Scholarly consensus holds that verse 16:8, where the women who discover the vacant tomb tell nobody about the resurrection, is the last authentic surviving line of Mark’s gospel. Either the gospel originally ended abruptly there, or maybe there was once a more satisfying ending that somehow got lost. On either view, the canonical “Long Ending” of Mark’s gospel, verses 16:9-20, is an inauthentic late addition, a clumsy improvisation to repair an intentional or accidental omission of a readily palatable story conclusion.
The last six verses, 16:15-20, are especially different in both style and content from the undisputed gospel. With high confidence, they weren’t part of the original Mark. However, the first six verses of the Long Ending, 16:9-14, are less discordant with the rest of the gospel than the final six.
Centuries separate the first editions of Mark’s gospel from the earliest surviving complete Greek manuscripts. That justifies some caution about tossing the baby out with the bathwater.
The first six verses of the Long Ending resemble sketch versions of longer stories about post-resurrection appearances of Jesus found in other New Testament gospels. Many scholars conjecture that the author of verses 16:9-14 borrowed and radically abridged the other gospels’ stories.
The principal finding of this post is that there is a literary antecedent for the Long Ending’s appearances of Jesus within undisputed Mark itself. The focal verses’ sequence of visitations parallels the first two “apostolic commissions” and the reunion of the living Jesus with the Twelve found in Mark‘s chapters five and six. The first six verses of the Long Ending may well not have been “borrowed” from any other gospel after all.
What happens in verses 16:9-14?
The focal verses of the Long Ending tell three brief vignettes. First, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene, from whom Jesus had exorcised seven demons. Then Jesus appears “in a different form,” not described, to two disciples walking on the road. Finally he appears to all eleven remaining senior apostles to chastise them because they disbelieved the reports of his first two appearances.
There are parallel incidents in other gospels. Mary’s visitation recalls John 20:11-18. Her deliverance from seven demons is mentioned in Luke 8:2. Jesus casts a glamor on two disciples on the road to Emmaus so they are slow to recognize him in Luke 24:13-33. All three of the other canonical gospels feature an appearance of Jesus to the remaining apostles where the subject of disbelief is mentioned. The overall “build of three” schema (Mary’s vision, followed by an appearance to some but not all disciples, followed by a final appearance to all apostles) is shared with John chapter 20.
Other features of the focal verses are not found elsewhere. Only in Mark 16:10 do we read that the remaining eleven are mourning and weeping. In no other gospel do all the male disciples flatly reject their first news of the empty tomb. Either they simply comply with the instruction to meet Jesus (in Matthew), or Peter verifies the condition of the tomb (Luke and John). Only in the focal verses do the male disciples refuse even to consider the best of the good news, twice.
These independent features may shed some light on the literary intentions of the focal verses’ author. Even if the author was importing elements from other gospels, he or she did more creative work than necessary to dispel the abruptness of ending at 16:8. Some of what is shared with other gospels also seems more ambitious than hastily churning out a proper finale.
Why are Mary’s seven demons first mentioned here, in the context of the resurrection? She has already been introduced as a character in Mark, and her exorcism has nothing to do with Jesus’s resurrection in Luke. Why is Luke brought in at all, when John provides both the structure and pleasing incidents, if all the author wanted was to end Mark gracefully?
Nevertheless, the dependence between features of the focal verses and story points in Luke and John is conspicuous. That Mary was delivered of seven demons, and that Jesus appeared to two traveling disciples who saw him in some unusual way are too much and too precise coincidence for a mere six verses to bear. Somebody has copied off of somebody else’s paper. Consensus fingers some pseudo-Mark as the copycat.
What happens in Mark chapters five and six?
In Mark 3:13-19, Jesus appoints the Twelve to help him, and they will later be called apostles (6:30). That’s a Greek term for envoy, a person sent away somewhere to represent or convey a message from the sender. Despite their eventual title, Jesus doesn’t immediately send the Twelve out to preach. They accompany him for a while in his ministry, another specified part of their job description.
