Views on the Ending of the Gospel of Mark

7/27/2019 Views on the Ending of the Gospel of Mark

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Paul Burkhart

BL537 Paper #1: The Ending of Mark

For centuries, the Gospel of Mark more or less sat dormant, gathering the dust of Church

interest. It was a broken Gospel, after all. It was a crude, geographically confused, narratively-

challenged, more-or-less bastardized version of The Gospel of Matthew. And what of that ending?

But with the Enlightenment came Higher Criticism and with Higher Criticism came not only a re-

illusionment with Mark, but a dis-illusionment with the supernatural in general. Modernists writers

rose up, pessimism sank in. From Eliots Wasteland to Kafkas oddities to Duchamps redefinitions, the

dark, the strange, and meticulously ordered disorder became the darling of the Modernist Project. And

with this interest came a new evaluation of Marks ending. Could it be that the boring thesisthat Mark

died before finishing his Gospel, or the last page was lost during one of its earliest transmissionswas in

fact not true? Could it be that Mark was a man before his time; indeed, could he have been a true

Modernist representative, whose dark literary shadows and Messianic secrets intentionally culminated

in the strange ending we have bequeathed to us now? It is the contention of this paper that this thesis is

not tenable and does not in fact make sense of the data we have before us when looking at the ending

of the Gospel of Mark. It falls short due to textual and grammatical manuscript evidence, as well as the

structure and literary themes seen throughout Marks Gospel.

A brief survey of the literature shows that the discussion is often centered more around

exploring whythe Gospel may have ended the way it did rather than whetherit ended that way in the

first place. The initial reason is understandable. After all, the claim of a lost ending is seen as an

argument from silence that reflects a seeming inability to sit with unresolved tension. And yet, though

this initial instinct is laudable, the resulting justification for pursuing such assumptions quickly devolves

into odd interpretations of this stunted ending, as well as an imposition of modern literary theory onto

the ancient text.


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On the odd front, there are those that take minor Markan thematic elements and make them of

such seeming importance that they would dictate his ending. In The Journal of the Evangelical

Theological Society, Joel Williams argues that Marks ending makes the most sense when seen as a

continuation of the Gospels juxtaposition of promise and failure. Williams says that though 16:7

predicts the risen Christ will meet with his disciples regardless of their failure or doubt, the womens

silence is meant as a warning that, even after the Resurrection, disobedience and failure is still possible

(22). Laura Sweat, of Princeton Theological Seminary, writes in The Theological Role of Paradox in the

Gospel of Markthat Marks Gospel ends the way it does in order to highlight Jesus presence-within-his

absence, to highlight the often-paradoxical way in which God works and moves in the Gospel; his

presence is more often felt in it absence and effects, as is Jesus presence in his ominous absence at the

tomb (161-162).

Another more common perspective holds that the Gospel, in effect, is demanding active

participation from its readers, and in so doing is calling them to action (this is the conclusion of the

editors of the NET Bible). For some, this action is evangelization, pointing out the failure of nearly every

character in the book to obey Jesus proclamation in 13:10 that this Gospel would be preached to all the

nations. This puts the burden on the reader to follow these words of the Christ after even the women

fail in it (Tolbert 297-9).

Others define this reader-response activity to be found in much more modern literary terms.

Robert Fowler, writing in 1986, for example, stresses the openness of Mark in its use of irony,

parataxis, and metaphor, to put one more burden on the reader of Mark to finish the story:

The empty tomb is a narrative gappar excellence. The emptiness of the tomb is a

story-level figure for the emptiness the narratee encounters in the discourse of

this episode. The empty tomb is indeed empty; it becomes meaning-full only


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when the reader fills it with meaning. The tomb awaits the fulfillment that only

the reader can supply. (154)

One widely-cited defense of the position that Marks present ending is original is found in J. Lee

Magness book Sense and Absence, in which the author provides an extensive survey of ancient and

biblical literature that includes suspended endings. He explores their purposes and function,

attempting to trace this literary device throughout Marks telling of various traditions and stories in his

Gospel. The argument is then made that Mark provides ample foreshadowing of this type of abrupt

ending, and therefore ancient readers would neither find it odd nor especially surprising that the text

ends at 16:8. As for the reason why this is, Elizabeth Malbon summarizes and quotes, saying (329):

The empty tomb signifies the (predicted) resurrection; the announcement

stands for (predicted) resurrection appearances; the womens reaction is the

part that represents the whole, the fear that suggests proclamation. [Magness

says of] 16:1-8 the emphasis of the Gospel thus shifts from past history to

present proclamation, from chronicle to commission, and from text to reader.

One of the biggest problems with this and other similar approaches (which Magness admits, though he

feels is justified) is that he opens with a conscious extended treatment of modern literary theory on the

device of absent endings and how theydemand a readers participation in the work. He then goes to

provide examples of this device in ancient literature, but he never strays far from reading eventhese

works through this modern literary lens. He (and indeed, most 20th

century scholars of Mark) never

seems to stray from the modern assumptions and theories through which they strain the texts, most

forcefully, Mark. This, in many scholars minds, discredits most attempts to find a literary reason for the

ending (France 683-684 and Bratcher 506)

There are many problems one can find with these views, even beyond the pre-suppositions one

brings to the interpretive task. The first place one would look is in the textual and grammatical evidence.


