A Brief Clip from Texxe Marrs then More Textual Criticism

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602, or toll-free across the United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341.

And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Texe Marrs on Bible Versions and Missing Verses

Let's jump in the Wayback Machine, let's go back to 1994, as I recall, Austin, Texas. Listen to this.

TexMars. Tex, are you there?

I am, Dale, and it's been good to hear your voice on the radio.

Thank you.

You know, I enjoy seeing your television program as well, and Wanda sends her best also.

Okay, that's right. TexMars used to go to our church, and what church are you going to now, Tex?

Well, we have our own group now. As you know, we live way on the other side of town, but I still have great love for Christ Memorial, Charles Bullock, the pastor there, he's doing great things. And I just want you all to continue in your great success.

Okay, and your comments to the debate here?

Yes, Dale, I just want to compliment Dr. White on defending God's Word, the King James Bible. Maybe he could let people know how to get his book, because I have a copy of it, and it's tremendous. But my specific question, and one of the things that I'm heartbroken about the new versions and what they've done to pervert God's Word, three things that are specific maybe Dr. White could comment on.

Is it true, Dr. White, that the new versions have totally eliminated the statements by Jesus, for example, get thee behind me, Satan? Another one, when Jesus told us to take up the cross and follow me.

Evidently those are missing from the new versions. And also, what about the Lord's Prayer? I recently read the NIV, the NAS, the two versions of the Lord's Prayer. I found out that they were horribly gutted, and entire lines were totally missing in the new version.

And maybe you could comment on that.

Okay, I'd be glad to comment, and of course Mr. White would want to comment equally. The statement for the Mars, as far as the take up thy cross and follow me, it is eliminated in one of the Gospels in the Westcott and Hort type text, and that's the Auld Lang Syne text.

It is, however, found in some of the other synoptic Gospels, but at least in that area, that one portion, it is taken away. As far as the Lord's Prayer, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. There are certain parts of it that are omitted, and there's no question about that either.

And as far as the other one, get thee behind me Satan, that is left out also in that portion of the Gospel there. And certainly we feel that the King James Bible is superior in the keeping of these areas and these portions that are in line with the truth and in line with doctrine and in line with correctness in all ways.

I would like to comment on each of those in regards to get thee behind me Satan. It is found, of course, in Matthew 16, verse 23 in the New International Version. Mr. Marsman, you were on KXEG last week commenting on the Lord's Prayer.

You were referring only to the Gospel of Luke. Many of the things that you said were deleted are actually in the Gospel of Matthew and were not actually taken out. Take up the cross occurs four times in the King James Version, occurs three times in the modern text, and the only place where it's removed is Mark 10 .21 because it's not in many of the early manuscripts.

And interestingly enough, it is not in the parallel passages where Matthew and Luke record the same instance as Mark 10 .21, specifically Matthew 19 .21 and Luke 18 .22. So there is very good reason why it is not found in many of the modern translations.

I would like to ask you, Mr. Mars, if 2 Timothy 2 .24 -26 is indeed found in your Bible where it talks about how we are to address these particular issues, how we are to refute those who contradict us.

The Scripture says,. And the Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth.

And they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. When I sent you information on the errors in Gail Ripplinger's book, you wrote me a letter back that began, Don't write me again unless in sincere repentance.

You are a devil, plain and simple. And I understand well why Mrs. Ripplinger does not respond to your ridiculous assertions. Why dignify the lying claims of a servant of Satan. Would you maybe explain why you identify someone as a devil and a servant of Satan in light of 2 Timothy 2 .24 -26?

Because, James, you are attacking the Word of God. Also because what you have done, for example, is name your ministry Alpha and Omega, and yet in Revelation 1 -1, some of the new versions take out the words Alpha and Omega, and yet you have the audacity to give your ministry that name.

And by the way, you asked me a question. Could I answer it?

Well, I just wanted to correct what you had just said. I just wanted to correct what you had just said. You're confusing people. It's not Revelation text.

I would like to answer your question, James.

Go ahead.

All right. As far as your being a researcher, I received your treatise about Gail Ripplinger's book, and I noticed you misspelled her name throughout it. If you can't spell her name right, and all you had to do was call her up or call me or call any one of a thousand bookstores that have her name, if we can't trust the fact that you can't even spell an author's name right, how can we trust any other supposed scholar in this?

