Oldest was not necessarily best, as many wrongly presume. Oldest may mean the text was so unreliable that it was just left on the shelf, never got used amd worn out/recopied, and so survived simply because it was such a poor reference. And since the passage was one selected by a great plurality of the churches across the Christian population, one may assume rightly that the oldest was the worst according to a plurality of scholarly readers, not the best.
RE: Oldest was not necessarily best, as many wrongly presume. Oldest may mean the text was so unreliable that it was just left on the shelf, never got used amd worn out/recopied, and so survived simply because it was such a poor reference.
Now that for me, is a very good and plausible explanation. Thanks.
The next question then becomes — if we accept the majority of the manuscripts, which DO have the longer ending of Mark to be the inspired one, what are we to make of Mark 16:17-18?
HMMMmmm...