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Mark 16:8 as the Conclusion to the Second Gospel · Reformed Thinking

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You know, usually when we talk about a medical diagnosis, there
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is this expectation of, well, absolute precision.
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It's it's almost like engineering.
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Oh, for sure. Yeah, like you break your arm.
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The X-ray shows that jagged white line on the film and the
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Doctor just points at it and says there it is, that's the
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problem. Right, it's completely binary.
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You look at the image and the bone is either broken or not
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broken. The data is clean.
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It's clean and honestly, it's comforting.
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I mean, we like things to be visible.
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We like them to be categorized neatly.
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But then you step into the world of textual criticism and ancient
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manuscripts, and suddenly that X-ray machine is just broken.
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Yeah, it really is. We are looking at a diagnostic
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landscape that is, well, it's murky.
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You're looking at shadows and blurs and trying to determine
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what the original bone even looked like before the fracture.
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It's the absolute definition of diagnostic Muddy Waters.
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I mean, you are dealing with copies of copies of copies
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separated by centuries, continents and entirely
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different languages. Well, welcome to reformed
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thinking and to this special deep dive.
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Today we're looking at what happens when the diagnostic
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X-ray of history comes back blurry.
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We're looking at a text that essentially broke the machine.
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The source material for our conversation today is a highly
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detailed academic essay by Daniel B Wallace titled Mark
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16.8 is the conclusion to the Second Gospel, and.
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Our mission today is to investigate the textual
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evidence, the historical anomalies, and the literary
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argument surrounding where the Gospel of Mark actually ends.
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And you know, we want to discover what that means for how
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you, the listener, read the text to.
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Set the stage for you. We are looking at one of the
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most heavily debated questions in the entire field of New
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Testament scholarship. Wallace begins his essay by
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citing a joke from the comedian George Burns.
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Oh I love this one. Yeah, Burns said.
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The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a
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good ending, and the two should be as close together as
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possible. That is fantastic.
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I think we have all sat through a few sermons where we we wish
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the preacher had taken George Burns advice.
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Absolutely. But Wallace points out the
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historical irony here when it comes to the gospel of Mark.
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Mark essentially created a brand new literary genre.
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Nobody had written a gospel before him, and his work was so
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highly regarded that it was copied extensively by Matthew
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and Luke. Yet despite being the pioneer of
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the genre, Mark's Gospel was the least copied standalone book in
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early Christianity. And a massive reason for that
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neglect is that he left us with an ending that has puzzled,
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frustrated and confused readers for two millennia.
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OK, let's unpack this. Before we get too far into the
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weeds of the textual evidence and the Greek manuscripts, we
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need to address something critical about our own
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perspective. Good call.
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As the host of Reformed thinking, we both hold a
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Protestant Christian beliefs, specifically Reformed theology,
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and we adhere to the Westminster Confession.
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However, we want to be completely clear with you Today,
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we are impartially reporting the contents of Wallace's essay.
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Yes, we are. We are not taking sides or
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endorsing the viewpoints of the text, especially in areas where
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Wallace critiques the Westminster Confessions view on
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textual preservation. We are simply conveying the
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ideas and the historical data as they're written in the original
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source material. That is a crucial distinction to
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make upfront because this topic touches on some highly sensitive
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theological nerves for many people.
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To frame the difference between how the gospel writers
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approached their conclusions, Wallace uses an analogy that is
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quite illuminating. He suggests that we can look at
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the author's through the lens of different preaching styles.
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Yeah, I love this analogy because it makes the literary
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style so recognizable. Wallace says the apostle John is
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like a Baptist preacher who finishes his sermon in chapter
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20. He reaches a perfectly logical
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theological conclusion, but then he just has to add an appendix.
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It's like the preacher deciding to sing one more chorus of just
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as I am. Before he can actually dismiss
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the congregation. He adds Chapter 21 to tie up a
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few loose ends about Peter. Yeah, he just can't let them go.
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Right. But Mark, conversely, is like a
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Methodist preacher who cuts a sermon at incredibly short.
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He delivers these rapid fire, high stakes theological points,
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but then he just abruptly stops. He leaves his congregation
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sitting there in the pews with lingering questions rather than
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tying everything up in a neat, satisfying bow.
