The “Strange” Ending of the Gospel of Mark and Why It Makes All the Difference
James Tabor presents a fresh look at the original text of the earliest Gospel
This article about the Gospel of Mark was originally published on Dr. James Tabor’s popular TaborBlog, a site that discusses and reports on “‘All things biblical’ from the Hebrew Bible to Early Christianity in the Roman World and Beyond.” Bible History Daily first republished the article with consent of the author in April 2013. Visit TaborBlog today, or scroll down to read a brief bio of James Tabor below.
Holy Women at Christ’s Tomb, by Annibale Carracci, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing.
Most general Bible readers have the mistaken impression that Matthew, the opening book of the New Testament, must be our first and earliest Gospel, with Mark, Luke and John following. The assumption is that this order of the Gospels is a chronological one, when in fact it is a theological one. Scholars and historians are almost universally agreed that Mark is our earliest Gospel–by several decades, and this insight turns out to have profound implications for our understanding of the “Jesus story” and how it was passed down to us in our New Testament Gospel traditions.
The problem with the Gospel of Mark for the final editors of the New Testament was that it was grossly deficient. First it is significantly shorter than the other Gospels–with only 16 chapters compared to Matthew (28), Luke (24) and John (21). But more important is how Mark begins his Gospel and how he ends it.
He has no account of the virgin birth of Jesus–or for that matter, any birth of Jesus at all. In fact, Joseph, husband of Mary, is never named in Mark’s Gospel at all–and Jesus is called a “son of Mary,” see my previous post on this here. But even more significant is Mark’s strange ending. He has no appearances of Jesus following the visit of the women on Easter morning to the empty tomb!
Like the other three Gospels Mark recounts the visit of Mary Magdalene and her companions to the tomb of Jesus early Sunday morning. Upon arriving they find the blocking stone at the entrance of the tomb removed and a young man–notice–not an angel–tells them:
“Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing (Mark 16:6-8)
And there the Gospel simply ends!
Mark gives no accounts of anyone seeing Jesus as Matthew, Luke, and John later report. In fact, according to Mark, any future epiphanies or “sightings” of Jesus will be in the north, in Galilee, not in Jerusalem.
This original ending of Mark was viewed by later Christians as so deficient that not only was Mark placed second in order in the New Testament, but various endings were added by editors and copyists in some manuscripts to try to remedy things. The longest concocted ending, which became Mark 16:9-19, became so treasured that it was included in the King James Version of the Bible, favored for the past 500 years by Protestants, as well as translations of the Latin Vulgate, used by Catholics. This meant that for countless millions of Christians it became sacred scripture–but it is patently bogus. You might check whatever Bible you use and see if the following verses are included–the chances are good they they will be, since the Church, by and large, found Mark’s original ending so lacking. Here is that forged ending of Mark:
Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. After these things he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover. So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.
Even though this ending is patently false, people loved it, and to this day conservative Christians regularly denounce “liberal” scholars who point out this forgery, claiming that they are trying to destroy “God’s word.”
The evidence is clear. This ending is not found in our earliest and most reliable Greek copies of Mark. In A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Bruce Metzger writes: “Clement of Alexandria and Origen [early third century] show no knowledge of the existence of these verses; furthermore Eusebius and Jerome attest that the passage was absent from almost all Greek copies of Mark known to them.”1 The language and style of the Greek is clearly not Markan, and it is pretty evident that what the forger did was take sections of the endings of Matthew, Luke and John (marked respectively in red, green, and blue above) and simply create a “proper” ending.
Even though this longer ending became the preferred one, there are two other endings, one short and the second an expansion of the longer ending, that also show up in various manuscripts:
[I] But they reported briefly to Peter and those with him all that they had been told. And after these things Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.
