Psalm 22:17, Hebrew Text, "Like A Lion". Determining Who's Original And Who's Lion? Nahal Hever Fragment

1. Introduction of the Issue

Ya know BerNIVdo, I try, I really try

      Most Christian Bible translations present Psalm 22:17 (22:16 in the Christian Bible) as:

Dogs(A) surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce[a](B) my hands and my feet. (NIV).

NIV adds the following note:

 [a]Psalm 22:16 Dead Sea Scrolls and some manuscripts of the Masoretic Text, Septuagint and Syriac; most manuscripts of the Masoretic Text me, / like a lion

Every assertion in this note is wrong:

1) The Dead Sea Scrolls do not have a Hebrew word for "pierced"  here.
2) No Manuscripts of the Masoretic Text have a Hebrew word for "pierced" here.
3) The "Septuagint" (this word is commonly used to refer to Jewish Greek translations of the Jewish Bible but it's difficult to distinguish an early Jewish translation from an early Christian translation) transmission evidence shows that "pierced" was not original to it.
4) The Syriac evidence for the original word is unclear. 

What everyone does agree on is that the overwhelming majority of Hebrew texts have "like a lion" here.

Here is Psalm 22:17 written in modern Hebrew and English:

Chabad.org 

The offending word is highlighted in Hebrew and English. The related Textual Criticism question is if the Hebrew word for "pierced" is not found anywhere in Manuscripts, Rabbinic Commentary and Scribal comments for 22:17 than why are most Christian English translations using it?

2. Discussion

 

One Long Yod Writes Away 

First, let's take a look at the exact same word that the Masoretic Text has for Psalm 22:17, "like a lion", at Isaiah 38:13:

This is from the The Great Isaiah Scroll:

"Pieces of the Isaiah Scroll have been carbon-14 dated at least four times, giving calibrated date ranges between 335-324 BC and 202-107 BC; there have also been numerous paleographic and scribal dating studies placing the scroll around 150-100 BC.^[2]"

Note that the Hebrew letter yod here, the last letter, is about the same length as the letter before it. Everyone agrees that here the letter is a yod and the meaning of the word here is "like a lion". 

Christian translations claim that an important piece of evidence supporting "pierced" as likely original to Psalm 22:17 is that a Hebrew fragment including the offending word of Psalm 22:17 from Nahal Hever has the same letters except for the final letter being a vav instead of a yod, which word these Christian translations than translate as "pierced". 

  Here is the fragment from Nahal Hever, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXVIII, Plate XXVII Fragment #9 which is the official photograph:

 Unfortunately the text of the fragment is as faded as it looks here.

Now here is the word in question from the fragment plus the following word:

 Although all letters are difficult to read, everyone would agree on the first three letters, reading Hebrew right to left, kof which looks like a backwards c, aleph which looks like two intersecting diagonal lines and resh which looks like a backwards r. 

The fourth letter from the right is the letter in question. Everyone agrees that it is the final letter of the word consisting of it and the three letters to its right. Even though all letters here are badly faded, that fourth letter does looks remarkably similar to the fourth letter above for "like a lion" from The Great Isaiah Scroll (and again, everyone agrees that that word is "like a lion"). In both words this letter is primarily a vertical line which is about the same length as the letter resh to its right. Both letters also tilt some to the left but letters as a whole vary in tilting in these fragments without any apparent intentional design. 

These two sources are both ancient with The Great Isaiah Scroll c. 200 BC and Nahal Hever c. 75. Continuing with the best source of evidence, our own eyes, if you are able to read Hebrew you will notice that for the Nahal Hever fragment above, the length of the yod seems to have some relationship to its position in the word. When it is the first letter of a word it tends to be shorter. When it is the last letter it seems to be longer. You can see this in my image above of the offending word and the word that follows. The following word consists of a yod, a daled and a yod. Note that the first yod is relatively short while the final yod appears to be just as long as the final letters of the offending word and what appears to be the exact same word above in Isaiah 38:13 from The Great War Scroll.