And by the way, I read your 40-page sniffle, but it was full of errors, and I really think that you need to get down and read some books, Dr. Waite's book, Dr. Fuller's book, Ripplinger's book, excellent books, and they're much needed by Christians today.

Well, Tex, if I could point out a few things. First of all, it's not Revelation 1 -1. It's Revelation 1 -11 that you're attempting to refer to there, and I provided you a full response to that in the letter.

Sir, I'm going to answer your question, Tex. I'm going to answer your question now. Revelation 1 -11, not Revelation 1 -1, and I explained that. Excuse me. It's Revelation 1 -11.

That's what I said.

Revelation 1 -1 -1. Revelation 1 -11.

Actually, sir, on the front of the last letter you sent me where you sent back my facts with red lighting on it, excuse me, Tex, Tex.

There has been no moderator to debate, and I guess are you trying to take over the debate?

No, sir.

No, sir, Tex, I'm just responding to your text.

Well, excuse me. I'm part of In Defense of Faith, and Tex, you're going to have to let James respond now.

You have to be quiet.

They're going to turn you down.

Sir?

Dr. Waite is the guy who debated not me. I'm going to let you good men go.

Okay.

All the best to you, my friend.

That's fine.

Tex, I have one question for you. Are you still there, Tex? He's gone.

Okay.

If I could respond to that. First of all, I sent a letter to Tex Myers responding to his letter to me. He sent my facts back with red ink across it saying he didn't want any more of my evil trash, and interestingly enough, he just tried to say he didn't say Revelation 1 -1.

The front of the envelope has Revelation 1 -1 right here.

I'll show it to you.

Written on the front, not 1 -11.

All right.

Secondly, if I could finish responding to what he was saying. When he says I attack the Bible, no, I do not. I love God's word. I preach God's word. A couple of you, Dale, were there today as I opened God's word and spoke that word.

I love God's word. I do not attack it in any way, shape, or form, but I do attack those who would attempt to limit God's word to a 17th century Anglican translation, and that just simply is, those are the problems with what Mr. Myers said, and you'll notice he did not respond to my citation, 2 Timothy 2, 24 -26, to explain why he would identify someone as a servant of Satan.

That is not how Christians are to discuss this issue. I have respect for a person who can handle a discussion of this issue on a rational basis without resorting to names, but Mr. Myers obviously is not one of those individuals who can deal with this issue.

What he said about get thee behind me, take up the cross, the Lord's Prayer, and each of those things, we could have a good discussion on those things, but he's in error about many of the things that he said.

Now that was, like I said, 1994, and I'll never forget, he kept talking about Revelation 1 -1, and he was actually talking about a text of Revelation 1 -11 where the majority text actually splits, but the fact of the matter is, text Myers doesn't know anything about the majority text, he couldn't read a Greek epistle if it hit him in the face, so he just would not accept any correction.

He had sent me this letter with all this nasty stuff written all over it, and you're a servant of Satan and all this type of stuff, and then he puts, next to Alpha and Omega Ministries, he puts Revelation 1 -1, and so he calls in, he says Revelation 1 -1, then when I finally correct him, well that's what I said, Revelation 1 -1 -1.

There was actually a guy in the studio, like where Rich is now, and he was laughing so hard, that I turned around and looked through the window, and I see two feet in the air, waving back and forth, because he's on the ground on his back, laughing so hard at this man, and the foolishness of his inability to interact with anything that I had just said to him.

It was just absolutely incredible. By the way, I didn't respond to it then, but I'm going to be putting this, by the way, I think sometime over the weekend, the blog article that has a clip from the Ankerberg program, it has that audio clip, and it also has the page, it has the envelope from Tex Meyers with Revelation 1 -1 on it.

I didn't respond to it at that time, but I mention it in the blog article, that he was exactly right when Ripplinger first put her book out, it had only one name on it, G .A. Ripplinger, and she did so so that people would know she was a woman, so that she would get a wider audience.

And so I had to guess at the name Gail, and there's more than one way to spell Gail, and I spelled it G-A-Y-L-E, and it's actually G-A-I-L, and that is about the most substantive argument that Tex Meyers has ever come up with on anything, any subject whatsoever.