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The contrast is striking when you lay them side by And that
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leads us to a fundamental question.
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Why do modern scholars disagree so intensely on where Mark's
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gospel actually ends? It's a great question.
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You would think looking at the physical evidence would settle
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it. But the answer, according to
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Wallace, lies in the baggage of presuppositions.
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Scholars don't just look at raw data in a vacuum.
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They look through the lens of their prior academic
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commitments. They wear different sets of
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glasses that color how they view the X-ray.
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Wallace breaks down three major presuppositions that dictate how
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a scholar reads the evidence. I want to walk through these
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because understanding the mechanism of how scholars think
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is just as critical as knowing what they think.
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First, there is source criticism.
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This involves theories about who copied whom.
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If a scholar adheres to something called the Griesbach
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hypothesis, which is the idea of Mathian priority, they will
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inevitably struggle to accept a short ending for Mark.
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Let's breakdown how that mechanism works.
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Matthew in priority argues that Matthew wrote his Gospel first,
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making it the original blockbuster account of Jesus's
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life. Right?
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According to this theory, Luke wrote second using Matthew.
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Then Mark wrote third, essentially creating a condensed
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Reader's Digest version of Matthew and Luke.
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Right. So put yourself in the shoes of
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a scholar holding that view, like the late William Farmer.
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If you believe Mark wrote last, and he is sitting there at his
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desk looking at the beautiful, detailed, triumphant
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resurrection appearances already written down in Matthew and
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Luke, why in the world would he cut them out?
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It makes no sense. Zero sense.
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Why would he choose to end his summary by just saying and the
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women ran away terrified and said nothing.
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It makes absolutely 0 logical sense for a summarizer to delete
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the climax of the story. So if you hold to Matthew and
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Priority, you are predisposed to believe Mark must have written a
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longer ending and it simply got lost.
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The second presupposition involves textual criticism
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itself. This is the science of analyzing
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the physical manuscript families.
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A scholar's prior adherence to a specific theory, like the
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Independent Text Types theory championed by Harry Stirs, will
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dictate how they weigh the raw data.
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Yeah, the families. To understand this, you need to
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know that ancient manuscripts are generally grouped into
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families or text types based on their geographical origin and
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their shared copying quirks. You have the Alexandrian text
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type from Egypt, the Western text type from Rome and North
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Africa, and the Byzantine text type from the Greek speaking
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East. And the physical realities of
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those regions matter so much. The Alexandrian manuscripts come
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from the dry sands of Egypt, which naturally preserves
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papyrus. So those texts are incredibly
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cold, very lean and stripped down.
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But the Byzantine texts come from places like Constantinople.
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It is humid there. Manuscripts rotted faster and
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had to be recopied constantly by professional scribes, who often
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smoothed out rough grammar over the centuries.
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Precisely so if you follow STIRS theory that all these text types
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originated entirely independently in the 2nd century
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and hold equal weight, you measure the variance very
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differently. You might look at a smoothed out
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Byzantine manuscript from the 9th century and give it the
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exact same authority as a rugged Alexandrian papyrus from the 3rd
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century. Your theory dictates your
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diagnostic process. Right, the glasses you wear
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change what you see. The third presupposition Wallace
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highlights is bibliology and the doctrine of preservation.
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This is where theology intersects directly with the
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physical textual data. Scholars like John Bergen and
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Wilbur Pickering argued forcefully that God would simply
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not allow the ending of his inspired word to be physically
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lost to history. That's a strong claim.
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It is Pickering once stated flatly that if God permitted the
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original ending of Mark to vanish, then we do not really
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possess an inspired text today. For them, Divine Preservation
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functions as a guarantee that the true text will always remain
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accessible, usually by virtue of being present in the vast
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majority of surviving manuscripts.
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OK, so how does Wallace address that?
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Wallace counters this by looking at the specific theological
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frameworks. He claims the doctrine of
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preservation, particularly as it was formulated in the 1646
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Westminster Confession, lacks a direct biblical base.
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He argues that it is neither wise nor safe for text critics
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to force physical historical evidence to conform to
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theological doctrines not explicitly detailed in
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Scripture. This raises an important
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question. How often do our strongly held
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beliefs act as blinders, preventing us from objectively
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evaluating the historical evidence right in front of us?
