Each of the four Gospels concludes with an account of the great victory of Jesus over death and the grave in his resurrection from the dead. However, if my memory serves me aright, during four decades of participation in Easter worship services I have rarely—if ever—heard an Easter sermon based on Mark’s account in 16:1–8. This is somewhat remarkable, since I have been associated during all these years with churches concerned to preach the “whole Gospel”; surely the whole Gospel should, through the years, include all of the Gospels.
There are, admittedly, reasons for the neglect of this passage. For one thing, Mark 16:1–8 does not relate an actual resurrection appearance. Rather, it speaks of the empty tomb, and promises an appearance of Jesus to the disciples—and Peter: “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, as he told you” (Mark 16:6, 7).
Added to this is a serious textual difficulty. In the King James Version, the sixteenth chapter of Mark concludes at verse 20. But in the Revised Standard Version, the primary text concludes with 16:8. A note from the translators states that “other texts and versions add as 16:9–20 the following passage” and then prints what is essentially the text found in the King James Version. The recent and widely used translation of the New Testament issued by the American Bible Society, Good News for Modern Man (Today’s English Version), places Mark 16:9–20 after 16:8 under the special heading “An Old Ending of the Gospel.” Most modern versions, including the Revised Standard Version and Today’s English Version, also take note of “Another Old Ending” (the TEV heading), a short ending consisting of verses 9 and 10 only.
The problem created by variation in the manuscript tradition has a direct bearing upon the interpretation of the text—the first task of preaching. If 16:8 is indeed the intended conclusion of Mark’s work, then the interpreter must find meaning in a text that concludes with an empty tomb and a promise—and above all the fearful flight from the tomb of women who had come to attend to Jesus’ dead body. If 16:20 is accepted as the conclusion, these apparent “deficiencies” disappear. A copyist or holder of an ancient manuscript of Mark that concluded with 16:8 might have felt the need to supplement the text with material available in the other Gospels. Many scholars believe that this did happen, and that Mark 16:9–20 reveals a strong dependence upon Luke’s resurrection narrative.
It is the thesis of this essay that both the textual tradition and the internal testimony warrant the conclusion, or working hypothesis, that Mark 16:8 is the original and intended ending of Mark’s gospel. What is more, as we shall see, this understanding of Mark opens the way to the perception of a great meaning of the resurrection that is not as forcefully affirmed in the other gospel narratives, which go on to narrate various resurrection appearances.
We cannot here discuss in detail the reasons why Mark 16:8 stands as the best-attested conclusion among our ancient manuscripts. (The better commentaries on Mark’s Gospel provide extended discussion of this matter; a fine review of the data is also available in The Witness of Matthew and Mark to Christ, by N. B. Stonehouse, Tyndale, 1944.) We offer only the following summary observations:
1. The longer ending, 16:9–20, is “missing” in the oldest manuscripts.
2. Important testimony by ancient writers, notably Eusebius, indicates that the most accurate copies, and almost all copies known to him, ended with the words found at the end of 16:8, “for they were afraid.”
3. A number of important manuscripts and ancient versions clearly presuppose some kind of break at Mark 16:8.
4. No single text type gives decisive support to the longer ending.
5. The longer ending is apparently dependent upon Luke’s Gospel.
These observations do not negate the value of the longer ending; they do suggest that, for careful study of the text, we do best to work with Mark 16:8 as the original and intended end of Mark’s Gospel. The internal witness of the Gospel reinforces this conclusion.
We turn now to the contextual reasons for seeking to understand Mark 16:1–8, as well as the entire Gospel of Mark, from the point of view that verse 8 is the final verse of the Gospel. Perhaps the most important observation is that Mark 16:1–8 does give decisive testimony to both the empty grave and the appearances of the Risen Lord to his disciples: the tomb is open (16:4). It is occupied not by Jesus’ body but by a heavenly messenger (16:5). The messenger affirms that the body is absent because Jesus is risen (16:6), and that Jesus is going before his disciples into Galilee, where they shall again see him (16:7). The amazement and fear of the women (16:5, 8) are the characteristic response throughout Mark’s Gospel of persons confronted by God’s authority and power in Jesus (cf. Mark 4:40 f.; 5:42; 6:2, 50; 7:37, 9:6). Students of Scripture need not be reminded that wherever God revealed himself, man stood bowed in awe of his majesty and power. The resurrection commands the same response!
Still, Mark 16:8 seems to be an abrupt way to conclude a Gospel—with no appearance, but rather a flight in silent fear. Yet this is not uncharacteristic of Mark; the style is abrupt throughout. The book begins in the middle of things, for, unlike the Gospels of Matthew and Luke and John, it makes no attempt to account for Jesus’ earthly or divine origins. The narrative simply begins with John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism. Thus Mark’s gospel is unique among the Gospels both in its way of beginning and in its way of conclusion—not to mention its rather compact narrative throughout. (This does not prevent Mark from a more detailed narrative of the events he does include.)
On the other hand, it is reasonably certain that Mark’s readers had long before heard the kind of telling of the Easter story that is reflected in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (15:1 ff.). This knowledge that the readers were informed of the Easter appearances in the basic Christian proclamation allowed for a narrative that led up to the appearances without including them. There was no rule about what a gospel witness should or should not include. No, readers of the Gospels do best to receive them as they are. From this standpoint, it is wrong to believe that Mark’s narrative must have included resurrection appearances just because the other Gospels do. And if, as most scholars believe, Mark’s Gospel was the first written, then there is even less reason to use the other Gospels to measure Mark.