Is he even around anymore? I have not heard anything about him for a long, long time, but you probably barely caught it, but I was pointing out the erroneous nature of the argumentation he was making by saying the modern versions have taken this out and taken that out, and actually when you start looking at what they're actually talking about, they're either talking about variants that are clearly parallel corruptions between the synoptic gospels, and they don't know anything about, Tex Meyers obviously doesn't know anything about the manuscript evidence that would be behind these things, nothing like that.

But unfortunately, that is often how the textual data is addressed, and that's a shame in and of itself because it really deserves far more careful examination than these people are willing to give to it.

Textual Criticism and the Nestle-Aland Apparatus

So be that as it may, we are continuing, of course, with the discussion of textual criticism. The program need to press on and to try to get at least through the symbols of the Nessie Olin text. If you are following along, if you have the Nessie Olin 27th edition, I'm starting on page 52.

If you do not,.

Then hopefully you have downloaded the NA27 .pdf. In fact, I'm looking at that. I'll be trying to follow that along because I can blow the font up larger in the PDF than I can in my NA27 text itself, and I forgot to bring my large print with me today.

So we'll be using the NA27 .pdf. And the last time we were together, we had noted initially probably some of the most common symbols, and these are symbols that you need to be able to understand to utilize the Nessie Olin text and the rich variety of information it provides to you.

We had looked at the superscript circle, which is the indication that the single word following that is omitted by the witnesses cited. We had looked over at Mark to see what it looked like. Then right at the end of the program, we were starting to talk about the superscript square and then the superscript backslash that indicates that the words, clauses, or sentences following in the text are omitted by the witnesses cited.

The backslash, the superscript backslash sign marks the end of the omitted text. So in other words, you use the circle when you've got one word. If you've got more than one word, if you've got a phrase or maybe even a sentence, that's fairly unusual, then you will use the square, and then the backslash will indicate the end.

And then when you look down at the bottom of the page, you'll be able to see which witnesses omit the words that are cited at that point. Then we have what sort of looks like half of a capital T. Again, it's going to be superscript.

It's a half of a bracket, indicating that the word following in the text is replaced with one or more words by the witnesses cited. So obviously when you look down at the bottom of the page, if it's one word, then you'll have the one word given.

If it's multiple words, then we'll give you the multiple words that replace the singular word that is used in the text at that point. And then you have, I'm not sure how to describe these, sort of a quarter bracket, I guess, superscripted, going two different directions.

And this symbol indicates that the words in the following text are replaced with other words by the witnesses cited, and it forms somewhat of a bracket around this. And sometimes that will indicate that the variant you're looking at will have multiple words, and they'll be in transposed order.

And so at that point, they'll give you a means of knowing what the order of the words in the variant are in the witnesses that are cited. Then you have what looks like a capital T, which is really more of an insert mark.

And this, again, these will be superscript. They're not going to be right on the same line with the Greek text. This sign marks the location where one or more words, sometimes a whole verse, is inserted by the witnesses cited.

So in other words, now you've got something that's probably in the text itself. It's not going to be included, but they're trying to tell you that we feel that the included text, which is in these witnesses down here, is not original since they're not included in the text.

But they give you that information at the bottom of the page that you know that in certain witnesses, there is material inserted at that particular point in time. Then you have the superscript looks a little bit like an S and then a backwards S.

That indicates the words following the text are transposed by the witnesses cited. So there is a word order issue raised there. The raised colon indicates a variant form of punctuation, which we've mentioned in the past there was no punctuation originally.

And therefore, what would that really refer to? Well, sometimes where you break and how you see a break in the text does have some meaning to it as far as the meaning of the text goes. And so that is indicated for you.

And then there's some other transposition citations given to you. Then it is explained to you as well that if there is more than one kind of a variant, omission, insertion, transposition, whatever, in a verse, which rarely happens, it's not common, but it does happen once in a while.

There will be a one or a two placed next to the symbol to give you an indication so that when you look down, you can find the proper citation material in the end note. And I don't think I've ever seen a three.

So I think most is two possible, but it would be very rare to have quite that many variants within one particular verse. And the same thing with the use of ellipses there for a lengthy transposition or variant that is found there.

