{"id":3491,"date":"2015-07-30T18:59:58","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T23:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/?p=3491"},"modified":"2015-07-30T18:59:58","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T23:59:58","slug":"snake-handling-and-biblical-canon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2015\/07\/30\/snake-handling-and-biblical-canon\/","title":{"rendered":"Snake-handling and Biblical canon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/friendlyatheist\/2015\/07\/29\/another-snake-handling-christian-dies-after-snakebite-and-refusing-medical-help\/\" target=\"_blank\">Friendly Atheist<\/a>, we have yet another\u00a0sordid\u00a0tale of\u00a0snake-handling and premature death.<\/p>\n<p>Probably this is a particularly propitious time to point out, yet again, that the verses upon which that particular practice is based were <a href=\"http:\/\/ehrmanblog.org\/snake-handling-gospel-mark\/\" target=\"_blank\">probably\u00a0not in the original manuscript<\/a>:<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.onlyimage.com\/photo\/rattlesnake-stock-image-animal-stock-image-1710348\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid #dddddd\" title=\"Rattlesnake stock image - Animal stock image\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2015\/07\/rattlesnake-stock-image-animal-stock-image-300x168-1710348.jpg\" alt=\"Animals &amp; Pets\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Via www.OnlyImage.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<blockquote><p>What is most striking to me as a scholar of the NT is that the passage in which Jesus\u2019 words about handling snakes are contained was not originally part of the Gospel of Mark.\u00a0\u00a0 Or of any other book of the NT.\u00a0\u00a0 The oldest form of the Gospel of Mark that we can reconstruct ended with 16:8.\u00a0 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 \u2013 the climax of the scene, and arguably of the Gospel \u2013 the women \u201cfled from the tomb and didn\u2019t say anything to anyone, for they were afraid.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Period.\u00a0 That\u2019s it.\u00a0 That\u2019s where the Gospel ends.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>How very depressing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over at Friendly Atheist, we have yet another\u00a0sordid\u00a0tale of\u00a0snake-handling and premature death. Probably this is a particularly propitious time to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}