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That is a phenomenal question to ask yourself, no matter what
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field you are in. And what makes Wallace's essay
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so compelling is that he doesn't just point the finger at other
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scholars. He shares a very personal,
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transparent story about his own academic blinders.
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Yeah, his own. Well, his own path rather.
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Right. For 17 years, Wallace held
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firmly to stirs his textual views regarding independent text
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types, and he firmly believed in math and priority.
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He taught these specific theories to students at multiple
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academic institutions. He built his career on them.
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Changing your mind after 17 years of public teaching is a
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massive undertaking. It really is.
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It was only when he was forced to teach a doctoral seminar at
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Dallas Theological Seminary, quite literally because there
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was no one else available on the faculty to teach it, that his
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entire paradigm shifted. To prepare for this high level
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seminar, he had to sit down and read over 10,000 pages of dense
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text critical material to get up to speed.
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During that intense concentrated reading, his academic foundation
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just crumbled. He realized the Byzantine text
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family was not historically equal to the Alexandrian and
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Western texts. He shifted his entire
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methodology to something called Reasoned Eclecticism.
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Which is essentially a technical term, meaning you stop blindly
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trusting one specific family of manuscripts like a loyalty
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program, and you start judging every single textual variant on
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a case by case basis. You look at the date, the
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geographical spread, the scribal habits, and the internal
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grammar. You act like an impartial
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detective for every single word. Spot on.
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He abandoned Matthew and Priority entirely.
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He realized that scholars must pursue objective truth rather
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than trying to protect their preferred presuppositions.
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Which brings up an analytical question for you How often do we
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let a mechanical checklist approach to data substitute for
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actual critical thinking? Too often.
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Wallace quotes the scholar Gunther Zontz in the essay, who
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noted that at every single stage of manuscript evaluation, the
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critic has to actually use their brains.
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If textual criticism didn't require a human being to think
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critically and weigh motives, you could just hand a slide rule
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or a calculator to anyone and leave it to them to settle the
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problems of the New Testament text.
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Since presuppositions undeniably color how we interpret data, we
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need to strip those away and look at the raw, physical,
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external evidence itself. We will start with the dominant
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tradition in the manuscripts, which is the long ending.
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These are verses 9 through 20 of Mark chapter 16.
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Now if you just look at the raw numbers, the sheer volume of
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evidence for the long ending is massive.
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Over 95% of all surviving Greek manuscripts and ancient versions
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contain these 12 verses. 95%. Yeah, it spans broad geographies
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representing Western, Cesarean and Byzantine text types.
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It is also quoted by early Church fathers.
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Irenaeus, writing in the late 2nd century, clearly quotes from
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verse 19 stating explicitly that it comes from the Gospel of
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Mark. So this isn't some fringe
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isolated reading is the overwhelming numerical majority.
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Right? Which begs the question, wait,
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hold on. If 95% of the physical evidence
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points one way, how is this even a debate in any other scientific
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or historical field? 95% is an absolute slam dunk.
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Why are we ignoring the vast majority of the evidence?
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That is the most natural reaction to have when you hear
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that statistic. But in textual criticism, you do
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not count manuscripts, you weigh them.
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OK, unpack that. Let me give you an analogy.
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Imagine a terrible traffic accident happens in an
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intersection. Two people are standing on the
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corner and see the whole thing clearly from start to finish.
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They give their eyewitness testimony.
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Meanwhile, someone a block away hears the crash, runs over and
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then goes to a crowded coffee shop and tells 100 people a
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slightly exaggerated version of what they think happened.
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Oh, I see where it's going. If a detective comes along, do
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they survey the 100 people in the coffee shop and declare
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their version the truth because they have a 95% majority?
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No, those 100 people all trace back to 1 flawed source.
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Two actual eyewitnesses carry far more weight than the 100
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people repeating a secondary story.
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That makes perfect sense. The older, more direct lines of
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transmission matter more than the sheer number of later
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copies. But scholars who defend the long
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ending, like William Farmer, still have to explain why those
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early eyewitness manuscripts lack versus 9 through 20.
