Differing Versions
Mark is the shortest of the canonical gospels. Manuscripts, both scrolls and codices, tend to lose text at the beginning and the end, not unlike a coverless paperback in a backpack. These losses are characteristically unconnected with excisions. For instance, Mark 1:1 has been found in two different forms. Most manuscripts of Mark, including the 4th-century Codex Vaticanus, have the text "son of God", but three important manuscripts do not. Those three are: Codex Sinaiticus (01, א; dated 4th century), Codex Koridethi (038, Θ; 9th century), and the text called Minuscule 28 (11th century). Textual support for the term "Son of God" is strong, but the phrase may not have been original.
Interpolations may not be editorial, either. It is a common experience that glosses written in the margins of manuscripts get incorporated into the text as copies are made. Any particular example is open to dispute, of course, but one may take note of Mark 7:16, "Let anyone with ears to hear, listen," which is not found in early manuscripts.
Revision and editorial error may also contribute. Most differences are trivial but Mark 1:41, where the leper approached Jesus begging to be healed, is significant. An early (Western) manuscript (Codex Bezae) reads that Jesus became angry with the leper while Byzantine and Alexandrian manuscripts indicate that Jesus showed compassion. This is possibly a confusion between the Aramaic words ethraham (he had pity) and ethra'em (he was enraged). Since it is easier to understand why a scribe would change "rage" to "pity" than "pity" to "rage," the earlier version is probably original.
Read more about this topic: Gospel Of Mark
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