Mormon 9:22–24 vs Mark 16: 15-18

[Gray]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Just to be clear, that's not really the issue. The issue is what form Mark had when Mormon received it around 400 AD.

Edit: again then we run into the problem of having to posit a globetrotting Mormon who goes back and forth to the Near East to keep up with the latest textual variants.

Edited October 11, 2017 by Gray

[Benjamin McGuire]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

I think a better way of putting this is that the word "translation" is ambiguous especially within Mormon semantic use where it can refer to the relationship between two texts or the method of producing said texts. The problem is that when we discuss this we're always dealing with that ambiguity and the fact most readers haven't even thought about the distinction.

I think though, that while there is this ambiguity in theory, there isn't so much of this ambiguity in practice. While people who want to deal with the question of theory have some understanding of the issue (and there are lots of ways of describing this), most members don't have much of a nuanced view and for them, there is no ambiguity (or at least not so much) in the idea.

People like the idea that Joseph read the text word for word using the seer stones because it fits a certain understanding of scripture. I quoted at the beginning of my presentation an Evangelical writing about the challenge of perception of the Biblical text and it's fundamental nature:

Quote

According to the historic evangelical view, divine inspiration is more than a general influence over the biblical authors as a whole; inspiration extends to the micro-level of the very words found in the original text. This is an important doctrine for evangelicals, and it needs to be maintained. But at this point the reasoning of some (not all) conservative evangelicals begins to shift from defensible doctrine to questionable inference. Each individual word of Scripture, the questionable reasoning suggests, was specifically selected by God and delivered to us from above in a manner very similar to dictation. The words were sent down, one at a time, like crystal droplets. Each word is an autonomous integer, separate from the rest, and each is to be treasured like a sacred gem and cherished inviolate for all time.

I see this being applied in mainstream thought to the Book of Mormon in a way that is just as questionable (in terms of the reasoning). The Book of Mormon by virtue of it being given word for word (even letter for letter) becomes scripture by virtue of this transmission process. The contents of the gold plates become trivial at this point. And the problem we have is that while the notion of translator and translation has some ambiguity, it has that sense of ambiguity because of the fact that there was a recognition that already occurs in 1829 that what Joseph does isn't translation in the normative sense of the word (I point to Oliver Cowdery's letter in late 1829 that discusses this). But we have an attachment to the notion of translation, just as Oliver defended the title applied to Joseph Smith, and so every discussion of Joseph's role in the process has to be understood in the context of that title.

I am of the opinion that it is our view of the Book of Mormon as being in some ways fundamentally equivalent to the original texts of the Bible, that pushes members towards the idea that we should be investigating the Book of Mormon through the tools of biblical studies (that this is not only appropriate, but makes the most sense. And as you note, this can sometimes create arguments that are indefensible.

Other than that, I agree with what you wrote. However, I want to add a caveat. Brant does a really terrific job of working towards his view of the process and the meaning of the text. He and I often come to some of the same places, even though I hold to the tight translation description. I am though not typical in the way that I understand what this means and how it works, and Brant and I have had some good discussions on this gap. He and I have some very strong agreements about the value of certain other approaches. And as you note:

Quote

I think all that loose/tight means (in the sense that say Brant Gardner means) is what the unit of translation is (word or short phrase or longer or even conceptual rather than phrase) and how much flexibility in rendering this unit the text uses. (i.e. how much paraphrase is allowed and how much expansion or revision of the text).

This is a really good restatement of my point that what is really valuable in the textual exploration of the Book of Mormon is the notion of difference between the Book of Mormon and the Gold Plates. And as I noted, if we start from the assumption that they are identical in some  (in every way that matters) this discussion of difference cannot go anywhere.

[Darren10]

10 hours ago, Button Gwinnett said:

A Facebook friend  of mine has reached out to me seeking answers to a question that he read on a FB post made by Bill Reel. (out of respect I won't cross copy his post) While I have my own ideas on how this might have happened which I'll post below*, Bill does make a compelling argument asking how Mark's words found there way into Morori's mouth and were then written in the Book of Mormon some 400 years after Mark wrote them in his book.  But the plot thickens even more.  Our earliest and most reliable codex's of Mark don't have these verses in them, suggesting that they were late additions added to Mark's Gospel by scribes 2 centuries after the fact and were never even words written by the author of this Gospel we call Mark.