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Yes they do. Farmer argued that Alexandrian
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scribes intentionally deleted those 12 verses, and he proposed
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2 specific reasons for this massive amputation.
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Right first, Farmer claimed these early scribes were deeply
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bothered by a perceived timeline discrepancy regarding the
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resurrection. Mark 16.9 states that Jesus rose
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early on the first day of the week.
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Farmer thought ancient scribes saw this as conflicting with
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Matthew's timeline. OK.
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Second, Farmer pointed to the seemingly embarrassing promises
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contained in verses 17 and 18. These are the verses where Jesus
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says believers will be able to handle snakes and drink deadly
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poison without being harmed. Farmer theorized that these
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verses were so practically problematic and embarrassing for
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early Christians that scribes decided the safest route was
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just to excise the entire 12 verse ending.
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I have to push back on that using Wallace's arguments,
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because Farmer's theory completely falls apart when you
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actually look at the mechanics of the data.
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Yeah, First, regarding the timeline discrepancy, Matthew is
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the chronological outlier, not Mark.
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If you look at the Greek text, Mark 16.9 perfectly agrees with
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Luke 24.1 and John 20.1. All three of them clearly state
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the resurrection happened early on the first day of the week.
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Matthew is the only one who uses a very specific Greek phrasing
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that translates to late on the Sabbath or after the Sabbath.
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So think about the logic here. If a scribe is sitting at a desk
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trying to fix a timeline discrepancy across the four
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gospels, they would alter the one outlier, Matthew.
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They wouldn't look at Mark, who agrees with Luke and John and
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decide to delete 12 entire verses just to fix a problem
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that Matthew created. The logic just does not hold up
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to scribal habits. And the second part of farmers
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argument, that the early church was embarrassed by the snakes in
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poison is also historically inaccurate.
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Here's where it gets really interesting.
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The early church was absolutely not embarrassed by the snake in
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poison verses. When you actually read the right
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things of the early church fathers, they love those verses.
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Patristic writers quoted verses 15 through 20 far more
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frequently than they ever quoted verses 9 through 14.
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That completely flips the script on farmers argument.
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If the scribes were truly embarrassed by the second-half
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of the ending, you would expect them to keep the first half.
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They would keep the relatively tame standard resurrection
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appearances in verses 9 through 14, and they would only hit
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delete on the snicks and poison. Yeah, just trim the weird stuff.
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But we have 0 physical evidence of that ever happening in any
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manuscript. In fact, we see a steady stream
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of church fathers from the 2nd to the 5th century alluding to
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the snake and poison verses with absolute confidence, while
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nobody really the first half of the passage until the 4th
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century. If scribes were bothered by a
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small section, they would just cut those specific lines.
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Think about it like a modern typo.
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If you were reading the final chapter of a Harry Potter book
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and you spot a glaring typo on the last page, you might take a
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pen and correct that one word. You do not RIP the last 30 pages
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out of the book and throw them in the fireplace.
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That would be extreme. Wallace uses a medical analogy
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here that is brilliant. When scribes find a small
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textual problem, they perform plastic surgery.
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They make a tiny, precise incision, alter a word or two,
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and stitch it back up seamlessly.
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They do not amputate the entire leg to cure a case of athlete's
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foot. Deleting 12 highly detailed
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verses of post resurrection narrative just to get rid of a
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snake reference defies every known law of ancient scribal
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behavior. Having systematically dismantled
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the theory that scrags deleted the ending out of embarrassment,
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we have to turn to the only logical alternative.
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Scribes added the long ending because they were immensely
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uncomfortable with the gospel concluding at verse 8.
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Let's break down the physical manuscripts that support the
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short ending. Let's do it.
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As we noted, there are not many of them numerically, but their
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historical pedigree is absolutely remarkable.
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The two heavyweights in this category are Codex and Eticus
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and Codex Vaticanus. Let's explain what those
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actually are, because they are marvels of ancient engineering.
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These are not little scraps of papyrus.
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These are massive 4th century Alexandrian codices.
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A codex is an ancient book with bound pages rather than the
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scroll. Right bound pages.
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They were incredibly expensive to produce, requiring the skins
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of hundreds of animals to create the vellum pages.