Interpreters of Mark dwell too much on the last sentence of 16:8. There is no rule that the very last sentence of a section contains its point. Studies of the Gospels have shown us that we must pay attention to a whole section. In many of Mark’s accounts, a word of Jesus that appears near the end (cf. 2:17; 2:27) seems to be the strong point of the story. Similarly, the statement in 16:7 that what has happened is according to what Jesus has said draws our attention to that verse within the larger narrative section, 16:1–8.
There is one decisive observation that overshadows all we have said thus far and provides the decisive clue for interpreting the resurrection in Mark’s Gospel. This clue is located in the final words of the messenger (rather than the last clause of 16:8): “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you” (Mark 16:7). “As he told you”—Jesus is presented as the one whose word pointed to, and is now validated by, the resurrection. After Caesarea Philippi, Jesus began to instruct the disciples about his imminent death and resurrection (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:32–34). He climaxed this teaching by showing at the Last Supper how his disciples would betray him, how he would be smitten in accordance with the word of the Prophet Zechariah (13:7), and how he would go before them into Galilee after he was raised from the dead (Mark 14:27, 28). The messenger at the tomb says, in effect, that the prophecy of Jesus has come true, just as he had promised. In other words, all that is happening in the resurrection events is a fulfillment of the very word of Jesus.
This text parallels other important texts in Mark’s Gospel. In Jesus and the Twelve (Eerdmans, 1968), I sought to show in detail how Mark stresses Jesus’ appearance in history as Divine Teacher, and emphasizes the words of Jesus throughout the Gospel. Three chief texts especially illustrate this fact: (1) At the Transfiguration, the voice of God calls for the disciples to listen to Jesus, the beloved Son (9:7). (2) Just prior to this, after Caesarea Philippi, Jesus declared that a man’s eternal destiny depends upon his response to Jesus and his word: “For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38; cf. 8:34; 10:29, 30). (3) And in Jesus’ prophetic discourse on the Mount of Olives he tells the disciples that “heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mark 13:31).
Thus, in the Gospel of Mark, everything hangs upon the word of Jesus—and one’s attitude toward that word. This word is an active and powerful word, and we see it everywhere in Mark’s narrative of Jesus’ ministry. The resurrection narrative is the final and decisive confirmation of that authority (cf. Mark 1:22, 27; 6:2; 12:34) of his word.
Modern readers of the Gospel who have read and heard the story of the resurrection many times over are not in a favored position to perceive the striking nature of this text. A modern counterpart (albeit a feeble one) may be found in the story of the famous home run that Babe Ruth once called. Ruth allegedly waved his bat at the upper stands, signifying where the next swing of the bat would loft the ball, and then proceeded to pay off on his striking promise.
It was important for the early Church not only that Jesus was raised but that he had himself anticipated and promised this great work of God. For one thing, after Easter the Church had to find its way into the future through the word of Jesus (rather than his bodily presence), illuminated to them by the promised Holy Spirit. The Church was assured that it could live under and out of this word of Jesus, for that word had been confirmed by God’s great life-giving deed. There is a relation between the word of Jesus and the resurrection. Jesus promised this great work of God, and it came to pass just as he had promised. This fact stands at the heart of Christian faith and devotion and is nowhere more decisively attested than in the (for many) problematic ending of Mark’s Gospel!
We may conclude with an important related observation: The degree to which the resurrection is central in the Gospels, and in the entire New Testament, should be the measure of its importance for any understanding and articulation of a doctrine of Scripture. Using Mark as our example, we should affirm that in the resurrection there is a sign of the veracity and power of all Jesus’ words (and deeds). As in Mark’s narrative the resurrection is the foundation and capstone, so should it be in our efforts to express the meaning of the process by which the scriptural testimony to Christ was given to us through God’s chosen messengers. Not our preconceived ideas and philosophies but the fact of the resurrection is what matters. That is not to say that a study of the resurrection answers all questions about a doctrine of Scripture; it is to say that all attempts to provide a doctrine of Scripture that fail to assign a central place to the resurrection are answers to the wrong questions. One of the paradoxes of conservative biblical scholarship is that it emphasizes the doctrine of Scripture and the fact of the resurrection but seldom vitally relates the two. This may explain the highly theoretical and arid nature of all too many discussions of this vital issue.
We may bring in Paul as a witness here. In the great fifteenth chapter of his letter to the Corinthian church, he categorically asserts that “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:14). Their faith was first of all a response to Paul’s preaching of the resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. 15:1–11!), and our faith is a response to that same word of preaching today. For preaching issues from Holy Scripture. Our faith, the word of apostolic preaching, the fact of the resurrection—these are all bound up in one parcel. We may note here, not incidentally, that strong Christian faith will always go hand in hand with a strong faith in the resurrection and in the Word of God written. Where one is weak, all will be weak.
Rather than ignoring Mark 16:1–8 in preaching and meditation at Easter time, we can find it a point of beginning for all preaching, including the celebration of Easter. It is time to view this as a basic text, one that can cast an important light upon all other Easter texts. As did the disciples of old, we need to see the resurrection of Jesus, from the very start, as the great climax of his messianic ministry, which happened on the disciples’ behalf and our behalf “as he told us.”
Robert P. Meye is professor of biblical theology at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Oak Brook, Illinois. He received the B.D. and Th.M. from Fuller Seminary and the D.Theol. from the University of Basel.
