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It seems there has been over the recent decades a major controversy over last twelve verses of Mark 16!
According to many of the newer versions of the Bible, the original text did not contain these twelve verses...The commentary on these verses from the REV Bible and textual scholar Bruce Metzger who writes: "The last twelve verses of the commonly received text of Mark are absent from the two oldest Greek manuscripts (a and B), from the Old Latin codex Bobiensis (itk), the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript, about one hundred Armenian manuscripts, and the two oldest Georgian manuscripts (written AD 897 and AD 913). Clement of Alexandria [c. 150-215 AD] and Origen [Origen Adamantius of Alexandria, Egypt; 184-253 AD] show no knowledge of the existence of these verses; furthermore Eusebius [263-339 AD] and Jerome [347-420 AD] attest that the passage was absent from almost all Greek copies of Mark known to them. The original form of the Eusebian sections (drawn up by Ammonius) makes no provision for numbering sections of the text after 16:8. Not a few manuscripts that contain the passage have scribal notes stating that older Greek copies lack it, and in other witnesses the passage is marked with asterisks or obeli, the conventional signs used by copyists to indicate a spurious addition to a document. (Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament pp. 102, 103.)
While it is true the two of the three oldest Greek manuscripts: "Codex Alexandrinus: a 5th century manuscript containing the entire New Testament, brought to England about 1630. Codex Siniaticus, discovered in St. Catherine's Monastery at (the traditional) Mt. Sinai, has been dated around 350 A.D. " did not have these final verses of Mark 16 within them, the third codex fortunately did. Codex Vaticanus, dated about 325 A.D., had been in the Vatican Library since at least 1481, but was not made available to scholars until the middle of the 19th century did have these verses within them..
It is also an established fact 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.
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."1
While the above is but a small portion of the literature, articles, etc. available concerning this controversy, this post is about something far more important. It is about the fingerprints that GOD left on these last verses of Mark.
The verses of Mark 16:9-11, the appearance of Jesus to Mary; verses 16:12-14 are later appearances of Jesus; verses 16:15-18 that give us the Gospel of Jesus Christ and verses 19-20 giving us the conclusion of His discourse and ascension. It is of little wonder why the Gnostics, Wescott and Hoyt and many others then and today wanted/want to exclude them from the Bible!
Ivan Panin (2) wrote about these last twelve verses and I would like to bring them to you. Much of this article contains parts from Koinonia House, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark (1) and Ivan Panin's book The Last Twelve Verses of Mark:Their Genuineness Established
Using not only Greek (not the Gnostic Greek) words but also the Hebrew numbering Ivan shows that only GOD could have written these last twelve verses.
We start with the Heptadic (sevenfold) structure of the Greek language in the Bible. We also see the sevenfold throughout Revelation where there are more than 100 (7s)written within the text. The number seven being divine completion.
There are 175 words (7x25) in the verses of 9-20. One might say that anyone can do that! Well it seems that there are 98 different words within these phrases that are an exact multiple of seven (7x14). How many of you readers could write a article composed of just these two principles....But lets go on.
The number of letters in these verses are 553 an exact multiple of seven with NO remainder. (7x79). By the way, the ODDS of having all three of these numbers be exactly divisible by 7[3rd power] is one to 343. Keeps getting a little harder, but I'd bet there are some out there who could repeat this feat? Hum, Ok, lets go on.
There are 294 vowels in these verses (7x42) and 259 Consonants or (7x37). Well here are two more and the ODDS keep getting higher....Could just have anyone done this? beginning to look a little suspect.
Here we go back to those 98 words (7x14) and find that Mark had used 84 (7x12) of these words in other chapters. Better yet, only 14 of those words are found here (7x2) and 42 of those words(7x6) are found in the Lord's address (verses 15-18). By adding up all the words, we still have 56 (7x8) words that are not part of his vocabulary here. How great are the odds now..how long would it take someone to do this? Well here is the answer: "With 10 such heptadic features, it would take 7[10th power], 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!" (1)
There are more but will leave you to read them for yourself. Here are a few from each individual group (above). We find that verses 9-11 contain 35 words (7x5), verses 12-18 have 105 words (7x15), 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.(1)
One more part for good measure: Greek words have numerical values assigned to each letter of its alphabet called a "gematrical" value. Here is a mind blower taken from this article.
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).
The bottom line is that NO BODY on this earth could have written the last twelve verses of Mark...So when the words are changed, the finger prints disappear......Yes, the Bible of the REV is not the whole WORD of GOD but rather parts and pieces.
In the end, the ODDs are astronomical. While this article only identified around 25, Ivan found and wrote about 75 occurrences of values being exactly divisible by the Divine completion number seven (7). With it taking 4 million years for 34 occurrences, how long would it take 7[75th power].
God has shown us throughout the Bible that only He could write all 66 books and have all pages being integrated, referencing each other without faltering one time....
The Gospels of Jesus are all written each with their own words not found anywhere in the other gospels. As (Deadly) in verse 18 of Mark 16, is not even found anywhere else in the NT......How could they know not what to write unless all was written by only one, Jesus Christ. Amen!
For those who argue that the words are different and then say they are not changing His WORD......well?
Blade
__________________________________________________________________
* * * * *
1. Koinonia House, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark
2. Ivan Panin, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark: Their Genuineness Established, B-761, Bible Numerics, Suite 206, 121 Willowdale Ave., Willowdale, Ontario, M2N 6A3, (406) 221-7424.
