Over at Friendly Atheist, we have yet another sordid tale of snake-handling and premature death.
Probably this is a particularly propitious time to point out, yet again, that the verses upon which that particular practice is based were probably not in the original manuscript:
What is most striking to me as a scholar of the NT is that the passage in which Jesus’ words about handling snakes are contained was not originally part of the Gospel of Mark. Or of any other book of the NT. The oldest form of the Gospel of Mark that we can reconstruct ended with 16:8. Jesus has been dead and buried, on the third day some women go to the tomb, Jesus is not there, a young man who *is* there tells them that he has been raised and that they are to tell the disciples that Jesus will meet them in Galilee, and then – the climax of the scene, and arguably of the Gospel – the women “fled from the tomb and didn’t say anything to anyone, for they were afraid.” Period. That’s it. That’s where the Gospel ends.
How very depressing.