The next best source of evidence is the eyes of others. Regarding the length of yods circa the Nahal Hever fragment, every claimed expert on both sides that I'm aware of explains/confesses that at this time yods were longer, were sometimes about the same length as vavs and were difficult to distinguish from vavs:

Moshe Schulman (counter-missionary) = A characteristic of a yod at that time was that it was elongated, especially when the last letter of a word.

Fred Miller (Christian DSS scholar) = "The second variation is the scribe's interchange of waw and yod. This is frequent. Where one expects to find a yod a waw is written and where one expects to find a waw a yod is written. We will not cite these but these occurrences, because of their frequency, can be seen by a general reading of the text."

Brent Strawn (Christian) = ""...the picture of it [the fragment]...is so faint as to be unreadable. Comparison of other fragments from XHev/Se4 on photographs of PAM 42.190 reveals that Y and W are quite similar, though generally distinguishable in this manuscript."

Kristin Swenson (Christian)  =  ""4 By Vall’s admission, Aquila’s Vorlage may well have been very close to the MT; the instances in which it differed commonly involved “the confusion of similarly shaped letters” such as w and y (Vall, “Psalm 22:17B,” 56). This supports retaining the MT and undermines Vall’s argument"

F. M. Cross (Christian DSS scholar) = "the leading expert on DSS palaeography, has discussed waw/yod confusion many times. In his article, "Palaeography and the Dead Sea Scrolls" in vol. 1 of Flint and Vanderkam ("The Dead Sea Scrolls after 50 Years"), he discusses how the two characters were virtually indistinguishable during the early Herodian period but in the late Herodian period were increasingly distinguishable. In the back of the book are some nice plates showing the evolution of the script. Plate 10 line 9 shows the biblical hand from the Nahal Hever Psalms scroll. The waw is somewhat longer than yod" 

And lastly, scholarly commentary on the relative quality of transmission of the Hebrew Bible text:
 
Fred Miller (Christian DSS scholar) = "The Qumran texts that I have translated (1QaIsa) and (1QpHab) are dialects of Hebrew and not the Hebrew of the Tanach. Preservation of the original Hebrew letter for letter text was the role played by the Rabbis of the "main stream" in Jerusalem and Babylon (Sura, Nahardea and Pumbidita) and they had a special class, an office called Scribes, who carefully copied manuscripts then kept the new and destroyed the old. The Essenes were not and did not claim to be copyists of the same genre." 

3. Conclusion

But when I see deliberate mistranslations of the Hebrew Bible...I just go beserk!

The main points from the above are:

1) For the word in question from Psalm 22:17 everyone would agree that the Hebrew Manuscript tradition shows a dominant reading of a final letter of yod which gives an English translation of "like a lion". 

2) Christian translations of Psalm 22:17 mostly reject the final letter as yod and claim as a key piece of support for doing so that the Nahal Hever fragment had instead a final letter of vav. 

3) All Bible scholars cited above agree that regarding ancient Hebrew script, at times yods and vavs were indistinguishable, generally they were about the same length, gradually vavs were a little longer and sometimes yods and vavs were mistakenly substituted for each other.

4) Per F.M. Cross above:
"the two characters [yod and vav] were virtually indistinguishable during the early Herodian period but in the late Herodian period were increasingly distinguishable." The Nahal Hever fragment appears to be contemporary to this period.

5) The Nahal Hever fragment is very faint. The combination of similar sized yods and vavs at the time and specifically in this fragment, especially with final letters, and the problem with legibility create uncertainty as to what the final letter of the offending word was intended to be written as. 

6) The Nahal Hever fragment was part of a Transmission process that was inferior to the official scribal process in the major cities.

7) In the late Herodian period copyists would have had exemplars from the early Herodian period with yods and vavs that looked identical.

8) The earliest known Greek translations of the Jewish Bible sometimes confused yods and vavs.

  We have two possibilities for the last letter of the offending word at Nahal Hever:

1 - The last letter is a yod. Conclusion = Supports "like a lion" as likely original to Psalm 22:17.

