With this post my reflections of the Gospel According to Mark come to a close. When I started this project I mistakenly, perhaps foolishly, thought that it would be approximately 16 posts (give or take) on Mark’s Gospel. That was 7 years ago. I did not realize then that the Lord would lead me on a long journey to more fully grasp who he was and what he was revealing in the words of Mark. Such is the nature of faith and the Christian life. Anyone who is in a real relationship with the God of all creation is also in an ongoing conversation with the Creator.

That is the phrase that my Old Testament professor, Andy Dearman, used to describe the Bible on the first day of my Into to the Old Testament class. He said that we were being invited into the longest ongoing conversation in the history of the world. The conversation between God and his creation.

Read Mark 16:9-20.

I have two very old family Bibles. One belonged to my maternal great-grandmother and the other to a paternal relative. I do not know which one, only that it predates my father’s father. In both instances they simply have Mark 16:9-20 as the completion of the Gospel of Mark. My own Bibles, regardless of translation, indicate that scholars disagree that these verses were penned by Mark. Chances are good that your Bible (particularly if it is a Study Bible) has similar notes and annotations.

Why is this significant? Modern scholarship has settled on the theory that these verses were added to the gospel and are not penned by Mark. The implication is that they are not to be considered original. For many this opens the question of whether they should be held as authoritative. This leads some to conclude if we cannot trust these verses how can we trust any of the rest of the Gospel of Mark; and, if we cannot trust any of the Gospel of Mark, how do we trust any of the scriptures as the authoritative word of God?

Full disclosure: I am not a trained textual critic. What you receive in this post are the reflections of a trained theological thinker and fellow sojourner in the faith. I will seek to explain a little bit of how textual criticism of the Bible works (from an elementary understanding), the conclusions that have been drawn, and a suggest an approach to the last 12 verses of the Gospel of Mark for the believer.

Textual Criticism is the study of the transmission and authenticity of the scriptures. In other words, it is a mostly scientific study of how we got the Bible that we have and whether or not what we are reading is reliably close to the original text.

What we have as the Bible (New and Old Testaments) are copies of copies of copies, because until the advent of the printing press the only way to get a copy of any written document was for someone to make a handwritten copy of the original. Therefore, one of the fundamental principles of textual criticism is that the older a copy is the more likely it reflects the original version. As it happens, two of the oldest total copies of the entire Bible known as Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus (from the 4th century AD), both of which include the entire New Testament written in Greek, do not contain Mark 9-20. This has led many scholars to conclude that these verses were not original to Mark. This is why your modern Study Bible puts brackets around or has footnotes concerning these verses.

This seems reasonable. This is not the whole story.

Allow me to dig a little deeper. The New Testament is the single most well-attested ancient document in existence. What do I mean by that? There are more fragments, sections, complete copies of individual New Testament Books, and entire copies of the New Testament in existence today than any other work from ancient times. And it is not even close. The next most well documented ancient work that is not the New Testament are the writings of Homer. There are just shy of 650 copies of Homer reflecting 95% of the current text dated to within 500 years of the original. We have around 5600 ancient copies of the New Testament reflecting 99.5% of the current text dated to within 200 years of the life of Jesus!

Wow! When you add fragments (portions of a text) and incomplete copies of books or the whole NT the number skyrockets even further. All this is to say the reliability of the New Testament text that you have on your shelf, your nightstand, and on your iPhone is astronomically high. So read with certainty fellow Christians and Seekers!

I will not bore you with a lot of details, a google search and curiosity will give you more than enough information about the 12 verses at the end of Mark’s Gospel. I will point three things that you will learn if you undertake the aforementioned Google search.

One, there are over 1600 copies of Greek manuscripts of Mark that contain verses 9-20 as the conclusion of chapter 16. Two, many 2nd century Christian writers quoted portions of Mark 9-20 indicating that they were familiar with it as a part of the Gospel of Mark and considered it scripture. Three, there are other portions of the New Testament that Codex Sinaiticus omits that no one questions are a part of scripture indicating that the copyist who produced Sinaiticus had an agenda at work perhaps for the intended patron of the copy.

The other argument that is made against 9-20 being original is that it is different in language and grammar from the rest of Mark. This argument falters because other textual critics have pointed out that a person can choose different 12 verse sections of the rest of Mark and conclude that there is a difference in grammar and word choice from the rest of the gospel.

It is true that the Gospel of Mark can end at verse 16:8 without any problems. This has troubled some because the tomb is empty, but the women leave afraid and speaking to no one. Therefore, they conclude that later copyists also concerned about this ending compared to Matthew, Luke and John chose to add another ancient reflection on the resurrection of Jesus to make Mark align more with the other three.

Needless to say, this is all speculation and the stuff of doctoral dissertations!

I suggest the following two conclusions.

Let’s assume for a moment that a later copyist sought to enhance Mark’s gospel with a resurrection appearance (9-20) by borrowing from some other ancient source. If that is the case (and some scholars think that 9-20 is a reading for 1st century churches to use after Easter during worship) then what we have in our New Testament are 6 witnesses to the resurrection instead of 5 (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul) which would make the story of the empty tomb more authentic not less.

The second conclusion is one that is admittedly faith-based and may not satisfy any critic of the New Testament. I believe that the New Testament remembers the person and significance of Jesus of Nazareth. I believe it shares with us that he was God with us, and that his death and resurrection was the action of God to redeem the entire creation. I believe that the tomb was in fact empty and that in reflecting on this reality the first Christians came to understand that in some way he was YHWH among us. I believe that he has ascended into heaven and has the name above all names. I believe that there is no other name under heaven by which people can be saved. I believe that he intercedes on behalf of believers, and he will come again to usher in the final age of history wherein he shall reign forevermore. Since I believe all of this, it is no small thing to also believe that God can ensure that the 27 books of the New Testament as I have received them are precisely what he wanted me to receive in their entirety.

Finally, is there anything in verses 9-20 that should give me pause?

vss 9-14: Jesus revealed himself alive to Mary Magdalene, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and the 11 members of the inner circle of Jesus? Check.

vss 15-16: Jesus instructed them to go and preach the gospel and baptize? Check.

vss 17-18: amazing things accompanied them as they followed the command to spread the gospel? Check.

verse 19-20: He sat down at the right hand of the Father and signs and wonders confirmed the preaching of the first Apostles? Check

If verses 9-20 are original to Mark, there is nothing therein that is not in accordance with the rest of scripture that is accepted as authentic and authoritative. If they are not original to Mark, there is nothing therein that is not in accordance with the rest of scripture that is accepted as authentic and authoritative.

We are left with the same outcome.

The tomb is empty. Jesus has risen.

What decision will you make in living your life in response to this truth?

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