Reading through Mark's Gospel ought to be a challenge to anyone who is paying attention. Mark's Gospel is tight, rigorous, and straight to the point. According to Mark's Gospel, unless you are willing to take extreme measures to follow Jesus, you'll probably miss Him.
And, as though that's not enough, we are not even sure how Mark's Gospel ends.
There is a major textual issue relating to how Mark actually ended his Gospel. Some of the oldest known manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel indicate that Mark’s Gospel originally ended at 16:8 with the words "because they were afraid." The vast majority of manuscripts, however, include one of two other endings—either the verses traditionally marked vv. 9-20 in our English translations or a much shorter summary ending that appears in only a few manuscripts and does not appear in the text of our English translations at all (though some English translations give the shorter ending in a footnote).
How do we know where Mark originally ended his Gospel? The question is complex and probably cannot be answered with certainty. Since the earliest manuscripts are generally more reliable (they are closer to the original document Mark actually wrote), most scholars deem even a few early manuscripts more reliable than many later manuscripts. Further, a careful reading of Mark 16:9-20 reveals a slight change in the narrative style of these twelve verses from the rest of Mark’s Gospel which may indicate that someone else wrote vv. 9-20. It is possible, then, that Mark deliberately ended his Gospel at v. 8, and that someone else added vv. 9-20 out of a desire to bring Mark’s resurrection account in line with the other Gospels. Many, if not most, New Testament scholars believe this—Mark’s original Gospel ended at v. 8.
Should this trouble Bible-believing Christians? Not at all. Textual variations are common in all ancient literature, including the Bible, and our English translations have always had to evaluate which readings among variations are authentic. Besides, our faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures does not lie in an English translation or even a particular manuscript, but in the autographs themselves. Even though we do not have any of these autographs, our manuscript evidence is overwhelming … thousands of ancient copies of New Testament writings survive. Virtually all of the variations that exist between these thousands of manuscripts are very minor and easily resolved; and even if our reconstruction of the original text is not always accurate, no biblical doctrine is in danger.
Here's an analogy that might help.
Imagine that you discovered a collection of ancient maps that showed a hidden treasure on a remote island. Indeed, imagine that you found more than 5,000 of these. Some were complete maps, others were fragments. Some in Greek; others Latin; others in various languages. Some maps were displayed in the books of other authors. Some were crudely written, others on expensive parchment.
The problem with your maps, you realize, is that they have slight variations. Most of these variations are simply the result of hand-copying; different spellings or obvious slips of the hand while copying. A few are more challenging, but none really changes the content of the maps.
You take these maps and compare them with one another. Then, you follow the reconstruction, and, voila, you find a buried treasure worth millions of dollars!
Would you complain that you had lots of maps? Would you fault these hand-copied maps for having minor discrepancies? Would you suggest that one cannot depend upon the map?
No! Quite the opposite. You would celebrate the vast number of maps you have. You would be happy that you had enough copies to reconstruct a reliable map. And you would spend the treasure!
In the same way, the 5,000 plus manuscripts we have of the New Testament are a great testimony to the reliability of Scripture. We have ample manuscripts to come to a dependable understanding of what the authors of Scripture wanted us to know. And, best yet, follow the Scriptures and you will definitely have its treasure.
You can trust your Bible, even if there are textual issues that are currently unresolved.
--David