[II] This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under Satan, who does not allow the truth and power of God to prevail over the unclean things of the spirits [or, does not allow what lies under the unclean spirits to understand the truth and power of God]. Therefore reveal your righteousness now’ – thus they spoke to Christ. And Christ replied to them, ‘The term of years of Satan’s power has been fulfilled, but other terrible things draw near. And for those who have sinned I was handed over to death, that they may return to the truth and sin no more, in order that they may inherit the spiritual and incorruptible glory of righteousness that is in heaven.
I trust that the self-evident spuriousness of these additions is obvious to even the most pious readers. One might in fact hope that Christians who are zealous for the “inspired Word of God” would insist that all three of these bogus endings be recognized for what they are–forgeries.
Interested in the Gospels’ authors? Check out the Bible History Daily post “Gospel of John Commentary: Who Wrote the Gospel of John and How Historical is It?”
That said, what about the original ending of Mark? Its implications are rather astounding for Christian origins. I have dealt with this issue more generally in my post, “What Really Happened on Easter Morning,” that sets the stage for the following implications.
- Since Mark is our earliest Gospel, written according to most scholars around the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE, or perhaps in the decade before, we have strong textual evidence that the first generation of Jesus followers were perfectly fine with a Gospel account that recounted no appearances of Jesus. We have to assume that the author of Mark’s Gospel did not consider his account deficient in the least and he was either passing on, or faithfully promoting, what he considered to be the authentic Gospel. What most Christians do when they think about Easter is ignore Mark. Since Mark knows nothing of any appearances of Jesus as a resuscitated corpse in Jerusalem, walking about, eating and showing his wounds, as recounted by Matthew, Luke and John, those stories are simply allowed to “fill in” for his assumed deficiency. In other words, no one allows Mark to have a voice. What he lacks, ironically, serves to marginalize and mute him!
- Alternatively, if we decide to listen to Mark, who is our first gospel witness, what we learn is rather amazing. In Mark, on the last night of Jesus’ life, he told his intimate followers following their meal, “But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee” (Mark 14:28). What Mark believes is that Jesus has been “lifted up” or “raised up” to the right hand of God and that the disciples would “see” him in Galilee. Mark knows of no accounts of people encountering the revived corpse of Jesus, wounds and all, walking around Jerusalem. His tradition is that the disciples experienced their epiphanies of Jesus once they returned to Galilee after the eight-day Passover festival and had returned to their fishing in despair. This is precisely what we find in the Gospel of Peter, where Peter says:
Now it was the final day of the Unleavened Bread; and many went out returning to their home since the feast was over. But we twelve disciples of the Lord were weeping and sorrowful; and each one, sorrowful because of what had come to pass, departed to his home. But I, Simon Peter, and my brother Andrew, having taken our nets, went off to the sea. And there was with us Levi of Alphaeus whom the Lord …
You can read more about this fascinating “lost” Gospel of Peter at earlychristianwritings.com/gospelpeter.html, but this ending, where the text happens to break off, is most revealing. What we see here is precisely parallel to Mark. The disciples returned to their homes in Galilee in despair, resuming their occupations, and only then did they experience “sightings” of Jesus. Strangely, this tradition shows up in an appended ending to the Gospel of John–chapter 21, where a group of disciples are back to their fishing, and Matthew knows the tradition of a strange encounter on a designated mountain in Galilee, where some of the eleven apostles even doubt what they are seeing (Matthew 28:16-17).
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The faith that Mark reflects, namely that Jesus has been “raised up” or lifted up to heaven, is precisely parallel to that of Paul–who is the earliest witness to this understanding of Jesus’ resurrection. Paul notably parallels his own visionary experience to that of Peter, James, and the rest of the apostles. What this means is that when Paul wrote, in the 50s CE, this was the resurrection faith of the early followers of Jesus! Since Matthew, Luke, and John come so much later, and clearly reflect the period after 70 CE when all of the first witnesses were dead–including Peter, Paul, and James the brother of Jesus, they are clearly 2nd generation traditions and should not be given priority.