According to many of the newer versions of the Bible, the original text did not contain these twelve verses...The commentary on these verses from the REV Bible and textual scholar Bruce Metzger who writes: "The last twelve verses of the commonly received text of Mark are absent from the two oldest Greek manuscripts (a and B), from the Old Latin codex Bobiensis (itk), the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript, about one hundred Armenian manuscripts, and the two oldest Georgian manuscripts (written AD 897 and AD 913). Clement of Alexandria [c. 150-215 AD] and Origen [Origen Adamantius of Alexandria, Egypt; 184-253 AD] show no knowledge of the existence of these verses; furthermore Eusebius [263-339 AD] and Jerome [347-420 AD] attest that the passage was absent from almost all Greek copies of Mark known to them. The original form of the Eusebian sections (drawn up by Ammonius) makes no provision for numbering sections of the text after 16:8. Not a few manuscripts that contain the passage have scribal notes stating that older Greek copies lack it, and in other witnesses the passage is marked with asterisks or obeli, the conventional signs used by copyists to indicate a spurious addition to a document. (Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament pp. 102, 103.)
While it is true the two of the three oldest Greek manuscripts: "Codex Alexandrinus: a 5th century manuscript containing the entire New Testament, brought to England about 1630. Codex Siniaticus, discovered in St. Catherine's Monastery at (the traditional) Mt. Sinai, has been dated around 350 A.D. " did not have these final verses of Mark 16 within them, the third codex fortunately did. Codex Vaticanus, dated about 325 A.D., had been in the Vatican Library since at least 1481, but was not made available to scholars until the middle of the 19th century did have these verses within them..
It is also an established fact 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.
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."1
While the above is but a small portion of the literature, articles, etc. available concerning this controversy, this post is about something far more important. It is about the fingerprints that GOD left on these last verses of Mark.
The verses of Mark 16:9-11, the appearance of Jesus to Mary; verses 16:12-14 are later appearances of Jesus; verses 16:15-18 that give us the Gospel of Jesus Christ and verses 19-20 giving us the conclusion of His discourse and ascension. It is of little wonder why the Gnostics, Wescott and Hoyt and many others then and today wanted/want to exclude them from the Bible!
Ivan Panin (2) wrote about these last twelve verses and I would like to bring them to you. Much of this article contains parts from Koinonia House, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark (1) and Ivan Panin's book The Last Twelve Verses of Mark:Their Genuineness Established
Using not only Greek (not the Gnostic Greek) words but also the Hebrew numbering Ivan shows that only GOD could have written these last twelve verses.
We start with the Heptadic (sevenfold) structure of the Greek language in the Bible. We also see the sevenfold throughout Revelation where there are more than 100 (7s)written within the text. The number seven being divine completion.
There are 175 words (7x25) in the verses of 9-20. One might say that anyone can do that! Well it seems that there are 98 different words within these phrases that are an exact multiple of seven (7x14). How many of you readers could write a article composed of just these two principles....But lets go on.
The number of letters in these verses are 553 an exact multiple of seven with NO remainder. (7x79). By the way, the ODDS of having all three of these numbers be exactly divisible by 7[3rd power] is one to 343. Keeps getting a little harder, but I'd bet there are some out there who could repeat this feat? Hum, Ok, lets go on.
There are 294 vowels in these verses (7x42) and 259 Consonants or (7x37). Well here are two more and the ODDS keep getting higher....Could just have anyone done this? beginning to look a little suspect.
Here we go back to those 98 words (7x14) and find that Mark had used 84 (7x12) of these words in other chapters. Better yet, only 14 of those words are found here (7x2) and 42 of those words(7x6) are found in the Lord's address (verses 15-18). By adding up all the words, we still have 56 (7x8) words that are not part of his vocabulary here. How great are the odds now..how long would it take someone to do this? Well here is the answer: "With 10 such heptadic features, it would take 7[10th power], 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!" (1)
There are more but will leave you to read them for yourself. Here are a few from each individual group (above). We find that verses 9-11 contain 35 words (7x5), verses 12-18 have 105 words (7x15), 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.(1)
One more part for good measure: Greek words have numerical values assigned to each letter of its alphabet called a "gematrical" value. Here is a mind blower taken from this article.
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).
The bottom line is that NO BODY on this earth could have written the last twelve verses of Mark...So when the words are changed, the finger prints disappear......Yes, the Bible of the REV is not the whole WORD of GOD but rather parts and pieces.
In the end, the ODDs are astronomical. While this article only identified around 25, Ivan found and wrote about 75 occurrences of values being exactly divisible by the Divine completion number seven (7). With it taking 4 million years for 34 occurrences, how long would it take 7[75th power].
God has shown us throughout the Bible that only He could write all 66 books and have all pages being integrated, referencing each other without faltering one time....
The Gospels of Jesus are all written each with their own words not found anywhere in the other gospels. As (Deadly) in verse 18 of Mark 16, is not even found anywhere else in the NT......How could they know not what to write unless all was written by only one, Jesus Christ. Amen!
For those who argue that the words are different and then say they are not changing His WORD......well?
Blade
__________________________________________________________________
* * * * *
1. Koinonia House, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark
2. Ivan Panin, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark: Their Genuineness Established, B-761, Bible Numerics, Suite 206, 121 Willowdale Ave., Willowdale, Ontario, M2N 6A3, (406) 221-7424.
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