OT: Mk is shorter (was What texts are most translated?)

>Eldin Raigmore <eldin_raigmore@...> wrote:
>Actually Mark is second-shortes; Matthew is shortest.
>However Mark has the fewest chapters.
In the seminary Scripture classes we learned that Mark was the
shortest of the four gospels.  All my post-seminary teaching of the
Scriptures tells me that Mark is the shortest of the gospels.

When comparing length it is important not to compare apples with
oranges.  The length of chapters and verses is not uniform so
knowing which one has the fewer chapters is of no help.

Can we use the number of words?  Does the Greek text of Matthew
contain fewer words than that of Mark, while the English text
contains more? Does the Greek use fewer words than the Latin, which
uses fewer words than the English?  Undoubtedly someone has done a
count.

Some editions of the Bible include footnotes.  The number and length
of these footnotes might make an apparent difference.

Perhaps the best measure is the number of pages needed to print the
gospels.  I went to my old copy of the KJV which has no footnotes.
The Gospel of Matthew begins on page 1 and ends on page 23, for a
total of 23 pages.  The Gospel of Mark begins on page 24 and ends on
page 38 for a total of 15 pages.  The font in both gospels is the
same.  That's a difference of eight pages!  One would have to do
some serious monkeying with the text of the Gospel of Mark to make
it longer than the Gospel of Matthew.

Charlie

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