It is noteworthy how few people are familiar with the works which examine the alleged “most reliable and early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses” that the Critical Text (CT) is based upon, which latter derives in the main from the Westcott and Hort (W&H) Greek text of 1881.
The quote above is from the margin note found in the NIV, and meant to indicate the spuriousness of Mark 16:9-20. The margin notes in the NASB and ESV are similar and to the same effect, the CT being the Greek they are also based upon.
The primary, and almost
exclusive “ancient witnesses” that omit these 12 verses are codices
Vaticanus (B) and
Sinaiticus (
a) or
aleph, after the first Hebrew letter, both of Alexandrian origin. Without looking at their origins in detail at this time, they were very likely Egyptian manuscripts modified by Origen, or at least accepted by him, and made into the official NT text by Eusebius of Caesarea (265-339) when Constantine requested 50 Bibles of him, due to the scarcity of Scripture after the destruction of churches, Bibles, and believers in the reign of Diocletian and his 10 years of horrific persecution (302-312). The fierce conflict in the days of Eusebius between the orthodox Christians and the Arians and Sabellians led to the manuscripts being tampered with for doctrinal reasons, as has been documented.
More to the point for the purposes of this thread is how these two manuscripts were resurrected from obscurity into places of prominence in the 19th century, and what the characters of each are.
Herman C. Hoskier was a textual scholar of the Greek New Testament who minutely examined and then opposed Westcott and Hort’s principal texts,
Vaticanus and
Sinaiticus in a two-volume study. The first is titled,
Codex B And Its Allies: A Study and an Indictment; the second volume, which we will quote from here, is titled,
Codex B And Its Allies, Part II: Chiefly concerning a, but covering three thousand differences between and a and B in the Four Gospels, with the evidence supporting each side, including the new manuscript evidence collected by VON SODEN, and the collateral readings of other important authorities.(1) Hoskier states,
In the light of the following huge lists let us never be told in the future that either a or B represents any form of “Neutral” text…
Our little study [after the examination of B in Volume I] would be quite incomplete without a further account of the idiosyncrasies of a. This is best shown by exhibiting the principal places where a and B differ, which, in number, far exceed what anyone might suppose who does not go deeply into the comparative study of the two documents. As a matter of fact the “shorter” text of the two is found in a …
I have tabulated the major part of these differences between a and B in the Gospels and given the supporting authorities on each side. They amount to—
Matt. . . . 656+
Mark . . . 567+
Luke . . . 791+
John . . . 1022+
Total . . . 3036+ (2)
Hoskier’s study continues on for 381 pages of documentation (412 including a Scriptural index), if anyone is interested in pursuing a comparative examination of
a and B, the foundation of W&H’s critical text.
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(1)
Codex B And Its Allies, by Herman C. Hoskier (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1914).
(2) Ibid., Vol. II, page 1.
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In a courtroom when two witnesses testifying to the same matter disagree sharply with one another, they cannot be called “reliable” witnesses, but rather they impugn one another’s testimony. And when such
unreliable witnesses are scrutinized in the light of a virtual multitude of other witnesses who disagree with the two while agreeing with one another, the evidence becomes preponderant in favor of the majority. Mere “age” of a manuscript may easily be offset by other more weighty factors. It is a given regarding the condition of a manuscript that those exhibiting the least wear have been used the least; often it is because they have been set aside as of inferior quality. In my own library the books that are in the worst shape, and which sometimes have to be replaced, are those I use the most. Those in the best shape I use the least.
a was discovered by Tischendorf at St. Catharine’s Greek Orthodox Monastery on Mt. Sinai in 1844.