Here are the 2 verses that  (highlighted) are word for word the same and yet Biblical scholars have determined that these words were late additions to the Bible and could not have possibly been written by the author we call Mark.

 

So I'm curious how others see this dilemma or is there some easy explanation that I am not familiar with.  I told my friend I would get back with him with an explanation to satisfactorily resolve his doubts that this post has created.  I should add that this friend has been struggling for several months so this is just another piece of straw upon the back of the camel.

So this is my explanation, but I'm interested in other ideas.  I believe in cutting strait the what I believe is the most logical answer.

*I believe that Joseph copied/quoted this verse directly from his family Bible. During the translation process perhaps in a moment of feeling the spirit he began to evangelize upon the words of Moroni and expand upon what he was translating.  To me this is the most likely answer.  I don't believe that Moroni transported himself across the world to some Catholic monastery where he peeked over the shoulder of some monk/scribe in the act of transcribing the Bible and adding those words as some have suggested.   And I can't see God putting the words of a monk into Moroni's mind to put down on Gold Plates and then have him attribute as the words from Jesus's own mouth.

The other logical answer is that the Biblical scholars are wrong and that Mark did in fact write the longer ending to his Gospel and that it being in Morioni's version supports this conclusion and that some how evil men removed it.  This answer is not at all satisfactory to me it requires too many moving parts and flies in the face of modern Biblical scholarship. It also requires an explanation in how it found its way into Mormon 9:22-24 some 400 years after Mark had written it.  It just requires too much supernatural gymnastics for my tastes.

So what say you?

I thought I recently read something on this from Jeff Lindsey:

 

Quote

I recently ran across an encouraging example of a Bible scholar breaking ranks from the "consensus" of his fellow scholars and completely reversing his position on an important New Testament issue. Scholars for decades have rejected the so-called "longer ending" of the Gospel of Mark (verses 9 to 20 in Mark 16) as fraudulent, a late addition from scribes who were uncomfortable with the "legitimate" abrupt ending at verse 8. But the consensus of scholars on this point may have been largely based on peer dynamics as scholars accepted and repeated what others had said without a careful consideration of the data. The weakness behind that consensus has, in my opinion, been thoroughly exposed by several scholars, most notably Nicholas P. Lunn in The Original Ending of Mark: A New Case for the Authenticity of Mark 16:9-20 (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2014), as I have mentioned before here.

In light of Lunn's work, we can see that many scholarly statements on the issue of the ending of Mark are surprisingly wrong and easily demonstrated to be false. A lengthy list of such statements has been compiled by James Snapp, Jr. in Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20: 2016 Edition (James Snapp, Jr: 2016, Kindle edition). For example, numerous scholars have informed their readers that verses 9-20 of Mark 16 “are lacking in many of the oldest and most reliable manuscripts" (Norman Geisler), and that there are "many" ancient Greek manuscripts that simply end at Mark 16:8 (e.g., Larry O. Richards, Wilfrid J. Harrington, Jim Levitt). Eugene Peterson states that the long ending “is contained only in later manuscripts.” Donald Juel even speaks of the "almost unanimous testimony of the oldest Greek manuscripts" in excluding the longer ending. This error is further amplified by Ernest Findlay Scott's claim that the 12 verses of the longer ending “are found in no early manuscript,” and David Ewert takes that error to its zenith with, “All major manuscripts end this Gospel at 16:8.”

Among the many scholars quoted by Snapp is Craig A. Evans, currently the the John Bisagno Distinguished Professor of Christian Origins and Dean of the School of Christian Thought at Houston Baptist University in Texas. Evans had written that “Many of the older manuscripts have asterisks and obeli [the technical term for funny little marks like ÷ or †] marking off the Long or Short Endings as spurious or at least doubtful,” and, “Later copies contain vv. 9-20, but they are marked off with asterisks or obelisks, warning readers and copyists that these twelve verses are doubtful.” Evans stated that these verses “were added at least two centuries after Mark first began to circulate,” which would seem to put the origins of the longer ending to some time after 260. In reality, there is overwhelming evidence that the longer ending as we have it was known and used by Christians long before a few Greek manuscripts were made without it. 

