Book of Mark Being Edited Will Be Reviewed From the New Testament
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
James Tabor March 01, 2022 174 Comments 174771 views
This article nearly the Gospel of Marker was originally published on Dr. James Tabor's pop 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 commodity with consent of the author in Apr 2013. Visit TaborBlog today, or coil down to read a cursory bio of James Tabor below.
And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing.
Most general Bible readers accept the mistaken impression that Matthew, the opening book of the New Testament, must exist our first and earliest Gospel, with Mark, Luke and John following. The assumption is that this society of the Gospels is a chronological ane, when in fact it is a theological one. Scholars and historians are almost universally agreed that Marker is our earliest Gospel–past several decades, and this insight turns out to accept profound implications for our agreement of the "Jesus story" and how it was passed down to usa in our New Testament Gospel traditions.
The problem with the Gospel of Mark for the final editors of the New Attestation was that it was grossly scarce. Offset information technology is significantly shorter than the other Gospels–with only sixteen chapters compared to Matthew (28), Luke (24) and John (21). But more of import is how Mark begins his Gospel and how he ends it.
He has no account of the virgin birth of Jesus–or for that thing, any nativity of Jesus at all. In fact, Joseph, hubby of Mary, is never named in Mark'southward Gospel at all–and Jesus is chosen a "son of Mary," see my previous mail service on this hither. Merely even more significant is Mark'due south 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 archway of the tomb removed and a boyfriend–notice–not an angel–tells them:
"Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is non here. Meet the place where they laid him. Simply get, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you lot to Galilee. There you will see him, only as he told you lot." And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing (Mark 16:six-8)
And in that location the Gospel just ends!
Mark gives no accounts of anyone seeing Jesus as Matthew, Luke, and John afterward report. In fact, according to Mark, any future epiphanies or "sightings" of Jesus volition exist in the n, in Galilee, not in Jerusalem.
In our gratis eBook Easter: Exploring the Resurrection of Jesus, expert Bible scholars and archaeologists offer in-depth enquiry and reflections on this important event. Notice what they say about the story of the resurrection, the location of Biblical Emmaus, Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb, the ancient Jewish roots of bodily resurrection, and the possible endings of the Gospel of Mark.
This original ending of Mark was viewed past afterward Christians as so scarce that not only was Mark placed 2d in gild in the New Testament, but various endings were added past editors and copyists in some manuscripts to try to remedy things. The longest concocted catastrophe, which became Marking xvi:9-19, became so treasured that it was included in the Rex James Version of the Bible, favored for the past 500 years past Protestants, also equally translations of the Latin Vulgate, used by Catholics. This meant that for countless millions of Christians it became sacred scripture–simply information technology is patently bogus. Yous might check whatever Bible you utilize and see if the following verses are included–the chances are good they they will be, since the Church, by and large, constitute Mark's original catastrophe so lacking. Here is that forged ending of Mark:
Now when he rose early on the outset 24-hour interval of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out 7 demons. She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. Simply 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 class to two of them, as they were walking into the country. And they went dorsum and told the rest, only 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 globe and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized volition be saved, just 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 option upward serpents with their easily; and if they drinkable any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover. Then then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken upwardly into heaven and saturday down at the right mitt of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the bulletin past accompanying signs.
Even though this ending is apparently imitation, people loved it, and to this day conservative Christians regularly denounce "liberal" scholars who point out this forgery, challenge that they are trying to destroy "God'southward word."
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The evidence is clear. This ending is not found in our primeval and most reliable Greek copies of Marking. In A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Bruce Metzger writes: "Clement of Alexandria and Origen [early third century] prove no cognition of the existence of these verses; furthermore Eusebius and Jerome adjure 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 non Markan, and information technology is pretty evident that what the forger did was take sections of the endings of Matthew, Luke and John (marked respectively in cerise, blue, and regal above) and simply create a "proper" ending.
Even though this longer catastrophe became the preferred one, there are 2 other endings, 1 short and the 2d an expansion of the longer ending, that also show upwards in various manuscripts:
[I] Simply 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 westward, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.
[II] This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under Satan, who does non allow the truth and ability of God to prevail over the unclean things of the spirits [or, does non permit what lies under the unclean spirits to empathise the truth and power of God]. Therefore reveal your righteousness at present' – thus they spoke to Christ. And Christ replied to them, 'The term of years of Satan's power has been fulfilled, simply other terrible things draw well-nigh. And for those who accept sinned I was handed over to decease, that they may return to the truth and sin no more, in gild that they may inherit the spiritual and incorruptible glory of righteousness that is in heaven.