Vaticanus has been in the Vatican Library at least since 1481, when it was catalogued. Those with some historical knowledge will remember that these were the years of the Inquisition in Spain during the reign of Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484). In 1481 some 2,000 believers dissenting with Rome were burned alive, with multitudes of others tortured (M’Crie,
History of the Reformation in Spain, p. 104). When Pope Innocent VIII (1484-1492) sat in the royal “Throne of Peter,” he followed in the vein of his namesake Innocent III and commenced anew a persecution against the peaceful Waldensian Christians in the northern Italian Alps, commanding their destruction “like venomous snakes” if they would not repent and turn to Rome. (Wylie,
History of the Waldenses, pp. 27-29) Bloodbaths followed against these harmless mountain peoples, who had their own Scriptures from ancient times, and worshipped in Biblical simplicity and order.
It perplexes many people that the Lord of these
many hundreds of thousands of Bible-believing saints who were tortured with unimaginable barbarity and slaughtered like dogs by the Roman Catholic “church” for centuries (it is no exaggeration to say for over a millennium) should have kept His choicest preserved manuscript in the safekeeping of the Library of the apostate murderers, designating it by their own ignominious name: Vaticanus. But it well suited W&H, who loved Rome, and despised the “evangelicals” of their own day,
and the Traditional Text they used to preach with power.
As concerns Mark 16:9-20, it is odd that it is almost exclusively these two MSS. that omit the verses, which almost all other uncials, miniscules, and lectionaries retain. What gives these two MSS. such weight over all others? W&H developed a theory to support their prized MSS., but it has been demonstrated to be devoid of any historical attestation
whatsoever. It is mere conjecture, which I am asked to assent to, and to ignore voluminous evidences – both historical and textual – to the contrary.
Nor would I allow either of these two men, Westcott or Hort, despite their ecclesiastical “attainments,” to preach or teach in the church I serve, seeing as they were heretics and reprobates, both in belief and in conduct, which assertions are documented. I find there is much secular attestation, beside the testimony of their sons in their respective
unabridged biographies of their fathers, to their spiritualism.
In a book, a former president of The Society For Psychical Research acknowledged its origins in “The Cambridge ‘Ghost Society’” formed by Westcott and Hort:
Lightfoot, Westcott and Hort were among its members…Lightfoot and Westcott both became bishops, and Hort Professor of Divinity. The S.P.R. has hardly lived up to the standard of ecclesiastical eminence set by the parent society. ([i]The Society For Psychical Research: An Outline Of Its History[i], by W.H. Salter (President, 1947-8), (London, Society For Psychical Research, 1948), pages 6, 7.)
I could go on with documentation of their unbelief in the historicity of the opening chapters of Genesis (and affirming solidarity with Charles Darwin and his theory), and other evidences of their unregenerate state. (To deny the historicity of Genesis, is to deny the Fall, the sinful condition of the human race, the need for an atoning sacrifice, etc etc.) That they fiercely demanded the presence of a notorious Unitarian on their revision committee , Dr. Vance Smith (who later published, gloatingly, of the textual damage done regarding the deity of Jesus Christ in the revision), indicating they considered him a brother Christian nonetheless, says something about their hearts.
Does it not make sense what was happening? Unregenerate men had infiltrated the church, and not only the church, but the inner precincts of scholarship and textual reproduction. The enemy had taken the inner stronghold, and put unholy hands on the written Word of God, to alter it.
I know I have not stuck strictly to the question at hand, but what has happened to the Biblical text is a phenomenon of many dimensions, and I wanted to cover more than one area, even if only with broad strokes.
I am working on a paper, perhaps 60 pages long, rendering these things in detail, thoroughly researched and documented. It is available in its present rough draft in pdf format (so as to keep the integrity of the Hebrew and Greek fonts, which not all Word documents will, I have learned), if anyone is interested. In return, I would appreciate any comments and criticisms you might have. I do affirm the authenticity of 1 John 5:7, sort of as the final fruition of all the preceding historical and textual detective-work.
For sort of an overview of these matters (and I am in accord with him on much of his historical views and research) I recommend David Cloud’s
Examining “The King James Only Controversy” (by James White), which entire book of Cloud’s is available online, and quite well done. Perhaps needless to say, I am a vigorous and relentless opponent of Cloud’s anti-Calvinist views, but that is a different battle, and I deem it secondary to the defense of Scripture, although it must indeed be fought!
Steve