(Bold mine)

The said "longer ending" in Mark considered to be fraudulent just may have been there all along. So, once again we find a potential conflict for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon turning out to show the authenticity of the book and that the Book of Mormon does verify the truthfulness of the Bible.

http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2017/06/bible-scholar-breaks-ranks-and-reverses.html

 

[Darren10]

9 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Try this, from Jeff Lindsay:

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/the-book-of-mormon-versus-the-consensus-of-scholars-surprises-from-the-disputed-longer-ending-of-mark-part-2/

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Ahhhh! Kings to you Kevin. I gotta get up early to beat you to the punch.

[Darren10]

11 hours ago, smac97 said:

Here are some resources:

• Robert F. Smith's Comments
• Kevin Christensen's Comments (and here)
• Jeff Lindsay's Comments (Part 1)
• Jeff Lindsay's Comments (Part 2)

Jeff's comments are the most in-depth.

Thanks,

-Smac

 

 

Gotta get up even earlier to beat you to the punch. I'm running out of kings to give to my chess opponents. As usual, Lindsey's depth on a topic is admirable.

Edited October 12, 2017 by Darren10

[Button Gwinnett]

1 hour ago, Darren10 said:

I thought I recently read something on this from Jeff Lindsey:

 

(Bold mine)

The said "longer ending" in Mark considered to be fraudulent just may have been there all along. So, once again we find a potential conflict for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon turning out to show the authenticity of the book and that the Book of Mormon does verify the truthfulness of the Bible.

http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2017/06/bible-scholar-breaks-ranks-and-reverses.html

 

Thanks for sharing, my friend claims to have already read Lindsey's blog and was not convince by Lunds counter arguments 

[Darren10]

9 hours ago, Gray said:

You can always shop around to find a scholar who disagrees with the mainstream on just about any issue. I'm not aware that there is any controversy among most scholars that the ending was tacked on later. There is some disagreement about whether or not Mark ends where it ends in the earliest manuscripts, or if there was some other, unknown ending lost to us now. (my understanding) But it's very difficult to make the case that then ending we're familiar with for Mark is original to Mark.

True but I think it's important that when a scholar disagrees with the mainstream of scholarship that people look into the merits of that disagreement. The disagreements presented here seem very credible. And, if true, it would mean that the Book of Mormon stands as more credibly authentic and Joseph Smith ahead of these scholars who are disputing the mainstream. 

[Darren10]

14 minutes ago, Button Gwinnett said:

Thanks for sharing, my friend claims to have already read Lindsey's blog and was not convince by Lunds counter arguments 

Sounds good. I am glad you shared it though. 

[clarkgoble]

14 hours ago, Gray said:

Edit: again then we run into the problem of having to posit a globetrotting Mormon who goes back and forth to the Near East to keep up with the latest textual variants.

No. We have to posit his being given a copy of a NT text by an angel. Given the narrative, that's pretty minor compared to other claims in the text wherein angels appear. I mean if angels giving a book to a prophet is a bridge too far, then the Book is Mormon is rejected from the onset given that's exactly what Joseph Smith claims.

[Gray]

11 hours ago, Darren10 said:

True but I think it's important that when a scholar disagrees with the mainstream of scholarship that people look into the merits of that disagreement. The disagreements presented here seem very credible. And, if true, it would mean that the Book of Mormon stands as more credibly authentic and Joseph Smith ahead of these scholars who are disputing the mainstream. 

At least according to a couple of reviews, that scholar's argument doesn't seem to have landed. 

[Gray]

8 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

No. We have to posit his being given a copy of a NT text by an angel. Given the narrative, that's pretty minor compared to other claims in the text wherein angels appear. I mean if angels giving a book to a prophet is a bridge too far, then the Book is Mormon is rejected from the onset given that's exactly what Joseph Smith claims.

In which case, on what basis can any historian not take any miraculous claim at face value? Maybe Alexander really was born of a virgin. Maybe the star/comet really did signify the deification of Julius Caesar. Maybe we got fire from Prometheus, not from nature. 

What you propose might be good theology, but it's not good scholarship. 

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

In which case, on what basis can any historian not take any miraculous claim at face value? Maybe Alexander really was born of a virgin. Maybe the star/comet really did signify the deification of Julius Caesar. Maybe we got fire from Prometheus, not from nature. 

