Codex Bobiensis is the only known example of the shorter ending added directly to Mark 16:8, but not the "longer ending" through Mark 16:20.[2]
The Latin text of the codex is a representative of the Western text-type.
History
It was probably written in North Africa, and is dated to the 4th or 5th century. Later, it was brought to the monastery in Bobbio in northern Italy. It was traditionally assigned to St. Columban, who died in the monastery he had founded there, in 615.[3] Today it is housed in the Turin National University Library.
Researchers, comparing the Codex Bobiensis with quotes from Cyprian’s publications from the 3rd century, think it may represent a page from the Bible Cyprian used while he was a bishop in Carthage. A palaeographic study of the scripture determined it is a copy of a papyrus script from the 2nd century.
Subito autem ad horam tertiam tenebrae diei factae sunt per totum orbem terrae, et descenderunt de caelis angeli et surgent in claritate vivi Dei (viri duo?); simul ascenderunt cum eo, et continuo lux facta est.[5]
The text requires some guesswork. Bruce Metzger provides the following translation:
But suddenly at the third hour of the day there was darkness over the whole circle of the earth, and angels descended from the heavens, and as he [the Lord] was rising in the glory of the living God, at the same time they ascended with him; and immediately it was light.[6]
The "Shorter Ending" runs as follows:
Omnia autem quaecumque praecepta erant et qui cum puero erant breviter exposuerunt. Posthaec et ipse ihesus adparuit, et ab orientem usque usque in orientem misit per illos sanctam et incorruptam [praedicationis] salutis aeternae. Amen.
But they reported briefly to the boy[a] and those with him all that they had been told. And after this, Jesus himself (appeared to them and) sent out by means of them, from east to east, the sacred and imperishable (proclamation) of eternal salvation. Amen.
^The text in Latin reads: "cum puero", meaning "to the boy", instead of the most commonly found "cum petro", which is "to Peter".[7]
References
^The order of books was probably: John, Luke, Mark, and Matthew. see Scrivener
^K. Aland & B. Aland, The text of the New Testament: an introduction to the critical editions and to the Theory and Practice of the Modern Textual Criticism, Wm. Eerdmans, 1995, p. 188