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In Bruce Metzgers classic The Text of the New Testament, one can begin seeing some of the contours of

the case for a lost ending. Metzger brings up the odd grammar of the final words of 16:8, which would

make this an exceedingly odd and unprecedented ending to a work in the ancient world. There is some

manuscript evidence that the final verb is of a form that means they were afraid of, but the text as it is

would not finish the sentence and describe what it is the women feared (326). Also, as is noted

throughout the scholarly literature, the book ends with the preposition gar. Metzger points out that not

only are there just a few examples ofanyGreek sentence ending with this preposition, but we have no

example of an ancient book ending in this way (326). Lastly, one would note that if Marks audience was

truly comfortable and absolutely got the ending of the book at 16:8, there would be little need for

new endings to be added to the book within such a short amount of time after its circulation began

(Brooks 272-273). In the textual and patristic evidence, there seems to be a near-universal sense that

this ending is mistaken, or at least in need ofmore (Metzger 80-81, 119-121, 322-327).

Textual uncertainty aside, the clearest evidence for a lost ending comes from the contents of

Mark itself. The opening words of the book, proclaiming this to be an account of the gospel concerning

Jesus Messiah, Son of God (1:1) do not carry with them the ominous foreshadowing that 16:8 entails,

and indeed, 16:8 seems to be a completely non-sensical ending in light of this purpose statement of

the gospel (Guelich 523). Further, the apocalyptic nature of the entire Gospel in nearly all its parables,

miracles, and teachings has a future component of which almost all see an explicitly described display of

their fulfillment at some point in the narrative (524). Not so, however, of freeing his disciples to speak of

the Transfiguration (9:9), nor of meeting his disciples in Galilee (16:7)both of which are promised to

happen after the Resurrection, and yet we never see their fulfillment.

N.T. Wright offers a clear and extensive defense of the lost ending hypothesis inThe

Resurrection of the Son of Godand comes at it from many angles, all of which cannot be summarized

here. He spends a lot of time showing not only how Mark explicitly shows the reader the fulfillment of


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Jesus words, but the entire structure of the book is built around Resurrection predictions from Jesus

that increase in frequency, intensity, and length as the book goes on. It appears to be building to a final

climax that never comes in the endings form as we have it (620-622). Marks well-known use of irony is

always shown, not simply implied. When Jesus tells some people to not speak, they do. He tells others to

speak, and they dont. In all of these cases, and others, the reader gets tosee this unexpected turn take

place. And so, one would expect that the womens silence would hold similar anticipation for irony being

displayed and not merely assumed. Further, in Mark, fear is not simply a motif in and of itself that

appears on its own. The theme is fuller than that; it is that fear must be overcome by faith in those that

are experiencing the fear (623). We do not get to see this from the women of Mark 16. And lastly, the

extended section of Jesus disputes with the religious leaders lends itself to a belief that Jesus would be

seen vindicatedin all he was teaching and declaring. Again, we dont see this in our form of Mark (624).

A brief survey of the scholarly literature concerning the ending of Mark shows that it is

incredibly difficult to assess. In the process of coming to conclusions based on such little evidence and

much conjecture, ones own preferences and assumptions will inevitably get caught up in the process. In

the course of this current writing, multiples sources were found, each saying what most scholars think,

and they were each contradictory. This makes it even more difficult to find a solid resting place.

Regardless, there can be confidence that scholars have been far too quick to apply modernist literary

theory(not to be confused with legitimately helpful applications of modern literary methods, typing, and

research), and this has resulted in turning Mark into a type of Faulknerian literary genius, shocking the

reader with his inaccessibility that paradoxically (it is assumed) empowers and invites. It is for this

presuppositional reason, and the manuscript and internal literary elements of this Gospel, that it

appears far more likely that a fuller ending was either intended or written, and was somehow lost to the

pages of time.


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Works Cited

Biblical Studies Press. The NET Bible First Edition Notes. Biblical Studies Press, 2006.

Bratcher, Robert G. and Eugene Albert Nida.A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. UBS Handbook Series.

New York: United Bible Societies, 1993.

Brooks, James A. Mark. The New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers,

1991.

Fowler, Robert M. Let the Reader Understand: Reader-response Criticism and the Gospel of Mark.

Harrisburg, PA: Trinity International, 2001. Print.

France, R. T. The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament

Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2002.

Guelich, R. A. "Mark, Gospel of." Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. Ed. Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight,

and I. Howard. Marshall. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1992. 512-25. Print. The IVP Bible

Dictionary Ser.

Malbon, Elizabeth S. "Sense and Absence: Structure and Suspension in the Ending of Mark's Gospel by J.

Lee Magness." Rev. ofSense and Absence: Structure and Suspension in the Ending of Mark's

Gospe.Journal of Biblical Literature 107.2 (1988): 327-29. Print.

Metzger, Bruce M., and Bart D. Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption,

and Restoration. 4th ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.

Sweat, Laura C. The Theological Role of Paradox in the Gospel of Mark. N.p.: A&C Black, 2013. Print. The

Library of New Testament Studies.

Tolbert, Mary A. Sowing the Gospel: Mark's World in Literary-historical Perspective. Minneapolis:

Fortress, 1996. Print.


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Williams, Joel F. "Literary Approaches to the End of Mark's Gospel."Journal of the Evangelical

Theological Society42.1 (1999): 21-35. Print.

Wright, N. T. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Vol. 3. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003. Print. Christian

Origins and the Question of God.

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Views on the Ending of the Gospel of Mark