2 - The last letter is a vav. Considerations:

A) This would be contradicted by the superior Masoretic transmission text. 

B) The meaning of the resulting Hebrew word would be unknown and this word is not found anywhere else.

C) Yods and vavs of the time were very similar and some exemplars of the time probably had identical yods and vavs. A reasonable possibility is that the Nahal Hever fragment mistakenly, either intentionally or unintentionally, had a vav written, where the tradition previously had a yod. 

D) The Nahal Hever fragment in general and specifically for this letter is very difficult to read. 

Choosing between the two possibilities, whether the last letter here was a yod or a vav, considerations A), B), C) and D):

1) The superior Masoretic transmission clearly prefers yod.

2) The meaning of the word with a vav would be unknown.

3) Yods and vavs of the time were very similar in script

4) The fragment is very difficult to read

indicate that it is more likely that the Nahal Hever fragment was written with a yod as the final letter of the offending word. 

Even if the final letter of this word here is vav, a reasonable explanation for all of the same reasons above, is that the author mistakenly confused a vav for a yod due to vavs and yods being indistinguishable in exemplars. Conclusion = Evidence against "like a lion" as likely original to Psalm 22:17 but not strong enough to outweigh the Masoretic tradition due to a reasonable explanation for use of the vav here in error.

 

 

Is The Palestinian Authority a Terrorist Organization Under International Law?

1. Introduction of the Issue

The Specter of Terrorism

Palestinian Media Watch  which is generally considered a credible news source:

Use by mainstream press

International media regularly cite and quote PMW translations as accurate representations of Palestinian Arabic-language media. News organizations that cite PMW as a source include: Chicago Sun-Times^[12][13] the Associated Press,^[14][15] The Telegraph^[16][17] and The Washington Post.^[18]

has recently documented multiple terrorist attacks against Israel promoted at the highest levels by the Palestinian Authority:

Fatah official: Murdering Israelis is Palestinian "right"  

PA TV song: “Nothing is sweeter than Martyrdom”  

Songs promoting violence become Palestinian hits  

Most would agree that this is an organized effort by the Palestinian Authority to create a campaign of terrorist acts against Israel. Does this make the Palestinian Authority a terrorist organization under International Law? 

  2. Discussion

 

"I came here to kill you." "No, you came here to die."

The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1566 (2004) defined Terrorism as:

"criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act, which constitute offences within the scope of and as defined in the international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism, are under no circumstances justifiable by considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature," 

The above has the following key points:
  
1) Actions against civilians.

2) Intent to cause death or serious injury.

3) Purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public.

4) Or intimidate a population or compel a government to do or abstain from any act.

and explicitly notes that the above is never justified by political,  ideological, racial, ethnic or religious reasons. 

We can easily find the Palestinian Authority currently guilty of all the above by their own admission courtesy of  Palestinian Media Watch.

 3. Conclusion

The Palestinian Authority meets the definition of a Terrorist Organization as defined by The United Nations.

 

 

The Original Ending of the Gospel of Mark - 2nd Century Patristic Witness - "Luke"

1. Introduction of the Issue

Luukee! Ya got sum splainin ta do.

  Continuing with an examination of 2nd century witness to the original ending of GMark. We have just seen that GMatthew is the earliest Patristic witness for original ending of GMark, testifying for 16:8 due to closely following GMark to 16:8 and than largely ignoring 16:9-20. GLuke likewise looks to have GMark as a source through 16:8:

2. Discussion

 

Package those sources Luukee

 

 

 

  Note that GLuke follows GMark closely to 16:5 although not as closely as GMatthew. More amazing though than the characters' reactions here is that for 16:6 GLuke's angels remind the women of Jesus' resurrection prediction. So per GLuke it is the angels who remember what Jesus predicted and not the women, who have to be reminded. Let the Reader understand here that it is the Reader of GMark, in this case "Luke", who remembers the prediction of Jesus because it is given at the Sub-text level. "Luke" understands that as GMark is written the characters at the Text level do not remember what Jesus predicted. Also note that GLuke while following the rest of 16:1-8 fairly closely, has no reference to 16:7 (or 14:28). Yet more evidence for its forgery! GLuke than uses 16:8 as a source but flips it, just like GMatthew, from the women telling no one to the women telling everyone.