Mark begins his account with the line “The Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). Clearly for him, what he subsequently writes is that “Gospel,” not a deficient version that needs to be supplemented or “fixed” with later alternative traditions about Jesus appearing in a resuscitated body Easter weekend in Jerusalem.
Finally, what we recently discovered in the Talpiot tomb under the condominium building, not 200 feet from the “Jesus family” tomb, offers a powerful testimony to this same kind of early Christian faith in Jesus’ resurrection. On one of the ossuaries, or bone boxes in this tomb, is a four-line Greek inscription which I have translated as: I Wondrous Yehovah lift up–lift up! And this is next to a second ossuary representing the “sign of Jonah” with a large fish expelling the head of a human stick figure, recalling the story of Jonah. In that text Jonah sees himself as having passed into the gates of Sheol or death, from which he utters a prayer of salvation from the belly of the fish: “O Yehovah my God, you lifted up my life from the Pit!” (Jonah 2:6).
It is a rare thing when our textual evidence seems to either reflect or correspond to the material evidence and I believe in the case of the two Talpiot tombs, and the early resurrection faith reflected in Paul and Mark, that is precisely what we have.2 That this latest archaeological evidence corresponds so closely to Mark and Paul, our first witnesses to the earliest Christian understanding of Jesus’ resurrection, I find to be most striking.
Dr. James Tabor is a professor of Christian origins and ancient Judaism in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Since earning his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1981, Tabor has combined his work on ancient texts with extensive field work in archaeology in Israel and Jordan, including work at Qumran, Sepphoris, Masada and Wadi el-Yabis in Jordan. Over the past decade he has teamed up with with Shimon Gibson to excavate the “John the Baptist” cave at Suba, the “Tomb of the Shroud” discovered in 2000, Mt Zion and, along with Rami Arav, he has been involved in the re-exploration of two tombs in East Talpiot including the controversial “Jesus tomb.” Tabor is the author of the popular TaborBlog, and several of his recent posts have been featured in Bible History Daily as well as the Huffington Post. His book, Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity became immediately popular with specialists and non-specialists alike. You can find links to all of Dr. Tabor’s web pages, books, and projects at jamestabor.com.
Correction: In the original publication of this article, Bruce Metzger’s statement “Clement of Alexandria and Origen show no knowledge of the existence of these verses; furthermore Eusebius and Jerome attest that the passage was absent from almost all Greek copies of Mark known to them” (Metzger, 2005, p.123) was not appropriately referenced as a quotation from Metzger. We thank our careful reader James Snapp, Jr., of Curtisville Christian Church in Indiana, for bringing this to our attention. —Ed.
Notes
1. Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd edition, (Hendrickson Publishers, 2005), 123. Metzger also states: “The last twelve verses of the commonly received text of Mark are absent from the two oldest Greek manuscripts (? and B), 20 from the Old Latin codex Bobiensis, the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript, about one hundred Armenian manuscripts, 21 and the two oldest Georgian manuscripts (written a.d. 897 and a.d. 913).”
2. We offer a full exposition of these important discoveries in our book, The Jesus Discovery. The book is a complete discussion of both Talpiot tombs with full documentation, with full chapters on Mary Magdalene, Paul, the James ossuary, DNA tests, and much more. You can read my preliminary report on these latest “Jonah” related findings at the website The Bible and Interpretation, bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/tab368003. During March and April, 2012 I also wrote a dozen or more posts on this blog responding to the academic discussions, see below under “Archives” and you can browse the posts by month.
Related reading in Bible History Daily
Does the Gospel of Mark Reveal Jesus’ Anger or His Compassion?
