Omega my friend, I was really touched by your last reply and I feel the need to cry
Eventhough your reply is nothing than a typical Christian romantic heresy, I am forcing to ask you why do you defend an Apocrypha using an Apocrypha? :roll:
Matthew 17:21 is considered as a later insertion and it's omitted from every new version of the Holy Bible.
In the NIV, the entire verse was omitted. Who do you suppose benifits from this omission? [Fasting is also removed in Mark 9:29 & Acts 10:30.]
R.S.V. (not included)
N.I.V. (not included)
G.N.B. (not included)
L.B.V. (not included)
So why do you use this corrupted verse to defend another corrupted verse?
With regard to Mark 16:9-20, we are, strangely enough, given a choice of how we would like the Gospel of Mark to end. The commentators of the NRSV by Oxford Press have supplied both a "short ending" and a "long ending." Thus, we are given a choice of what we would prefer to be the "INSPIRED WORD OF GOD" .
Once again, at the end of this Gospel in very small text, the commentators say:
"Some of the most ancient authorities bring the book to a close at the end of verse 8. One authority concludes the book with the shorter ending; others include the shorter ending and then continue with verses 9-20. In most authorities, verses 9-20 follow immediately after verse 8, though in some of these authorities the passage is marked as being doubtful."
(Peake's Commentary on the Bible records)
"It is now generally agreed that 9-20 are not an original part of Mk. They are not found in the oldest MSS, and indeed were apparently not in the copies used by Mt. and Lk. A 10th-cent. Armenian MS ascribes the passage to Aristion, the presbyter mentioned by Papias (ap.Eus.HE III, xxxix, 15)."
"Indeed an Armenian translation of St. Mark has quite recently been discovered, in which the last twelve verses of St. Mark are ascribed to Ariston, who is otherwise known as one of the earliest of the Christian Fathers; and it is quite possible that this tradition is correct"
(Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, F. Kenyon, Eyre and Spottiswoode, pp. 7-8)
"Nonetheless, there are some kinds of textual changes for which it is difficult to account apart from the deliberate activity of a transcriber. When a scribe appended an additional twelve verses to the end of the Gospel of Mark, this can scarcely be attributed to mere oversight"
(The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, Bart Ehrman, pp. 27-28 )
"…The gospel of Mark ends abruptly, at 16.8, and early attempts to add an ending show that it was felt to be incomplete. It is possible that the book was never finished or that it was damaged at an early stage. Yet it may be our knowledge of the other Gospels that makes us expect this one to end with appearances of the risen Lord. Certainly, it ends in an appropriate way for Mark - with fear, human failure, and the call to discipleship …"
(The Oxford Companion to the Bible, Bruce Metzger and Michael Coogan, p. 496 )
Dr. Lobegott Friedrich Konstantin Von Tischendorf was one of the most eminent conservative biblical scholars of the nineteenth century. One of his greatest lifelong achievements was the discovery of the oldest known Biblical manuscript know to mankind, the "Codex Sinaiticus," from Saint Catherine's Monastery in Mount Sinai. This was one of the manuscripts which influenced the Christian recognition of the need to produce the RSV Bible. One of the most devastating discoveries made from the study of this fourth century manuscript was that the gospel of Mark originally ended at verses 16:8 and not at verse 16:20 as it does today. In other words, the last 12 verses (Mark 16:9 through Mark 16:20) were "injected" by the Church into the Bible sometime after the 4th century. This conclusion was supported by the fact that the early Church fathers of the second century C.E. such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen never quoted these verses. Later on, it was also discovered that the said 12 verses, wherein lies the account of "the resurrection of Jesus," do not appear in codices Syriacus, Vaticanus and Bobiensis. Originally, the "Gospel of Mark" contained no mention of the "resurrection of Jesus" (Mark 16:9-20). At least four hundred years (if not more) after the departure of Jesus, the Church, by way of father Ariston, received divine "inspiration" to add the story of the resurrection to the end of this Gospel and then allow Christianity to attribute these inserted verses to "Mark."
Each time I read a newer version of the Holy Bible I discover a new event added or an old event deleted to the life of Biblical Jesus.
As I said before, Our Bible is like the Windows XP Update.
And we still find some stooges who still believing that our Holy Bible is Accurate and Inspired
Really our Holy bible is Accurate and Inspired
Alexei