The great Irony is that GLuke as supposed witness here for HJ is completely backwards. The post-resurrection story (only the most important story to Christianity) here has as a source of what the supposed historical witness did = what GLuke wrote rather than GLuke's source for what she wrote = historical witnesses here.

Now that we have established that GLuke's source was GMark to 16:8 the next step is to look at the parallels between 16:9-20 and GLuke.

Bonus material for Solo. Note that GMatthew and GLuke both retain GMark's disbelief that Jesus was resurrected. Now the characters believe the angels (which they considered more believable) and the disbelief is transferred to what mere humans say. Paul, look out!

We have seen that GLuke closely follows GMark to 16:8. Let's see how well she than follows the LE:

 

3. Conclusion

Luukee, you ended up making a mess

The number of significant parallels are similar to the number of significant differences. In total GLuke is somewhat more similar than different than GMark here. The big difference though is comparing how well GLuke parallels to GMark to 16:8 versus how well GLuke parallels to GMark for the LE (16:9-20). For 16.1-8 GLuke uses most of the same/similar words for her corresponding verses with relatively little editing. For 16:9-20, "Luke" uses significantly less of the same/similar words with significant editing.

The question is if the LE was part of GLuke's source of GMark, why would GLuke use 16:1-8 as a base and than stop using it as a base for ALL of the LE (no question Mark as this is asked and answered).

A summary of the key points here:

1) For the LE GLuke has significantly more significant differences than it has for 16:1-8.

2) For the LE GLuke has significantly fewer of the same/similar words than it has for 16:1-8.

3) For the LE GLuke has significantly more editing than it has for 16:1-8.

Conclusion = The LE was not attached to GLuke's source of GMark. Therefore, GLuke, like GMatthew, is evidence against the LE being original.

 

The Israeli/Arab Conflict - The McMahon–Hussein Correspondence - 1916

1. Introduction of the Issue

How bout no Jewish State

     Again, the background to 1916 is that the Ottoman Empire controls Israel. At the time Israel is overwhelmingly Arab and Jerusalem is overwhelmingly Jewish. In the bigger picture the Ottomans control the Middle East. 
     Britain is fighting the Ottomans in WW1. Britain seeks the Arabs in the Middle East as allies there and in exchange offers the Arabs some form of independence with conditions.

2. Discussion

 

Ya just don't get it (State of Israel)

        
     Per Wikipedia McMahon–Hussein Correspondence :

     The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence consisted of communications in 1915-6 between Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Egypt, and the Sharif of Mecca, Husayn bin Ali. The Arabs under Ali agree to fight against the Ottomans. 
    The most important related letter is dated October 24, 1915 and does not mention "Palestine" and says that some areas of the Middle East will not be part of an independent Arab State. None of the McMahon-Hussein correspondence explicitly mentioned "Palestine".
     Subsequently, the British and Arabs argued regarding whether the agreement included Palestine in the Arab nationalist area, with the British saying no and the Arabs saying yes. There is internal evidence, prior to 1916, that at times the British did consider Palestine to be part of the Arab nationalist State offered.

3. Conclusion

No Israel unless...

 Related conclusions:

1. By allying with the British and helping to defeat the Ottomans, the Arabs did earn a national Arab State in the Middle East.
2. The British promise/agreement to the Arabs for an Arab State preceded any such agreement with the Jews for a Jewish State in Israel. 
3. The British were clear that not all of the Middle East would be an Arab State and never formally communicated to the Arabs that Palestine would be part of an Arab State. 
4. While there never has been an Arab and or Muslim State approximating the area of Israel and under the Ottomans there was no "Palestine" entity or governing area approximating Israel, the British did use the name "Palestine" to refer to the area. 