On page 53, you're told about the large bold dot, which is in the Nessie Island. In the UBS, they break each variant into its own paragraph. But again, what's the primary purpose of the NA -27? To put as much stuff on the page as you can get on the page.

Really try to cram it into the smallest space as possible. And so instead of breaking each variant off, they just run it all together in one paragraph, the bottom of the page. And so the way to know where your next variant starts is with the bold dot that gives you the verse breaks.

Then you have the solid line. A solid vertical line separates the instances of variation from each other within a single verse or section of the apparatus. We looked at that last time. And then a broken line separates the various alternative readings from each other within a single instance of variation.

The letters TXT, italics, this sign, meaning textus actually, introduces the list of witnesses supporting the text of this edition. So in other words, in this one, you'll see first the variant, and then you'll see the witnesses for the text that has been provided in the Nessie Island portion itself.

Let's see here. Let's go on down to the next page. You'll have a parentheses where witnesses would show only minor differences are noted in parentheses. We saw that in Marks Chapter 16. There were some parentheses used to give you this manuscript pretty much follows this variant, but it has this one variant itself within it.

And that will give you extra information as to the reading that is considered there. Parentheses enclose the appropriate superscript sign when the first-hand or a later corrector of a manuscript witnesses some minor variation.

So in other words, if you have aleph with parentheses and an asterisk parentheses closed, that's saying that there is a minor variant, very later, first-hand later corrector of a manuscript witnesses some minor variation that is found.

And again, these are not overly regular signs you'd be looking at. Brackets, and I'm moving through these fairly quickly because I want to get into the text itself because the only way to actually see how these work is to start looking at them and seeing them, and they make more sense when you actually see them.

Brackets enclose conjectures with regard to both the text and its punctuation. Now, that makes a lot of people nervous, as it should in some sentences. Conjecture, why would you need to conjecture about something?

Well, for example, textual conjectures are identified either by their author. For example, when you have commentators, if it's probably something coming from another text, something along like that, sometimes you'll just see CJ for conjecture.

And sometimes people have made changes. Beza, for example, at Luke 222, makes a conjectural emendation. He's conjecturing that the original looked like this, but he's never seen a manuscript that reads that way.

And I don't believe that there are any main text readings in either of the UBS or NA -27 that are actually based upon conjectures, but they do let you know that there are some of those that are in commentaries and things like that.

We've already mentioned in the presentation of the witnesses that when you have an asterisk that indicates the original reading when a correction has been made, then you have the C indicates a correction made by a later hand, but sometimes also by the first hand.

Sometimes somebody went back, believe it or not, sometimes people would actually go back and check their own work. As a teacher, I go, yeah, right. But sometimes they would go back and check their own work, and you can see where they have made a correction themselves.

1, 2, and 3 identify as a correction made by the first, second, or third corrector. We're on page 55 in the text right now. Then you have such things as VL for Varia Lectio. It indicates a reading recorded in a manuscript as an alternative reading.

So sometimes, and we understand why this is. Remember, you're copying somebody else's manuscript, and they may be dead. And so you may be looking at a word, and you can't figure it out. And so sometimes they were stuck, and they would go, okay, this is my best reading here, but maybe above it they might indicate, and it might be this too, and they're just not in a position for some reason, maybe this is the only manuscript they have they can copy, of knowing which one is there.

And so since they can't read the original, they'll put the two possibilities there. Sometimes that is able to be found, and that is indicated with the VL. The TXT as a superscript sign, not as a full-size sign, indicates the reading in the text of the manuscript, which also records an alternative reading.

So if there's alternatives, the main text is given with TXT, and then the alternative is indicated with other means. MG is important, because remember, if you look at some of the graphics I've provided for you, especially if you're making a change in those things, you're writing on vellum, you're writing on leather, this is precious material.

If you're going to be making a change, you're going to be putting it in the margin. The problem is also if you make a notation, you're going to put it in the margin. And later people copying that, looking at what's in the margin, do they include it as a marginal note, something that you commented on the text, or do they put it in the text?

That becomes important in passages like John 5, for example. But MG indicates a marginal reading. S, a supplemental reading, if there's something indicated at the end of the manuscript, a supplement. VID, V-I-D, that one's important, because quite honestly, there are times you can't tell.

