A Critique of James Tabor Critiquing the Ending of Mark
James Tabor is overassuming.
Source: http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/d...he-difference/
The reason I believe in all the endings of Mark put together is because they are all referenced by early church fathers.
Bruce Metzger said about the longer ending of Mark, "Eusebius and Jerome attest that the passage was absent from almost all Greek copies of Mark known to them." Notice he says "almost all Greek" copies, but not all.
James said, "Mark is our earliest Gospel, written according to most scholars around the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE." That would not make sense since Luke wrote Acts and said it was the second part to his former work the gospel of Luke. The Apostles were martyred in the Neronian persecutions around 65 AD. But Luke makes no mention of Paul's death, so Acts was written before then around 50 AD. Since Luke was written before Acts, Luke was written around 40 AD. But since Luke took in part from Mark that puts Mark around 35 AD just two years after the cross.
Mark did not feel strong enough in his writings to list the various resurrection appearances (if you don't accept the long or short endings of Mark), but only mentioned the resurrection did take place. He left that to the actual eyewitnesses Matthew and John as well as to the doctor Luke who did an investigative study and had close ties with Paul. Paul and Mark incidentally had a falling out with each other because Mark was too flippant on their journeys together. But they subsequently reconciled as Mark became more disciplined.
As Mark knew Peter and Peter mentions his eyewitness testimony seeing Jesus alive from the dead, Mark knew this though he did not record it (if you subjectively don't want to accept the long or short endings).
