Re: prayer and healing

Actually the snake part can be backed up with Acts 28:3-6. & that may help
to get rid of the most problematic aspect of the longer Marcan ending. Paul
didn't intend to pick up the snake on Malta to impress the natives & wasn't
deliberately putting God to the test. Those who deliberately pick up snakes
as part of their self-devided worship are putting God to the test - exactly
the thing that Satan tries to get Jesus to do in jumping from the pinnacle
of the Temple, & which Jesus refuses to do.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mervin Bitikofer" <mrb22667@kansas.net>
To: "gordon brown" <gbrown@euclid.colorado.edu>; <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2006 5:09 PM
Subject: Re: prayer and healing

> Yes -- we (I) tend to get a little excited about that footnote at the end
> of the NIV giving this 'warning' about the spurious origins of that
> passage. And as a friend of mine says -- "there's nothing in that passage
> of importance that can't be backed up with other scriptures except the
> snake handling and poison drinking". So we should hardly build snake
> handling doctrines on one such passage. Point sound and well-taken.
> It's just that we have to be cognizant (even sympathetic) with the
> finger-waving warnings from our traditional "don't mess with scripture"
> past. So maybe I can consign the end of Mark to a "lesser" level of
> consideration than other scriptures without undue loss. But where does
> this stop. I bet scholars (especially the "enlightened" ones) can point a
> whole lot more passages for which they have evidence that they too weren't
> in some ancient manuscript and therefore added by a later redactor. And
> perhaps my NIV doesn't even give me the benefit of a footnote warning. By
> the time everyone has worn out their scissors we end up with a few shreds
> like a Jeffersonian or a Jesus seminar Bible. It seems to me that this
> "slippery slope" danger is more real for the literalists than for those
> who don't feel compelled down that road as a matter of principle.
>
> --merv
>
> gordon brown wrote:
>
>>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 17:46:19 2006