And as I said, sometimes VID will refer to the fact that it cannot be determined with absolute certainty, but there's enough evidence upon which to at least cite it, but it cannot be cited with its regular full authority.

Why would that be? Well, on papyri, sometimes what's written is just difficult to read. Over the time, including many centuries, things happen. The ink fades. The papyri degrades. You can have holes develop.

The edges fall off, become brittle and fall off. And so there's all sorts of things that can happen. But if you're looking at, for example, a variant where the difference is between a word that's three letters long and a word that's five letters long, and there's a hole in your manuscript, but you know how large this person writes letters anyways, and the hole would only allow for three letters, but it wouldn't allow for five letters to put in there, then you can probably tell what the word was in that manuscript, and it's going to be placed in the three-letter category rather than the five-letter category, but it's going to have the VID next to it because the word's actually not there.

But you can sort of tell. Or, for example, if the edge of the manuscript falls off, but you know how wide that column was, and again, you can count the number of letters. You can cite that manuscript as having left enough space for one particular reading, but not another particular reading.

See, that's how some of those things happen in your examination of these particular texts. Then we have the big M, the Fraktur M, meaning majority text, including the Byzantine Koine text. And please note, please note, they are not the same thing.

In fact, in one of the video clips I'm going to post, I think over the weekend or early next week, one of the two, on the blog, I have Dan Wallace actually making reference to the fact that there are about 1 ,700, 1 ,800 differences between the majority text and the TR, and the Byzantine text is almost always the same as the majority text.

But remember, there are times, especially in the Book of Revelation, we're preaching through the Book of Revelation on Sunday mornings right now at PRVC, and there was a pretty major variant at the end of Revelation chapter 5, and I had forgotten about it.

I did remember it once I saw it, but I had forgotten about the rather large variant there. And very frequently in the Book of Revelation, the Book of Revelation has the most unique textual history of any book in the New Testament.

No question about it. It just breaks all the norms for everybody else. And so in that particular text, in studying Revelation, you'll always be finding part of the M text. The majority text reads this, part reads this.

They've even identified consistent parts of the majority text that go together in their reading of the Book of Revelation. So you'll see that M breaking up in the Book of Revelation into different classes and families.

But you will see that M as an indicator of the majority text type, and it'll be found very frequently. There's a couple others that, you know, they're a little bit difficult sometimes for English speakers to grasp hold of, mainly because of the fact that we have little exposure to Latin.

So PM, for example, does not mean a private message in a chat room. It means paramulti, and it is used in place of the M sign, the majority sign, when the witness of the majority text is divided in fairly equal strength between two, rarely three, variant readings.

The abbreviation PM appears then with both majority text readings. If one of these readings is in agreement with the text, and APRAS does not list support for it, the sign PM appears only once, and the support of consistently sided witnesses of the second order may be inferred for the text, just as with M variants when the support for TXT is not shown, etc., etc.

PC means palsi, a few manuscripts. So if there's a few manuscripts of a translation, for example, or others, you'll see PC. AL for ali, some manuscripts other than those explicitly mentioned for a given reading, which differ from the majority text.

We saw PM above, rel, the rest of the manuscript, tradition, etc., etc. Just a few others that I'll mention here, such as HT for homoi teleuton, meaning similar endings. We saw that in 1 John 3 .1. And then you can come back to these and look at these as references when you encounter them, if you're doing a fairly in-depth study of a particular passage, because you would want to be looking at them.

And so with that, let's take a look at page 4 of NA27 .pdf. If you have the Nestle All in Text 27th edition, this would be pages 148 and 149. And this is the largest of the textual variants in the New Testament, largest in the sense of the amount of text.

Sometimes you'll hear people talking about major variants. Well, there's different ways of defining what major means. Major in the sense of having a real impact as far as meaning. Then I would say texts like John 1 .18 are major variants, but actually only one word there.

In this instance, we're talking about the largest block of text where there is a variation. And in fact, all of the text on pages 148 and 149 is involved in the variant. And this, of course, is what's called the longer ending of Mark.

Now, when you think about it, when you actually look at the actual, how many sentences do we have here? Well, sentences, of course, are defined by modern editors. But using their particular division, we have what here, what?

