1001 Errors in the Christian Bible
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Mark -- Errors 140-146
#140
The second Gospel listed in Christian Bibles, Mark, was written anonymously.
The title "Mark" was added by the Church long after the Gospel
was written.
#141
Mark 1: (KJV)
1 “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;”
The earliest extant manuscript, Sinaiticus, omits “the son of God”.
Most early manuscripts include it. Normally I don’t claim a translation
error if a majority of modern translations are supported by a majority
of early manuscripts. Here though, every early Church Father who quoted
Mark 1:1 omitted “son of God” without indicating an awareness
of any textual variation making it clear that “son of God” was
a later addition. “Son of God” was an important statement to
Christian theology at the beginning of “Mark” because Mark has
no virgin birth story and compared to the other Gospels presents Jesus
as more human than divine leading the reader to believe that when “Mark”
used “son of God” later in his Gospel it was used as a title
of a position that had been achieved.
Origen, Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Victorinus all quote Mark 1:1 without
“son of God”. No Christian author quotes Mark 1:1 with “son
of God” before the fourth century. Origen was the most important
Church Father of his time and one of the most important Church Fathers
of all time. Origen wrote in “The Commentary On The Gospel Of John”:
“14. …”For the same Mark says: "The beginning of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold
I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way.”
Origen discusses textual variation in his writings but shows no knowledge
of any textual variation in Mark 1:1 and surely whether “son of God”
was present or not would have been of interest to him.
#142
Mark 1: (KJV)
“2 As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger
before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.”
The quote is from Malachi 3:1 but all versions of Malachi 3:1 have “my
face” instead of “thy face”.
#143
Mark 1: (KJV)
“2 As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger
before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.”
The quote is from Malachi 3:1 but all versions of Malachi 3:1 have “before
me” instead of “before thee”.
#144
Mark 1: (KJV)
2 “As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger
before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. 3 The voice
of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make
his paths straight.”
Most other modern translations have “As it is written in Isaiah”
because almost all of the earliest extant manuscripts have “Isaiah”
here. The problem then is that while verse 3 is from Isaiah verse 2 is
from Malachi. Note that the author of “Matthew” removed verse
two above from Malachi in his version to eliminate Mark’s error.
You’ll see this over and over where the author of “Matthew”
either copied from “Mark” or their common source but made changes
to remove errors. This leaves fundamentalists who believe the Bible is
inerrant in the comical position of believing that “Matthew”
is inerrant even the author of “Matthew” based his Gospel on
a source which he knew was errant.
#145
Mark 1: (KJV)
8 “I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize
you with the Holy Ghost.”
There is no “the” (“the” Holy Ghost) in the Greek.
The author of “Mark”, just like the author of “Matthew”,
didn’t use “the” before “holy spirit”. “The”
has been added by most Christian translations to reflect the later Christian
belief that “holy spirit” was a separate component of God.
#146
Mark 1: (KJV)
11 “And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Now that we’ve gone all the way through “Matthew” and are
into “Mark” we can compare Gospels to each other and this is
where it gets interesting, analyzing the differences. “Matthew”
uses the wording “This is my son”, a public declaration, while
Mark’s “Thou art my beloved son” is a private declaration.
Mark’s private declaration is consistent with his theme that Jesus’
messiahship is a secret. Matthew, while probably copying from Mark, didn’t
completely accept the “secret” theme.
The Strange Chapter Of Dr. Jewkyll And Mr. Hymn
My name is Dr. Henry Jewkyll. I’m a tenured professor of psychiatry
at a University. “Tenured” means that basically I’m retired
except that I still receive a monthly paycheck. I’ve always been
fascinated by the effect that ancient religious writings have on the behavior
of many people. There seems to be an intrinsic human desire to believe
that the older a writing is the more credibility it has. I can easily
understand how a person could come to believe that an ancient religious
writing is the absolute truth if they have been raised in a culture which
has always taught them to believe that. But what if a person is exposed
to an ancient religious writing which is different than the culture they
were brought up in? Which is stronger? The religion of one’s upbringing
or later, exclusive exposure to a different religion’s ancient writings?
I’ve decided to conduct an experiment to determine which is stronger
and because I’ve had a lot of free time since I became tenured I
will be the subject of the experiment. My own upbringing is Reform Judaism
where the Bible is seen as mainly figurative and designed to teach moral
and ethical lessons. I will be gradually exposing myself to ancient Christian
religious writings. Every morning I will select a specific Christian writing
to read later. I will then temporarily self-hypnotize myself into believing
that I had no religious upbringing and currently have no religious views
of any kind. After hypnosis I will read the selected Christian writing
and at the end of the day I will note in a diary any changes in my behavior.
The Christians claim that Isaiah Chapter 53 is the best evidence of the
truth of Christianity so that will be first writing I select for reading.