I trust that the cocky-evident spuriousness of these additions is obvious to even the almost pious readers. One might in fact hope that Christians who are zealous for the "inspired Word of God" would insist that all 3 of these artificial 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 well-nigh the original ending of Marker? Its implications are rather astounding for Christian origins. I have dealt with this issue more mostly in my mail service, "What Really Happened on Easter Morning," that sets the stage for the post-obit implications.
1. Since Marking is our earliest Gospel, written according to most scholars around the fourth dimension of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in lxx CE, or perhaps in the decade before, we have strong textual evidence that the starting time generation of Jesus followers were perfectly fine with a Gospel account that recounted no appearances of Jesus. Nosotros have to assume that the author of Mark'southward Gospel did not consider his account deficient in the to the lowest degree and he was either passing on, or faithfully promoting, what he considered to exist the authentic Gospel. What most Christians exercise when they think near Easter is ignore Marking. Since Marking knows nothing of any appearances of Jesus every bit a resuscitated corpse in Jerusalem, walking about, eating and showing his wounds, as recounted by Matthew, Luke and John, those stories are merely immune to "fill up 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!
two. Alternatively, if we decide to listen to Marking, 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 upward, I will go earlier you lot to Galilee" (Mark 14:28). What Mark believes is that Jesus has been "lifted upwardly" or "raised up" to the right manus of God and that the disciples would "run into" 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-twenty-four hours Passover festival and had returned to their fishing in despair. This is precisely what we detect in the Gospel of Peter, where Peter says:
At present it was the concluding 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. Simply I, Simon Peter, and my brother Andrew, having taken our nets, went off to the ocean. And there was with united states of america Levi of Alphaeus whom the Lord …
You tin read more almost this fascinating "lost" Gospel of Peter here, simply this ending, where the text happens to interruption off, is nigh revealing. What we come across here is precisely parallel to Marker. 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 come across on a designated mount in Galilee, where some of the eleven apostles even doubt what they are seeing (Matthew 28:16-17).
The religion that Mark reflects, namely that Jesus has been "raised upwardly" or lifted up to heaven, is precisely parallel to that of Paul–who is the primeval witness to this agreement 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 on followers of Jesus! Since Matthew, Luke, and John come so much after, 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 conspicuously 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" (Marker 1:1). Conspicuously for him, what he after writes is that "Gospel," not a scarce version that needs to be supplemented or "fixed" with subsequently alternative traditions nigh Jesus appearing in a resuscitated trunk Easter weekend in Jerusalem.
Finally, what we recently discovered in the Talpiot tomb under the condominium building, non 200 feet from the "Jesus family unit" 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 iv-line Greek inscription which I have translated as: I Wondrous Yehovah lift upwardly–elevator 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 every bit having passed into the gates of Sheol or expiry, from which he utters a prayer of salvation from the abdomen of the fish: "O Yehovah my God, y'all lifted up my life from the Pit!" (Jonah 2:vi). Information technology is a rare affair when our textual bear witness seems to either reflect or represent to the material evidence and I believe in the case of the 2 Talpiot tombs, and the early resurrection faith reflected in Paul and Mark, that is precisely what nosotros accept.2 That this latest archaeological bear witness corresponds and so closely to Mark and Paul, our start witnesses to the primeval Christian agreement 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 archeology in Israel and Hashemite kingdom of jordan, including piece of work at Qumran, Sepphoris, Masada and Wadi el-Yabis in Jordan. Over the by 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 Mail. His latest volume, Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity has become a immediately popular with specialists and non-specialists alike. You can observe links to all of Dr. Tabor's web pages, books, and projects at jamestabor.com.
Notes
1. Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, second edition, (Hendrickson Publishers, 2005), 123. Metzger likewise states: "The last twelve verses of the commonly received text of Marking are absent from the two oldest Greek manuscripts (? and B), xx from the Old Latin codex Bobiensis, the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript, about one hundred Armenian manuscripts, 21 and the ii oldest Georgian manuscripts (written a.d. 897 and a.d. 913)."
Correction: In the original publication of this article, Bruce Metzger's statement "Clement of Alexandria and Origen bear witness no knowledge of the existence of these verses; furthermore Eusebius and Jerome attest that the passage was absent from nearly all Greek copies of Mark known to them" (Metzger, 2005, p.123) was not appropriately referenced every bit a quotation from Metzger. We thank our careful reader James Snapp, Jr., of Curtisville Christian Church in Indiana, for bringing this to our attending. —Ed.
two. We offering a full exposition of these important discoveries in our recent book, The Jesus Discovery. The book is a complete word 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 spider web site Bible & Interpretation, hither. During March and April, 2012 I likewise wrote a dozen or more than posts on this web log responding to the bookish discussions, see below under "Archives" and you can scan the posts past month.
Source: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/the-strange-ending-of-the-gospel-of-mark-and-why-it-makes-all-the-difference/