The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark Vindicated Against Recent Critical Objectors and Established

John William Burgon

Jan 1871 · J. Parker

Ratings and reviews

A very detailed investigation of the most important textual variant in the New Testament. Burgon proposes that Mark 16:9-20 is original, and that two quirks in the copying-process -- the insertion of an End-of-Lection note after 16:8, plus the accidental loss of the final page of a copy in which the absent page contained 16:9-20 -- are the source of the reading at 16:8 supported by Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. He reviews patristic testimony, especially the comments by Eusebius and Jerome, and analyzes the evidence from Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. The text includes some appendices which are useful even to those with no interest in the issue about Mark 16:9-20. (The appendix about the Eusebian Canons and the Ammonian Sections is as valuable, in some ways, as the rest of the book.) Burgon worked with some incorrect premises which were not unusual in his era (for example, he consistently assigns the Peshitta to the second century), and some of his descriptions of manuscripts are incorrect, and he frequently used a somewhat bombastic style of expression, and he wrote without an awareness of the Sinaitic Syriac, the Arabic Diatessaron, the Bodmer and Beatty papyri, and other later discoveries pertinent to New Testament textual criticism. Despite these shortcomings, this book should be read discerningly by anyone with an interest in New Testament textual criticism, as a case-study in the scope of research that may be involved in making text-critical decisions about a single passage.