On Fri, 31 Mar 2006, Mervin Bitikofer wrote:
> Or at the end of Mark (I've been
> reading Mark lately) -- the signs that WILL accompany those who
> believe: they will handle snakes and drink deadly poison without
> harm. How many sermons have you heard preached on that passage? I
> view all scripture as authoritative from God, but I can sure understand
> the eye-rolling delight agnostics get from passages like this and from
> us in our "bend-over-backward" antics to explain why certain passages
> "don't apply." Probably, I'll get a half dozen well polished reasons
> from some of you about why snake-handling, etc. can be dismissed as a
> cultural difference or some other thing. And I can guarantee you that
> all such explanations (some of which may be entirely correct IMO) will
> still elicit only condescending smiles from hostile challengers who will
> only see the "convenience" of our dismissal.
Mark 16:9-20 (the longer ending of Mark) is not contained in the oldest
known manuscripts, and it is highly doubtful that Mark included it in his
gospel.
Gordon Brown
Department of Mathematics
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0395
Received on Sat Apr 1 16:58:03 2006
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