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Title: The Last Twelve Verses of Mark by Dean John W. Burgon ISBN: 1-58960-014-2 Publisher: Sovereign Grace Publishers Pub. Date: 01 December, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $38.99

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Summary: Extraordinary Research
Comment: This edition is a reprint of Burgon's "The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark: Vindicated Against Recent Critical Objections and Established," originally published in 1871. At that time, John Burgon was Anglican vicar of St. Mary-the-Virgin's Church, Fellow of Oriel College at the University of Oxford, and Gresham Lecturer in Divinity.

The last twelve verses of Mark's Gospel (Mark 16:9-20) remain one of the largest, if not THE largest, consecutive group of allegedly spurious verses in the Bible. In this work, Burgon settles the question once and for all.

Originally intended for biblical scholars, this book will prove quite difficult for the average reader, because of its highly academic writing style of the period and because of its numerous footnotes and other passages that quote ancient sources in the original Greek and Latin without English translation. Yet, the depth of Burgon's textual criticism and research will stagger the honest reader. Beginning with external evidence, he examines hundreds of cursive and uncial Greek manuscripts which date at least from the fourth century, ten early Bible versions which date from the second to the sixth centuries, the individual writings of 19 early Church Fathers from all over the then-known world who wrote between the early second to the mid sixth centuries, and all known copies of the venerable Lectionary of the East. Then he turns to the internal evidence, or the writing style of St. Mark himself, and compares the verses in question to Mark's remaining Gospel, with particular attention given to the parallelism found in the first twelve verses of chapter 1.

With the exception of two manuscripts, not only do all of the other sources above contain or make reference to Mark 16:9-20, Burgon shows that these same verses match Mark's writing style to boot. Moreover, certain Church Fathers, who by tradition were considered hostile to Mark 16:9-20, namely Gregory of Nysa, Eusebius, Jerome, Severus of Antioch, Hesychius of Jerusalem, Victor of Antioch, and Euthymius Zigabenus, are proven instead to be favorable. To Burgon, this overwhelming wealth of evidence proves that these verses are genuine. The honest reader must surely agree.

The two manuscripts which completely lack Mark 16:9-20 are the infamous Codex B (Vaticanus) and Codex Aleph (Sinaiticus). Dating from the fourth century, they are the two oldest copies of the Gospels extant, which, in part, probably influenced Burgon's liberal contemporaries to reject these verses as genuine. Yet Burgon clearly shows that these two manuscripts are monstrously flawed throughout. Discrepancies are so numerous that he remarks, "It is easier to find two consecutive verses in which the two MSS. [manuscripts] differ, the one from the other, than two consecutive verses in which they entirely agree." Thus, neither of these two manuscripts are reliable sources for any of the Gospels, and they seriously impact on modern Bible translations (see below).

Also included in this edition is a helpful 36-page summary with commentary by Rev. D.A. Waite, president of The Dean Burgon Society. He reminds us that, despite Burgon's research, most modern Bible translations today (NKJV, NASV, NIV, RSV, NRSV, NEV, TEV, CEV, and others) continue to regard Mark 16:9-20 and other passages as spurious. The reason lies in the fact that liberal scholars, who in many places actually doubt the Word of God, have chosen to base most modern NT translations primarily on those two flawed manuscripts, Codex B and Codex Aleph. Westcott and Hort's Revised Greek Text of 1881 is a prime example, which alters the Greek New Testament (Traditional Greek Text or Textus Receptus) over 5,600 times.

Modern translations place allegedly spurious passages in brackets, reduce them to footnotes, or eliminate them altogether. In so doing, these modern translations can do much to dissuade people from belief in the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture. Thanks to the work of Christian scholars like Dean John W. Burgon, however, discerning Christians will reject those modern translations that promote such error.