  Next, The Balfour Declaration of 1917.

 

The Original Ending of the Gospel of Mark - 2nd Century Patristic Witness - "Matthew"

1. Introduction of the Issue

The Parallels of Pauline

  The argument for LE is generally based on quantity and supposed 2nd century Patristic evidence. I assume, as does authority, that GMark was written first and that GMatthew used GMark as a primary source. GMatthew often follows GMark closely. Metzger does not mention GMatthew as evidence against LE as he generally avoids arguments from silence. Modern arguments against LE generally do. The potential strength of GMatthew as evidence here is the quality of age (GMatthew is commonly thought to have been written late first century). This would not only be the earliest known Patristic evidence but the earliest External evidence. This is especially applicable to arguments for LE as their primary claimed evidential quality is age, specifically, early Patristic references.

  The only known significant Christian author before GMark was Paul. In one disputed passage, mostly thought to be likely original, Paul says that a resurrected Jesus appeared to disciples apparently in the same way he appeared to Paul. But Paul does not provide any other description such as the setting. GMark goes beyond Paul to provide a narrative of Jesus' supposed resurrection. An ending of 16:8 does not show any resurrection appearance. The LE does but does not agree with Paul/Fake Paul regarding the order and the witnesses.

 

2. Discussion

 

If you want the women to sing out, sing out

The weakness of GMatthew here as evidence is it is indirect but this is offset by the width (scope) of the evidence:

1. Generally follows GMark closely.
2. Specifically follows what comes before LE (16:1-8) closely.
3. Does not follow 16:9-20.

This is evidence that GMatthew did not follow the LE because it was not there at the time GMatthew copied from GMark. And now a look at GMark 16:1-8 compared to GMatthew 28:1-8 verse by verse:

 

  GMark to 16:8 sure looks like GMatthew's source to 28:8. Most of the content and nouns are the same or at least similar and both have the strong emotion of fear/amazement for flavor. The only significant difference is the last line of each where GMatthew's women run to tell as opposed to GMark's woman who run not to tell.

We have the following reasons to think that GMatthew, did not have the LE in his copy of GMark:

1. GMark in general is GMatthew's source. There is little of the LE in GMatthew.
2. GMatthew closely follows GMark to 16:8 (see 1).
3. GMatthew flips the key assertion of 16:8, "ran and told no one", to "ran and told everyone", to change the expectation of what follows.

We have seen that GMatthew closely follows GMark to 16:8. Let's see how well it than follows the LE. I've flipped the last column to "Significant Parallels":

 

3. Conclusion

 

Who's been messing with the ending of GMark?

 Note that for 16:9-20, there is only one good parallel in GMatthew. Also note that GMatthew's ending is consistent with 16:1-8 (after editing the women telling rather than not telling) but not 16:9-20:

1) The biggest individual story in 28:9-20 concerns The Empty Tomb. This is the dominant story of GMark 16:1-8.

2) GMatthew has the disciples meet Jesus in Galilee. Just as "Mark's" angel of 16:7 instructed.

Conclusion = The LE was not a source for GMatthew and the ending GMatthew had to work with from GMark was dominated by The Empty Tomb. GMatthew is a witness (the earliest) against LE.

 

 

Israel Before The British Mandate

1. Introduction of the Issue

Apologists Now! God I love the sound of Psalms in the morning.

