And after these thing from East even unto West, did Jesus Himself send forth by their means the holy and incorruptible message of eternal salvation.”Īfter examining this manuscript, Dean Burgon described the Codex L as, “the work of an ignorant foreign copyist who probably wrote with several manuscripts before him but who is found to have been wholly incompetent to determine which reading to adopt and which to reject.” Dean Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses Of Mark, pg. This manuscript is interrupted at Mark 16:8 with the words, “something to this effect is met with,” and then, instead of the Great Commission in Mark, the author wrote, “All that was commanded them they immediately rehearsed to Peter and the rest. There is an eighth or ninth century unical manuscript called Codex L that contains a different ending to Mark 16. The Greek Scholar Dean Burgon, writing of the Sinaitic and Vaticanus, along with the Codex Bezae, wrote that these three manuscripts, “are three of the most scandalously corrupt copies extant: exhibit the most shamefully mutilated texts which are anywhere to be met with: have become… the depositories of the largest amount of fabricated readings, ancient blunders, and intentional perversions of truth which are discoverable in any known copies of the word of God.” Dean Burgon, The Revision Revised, pg. This is just a small sampling of the problems of these two manuscripts. Neither is the passage, “Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.'” (Luke 23:34). Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” ( Luke 22:43-44) is not found in the Sinaitic. And beingin agony, He prayed more earnestly. According to this so called “reliable ancient manuscript”, Hebrews 9:14 to 13:25 do not belong in the Bible either! The passage, “Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. Where is the consistency? All other Greek manuscripts also contain Mark 16:9-20! In the Sinaitic manuscript, the book of Hebrews ends at chapter 9 verse 8. Footnotes are not added in modern translations to warn us about any of these passages because all other Greek manuscripts docontain them. The account in John 19:33-34 of the soldiers piercing the side of Jesus while He was on the cross is also omitted in both theVaticanus and Sinaitic manuscripts. And His disciples plucked the heads of grain and ate them, rubbing them in their hands.” Also, both of these manuscripts do not contain Luke 6:1, which reads, “Now it happened on the second Sabbath after the first that He went through th grainfields. Although this ending of John’s gospel is missing in the same manuscripts that do not contain the ending of Mark’s gospel, there are no footnotes in the new Bibles casting doubts in people’s minds on the ending of John! John 21:25 is accepted because it is found in all other Greek manuscripts, but so is Mark 16:9-20! We should ask, why do some “scholars” reject the end of Mark but retain the end of John when both are missing from the same manuscripts?īoth the Vaticanus and Sinaitic do not contain the confession of faith by the blind man who said, “Lord, I believe!” (John 9:38). The end of the gospel of John is not found in the Vaticanus and Sinaitic manuscripts either, where John wrote, “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. None of these modern preachers claim this passage doesn’t belong in theBible! It is interesting that these same two manuscripts (Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus) also do not contain the 1,000 year reign of Christ in Revelation 20:1-6. There are two Greek manuscripts that were written around 350 AD which do not contain the last twelve verses of the gospel of Mark. If you have a specific question regarding those verses or any other passage please reply. The majority of scholars do not question that it should be there, and that it is part of the rest of Mark’s gospel. However, there is no doubt that it should be included in the text.

In general, 2 manuscripts used for some of our translations do omit part of Mark 16.

Below I have included a rather lengthy discussion from someone who has done considerable research on your question.

Old manuscript mark