Islam critiqued digs the old manuscripts; any trace of Jesus' death?

In answer to the video "The Quran and History: Surah 4:157"

The Codex Sinaiticus is the oldest known manuscript of the NT and in the gospel of Mark, it doesnt mention anything about the resurrection. In that manuscript, the gospel of Mark stops at verse 16:8.

Nothing, whether in the wording used or the context indicates that this ending was unintended. The author simply knew nothing of the resurrection tale. The story ends right after the discovery of the empty tomb and after the 3 women leave the tomb. These women, according to Mark, feared telling anyone of what the angel reported, despite the angel's instructions to tell the disciples. And yet, if the women told no one, how could Mark be telling his story?

The last 12 verses describing Jesus' resurrection and his appearance to the disciples were added later, as part of the overall retrospective re-write of Jesus' story. Mark is regarded as the earliest Gospel and the other Gospels, namely Luke and Matthew seem to be an effort to develop upon Mark's account.

Eusebius and Jerome explicitly state that almost all the Greek MSS available to them end at verse 8:

Eusebius Ad Marinum 1 - "How is it that in Matthew the Savior, after having been raised, appears 'late on the Sabbath' but in Mark 'Early on the first day of the week'? The Solution to this might be twofold. For, on the one hand, the one who rejects the passage itself, namely the pericope which says this, might say that it does not appear in all the copies of the Gospel according to Mark. At any rate, the accurate ones of the copies define the end of the history according to Mark with the words of the young man who appeared to the women and said to them, 'Do not fear. You are seeking Jesus the Nazarene' and the words that follow. In addition to these it says, 'And having heard this they fled and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.' For in this way the ending of the Gospel according to Mark is defined in nearly all the copies."

Also, Eusebius, in his Church History (3.39.) notes the role that a presbyter named Aristion had in the transmission of Mark's gospel. We also read in Peake's Commentary, p818 that

"A 10th century Armenian MS ascribes the passage to Aristion, the presbyter mentioned by Papias."

Jerome 120 to Hedybia Concerning Twelve Questions 3 -

"The solution to the question [of why the endings of Mark and Matthew contradict one another] is twofold. Either we do not receive the testimony of Mark, which appears scarsely in copies of the gospel, while almost all books in Greek do not have this pericope at the end..."

These 2 men are writing in the 4-5th century and testifying that even by their time, the longer ending is absent from the vast, if not all original Greek manuscripts available to them. The most revealing admission is that Mark, the disciple to whom the Gospel is ascribed, might not have been the one testifying to the events and whose words were canonized in their days. In the 2nd century, Church figures such as Irenaeus, Justin Martyr and Tatian paraphrase or thematicaly allude to the contents of this omitted passage. This simply shows the evolving nature of Christianity's 2Tim3:16"God-breathed" scriptures, the progressive inclusion of oral legends into the text. Besides the lack of physical evidence, there are also obvious stylistic and thematic differences between that passage and the rest of Mark's Gospel.

In Contra Celsus, Origen's famous work addressing the objections of the pagan thinker Celsus, Origen tries (unsuccessfully) to defend the assertions of Christianity, including the most important, that Jesus resurrected. He quotes detail citations from Matthew, Luke and John to support the resurrection as he was specifically challenged to produce post-resurrection evidence yet he doesnt mention anything beyond Mark16:8. This despite ORigen being the most outstanding Christian manuscript expert of his time, using all scriptural means at his disposal to support the post-resurrection story against the charges of the sceptics.

Modern scholars contend that

"At least nine versions of the ending of Mark can be found among the 1,700 surviving ancient Greek manuscripts and early translations of the gospel".

The NIV bible also comments

"The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20"

Roman Catholics are not required to believe that Mark wrote this longer ending. The NAB translation includes the footnote:

"[9-20] This passage, termed the Longer Ending to the Marcan gospel by comparison with a much briefer conclusion found in some less important manuscripts, has traditionally been accepted as a canonical part of the gospel and was defined as such by the Council of Trent. Early citations of it by the Fathers indicate that it was composed by the second century, although vocabulary and style indicate that it was written by someone other than Mark. It is a general resume of the material concerning the appearances of the risen Jesus, reflecting, in particular, traditions found in Luke 24 and John 20."

The Codex Sinaiticus, besides exposing the fact that the resurrection was an unknown story in the earliest Gospel, also contains two New Testament books that arent part of the current canon: the Shepherd of Hermas, written in Rome in the 2nd Century and the Epistle of Barnabas, which is more blatant than the current Gospels on explicitly blaming Jesus' alleged murder on the Jews.

The Didache, composed anywhere between the mid 1st century and the 3rd century, by an early Christian sect which focused on Torah observance while leaving the door open to gentile converts, makes no mention of the death and resurrection of Jesus, and its Eucharist celebration makes no connection of the meal with the body and blood of Christ, nor does it speak of some of the most basic tenets of Pauline thought such as original sin or faith without works

"Since the writings which now constitute the New Testament were for long not agreed to be sacred, they were repeatedly edited revised and elaborated. The story of Jesus and his sayings was changed according to the context and interests of successive believers. So different sets of believers read and transmitted variant texts… Some additions, revisions and deletions to early Christian writings were on a much grander scale. The intrusion of seven spurious letters into the Pauline corpus, the helpfully compression of two of Paul’s letters to make 2 Corinthians, and the clumsy addition of revised endings to the gospels of Mark (16:9-20) and John (21) – both destined to include extra post-resurrectional appearances of Jesus to the disciples – all illustrate the fluidity and porosity of these texts before they became canonical… The easy alterability of the earliest writings about Jesus, by addition, omission or redaction, indicate that for all the sacredness of their subject, the gospels themselves were not regarded as sacrosanct. Or put another way, for a century or more after Jesus’ death, Christian groups existed, and flourished, without the New Testament. The existence of the gospel of Mark, probably the earliest of the canonical gospels, did not present Matthew and Luke from changing what Mark had written , or from writing their own gospels…"(Keith Hopkins – Professor Cambridge).

Similarly, the Q Gospel, believed to be the source out of which the 4 canonic Gospels expand upon, knows nothing of Jesus’ death and his resurrection. It is inconceivable that its compilers knew of such things, particularly the resurrection, and neglected or chose not to mention them.