Showing posts with label Codex Sinaiticus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Codex Sinaiticus. Show all posts

Thursday, August 21, 2025

A Jungian psychologist decides that the Gospel of Mark ends without resurrection, on purpose, but apparently he has never read the damn thing lol


 The Transcendent Absence: Mark's Unresurrected Christ and the Creative Imperative

... Mark's unresurrected Christ ... The absence of resurrection in Mark's Gospel . . ..                                                                                                                                                                                                    

There's just one little problem with these statements: They are falsehoods. The text says Jesus rose.

Everyone agrees that Mark's "narrative rupture" occurs at the close of 16:8.

But the resurrection occurs before that:

And entering into the sepulchre, [the women] saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted. 

And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. 

But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you [in Mark 14:28]. 

And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid. 

-- Mark 16:5-8

The endings after this are obviously supplied based on internal evidence of language and style which differ from Mark's. And their variety is a sign that something was felt to be wanting from a very early time. External evidence shows the gospel ending at 16:8 in two famous codices from the fourth century: Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. And Matthew and Luke and John in their turn each supply their own fuller accounts, some of the elements of which resemble the endings supplied to Mark. 

The twice promised resurrection appearance in Galilee in Mark is perhaps the most wanting thing. Simply on that basis it strains credulity to think Mark intended the ending to be 16:8. The composition is unfinished, or was early on damaged. 

But the resurrection is not missing from this abruptly ending gospel. One cannot speak of an unresurrected Christ in Mark. One cannot say there is no resurrection in Mark. It's right there in verse six.

Meanwhile we are told that "the sacred emerges through collective human action rather than through divine intervention", and that "the kingdom of God exists only insofar as we create it through revolutionary praxis within history's unfolding".

Unfortunately for the author, Brian Nuckols, Mark's Jesus doesn't believe any of that hooey.

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

-- Mark 1:15

And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power. 

-- Mark 9:1   

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Anti-protestant silliness on the Pericope Adulterae from Joel J. Miller

Joel Miller here on John 7:53ff., the favorite New Testament cudgel of liberals everywhere:

"[W]hat should we make of the faith of all those Christians that lived before this reconstruction [which excludes the pericope from John], including great exegetes like Augustine or Chrysostom, or pastors who led the church before even the canon (let alone this imagined reconstruction) was settled?"

Well, what should we make of the faith of all those Christians that lived with a Gospel of John without the passage, including the readers of:

Papyri 66 (c. 200) and 75 (early 3rd century); Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus (4th century), also apparently Alexandrinus and Ephraemi (5th), Codices Washingtonianus and Borgianus also from the 5th century, Regius from the 8th, Athous Lavrensis (c. 800), Petropolitanus Purpureus, Macedoniensis, Sangallensis and Koridethi from the 9th century and Monacensis from the 10th; Uncials 0141 and 0211; Minuscules 3, 12, 15, 21, 22, 32, 33, 36, 39, 44, 49, 63, 72, 87, 96, 97, 106, 108, 124, 131, 134, 139, 151, 157, 169, 209, 213, 228, 297, 388, 391, 401, 416, 445, 488, 496, 499, 501, 523, 537, 542, 554, 565, 578, 584, 703, 719, 723, 730, 731, 736, 741, 742, 768, 770, 772, 773, 776, 777, 780, 799, 800, 817, 827, 828, 843, 896, 989, 1077, 1080, 1100, 1178, 1230, 1241, 1242, 1253, 1333, 2193 and 2768; the majority of lectionaries; some Old Latin, the majority of the Syriac, the Sahidic dialect of the Coptic, the Gothic, some Armenian, Georgian mss. of Adysh (9th century); Diatessaron (2nd century); apparently Clement of Alexandria (died 215), other Church Fathers namely Tertullian (died 220), Origen (died 254), Cyprian (died 258), Nonnus (died 431), Cyril of Alexandria (died 444) and Cosmas (died 550) ?

What were those Christians, chopped liver?

"Rather than a collection of texts written in and for the church and recognized as valid by that church, biblical books and even minute passages now become arbitrated by scholars."

Well, no. The above collection of texts without the pericope is arbitrated as valid by scribes, who presumably were themselves Christians. But apparently their voices don't count as the voice of the church to Joel Miller.

"If the church doesn’t validate the text, who does? In this instance, scholarly consensus is consulted to 'uncanonize' a portion of generally received scripture."

Sorry, no. The absence of the pericope suggests churchmen "uncanonized" it long before contemporary scholars did. Martin Luther did nothing different. Joel Miller just doesn't want to face it.

"Sola Scriptura becomes queer indeed when ideas from outside Scripture are determining what goes into it."

Well, if some extra-Biblical principle was at work excluding the pericope from the manuscript evidence, it pre-dated the Reformation by a thousand years and was operating in scriptoria funded by churches all over the place. What's with the anti-protestantism, Miller?

"[I]nerrancy becomes equally queer when ... Christians have been hearing a bunk passage read from the lectionary and expounded from the pulpit for centuries."

Just because there are obvious suspect passages like John 7:53ff. and the famous 1 John 5:7f. and Mark 16:9ff. based on the manuscript evidence doesn't "bunkify" the rest of John, 1 John or Mark anymore than the selectivity exercised by lectors in churches for 1,900 years has.

No one suggests Matthew 10:23 isn't original to Matthew just because it's avoided by the church like the plague.