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I think Tabor’s observations are interesting. R.T. France, in his commentary on Mark, said there are so many speculations about the ending of Mark that further theorizing is pointless. But I have heard or read many explanations, or theories, about Mark–including that both beginning and ending are lost, that the gospel t was meant to be read aloud in one sitting, that Mark did not know how to end the gospel, that he died before he could end it, that Mark did not intend to end a story already well known, that it ended as it did because by the time of writing, everyone already knew that Jesus had gone ahead and met with the disciples in Galilee. The KJV “he is not here; he is risen….” is a statement of physical departure from the tomb. .
Mark has been dated to the 50s and to the 60s and later by others, and Tabor is on the later end of things. By the mid-50s Paul had written his letter to the Corinthians reciting a statement of belief in the multiple sightings of a physically written Jesus–and in a format that some scholars believe was repeated by Paul as he had received it in his own earlier training.
I did enjoy the opportunity to hear Tabor’s ideas, and he contributes as always to the field of debate.
Yeshua come to fulfilled Judaism as promised.
There was no Christianity as religion.
>>> Strangely, this tradition shows up in an appended ending to the Gospel of John–chapter 21, where a group of disciples are back to their fishing…
Evan Powell pointed this out in his book, “The Unfinished Gospel” 1994. The so-called addendum to John’s gospel (the 21st chapter) is actually the missing ending of Mark’s gospel as it fulfills the unfulfilled promise made by Jesus in Marks gospel.
Mark 14:28
But after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee.
Powell suggests the text of Mark’s original gospel ends at 16:8 and John 21:1-19 is place there.
So, the age of Mark makes it the ‘true’ account, yet we lend it credence by using a passage from the Gospel of Peter?
Mr. Tabor’s articles are a source of comedy; I’ll give him that.
Mark may have been the first to report the story of Jesus, but Matthew and John were there when Jesus appeared to the disciples, not Mark. All the gospels work together to give a complete story, a complete picture, of the life of Jesus Christ. They all work together….there’s no conflict that I can see. Quit making problems where there are none!
This is all a heap of nonsense. Apart from anything else, the central argument is illogical: Mark ‘knew nothing about appearances of Jesus’ (a very weak argument from silence) so the other gospels make it all up? Nonsense.
I am unclear how this claims to be of any relevance to biblical archaeology.
Ian, you make a good point. Tabor’s point of view is interesting, nonetheless.
Sir:
It is obvious your grasp on bible history was a slippery hold. Point one mark wrote his gospel while in Rome with Luke and Paul,who was a prisoner there. Point 2. Paul in one of his letters asks Mark to ‘bring the scroll” when he comes(Note scroll not SCROLLS). Since Paul was well versed in Jewish law it has been suggested it was Mathew’s scroll on the life of Jesus written in Palestine about 41 AD. Mark wrote his “Readers Digest” version in ROME about 63 AD Luke had written his version about 57 while in Caesarea.. John wrote his letters and Gospel on or near Patmos in 96-98
Like most “educated” men you are more interested in self promotion than accuracy.
So the evidence is not as clear as you want everyone to believe on the ending of Mark. As for Marks beginning with out a genealogy (As John), Is Marks statement “the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God” not enough as to who He is? God in the flesh, promised before, through the prophets, in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son? Read 7 things Paul mentions about the gospel in Romans 1:1-17.
Papias refers to Mark 16:18. He wrote around a.d. 100
Justin Martyr’s first Apology quotes Mark 16:20 (a.d. 151)
Irenaus in Against Heresies quotes Mark 16:13 and remarks on it (a.d. 180)
Hippolytus in Peri Charismaton quotes Mark 16:18 and 19. In his homily on the heresy of Noetus he refers to Mark 16:19. He wrote while he was Bishop of Portus (a.d. 190-227)
Vicentius, Bishop of Thibari, quotes from 2 of the verses in the 7th Council of Carthage held under Cyprian (a.d. 256). Augustine, a century and a half later, in his reply, recited the words again
The apocryphal Acts of Pilate contains Mark 16:15-18 (thought to be in the 200’s a.d.)