What you propose might be good theology, but it's not good scholarship. 

But you've just excluded the Book of Mormon from any consideration precisely because of the purported origin. i.e. you're saying good scholarship on the Book of Mormon that takes it seriously is impossible by definition. Which is of course fine. A lot of people think scholarship needs only take seriously that which can adequately be explained naturalistically. That's why Mormon Studies that more or less brackets truth questions is popular among a certain crowd. I just think that it's intentionally avoiding issues by treating it as a fraud by Joseph Smith as a premise even though it'll not acknowledge that. 

Edited October 12, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Gray]

36 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

But you've just excluded the Book of Mormon from any consideration precisely because of the purported origin. i.e. you're saying good scholarship on the Book of Mormon that takes it seriously is impossible by definition. Which is of course fine. A lot of people think scholarship needs only take seriously that which can adequately be explained naturalistically. That's why Mormon Studies that more or less brackets truth questions is popular among a certain crowd. I just think that it's intentionally avoiding issues by treating it as a fraud by Joseph Smith as a premise even though it'll not acknowledge that. 

What I'm saying is that from a historical perspective, claims about miracles must be bracketed.

This isn't excluding the BOM from any consideration. It just needs to be evaluated like any other text, ancient or modern, without special pleading (ie we bracket claims about angels the same way we would bracket claims about Alexander's divinity). "Fraud" is totally out of the the conversation. That's a term for polemicists. We should be more interested in what the author is trying to convey, and what evidence within the text itself suggests about its origins and influences. Scholars don't talk about Daniel like it's some kind of fraud, despite the fact that it's a late composition written under the name of  a non-historical protagonist .

The angel stuff is just fine for Sunday school, though. Not a problem at all. Same goes for the spiritual meaning behind the text. These are totally legitimate within the framework of theology. 

Edited October 12, 2017 by Gray

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

What I'm saying is that from a historical perspective, claims about miracles must be bracketed.

This isn't excluding the BOM from any consideration. It just needs to be evaluated like any other text, ancient or modern, without special pleading (ie we bracket claims about angels the same way we would bracket claims about Alexander's divinity). "Fraud" is totally out of the the conversation. That's a term for polemicists. We should be more interested in what the author is trying to convey, and what evidence within the text itself suggests about its origins and influences. Scholars don't talk about Daniel like it's some kind of fraud, despite the fact that it's a late composition written under the name of  a non-historical protagonist .

The angel stuff is just fine for Sunday school, though. Not a problem at all. Same goes for the spiritual meaning behind the text. These are totally legitimate within the framework of theology. 

Again, if you're talking publication in a mainstream journal I'm all with you. That's not what we're talking about though, is it? (Doing a quick consult of JSTOR I'd say fraud isn't a polemic term -- an that's excluding Mormon oriented journals)

Edited October 12, 2017 by clarkgoble

[readstoomuch]

Is it fair to say that Bill Reel brought up the argument without tools to reconcile it within a faithful context?

[Gray]

On 10/12/2017 at 1:31 PM, clarkgoble said:

Again, if you're talking publication in a mainstream journal I'm all with you. That's not what we're talking about though, is it? (Doing a quick consult of JSTOR I'd say fraud isn't a polemic term -- an that's excluding Mormon oriented journals)

I'm talking about history as a discipline with rules, not history in a casual or colloquial sense. Historians can't comment on the supernatural while still doing history. There 's no historical tool to evaluate miracles, other than whether or not the backdrop might have been historical. Ancient texts are full of the supernatural.

Edited October 15, 2017 by Gray

[clarkgoble]

On 10/14/2017 at 1:20 PM, Gray said:

I'm talking about history as a discipline with rules, not history in a casual or colloquial sense. Historians can't comment on the supernatural while still doing history. There 's no historical tool to evaluate miracles, other than whether or not the backdrop might have been historical. Ancient texts are full of the supernatural.

