also nothing in any gospel states the author. It was very common to put the name of an apostle or the name of one of their companions on anonymous books. It gave them authenticity. It's all tradition. It also made them eyewitnesses. But you can tell in the gospel stories thAt they were not eyewitnesses.
This is an awesome video with lots of good information. Mike is the best TH-cam presenter on bible matters that I have found. Well done as usual.
Mike, now that you've finally covered the whole gospel of Mark all the way up to the ending and the longer ending, will you do a series on Luke or Matthew? I deal like I've learned more about what makes Mark unique and special from your videos than I have anywhere else and I'd love to learn more on the unique things about the other gospels from you. If Mark makes sandwiches what kind of dish does Matthew and Luke prepare? I've recently learned the phrase "Lukian Question". How many "what shall I do?" Questions are in Luke? Does Matthew really not have parables with the "what shall I do?" question in them?
Please keep making your amazing content!
Hebrews is next!
If I remove verses 9-20 of Mark 16 from my Bible and then I total the number of verses of Mark with these supposed controversial verses removed, what is the final sum?
There is a reason that textual criticism by modern day scribes does not supercede the very word of God that I hold in my hand.
There has been much controversy over the final 12 verses of the Gospel of Mark. Behind this dispute lies some astonishing discoveries of profound significance.
The oldest existing manuscripts of the Greek New Testament text are three that had their origins in Alexandria in the 4th and 5th centuries.1 Since they are the oldest (in our present possession), many regard them as having an eclipsing authority. There are a number of passages that do not appear in these Alexandrian manuscripts, and therein lies an intense ecclesiastical debate.
Textus Receptus
At the end of the 3rd century, Lucian of Antioch compiled a Greek text that achieved considerable popularity and became the dominant text throughout Christendom. It was produced prior to the Diocletain persecution (~303), during which many copies of the New Testament were confiscated and destroyed.
After Constantine came to power, the Lucian text was propagated by bishops going out from the Antiochan school throughout the eastern world, and it soon became the standard text of the Eastern church, forming the basis of the Byzantine text.
From the 6th to the 14th century, the great majority of New Testament manuscripts were produced in Byzantium, in Greek. It was in 1525 that Erasmus, using five or six Byzantine manuscripts dating from the 10th to the 13th centuries, compiled the first Greek text to be produced on a printing press, subsequently known as Textus Receptus ("Received Text").
The translators of the King James Version had over 5,000 manuscripts available to them, but they leaned most heavily on the major Byzantine manuscripts, particularly Textus Receptus.
Textus Receptus Dethroned
Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort were Anglican churchmen who had contempt for the Textus Receptus and began a work in 1853 that resulted, after 28 years, in a Greek New Testament based on the earlier Alexandrian manuscripts.
Both men were strongly influenced by Origen and others who denied the deity of Jesus Christ and embraced the prevalent Gnostic heresies of the period. There are over 3,000 contradictions in the four gospels alone between these manuscripts. They deviated from the traditional Greek text in 8,413 places.
They conspired to influence the committee that produced The New Testament in the Original Greek (1881 revision), and, thus, their work has been a major influence in most modern translations, dethroning the Textus Receptus.
Detractors of the traditional King James Version regard the Westcott and Hort as a more academically acceptable literary source for guidance than the venerated Textus Receptus. They argue that the disputed passages were added later as scribal errors or amendments.
Defenders of the Textus Receptus attack Westcott and Hort (and the Alexandrian manuscripts) as having expurgated these many passages, noting that these disputed passages underscore the deity of Christ, His atonement, His resurrection, and other key doctrines. They note that Alexandria was a major headquarters for the Gnostics, heretical sects that had begun to emerge even while John was still alive.2
(It is also evident that Westcott and Hort were not believers and opposed taking the Bible literally concerning the Atonement, Salvation, etc. If you read their personal writings you wouldn't dream of letting them lead your Sunday School class!)3
The Last 12 Verses of Mark
Among the disputed passages are the final verses of the Gospel of Mark (16:9-20). (Look in your own Bible: you are likely to find an annotation that these were "added later.")
The insistence that Mark's Gospel ends at 16:8 leaves the women afraid and fails to record the resurrection, Christ's final instructions, and the Ascension. It is understandable why these verses are an embarrassment to the Gnostics, and why Westcott and Hort would advocate their exclusion, and insist that they were "added later."
However, it seems that Irenaeus in 150 A.D., and also Hypolytus in the 2nd century, each quote from these disputed verses, so the documentary evidence is that they were deleted later in the Alexandrian texts, not added subsequently.)
But there is even more astonishing evidence for their original inclusion that is also profoundly instructive for broader reasons.
The Fingerprints of the Author
Let's examine these verses and explore their underlying design. Just as we encounter fingerprint or retinal scanners to verify an identity in today's technological environment, it seems that there is an astonishingly equivalent "fingerprint" hidden beneath the Biblical text that is still visible despite the veil of the centuries.
(Fasten your seat belts!)
The Heptadic Structure of Scripture
Everyone who explores their Bible quickly discovers the pervasiveness of Seven: there are over 600 explicit occurrences of "sevens" throughout both the Old and New Testaments. As many of our readers are aware, there are also prevalent evidences of design hidden behind the text.4 The "Heptadic" (sevenfold) structure of Biblical text is one of the remarkable characteristics of its authenticity. What about these disputed 12 verses?