                   Over at Neil Godfrey's blog, Vridar, Neil currently has a feature series entitled Expulsion of the Palestinians. The first thing one should know about Neil is that when I sent him a list of Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israel his response was to create a supposed related link on his home page,

Response to ADL propaganda, “Major Attacks Against Israel”

                    So Neil's response to a straight forward list of Palestinian terrorist  attacks was to prominently display a heading of ADL propaganda on his home page with "Major Attacks Against Israel" in scare quotes which than links to a page where he is an Apologist for the Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israel. By doing so Neil has not done anything to change Palestinian terrorist attacks from being Palestinian terrorist attacks. What he has successfully done though is make himself a Palestinian Apologist.  Thus he has no credibility on the subject of Jews and Arabs in Israel. Everything he says has to be confirmed with an objective source.
     The purpose of this blog series is to give the side of the story regarding movement of Arabs in Israel that Neil is not presenting. Neil claims he is primarily presenting the Arab side because the Media is either not or doing so unfairly so Neil would be the first to agree than that it is only fair that I present the other side of Neil's related blogs. But again, even though Neil would say it, we would still need objective confirmation that he would say it. 
     The best way to fairly present Arab movement in Israel is to start at the beginning.      

2. Discussion

  Zohan versus Phantom "Palestinian"

The beginning of the Arab/Jewish conflict in Israel has its starting point in the Ottoman Empire (which controlled Israel before the British):

Ottoman Syria 

Note carefully the title of the Wikipedia article, "Ottomon Syria". The geographical area was as follows:

For the hundreds of years that the Ottomon Empire controlled Israel, there never was an area called "Palestine". Prior to that there has never been a Muslim/Arab country approximating where Israel is now. 

The British took over control from the Ottomons and created:

British Mandate for Palestine (legal instrument) 

The preamble to the mandate states:

Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.^[37]

Thus the Mandate explicitly mentioned the establishment of a Jewish National State in "Palestine". The British geographical boundaries of what they called "Palestine" approximate Israel today.

3. Conclusion

Don't Mess With History

     The question than, is if there has never been a country approximating Israel that was a Muslim/Arab country, and the original usage of the word for a geographical area "Palestine" by the British explicitly provided for a Jewish State, than why are Arabs in Israel now and since the British Mandate referred to as "Palestinians" as if they are the original citizens of a country called "Palestine"? 
     Also, regarding Neil Godfrey's series "Expulsion of the Palestinians", even forgetting about how exactly all/most/a lot of Arabs in Israel could have been "expelled" in the last 70 years since they currently are mostly in Gaza and the West Bank just like they were mostly for the last 70 years, why describe them in the context of the Israeli/Arab conflict as "Palestinians"? Shouldn't they be better described as non-Israeli Arabs living in Israel?
    The next post in this series will consider the situation in Israel before the British takeover.

        

 

The Case of the Missing Ending of the Gospel of Mark.

1. Introduction of the Issue

Excuse me Mahmoud, just one more question.

           It would surprise most people and especially Christians to know that it is unclear what the original ending of the likely original Gospel "Mark" was. For most of its 2,000 year history Christianity claimed that 16:20 was the original ending of "Mark". It's only in the last few hundred years that 16:8 became a competitor as the original ending. 

             While extant Manuscripts indicate several different endings to "Mark", current Bible scholarship thinks that only two are the most likely:

1) 16:8 And they went out, and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them: and they said nothing to any one; for they were afraid.

2) 16:9 Now when he was risen early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.
16:10 She went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept.
16:11 And they, when they heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, disbelieved.
16:12 And after these things he was manifested in another form unto two of them, as they walked, on their way into the country.
16:13 And they went away and told it unto the rest: neither believed they them.
16:14 And afterward he was manifested unto the eleven themselves as they sat at meat; and he upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them that had seen him after he was risen.
16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.
16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned.
16:17 And these signs shall accompany them that believe: in my name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues;
16:18 they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
16:19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken unto them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.
16:20 And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen.

16:9-20 is also known as the LE (Long Ending).

          Textual Criticism is the process used by Bible scholars to try and determine the likely original text. A key criterion of Textual Criticism is The Direction of Change. Which candidate for originality does the evidence show is the more likely to have been where the evidence was moved from and which candidate for originality does the evidence show is more likely to have been moved to? An important consideration here is motive. What are likely motives for movement from one candidate to another?

        Applying the criterion of The Direction of Change to these two candidates the big difference between the two as to meaning is:

        1) 16:8 has no post resurrection communication with Jesus.

