| Date | Apologist | Source | Apology | Commentary |
| 1909 | B. W. Bacon | The Lost Ending of the Gospel According to Mark: A Criticism and a Reconstruction | argued that the original ending of the Gospel was suppressed in the interests of harmony because of the rivaling Jerusalem and Galilean resurrection appearance traditions, which found their place in
the Lukan and Matthean accounts respectively and jointly in chapters 20 and 21 of the Fourth Gospel, where the Galilean tradition is added as an appendix in the final chapter to recon-cile both theories.4
| So editors completely exorcised the most important supposed historical assertion of orthodox Christianity and left the biggest related contradiction in the subsequent, much more popular gospels, that were intended to replace GMark. I find that hard to believe. See comments in opening video. |
| 1968 | Raymond Brown | The New Jerome Biblical Commentary | 629 Mark probably assumed some familiarity among his readers with the appearance traditions, and so he chose to end the Gospel subtly and dramatically by leaving the readers acknowledging the resurrection and looking forward to the parousia.
| "subtly and dramatically"? A hopelax legoame. Brown did not write this but he was an editor of the book so presumably he agreed. Here we have the traditional related Christian apology, "Mark" (author) did not provide supposed known witness to a resurrected Jesus because his readers already knew who they were. This is of course ridiculous/comical or as Brown would say, "fantastic", because:
- 1. As far as we know GMark is the original Gospel narrative that all others were based on.
2. Most of GMark's hearers probably had never heard of Jesus.
3. Orthodox Christianity has always claimed that the most important assertion of Christianity is that there was known
historical witness to a resurrected Jesus. Strange/bizarre/macabre that the original Gospel would not only not show this but put a lot of effort into denying it.
Brown was the outstanding CBS scholar of his time writing the classics Birth and Death. He always said he also wanted to write Resurrection but never got around to it. Presumably because he would have to deal in detail with the lack of detail in GMark. For example, showing that GMatthew copied GMark to 16:8 and than the only significant edit was changing the women not telling anyone to the women telling everyone, how do you spin that? |
| 2009 | Stephen Carlson | The Function of Mark 16:8 | The dominant theme of 16:8 is not the women’s disobedience but their fright. The women were seized with terror and bewilderment (τρόμος καὶ ἔκστασις). They were scared (ἐφοβοῦντο). Their actions, too, display their fright. They fled the tomb (ἔφυγον ἀπὸ τοῦ μνημείου), and they did tell anyone. Whatever the function of 16:8 is, it must involve fright.
I propose that this theme of fright was meant to enhance, not undercut, the authority of the young man in white.
| Carlson wins a pair of Freudian Slippers by mistakenly letting out the conclusion he starts with that he and his co-conspirators try so hard to conceal "and they did tell anyone". His apology tries to use misdirection, switching the point from not following instructions to being afraid. With his (mis)emphasis on emotion he then concludes that the fear of the women was intended to show that, as he wrote, "they did tell anyone", rather then what the author wrote, "they did not tell anyone". In Carlson's blog, the fear of the man/angel/Stranger Thing, made the women afraid of disobeying him. So the not telling anyone was connected to their reaction to that Thing and not to their not telling anyone. That goes beyond naughty. I think Rakovsky should go Judas on Carlson and make him do Russian twists until he confesses that he is an Apologist and not a Bible Scholar.
Note also the cumulative discrediting of each individual Apology. For all of the contributors here to each make up their own God-awful apology, how bad must they think the other apologies are, not to use them instead. |
| 2011 | James McGrath | Mark’s Missing Ending: Clues from the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Peter | This lack of closure may perhaps have seemed less problematic in the context of early Christian communities in which visions of the risen Christ were part of their religious experience. It also needs to be placed in the context of a vibrant oral tradition that was both the author’s and the readers' primary mode of contact with stories about Jesus. There can be no doubt that, even if the written Gospel of Mark ended at 16:8, the story known to the author and his readers did not.
| In plain English, McGrath's apology is that the ending of GMark is not a significant problem for Christian assertian because its lack of post resurrection reunion is not important. But as my five year old son used to retort, "Yes, important." McGrath ignores/denies/exorcises the most important related issue as far as Christianity is concerned, what is GMark's evidence as far as Christianity's most important assertian that there was known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus? All subsequent Gospels use GMark as a base and the only significant story added is known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus.