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They are the oldest complete or nearly complete Greek Bibles in
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existence. They represent a very ancient,
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high quality line of textual transmission dating all the way
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back to the early 2nd century. And in both of these massive
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premium codices, the Gospel of Mark ends precisely at verse 8
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with the words for They were afraid there is a hard stop.
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Now, people who passionately defend the long ending love to
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point out a physical feature found specifically in Codex
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Vaticanus. Vaticanus is formatted with
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three neat columns of text per page.
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The Gospel of Mark ends near the bottom of the second column on a
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page, and the scribe left the entire third column completely
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blank before starting the Gospel of Luke on the very next page.
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A blank column. Yes, scholars like William Lane
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argue that this blank column is a smoking gun.
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They claim it proves the Scribe knew about a longer ending,
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realized they did not have it in their immediate source text, and
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deliberately left a blank space so it could be filled in later.
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It sounds like a highly compelling clue, like something
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out of an investigative thriller, but the theory
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evaporates when you actually look at the rest of Codex
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Vaticanus. The scribe leaving a blank space
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at the end of a book is not a singular, unique phenomenon
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isolated to the Gospel of Mark. No, it's not.
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Vaticanus has similar and in some cases even larger blank
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spaces after the books of Tobit to Estrus and Daniel.
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You cannot logically argue that the scribe was leaving space for
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missing text in all of those old tests and instances.
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It was simply a formatting quirk.
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When they transition between certain major books or sections,
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they occasionally left a column blank.
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Furthermore, modern researchers recently discovered an
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incredible detail about how the scribes of Vaticanus operated.
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They used a system of double dots in the margins referred to
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by scholars as umm lots, to mark known textual variants.
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If they were copying a text and knew that another manuscript had
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different word or an extra sentence, they put an umlaut in
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the margin to signal to the reader, hey, there is a known
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discrepancy here. They use this marking system
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over 700 times in the New Testament alone.
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It was a highly organized system of quality control. 700 times.
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Yet when you look at the margin next to mark 16.8, there is
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absolutely no umlaut. The scribe gave 0 indication
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whatsoever that they knew of any alternative ending.
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The Greek manuscripts are just the beginning of the diagnostic
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process. The short ending is witnessed
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across incredibly diverse ancient translations.
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You have the cynetic Syriac version, which physically dates
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to the 4th century but represents A textual tradition
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from the late 2nd century. You have around 100 Armenian
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manuscripts that entirely lack the long ending, and we can
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trace that Armenian tradition back to a 5th century revision
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that was based on Greek texts brought all the way from
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Constantinople. You also have the two oldest
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Georgian manuscripts. And a very early Sahita Coptic
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manuscript from Egypt. Notice the geographical spread
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of those witnesses. You have translations from Egypt
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to Syria all the way up to the Caucasus Mountains.
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These are geographically isolated Christian communities
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operating in different languages, all independently
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agreeing that the Gospel of Mark stops abruptly at verse 8.
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We can also trace the patristic evidence, the writings of the
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early church leaders, which reveals A fascinating historical
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trajectory in the second and third centuries.
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Highly prominent, widely read fathers like Clement of
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Alexandria and Origin are entirely silent on the long
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ending. Complete silence.
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They never quote it. They never allude to it.
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When we reached the 4th century, the great church historian
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Eusebius explicitly states that the accurate copies conclude the
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story of verse 8. He notes that this short ending
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is the case in nearly all the copies of Mark available to him.
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Nearly Hall. Then in the 5th century, Jerome
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echoes this exact sentiment, stating that almost all Greek
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codices are without the passage. Yet, despite knowing this,
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Jerome includes the long ending in his famous Latin Vulgate
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translation. That is a critical juncture in
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the history of the text. Why would Jerome, who is
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arguably the greatest biblical scholar of his day, deliberately
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include 12 verses if he explicitly stated that the best,
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most accurate Greek copies lacked them?
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To understand Jerome's motive, you have to understand the
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immense psychological pressure of his job.
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Jerome was a brilliant scholar, but he was dealing with a highly
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volatile, deeply emotional public.
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Around the year 400, a literal riot broke out in the city of
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Tripoli over Jerome's translation work.