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, what? Maybe 10, 11 sentences grand total. Just sort of speed it up there for a second. If this is the largest one, and it is, then you are currently looking at the largest block of text about which there is any question and is the longer ending of Mark.

Now, my purpose here is not so much to argue the issues of the longer ending of Mark as it is to utilize this as a means of examining the textual apparatus. And you will notice that on the right-hand page, there is a fair amount of information that is given to you at this particular point in time.

This is actually probably wasn't the best way to start because it looks really, really confusing. And especially to a person who doesn't read a whole lot of Greek, it looks very, very confusing because you have an insertion of an incredibly long section of Greek about, well, it starts almost exactly halfway through this paragraph of textual data.

And if you don't bother trying to translate that, just go down to the very end of it. Right before it goes into Latin, you will see the one manuscript, Codex Washingtonius, which contains this lengthy insertion, this medium ending that is found to Mark's gospel.

If you take that out, and you'll notice that's inserted in verse 14, then this paragraph doesn't look quite as, shall we say, intimidating. But let's go ahead and go back to the top. And you'll see the listing of Mark 16, 9 through 20 in the double brackets.

And you will see that OM is omitted by Aleph B. 304 K. Cis S .A. Manuscripts, that is, Sahidic manuscripts, Armenian manuscripts, Eusebius manuscripts, according to Eusebius, and manuscripts of H .I .E .R., Egyptian origin.

Now, you might stop immediately and go, hmm, that's not a long list. And you might be tempted to go, wow, we have 5 ,300 manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. Stop right there before you do that. Because, you see, the immediate thing that people think of when they see this is they go, hmm, one, two, three, three?

Three manuscripts? Three out of 5 ,300? That's not many. A couple things. First of all, there are not 5 ,300 manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark. When people think of manuscripts of the New Testament, they automatically make the mistake, and I know I've already addressed this, but let me address it again because a lot of this stuff goes fairly quickly.

5 ,300 manuscripts means 5 ,300 full manuscripts? Yeah, there's full manuscripts, especially after 1 ,000 in the medieval period. Sure, there are full manuscripts there. There are full manuscripts in Sinaiticus and stuff like that.

But most are not that way, especially the early manuscripts. They're much more fragmentary. They might be just of the Gospels. They might just be of Paul, John, whatever. So you don't have 5 ,300 manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark.

You might have 1 ,500 or 2 ,000, something like that. But still, people are going to go, wait a minute. You only have three unseals that read this way? Why aren't there any papyri? Well, we don't have any papyri of the end of the Gospel of Mark at this particular point in time.

It'd be nice to find some, but we don't have any. And so you go, well, three is just not enough. Well, if that's all there was, if it was just three that didn't have it, we could hypothesize things like final pages falling off and stuff like that.

We could hypothesize that the particular manuscripts used for Sinaiticus and Vaticanus at the time of Constantine had lost the last page of the Gospel of Mark, and therefore that's why this wasn't there.

And that right before the last page, you got verse 8. That's where it ends. And so we could just sort of dismiss at that point. But that's not the only thing that this scan, this piece of information in front of us is giving to us.

You will note that providing 16 .9 through 20, and then as soon as you start trying to go down that line, you start seeing all sorts of variants within it. You see, for example, in the fourth line after 16 .8, you have sort of a short ending that's found in El and Psi and a couple other enseals.

And you have all sorts of variants. And interestingly enough, the translations split every which direction at this point. Notice just you've got the Syriac with a superscript S cited omitting it. And then on the next line, you have the Heraklion Syriac in a margin mentioned.

And then you have in the next line C, P, and H mentioned for a different variant. And it's all over the place. And the same thing happens with the Sahidic, certain manuscripts, S-A-M-S-S is certain manuscripts of the Sahidic, the Boheric.

When you have this explosion of variants going every which direction like you have here, that is a sure sign of a disruption of the manuscript tradition at a very, very, very, very early point in the transmission of the Gospel of Mark, very, very early on.

And a lot of scholars would say, yeah, because the way that Mark ends without finishing the story, there would be an absolutely overwhelming desire to fill it in. And remember, let's back up the truck here.

This may take me a long time, but it's important because this feeds into the series I'm going to be doing responding to the Brian Fleming stuff on the blog. And that is when Mark is writing, the Gospel is already known.