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Old 05-25-2008, 09:18 PM
pneuby pneuby is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
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I'm going to copy here the comments by John MacArthur out of my NKJ Study Bible. {paragraphs are mine} I do so not to raise the ire of those here who don't care for him. It's just one of the few "scholarly" commentaries I have at my disposal. Thus, I'm hoping it is representative of arguments for which the AV'ers have developed a sound repsponse....
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"The external evidence strongly suggests these verses were not originally part of Mark's gospel. While the majority of Gr. manuscripts contain these verses, the earliest and most reliable do not. A shorter ending also exists, but it is not included in the text. Further, some that include the passage note that it was missing from older ms., while others have scribal marks indicating the passage was consdered spurious.

The fourth - century church fathers Eusebius and Jerome noted that almost all Gr. ms. available to them lacked vs.9-20. The internal evidence from this passage also weighs heavly against Mark's authorship. The transition betweeen vv. 8 and 9 is abrupt and awkward. The Gr. particle translated "now" that begins v. 9 implies coninuity with the preceding narrative. What follows, however, does not continue the story of the women referred to in v. 8, but describes Christ's appearance to Mary Magdalene.

The masucline participle in v.9 expects "he" as its antecedent, yet the subject of v.8 is the women. Although she had just been mentioned 3 times (v.1; 15; 40,47), v.9 introduces Mary Magdalene as if for the first time. Further, if Mark wrote v.9, it is strange that he would only now note that Jesus had cast 7 demons out of her.

The angel spoke of Jesus' appearing to His followers in Galilee, yet the appearances described in vv.9-20 are all in the Jerusalem area. Finally, the presence in these verses of a significant number of Gr. words used nowhere else in Mark argues that Mark did not write them. Verses 9-20 represent an early(they were known to the 2nd- cen. fathers Irenaeus, Tatian, and, possibly, Justin Martyr) attempt to complete Mark's gospel.

While for the most part summarizing truths taught elsewhere in Scripture, vv.9-20 should always be compared with the rest of Scripture, and no doctrines should be formulated based solely on them. Since, in spite of all these consideraions of the likely unreliablity of this section, it is possible to be wrong on the issue, and thus, it is good to consider the meaning of this passage and leave it in the text, just as with John 7:53-8:11.
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I'm pretty cool with it as Scripture.