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A riot, yes. Saint Agustin actually wrote to
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Jerome about this incident. The local Bishop in Tripoli was
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reading from Jerome's new translation of the book of
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Jonah. In Jonah chapter 4 there was a
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plant that grows over Jonah to give him shade.
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The traditional older translation called it a gourd.
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Jerome looking at the Hebrew translated as Ivy.
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Oh no. When the congregation heard the
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word Ivy, they absolutely lost their minds.
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They started yelling. They accused the Bishop of
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falsifying the Scriptures. The Jewish authorities had to be
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called in to verify the translation.
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The Bishop almost lost his entire congregation over a piece
22:24
of Old Testament shrubbery. It perfectly illustrates the
22:28
visceral, protective attachment everyday people had to the text
22:31
they were familiar with. Spot on.
22:33
So put yourself in Jerome sandals.
22:36
If people formed a violent mob over a botanical translation in
22:39
Jonah, imagine the absolute chaos, the widespread rioting,
22:44
if Jerome had published a new Latin Bible that completely
22:47
deleted the resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ from
22:50
the Gospel of Mark. It would have been pandemonium.
22:52
He would have been branded a heretic immediately.
22:55
He likely included the long ending in the Vulgate simply to
22:58
keep the peace and ensure his translation was actually adopted
23:01
by the churches. But the historical trajectory
23:03
continues by the time you get to Victor of Antioch in the 5th or
23:07
6th century. Victor notes that very many
23:09
copies end at verse 8, but very many also end of verse 20.
23:14
He eventually declares the longer copies are more accurate.
23:17
You can clearly see the long ending steadily moving from a
23:19
minority status in the early centuries to a majority status
23:22
as time progresses. What's fascinating here is how
23:25
the motive for that gradual edition is so blatantly obvious
23:28
when you look at the literary structure of the Gospel itself.
23:31
Look at the narrative Mark has constructed.
23:34
Jesus explicitly predicts his death and resurrection 3
23:36
separate times in Mark 8.319.31 and 10.34.
23:41
He repeatedly tells the disciples in no uncertain terms
23:44
that he will be killed by the religious leaders and will rise
23:47
after three days if the gospel ends at 16.8.
23:51
The women flee the empty tomb in absolute terror.
23:53
They say nothing to anyone. And these three massive
23:56
foundational prophecy, Well, these three massive prophecies
23:59
remain totally unfulfilled within the actual narrative
24:02
framework of the book. The theological terror of a
24:04
failed prophecy would be unbearable for a copyist.
24:07
Ancient scribes simply could not tolerate reading a gospel that
24:10
lacked a definitive, on the page resurrection appearance.
24:15
The internal psychological pressure to resolve that
24:17
narrative tension, to fulfill Jesus's prophecies, and to
24:20
provide closure for the reader was overwhelming.
24:22
To prove that scribes were actively, consciously trying to
24:25
fix what they perceive as an abrupt, broken ending, we just
24:29
have to look at the sheer variety of alternative endings
24:32
that popped up in the manuscript record.
24:34
It is not just a binary choice between the short ending at
24:37
verse 8 and the long ending at verse 20.
24:40
There is 1/3 distinct option that surfaced the intermediate
24:44
ending. Yes, the intermediate ending.
24:46
It is found in Codex Babiensis, which is an old Latin manuscript
24:50
that traces its lineage back to a second century papyrus, as
24:54
well as a few other witnesses. When you read the intermediate
24:56
ending, it is highly condensed. It is a colorless, almost
25:00
bureaucratic summary. Very dry.
25:02
It essentially says that the women briefly reported to Peter
25:05
and his companions, and then Jesus himself sent the disciples
25:08
out from east to West with the sacred, imperishable
25:10
proclamation of eternal salvation.
25:12
All the vivid storytelling of Mark.
25:14
It sounds like a theological mission statement rather than a
25:16
narrative. The intermediate ending.
25:18
Provides the ultimate smoking gun for textual critics.
25:22
In several manuscripts, including four Greek on Cyril's
25:25
dating from the 7th to the 9th centuries, plus several Sahedic
25:29
and Ethiopic manuscripts, the scribes did something entirely
25:33
illogical. They copied the brief
25:35
intermediate ending, and then they immediately copied the 12
25:38
verse long ending right after it.
