Friday, January 23, 2015

The Book of Mormon and New Testament Textual Criticism

It has often been asserted that Mark 16:9-20 (the so-called “Longer Ending”) and Luke 22:43-44 are textual interpolations to the New Testament. As a result, some have questioned the historicity of the Book of Mormon, as well as the Doctrine and Covenants, where similar concepts are expressed (e.g., Mosiah 3:7; Mormon 9:22-24; D&C 19:18). However, two recent studies have challenged (successfully, IMO) the scholarly consensus on these texts.

On the longer ending of Mark, Nicholas P. Lunn, The Original Ending of Mark: A New Case for the Authenticity of Mark 16:9-20 (Pickwick Publications, 2014) offers a cogent challenge to the claim that vv.9-20 of Mark chapter 16 are not original to the gospel; instead, the author shows that the longer ending was known to Luke and Matthew, as well as the authors of early texts such as 1 Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas, as well as refuting all the claims against this text based on word-usages.


On Luke 22:43-44, LDS scholar, Lincoln Blumell has a published article in TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism (online here) that argues that the original text of Luke had the "blood-sweat" text, but it was omitted by Christian scribes beginning in the 2nd/3rd centuries.