The first person Mark‘s Jesus actually dispatches on an apostolic mission is the Gerasene ex-demoniac. The Gerasene lives among tombs, and leaves the tombs to meet Jesus (Mark 5:2-3). Jesus exorcises multiple demons from the man. Afterward, the Gerasene asks to join Jesus. Instead, Jesus sends the man off alone to tell his own people what has been done for him. The man does so throughout the Decapolis region, and to good reception.
Only later does Jesus send the Twelve on their missions. When he does, they set out on the road in pairs (6:7-11). Their success comes to the attention of Herod Antipas. He says that he thinks Jesus is the risen John the Baptist (6:14-16), that is, a resurrected John, now in a different form.
Finally, all Twelve and Jesus are reunited (6:30).
The first three persons who are visited by the focal verses’ Jesus tell others about the miracle. Readers inclined to wordplay might say that these three persons become apostles to the Apostles.
Just as the visitations of John chapter 20 have a “build of three” structure in parallel with the build among the focal verses, so do the apostolic commissions of Mark chapters five and six. The first envoy (the Gerasene, Mary Magdalene) works alone, and the next envoys (the Twelve, the two disciples on the road) work in pairs. The capstone is a grand reunion with Jesus (the Twelve, the remaining eleven).
Along the way, vivid parallel details crop up. The first envoys, the Gerasene and Mary, both encounter Jesus fresh from adventure among tombs. They have been possessed by demons, multiple demons in both cases. Their encounter with Jesus is poorly received by others (the Gerasenes ask Jesus to move on, the eleven disbelieve Mary). The success of the paired disciples on the road introduces a tale of someone claiming that a resurrected man now walks in a different form.
From these observed parallels at both the structural and detail levels, received by us within a single work, it is reasonable to infer dependence between the focal verses and parts of undisputed Mark. Whoever wrote the first half of the Long Ending seems to have read chapters five and six.
Dependence does not determine a causal explanation for why the parallels exist. Dependence does however provide a rational foundation to conjecture a causal hypothesis. That is, to propose that the sequence of initial apostolic commissions in undisputed Mark is the model for the sequence of post-resurrection appearances in the focal verses.
Conclusions
Mark is widely estimated to be the earliest canonical gospel. If “Marcan priority” is correct and if the author of the six focal verses did use other gospels as a source, then those verses were written later than the rest of Mark, after the other gospels became available.
The hypothesis that apostolic commissions in undisputed Mark are the model for the six disfavored verses decouples questions about when those verses became part of the gospel from the robust consensus favoring Marcan priority. Since the verses need not rely on later (according to consensus) gospels, it is possible to entertain without conflict both Marcan priority and the prompt inclusion of the focal verses within Mark.
It does not follow that the verses actually were prompt inclusions. They could be the product of a later writer who carefully composed new verses that resonate with the undisputed gospel. We cannot eliminate that this literary sophisticate really did mine later gospels, choosing details from them which also recalled Mark‘s succession of apostolic commissions.
Even with such uncertainties unresolved, the modeling hypothesis may serve to enrich the explanation of such curiosities as why Mary Magdalene’s demonic possession is mentioned in the context of the resurrection, or why the author bothers to note that Jesus seemed different to the two disciples. Yes, these details motivate the eleven’s cool reception of the best good news, but why choose those motivating details so especially? Because they resonate with what has preceded them in Mark and perhaps with later Christian scripture as well.
Locating a plausible literary source for the focal verses within Mark itself reveals the uncertain status of the alternative hypothesis that the verses are based on incidents that only appear in other gospels. That is practically a necessary step for the possible authenticity of the focal verses to be taken seriously, especially by those who firmly believe that Mark‘s gospel was the first to be composed.
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Image: Gang nach Emmaus 1877 by Robert Zünd
The Uncertaintist 