There are 175 (7 x 25) words in the Greek text of Mark 16:9-20. Curious. These words use a total vocabulary of 98 different words (7 x 14), also an exact multiple of seven. That's also rather striking.
Try constructing a passage in which both the number of words and the number of letters are precisely divisible by seven (with no remainder)! The random chance of a number being precisely divisible by 7 is one chance in seven. In seven tries, there will be an average of six failures.
The chance of two numbers both being divisible by 7 exactly is one in 72, or one in 49. (This is a convenient simplification; some mathematical statisticians would argue the chance is one in 91.5 ) This still might be viewed as an accidental occurrence, or the casual contrivance of a clever scribe. But let's look further. The number of letters in this passage is 553, also a precise multiple of seven (7 x 79). This is getting a bit more tricky. The chance of three numbers accidentally being precisely divisible by seven is one in 73, or one in 343. This increasingly appears to be suspiciously deliberate.
In fact, the number of vowels is 294 (7 x 42); and the number of consonants is 259 (7 x 37). Do you sense that someone has gone through a lot of trouble to hide a design or signature behind this text?
As we examine the vocabulary of those 98 (7 x 14) words: 84 (7 x 12) are found before in Mark; 14 (7 x 2) are found only here. 42 (7 x 6) are found in the Lord's address (vv.15-18); 56 (7 x 8) are not part of His vocabulary here.
This is, conspicuously, not random chance at work, but highly skillful design. But just how skillful?
With 10 such heptadic features, it would take 710, or 282,475,249 attempts for these to occur by chance alone. How long would it take the composer to redraft an alternative attempt to obtain the result he was looking for? If he could accomplish an attempt in only 10 minutes, working 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, these would take him over 23,540 years!
But there's more. The total word forms in the passage are 133 (7 x 19). 112 of them (7 x 16) occur only once, leaving 21 (7 x 3) of them occurring more than once; in fact, these occur 63 (7 x 9) times.
If we examine more closely the 175 words (7x 25), we discover that 56 (7 x 8) words appear in the address of the Lord and 119 (7 x 17) appear in the rest of the passage.
The natural divisions of the passage would be the appearance to Mary, verses 9-11; His subsequent appearances, verses 12-14; Christ's discourse, verses 15-18; and the conclusion in verses 19-20. We discover that verses 9-11 involve 35 words (7 x 5). Verses 12-18, 105 (7 x 15) words; verse 12, 14 (7 x 2) words; verses 13-15, 35 (7 x 5) words; verses 16-18, 56 (7 x 8) words. The conclusion, verses 19-20, contains 35 (7 x 5) words.
It gets worse. Greek, like Hebrew, has assigned numerical values to each letter of its alphabet. Thus, each word also has a numerical ("gematrical") value.
The total numerical value of the passage is 103,656 (7 x 14,808). The value of v.9 is 11,795 (7 x 1,685); v.10 is 5,418 (7 x 774); v.11 is 11,795 (7 x 1,685); vv.12-20, 86,450 (7 x 12,350). In verse 10, the first word is 98 (7 x 14), the middle word is 4,529 (7 x 647), and the last word is 791 (7 x 113). The value of the total word forms is 89,663 (7 x 12,809). And so on.
Individual words also tell a tale. (click for Greek), deadly (v.18) is not found elsewhere in the New Testament. It has a numeric value of 581 (7 x 83), and is preceded in the vocabulary list by 42 (6 x 7) words, and in the passage itself by 126 (7 x 18) words.
This all is among the legendary results of the work by Dr. Ivan Panin. (See inset below). In fact, he identified 75 heptadic features of the last 12 verses of Mark.7 We have highlighted only 34 heptadic features. If a supercomputer could be programmed to attempt 400 million attempts/second, working day and night, it would take one million of them over four million years to identify a combination of 734 heptadic features by unaided chance alone.7
Authentication Codes
Just as we encounter coding devices in our high technology environments, here we have an automatic security system that monitors every letter of every word, that never rusts or wears out, and has remained in service for almost two thousand years! It is a signature that can't be erased and which counterfeiters can't simulate.
Why are we surprised? God has declared that He "has magnified His word even above His name!"8 We can, indeed, have confidence that, in fact, the Bible is God's Holy Word, despite the errors man has introduced and the abuse it has suffered throughout the centuries. It is our most precious possession-individually as well as collectively.
And it never ceases to unveil surprises to anyone that diligently inquires into it.
A great book on textual criticism IMO is a 2019 publication called: “Myths and mistakes in New Testament textual Criticism” by Elijah Hixson and Peter Gurry. Forward by Daniel Wallace. The Logos version is particularly good due to cross references etc.
Textual criticism, only in this sorry church age would someone be critical of God's word.
Seconded, Hixdon & Gurry' book is an excellent work & a must read for anyone who needs to understand why what we have is God's uncorrupted word to this planet.
@@MercuryIsHg which Bible is God's uncorrupted word?
@@biblethumper6284 In the book mentioned above. The majority of what is written is about correcting misconceptions that some scholars and apologists have about the biblical text and it’s transmission. If you have a good book recommendation refuting the need for textual criticism happy to read it.
@@T_Mike I wasn't necessarily bashing the book that was referenced, if you want anything that will put to silence the idea of being critical of God's word, read literally anything (about the Bible) by Dr. Peter S.
Ruckman.