The Apostolic Constitutions clearly allude to 16:15 in two places and quote Mark 16:16 outright (thought to be in the 200’s or 300’s a.d.)
I like Dr. Tabor.
Factually there is no record of any book in the New Testament before the, “Rylands fragment” which is from the Gospel of John and dated to about 125 CE. Papias died about 155 CE and we don’t know exactly when he wrote.
The author of Mark’s gospel had knowledge of Josephus’ Antiquities (about 90 CE or so). The story of Herodias having her daughter ask Antipas for the head of John the Baptist (Mark 6:14-29) is directly taken from Antiquities XVIII, 5, 1-2. While Josephus’ version is the historical version, the version in Mark’s account is not historically plausible. Mark’s gospel relies on Josephus for us to understand Antipas and Pilate. Yet Josephus’s works stand just fine without the gospels.
Paul wrote the first works of the New Testament and it’s documented here (Antiquities XX, 8, 9). These are the epistles that started the Jewish war according to Josephus. The gospel of John was probably the first gospel as it has Jesus crucified at the same moment as the Paschal lamb, and only John’s gospel declares the Lamb of God. This makes Jesus the sacrifice to end all future sacrifices (called the ‘sin offering’). There is no Last Supper in John’s gospel. Look at DaVinci’s Last Supper, there is no meat on the table, DaVinci paints John’s version.
Mark, Luke and Matthew (the Synoptic gospels) have Jesus eat the Paschal Lamb at the last supper. Jesus is crucified the day after the Passover. The reason is because there is no Eucharist in John’s gospel, Christianity needed a replacement ritual for the Passover that didn’t involve animal sacrifice.
The author of Marks gospel probably sat in the Library at Alexandria with a copy of Josephus, a copy of John’s gospel and a copy of the Didache.
According to Eusebius the Christians who believed in John’s gospel (Polycarp) didn’t observe the Eucharist. The followers of the Synoptic gospels did. Polycarp observed it once out of respect, but never again.
^ ^ ^
Eusebius, Church History, book 5 XXIV
The Disagreement in Asia
11. Among them was Irenæus, who, sending letters in the name of the brethren in Gaul over whom he presided, maintained that the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord should be observed only on the Lord’s day. He fittingly admonishes Victor that he should not cut off whole churches of God which observed the tradition of an ancient custom and after many other words he proceeds as follows:
12. “For the controversy is not only concerning the day, but also concerning the very manner of the fast. For some think that they should fast one day, others two, yet others more; some, moreover, count their day as consisting of forty hours day and night.
13. And this variety in its observance has not originated in our time; but long before in that of our ancestors.
It is likely that they did not hold to strict accuracy, and thus formed a custom for their posterity according to their own simplicity and peculiar mode. Yet all of these lived none the less in peace, and we also live in peace with one another; and the disagreement in regard to the fast confirms the agreement in the faith.”
14. He adds to this the following account, which I may properly insert:
“Among these were the presbyters before Soter, who presided over the church which thou now rulest. We mean Anicetus, and Pius, and Hyginus, and Telesphorus, and Xystus. They neither observed it themselves, nor did they permit those after them to do so. And yet though not observing it, they were none the less at peace with those who came to them from the parishes in which it was observed; although this observance was more opposed to those who did not observe it.
15. But none were ever cast out on account of this form; but the presbyters before thee who did not observe it, sent the eucharist to those of other parishes who observed it.
16. And when the blessed Polycarp was at Rome in the time of Anicetus, and they disagreed a little about certain other things, they immediately made peace with one another, not caring to quarrel over this matter. For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John the disciple of our Lord, and the other apostles with whom he had associated; neither could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it as he said that he ought to follow the customs of the presbyters that had preceded him.
17. But though matters were in this shape, they communed together, and Anicetus conceded the administration of the eucharist in the church to Polycarp, manifestly as a mark of respect. And they parted from each other in peace, both those who observed, and those who did not, maintaining the peace of the whole church.”