Instead of dealing with the larger and more objective issue of the significance of no known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus McGrath throws darts against the bored hitting not just the why but why the why is not a problem scoring not QP but PC (polemically correct) points and can only doublespeak out. The more important observations/issues of 16:8 that McGrath fails to deal with are:
1) The only related certainty we have is that there was no historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus. If you are afraid and can not speak this than you are not a Bible scholar indeed. All related scientific reasoning must start with this observation.
2) The extant evidence indicates that GMark is the original Gospel narrative. Most hearers would never have previously heard of a Jesus narrative. Based just on GMark they would have no reason to believe there was known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus.
3) 2) is consistent with 1). Since historically there was no known historical witness, it's logical that the original narrative would make a lesser conclusion, Jesus was physically resurrected but no claim of known historical witness.
4) The cruncher as the Brits would say, as Christianity turns orthodox (so to speak) all subsequent Gospels want known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus, but they still use as a base up to that point a Gospel which doesn't have any. Evidence that there was no such narrative at the time.
5) Thematically, the first two significant Christian authors, Paul/"Mark", want belief based on faith. So they want belief in Jesus' supposed resurrection based on faith. Consistent with 1-4).
6) After looking at Paul/"Mark" (and Q if you like) for evidence of known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus it's like the classic Adam Family episode where they give Cousin It a haircut and when they finish there is nothing left. The best explanation for the lack of a presentation of known historical witness to a physically resurrected Jesus in GMark is not only because "Mark" (author) did not believe there was but was unaware of any such claim.
There can be no doubt then that instead of teaching history classes at a University McGrath should be teaching Sunday School. |
| 2014 | Mark Goodacre | NT Pod 71: Was the ending of Mark's Gospel lost? | 12:32 of podcastHe just never finished it
| First of all, I would rate Goodacre probably among the best Internet CBS (Christian Bible Scolars). His 15 minute podcast is worth it just for the Kronenberg joke. He asks a lot of questions for someone from the Original Jersey. He accepts that 16:8 is likely the original finish but finishes his pod by questioning if "Mark" (author) left his Gospel unfinished. This is a lesser apology but still an apology, asking the wrong related questions. The better question is why "Mark" intentionally finished with 16:8 and what this means for the most important Christian assertian, that there was supposed known historical witness to Jesus' supposed resurrection. For those who need points sharply explained, like Rakovsky, we need to consider and interpret lone wolfs in sheep's clothing lines like 1 Corinthians 15 against the body of GMark and the rest of Paul, rather than vice-verses. |
| 2016 | Larry Hurtado | Jesus, the Cross, the Women, and Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark | Part of my argument was that Mark 16:8 does not depict the women as disobeying and failing to do what they were told to do–to go to Peter and the Twelve with news of Jesus’ resurrection. Instead, “they said nothing to anyone” should be read as meaning that they said nothing to anyone else.
| Standard apologetic technique of ignoring/denying clear, explicit and absolute meaning in favor of unclear, supposed implied and relative meaning. Not to mention that his supposed implication is contradicted by all Internal evidence such as theme, context and style. Note that in the Comments section he further devolves into standard Apologetic defense of moving basis of related discussion to any dissent being based on not reading/understanding/agreeing with his argument rather than the basic issue itself. |
| 2017 | James Snapp | The Authenticity of Mark 16:9-20 | I believe that the external and internal evidence support the view that Mark 16:9-20 was in the Gospel of Mark in the form in which it was first transmitted for Church-use. The passage is more likely to have been attached in the production-stage than at a later stage.
| Snapp confesses before his conclusion that the evidence indicates it is unlikely that the author of Mark 1-16:8 originally wrote 16:9-20 to be the intended ending of 1-16:8. Snapp claims then that while it was unlikely that 16:9-20 was part of GMark before "the production-stage", it was likely that 16:9-20 became part of GMark at the start of the production-stage. Snapp leaves open the question of who wrote 16:9-20. So Snapp has redefined the definition of "original" in Textual Criticism from what was originally written by the original author to what was originally copied and distributed. Oh no he di-int. Oh yes he di-ed. Oh snapp! |
Nota Ben = The disagreement by all attempted Best Bad Explanation authors with all the other Best Bad Explanations. Symptomatic of the badassness of the conclusion that they want.
APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence.
