The "Minuscule 304 - Myth" and its implications for Mark 16,9-20

in #bible6 years ago

In a discussion about the ending of the Gospel according to St. Mark and the validity of its last twelve verses one can come across following remark quite often:

"There are many greek manuscripts which end the Gospel text at verse 8.
Such as Codex Vaticanus B and Codex Sinaiticus א and Minuscle 304."

That's it. That is the entire list of textual "evidence" for the shorter ending.
Because there are not any more greek witnesses.
But even that isn't quite true!

Although even Wikipedia lists the minuscle as lacking Mark 16,9-20, the famous text critic and Bible scholar Maurice Robinson came to very different results after studying the actual pages of the manuscript.
He states:

"The primary matter [in 304] is the commentary. The gospel text is merely interspersed between the blocks of commentary material, and should not be considered the same as a 'normal' continuous-text MS. Also, it is often very difficult to discern the text in contrast to the comments....Following γαρ at the close of [16:8], the MS has a mark like a filled-in 'o,' followed by many pages of commentary, all of which summarize the endings of the other gospels and even quote portions of them. Following this, the commentary then begins to summarize the ετερον δε τα παρα του Μαρκου, presumably to cover the non-duplicated portions germane to that gospel in contrast to the others. There remain quotes and references to the other gospels in regard to Mary Magdalene, Peter, Galilee, the fear of the women, etc. But at this point the commentary abruptly ends, without completing the remainder of the narrative or the parallels. I suspect that the commentary (which contains only Mt and Mk) originally continued the discussion and that a final page or pages at the end of this volume likely were lost....I would suggest that MS 304 should not be claimed as a witness to the shortest ending...."

This evidence leads to the conclusion that Minuscle 304 can't be cited as evidence against the last twelve verses of Mark and exposes itself as just another myth of textual criticism in its struggle to undermine the Textus Receptus as the text of the Great Reformation.

An very recommendable case for the authenticity of Mark 16,9-20 has been published 2014 by Dr. Nicholas P. Lunn:

The Original Ending of Mark: A New Case for the Authenticity of Mark 16:9-20

which you can get here:

https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=MtDwCAAAQBAJ

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