        2) 16:9-20 (LE) is dominated by post resurrection communication with Jesus.

       Essentially than we need to play the role of a detective to deduce what originally happened to the body of Jesus at the end of the Gospel of Mark.

 2. Discussion

 
It's better for the text to look good than for the reader to feel good.

    The Direction of Change criterion consists of Intrinsic and Transcriptional evidence. Intrinsic evidence is concerned with which candidate is the author more likely to have written. Transcriptional evidence concerns which candidate is a copyist more likely to have changed to. 
      For Instrinsic the question is the likelihood of whether or not the author wrote a post resurrection communication with Jesus. The narrative as a whole is the primary consideration here. Since the narrative as a whole is negative towards the Disciples having faith in Jesus and specifically describes the disciples as either denying or ignoring Jesus' predictions that he will be resurrected, not having a post resurrection communication between the Disciples and Jesus is consistent with the majority of the narrative. On the other hand 14:28 specifically has Jesus predict that after he is resurrected he will go to Galilee before the disciples go to Galilee. The problem though is the LE does not have the post resurrection communication in Galilee. 
      Intrinsic evidence also involves which candidate is more likely based on what is known about the author in general. Since the author of the Gospel of Mark is generally considered anonymous, not much is known about him. You have to consider based in general on what were popular existing Christian beliefs prior to "Mark". Paul is the only known significant Christian author prior to "Mark". In a passage who's originality is disputed but generally accepted as likely original, Paul writes that a resurrected Jesus did appear to disciples but does not describe any related communications to disciples. 
      For transcriptional evidence clearly copyists would prefer an ending to the Gospel of Mark with post resurrection communications between Jesus and the disciples rather than an ending not having any. An attempted argument to this is that the LE contains contradictions to other Gospels' post resurrection communications and that removing the LE removes these contradictions. This is true but than you are left with a potentially larger individual contradiction that "Mark" would than end with no one telling any disciple that Jesus was resurrected versus all other Gospels saying that the disciples were told that Jesus was resurrected. 
     In general the external evidence, which consists of Manuscripts, Patristic writings, Scribal comments and the opinion of Bible Scholars, all show evidence of movement from 16:8 to the LE except for Authority. Manuscripts which support 16:8 are very few but the ones that do are relatively earlier in the original Greek (just two early ones and only three in total) and most versions (translations). Patristic writings are more balanced and there may actually be more second century witness to the LE than 16:8 but the earliest Patristic Textual Criticism comments with scope, that actually provide their evidence, mainly Eusebius and Jerome, clearly provide evidence that supports 16:8 as earlier. Scribal comments are also especially valuable here as evidence since they were obviously responsible for the copying process. The overwhelming majority of Scribal comments indicate that 16:8 was likely earlier. As previously mentioned for most of the last 2,000 years Bible scholars claimed that the LE was the original ending and it's only relatively recently that 16:8 became a candidate. This is the one category of External evidence where later is better than earlier as it is generally accepted that modern Bible scholarship is superior to ancient Bible scholarship. 
     All in all here, let's face it. As text to be used to promote Christianity, the LE looks mahvelous as an evangelical tool compared to 16:8.  

3. Conclusion              

      In conclusion, every category of evidence for the criterion of The Direction of Change supports 16:8 as being the likelier original ending of the Gospel of Mark compared to the LE:

• The Intrinsic evidence
• The Transcriptional evidence
• External evidence (all subcategories):

             Manuscript
             Patristic
             Scribal
             Authority

      All this means though is that only the one criterion of Textual Criticism that has been looked at here, The Direction of Change, supports 16:8 as the more likely original. Also, even if Textual Criticism for all criteria supported 16:8 as more likely original it still may be not be the likely ending of the Gospel of Mark due to overall uncertainty. If there is significant difference between what quality evidence would be to establish the likelihood of an original ending and the evidence we have for the most likely ending, than no ending has been established as the likely one and no absolute conclusion can be made.
      To put it simply for the above though, which ending got better (for Christianity) and why?