Conservative Friends Bible Study of Mark #28 Mark 15:33-16:20

The sour wine given to Jesus on the cross (15:36) may have been meant as a sedative to ease pain. As in our not too distant past, people could be given liquor to ease their pain.In 15:38, the curtain to the Holy of Holies in the temple being torn in twocould symbolize there now was full access to God through the sacrifice of Jesusof Himself.15:39 is mistranslated. Both since there is no definite article (“the”) in the originalGreek, and also since the centurion was almost certainly a Roman pagan whobelieved in many gods, the Greek should instead be translated, “Truly, this manis a son of a god.” Regarding Mark 15:40-41, women in patriarchal Judaism held a very lowposition. It was very unusual that Jesus, as a rabbi, included women as asignificant part of his group of apostles and disciples.The color white worn by the young man (16:5) was a symbol of victory.There has been much discussion over the centuries concerning the ending ofMark 16:9-20. Those last 11 verses are not found in the oldest and most reliablemanuscripts, making it appear that perhaps the last page of Mark’s Gospel waslost before it could be copied by others. The reason to think the last page mayhave been lost is because the last Greek word in 16:8 is the conjunction “for”(γάρ/”gar”). The problem is that in Greek, γάρ is a conjunction and appears neverto be found as the last word in a sentence. Some of the more reliable earliestmanuscripts just end at verse 8. So, some copyists felt a need to complete thisGospel’s missing ending.In addition, in the first century it was increasingly becoming the practice amongGreeks to no longer write in scrolls, but to write on individual pages bound into“codices”, the forerunners of our books today. Thus, the grammatical abruptnessof this ending in the Greek manuscripts seems to indicate that perhaps the lastpage of Mark’s Gospel was lost before it had a chance to be copied by otherpeople. There are several other variations of endings to Mark, and they arediscussed in the podcast. Greek WordsKanōn - a straight reed, used as a standard of measurement (English: the canon,canonical)15:39 centurion: “Truly this man was a son of a god.”Leukos adj. – white (symbolizing “victory”). Here, victory over death.Scroll – a roll of paper or parchment with writing on it.Codex (plural: codices) – the earliest form of books, first used in the first century,A.D.In 16:7 Peter is mentioned separately from the other disciples. (Recall that hehad renounced Jesus).In 16:8 Ephobounto gar. – “For they were afraid.”Phobeō (v.)– be afraid; have awesome respectGar (conjunction) – for (only occurs after the first word of a clause/sentence inGreek)In English the conjunction “for” is always the first word in a clause/sentence.[Note that this is different from the usage of the English preposition “for” in aprepositional phrase which can occur anywhere in a sentence]. The Quote in the introduction is from George Fox's book SOME PRINCIPLESOF THE People Called Quakers.A complete list of our podcasts,  organized into topics, is available on our website.We will be publishing video interviews with Conservative Friends on YouTube.  See our YouTube channel.  The first interview is with Susan Smith. To learn more about Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative) of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), please visit  ohioyearlymeeting.org. Those interested in exploring the distinctives of Conservative Friends waiting worship should consider checking out our many Zoom Online Worship opportunities during the week here. All are welcome! We also have several Zoom study groups.  Check out the Online Study and Discussion Groups on our website.   Advices read in these podcasts can be found on page 29 in our Book Of Discipline.We welcome feedback on this and any of our other podcast episodes.   Contact us through our website.