 That's not really true. If you're talking about the positivist tradition of history then of course that's the case. However history underwent a broadening in the 70's and 80's. It's not that they evaluate miracles (which would be a more positivist conception) but rather they take seriously the beliefs of the people holding to this. Thus you've seen in recent decades a lot of work on esotericism, religious ecstasy, charismatic movements and so forth. The new history tends to be much more attuned to hermeneutics - especially in the vein of Gadamer - rather than positivism. One example of this is applying ethnography from anthropology more broadly towards history. Outside of this more hermeneutical tradition even more within the analytic tradition you have so-called ontological considerations which is just looking at history in terms of the entities a culture or movement needs to postulate. So you see this in say histories of marxist or revolutionary movements. A lot of colonialist critiques of history for instance note how adopting the more positivist critique obscures or dominates the historical views of the people in these countries. One can (and I'd argue many do) go overboard in this opposite direction. But it is a big part of history and a dominant aspect of what you find published in journals.

My point is just that your conception of history here is perhaps a bit too constrained. There's a middle ground between needing to believe such claims and simply adopting a naturalistic stance that brackets what really happened.

Now I'm no trained historian. So at best I dabble in here. But I think that particularly with the topic of religion, esotericism or related movements to have objects that are religious is inexorably to be dragged into a discussion of what religion means. A good example of this tradition of history is this short paper of Kathryn Lofton at Yale.

[Gray]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

 That's not really true. If you're talking about the positivist tradition of history then of course that's the case. However history underwent a broadening in the 70's and 80's. It's not that they evaluate miracles (which would be a more positivist conception) but rather they take seriously the beliefs of the people holding to this. Thus you've seen in recent decades a lot of work on esotericism, religious ecstasy, charismatic movements and so forth. The new history tends to be much more attuned to hermeneutics - especially in the vein of Gadamer - rather than positivism. One example of this is applying ethnography from anthropology more broadly towards history. Outside of this more hermeneutical tradition even more within the analytic tradition you have so-called ontological considerations which is just looking at history in terms of the entities a culture or movement needs to postulate. So you see this in say histories of marxist or revolutionary movements. A lot of colonialist critiques of history for instance note how adopting the more positivist critique obscures or dominates the historical views of the people in these countries. One can (and I'd argue many do) go overboard in this opposite direction. But it is a big part of history and a dominant aspect of what you find published in journals.

My point is just that your conception of history here is perhaps a bit too constrained. There's a middle ground between needing to believe such claims and simply adopting a naturalistic stance that brackets what really happened.

Now I'm no trained historian. So at best I dabble in here. But I think that particularly with the topic of religion, esotericism or related movements to have objects that are religious is inexorably to be dragged into a discussion of what religion means. A good example of this tradition of history is this short paper of Kathryn Lofton at Yale.

I'm not talking about positivism at all - I'm not sure where you're getting that. I'm simply saying there are no historical tools to evaluate miracles. Of course these kinds of beliefs are taken seriously. That's a big part of historical criticism after all. But the historian can not use her historical judgement to say whether Jesus was divine or not. That's a theological question. The question for the historian is what the writers believed, and what the people they wrote about believed and did. These beliefs are taken seriously, but historians don't weigh in on whether or not you or I should share those beliefs.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Gray

[clarkgoble]

9 hours ago, Gray said:

I'm not talking about positivism at all - I'm not sure where you're getting that. I'm simply saying there are no historical tools to evaluate miracles. Of course these kinds of beliefs are taken seriously. That's a big part of historical criticism after all. But the historian can not use her historical judgement to say whether Jesus was divine or not. That's a theological question. The question for the historian is what the writers believed, and what the people they wrote about believed and did. These beliefs are taken seriously, but historians don't weigh in on whether or not you or I should share those beliefs.

OK, I agree with that.

[DBMormon]

On 10/13/2017 at 1:06 AM, readstoomuch said:

Is it fair to say that Bill Reel brought up the argument without tools to reconcile it within a faithful context?

I presented it in the form of a question.  So no one can ask questions unless they have all the tools and resources to answer it?  that seems weird

[Button Gwinnett]

2 hours ago, DBMormon said:

I presented it in the form of a question.  So no one can ask questions unless they have all the tools and resources to answer it?  that seems weird

Thank you for chiming in on this subject Bill. 

[readstoomuch]

On 10/17/2017 at 11:09 AM, DBMormon said:

I presented it in the form of a question.  So no one can ask questions unless they have all the tools and resources to answer it?  that seems weird

I asked a question also.  What seems weird to me is that the post that started this thread and the dozens of other threads on your Facebook do not seem to be “leading with faith.”  Your motto