Welcome back to Chemis Popery. I'm Joe Heschmire, and I want to explore the bright ending to the

gospel of Mark. Now, that might sound obscure, but I want to suggest that Jeffrey Riddell is onto something

when he declares that contemporary Christians are in the middle of a canonical crisis, a crisis

about which books and which parts of books belong in the Bible. In his words, he says,

we're facing a contemporary canonical crisis

to a degree we haven't seen

since the days of Eusebius in the 4th century.

And it involves what's the proper ending

to the Gospel of Mark.

So one camp says,

the Gospel of Mark ends at Mark 16, verse 8. Another camp says Mark 16 ends in verse 20.

And a third camp says, the ending to the gospel of Mark has simply been lost. So why does this

controversy over Mark 16 exist? I'm going to let Wes Huff explain. I'm going to agree with him on

a lot of what he says. I'm going to disagree on a few explain. I'm going to agree with him on a lot of what he says.

I'm going to disagree on a few particular issues, but I like the way he frames the issue.

Mark 16, 9 through 20 is found in nearly every New Testament manuscript and is the single longest

textual variant in the New Testament. However, it is missing from two very significant manuscripts,

Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. And these are significant because Sinaiticus and

Vaticanus are our earliest witnesses to the end of Mark. Okay. So in the two oldest

manuscripts that give us the ending to the Gospel of Mark,

they end in this very strange way that the women go to the tomb. They find the empty tomb. The angel

tells them Jesus has been risen, but they never see Jesus. Instead, they leave with trembling

...