Vaticanus

Let's take a closer look at how Mark ends in Codex

Vaticanus ("Codex B"). The last page of Mark is shown in

picture #1. The text of 16:8 ends in the 31st line of the second

42-line column of a three-column page, accompanied by an

ornamental design. Further down is the subscription "KATA

MARKON" ("according to Mark"). The third column is

blank. If a copyist were to start writing verses 9-20 at the

point where 16:8 ends, using the same handwriting used in the

first two columns, he would reach the end of the page with 67

letters (four lines' worth of text) left to write (as shown in

picture #2). If, instead, a copyist were to start writing the

Shorter Ending at the point where 16:8 ends, he would finish

the text in column two (as shown below, in picture #3). A

copyist could fit verses 9-20 on the page, though, by using

slightly compressed lettering (as shown below in picture #4).

The blank space here between Mark and Luke (Luke 1:1

begins on the opposite side of the page) is unique in this

manuscript. There are no other blank columns in its New

Testament portion. In the Old Testament portion of Codex

B, there are three other blank spaces between books, but

each one was caused by incidental factors in volved in the

production of the Codex. A blank space appears after the

Apocrypha-book of Tobit, but this is merely leftover space,

where one copyist completed his assigned portion of work.

After that blank space, the handwriting belongs to a different

copyist. Another blank space appears between the book of

Second Esdras and the book of Psalms, but this is not

surprising because the text of Second Esdras (like most of

the text in the codex) is arranged on the page in three

columns, but the books of Poetry, beginning with Psalms,

are written in two columns per page. So unless Second Esdras

had happened to end in the final column on the page, blank

space at this point would be inevitable. The third blank space

appears after the book of Daniel, but this is not surprising

because that is where the entire Old Testament portion comes

to a close. The Gospel of Matthew begins on the next page.

Clearly none of the factors that caused the blank spaces in the

Old Testament portion were in play here at the end of Mark.

This deliberately placed blank column between Mark 16:8

and Luke 1:1 is indeed unique.

Almost certainly, the copyist left this blank space in Codex B

because although he was using an exemplar in which Mark

ended at the end of verse 8, he recollected verses 9-20.

Unsure of how he should proceed, he followed his exemplar

but left space for the missing passage, so as to leave his

supervisor, or an eventual user of the codex, free to decide

whether to add verses 9-20 or not.

A less likely possibility is that the copyist had two exemplars,

one with the Shorter Ending and one with verses 9-20, and he

cleverly formatted the text so that his supervisor, or an

eventual user of the codex, would have the options of adding

the Shorter Ending (which, if begun on the line below 16:8,

could easily be extended into the third column), or adding

verses 9-20 (with slightly compressed lettering it would

conclude near the end of the third column).