25:40
They just jammed them together. Yes.
25:42
And doing. So creates A jarring,
25:44
unavoidable, logical contradiction right there on the
25:48
parchment. Think about it.
25:50
In the intermediate ending, the women go and tell Peter the news
25:53
and Jesus commissions the disciples to go from east to
25:55
West. Then the very next verse, the
25:58
start of the long ending, says Jesus appeared first to Mary
26:01
Magdalene and when she went and told the disciples, they were
26:04
mourning and weeping and did not believe her.
26:06
It is like watching a movie. Where the studio releases a
26:09
director's cut and they stick 2 completely different
26:12
contradictory post credits scenes back-to-back.
26:14
In the first scene, the hero tells the team the villain is
26:17
dead and they celebrate. In the next scene, the hero
26:21
discovers A villain for the first time and nobody believes
26:23
him. It proves the film editor just
26:26
spliced two different reels together out of fear of leaving
26:28
something out. Why would an ancient scribe put
26:31
2 contradictory endings back-to-back on exensive vellum?
26:35
It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the ancestors of
26:38
those specific manuscripts only possessed the brief, colorless
26:42
intermediate ending that is the logical.
26:44
Deduction. No scribe who already possessed
26:47
the rich detailed 12 verses of the long ending would ever wake
26:51
up one day and decide to wedge a redundant, contradictory 2
26:54
sentence summary in front of it. It only works the other way
26:57
around. They had the intermediate ending
26:59
in their master copy, and later they found the long ending in a
27:02
different manuscript. Faced with a choice, they
27:05
decided to combine them because they were terrified of getting
27:07
it. Wrong 100%.
27:09
This highlights the golden rule of ancient copyists.
27:12
If in doubt, don't throw it out. Scribes viewed these texts as
27:15
divinely inspired. The absolute worst sin a scribe
27:19
could commit was omitting a word of God, so they practiced a
27:23
policy of accumulation. If they saw two variations, they
27:25
often just included both to be safe.
27:28
We also see this deep hesitation in the marginal notes of the
27:31
manuscripts themselves. Right, but a dozen manuscripts
27:34
include explicit textual notes from the scribe stating that the
27:37
Gospel ends at verse 8 in some copies but continues in others.
27:40
5 manuscripts actually plays asterisks or obelisks, which are
27:44
ancient proofreading marks used by scholars in Alexandria to
27:48
flag doubtful lines in Homer's epics right next to the long
27:52
ending to indicate explicit historical doubt about its
27:54
authenticity. I want you to step back and
27:56
consider. The sheer instability of this
27:58
text. If the long ending was
28:00
originally penned by Mark in the 1st century, why does the Gospel
28:03
of Mark have at least 5 distinct ending variations scattered
28:06
throughout the manuscript tradition?
28:07
It's why we have the short ending of verse 8, we have the
28:10
long ending up to verse 20, we have the intermediate ending, we
28:13
have the intermediate combined with the long, and we even have
28:16
a bizarre variation called the Freer Logen, which is a massive
28:21
extra paragraph inserted right into the middle of the long
28:24
ending in a manuscript known as Codex W, where Jesus and the
28:28
disciples have a long theological conversation about
28:31
the age of Satan. It's just a mess, no?
28:34
Other book in. The entire New Testament suffers
28:36
from this level of concluding chaos.
28:39
The end of Romans is a little messy, but nothing like this.
28:43
It points heavily to early scribes scrambling for centuries
28:46
to fix a text they genuinely felt was broken.
28:48
Having thoroughly examined the. External manuscripts and the
28:51
historical circumstances. The conversation naturally
28:54
requires us to shift to the internal evidence.
28:57
This involves putting down the physical parchment and analyzing
29:00
the actual words on the page. We have to look at the
29:02
vocabulary, the syntax, and the literary style of the passage.
29:05
The primary question is, does the long ending actually sound
29:08
like the author who wrote the 1st 16 chapters of the Gospel of
29:11
Mark When you look at the Greek, the.
29:13
Linguistic anomalies are striking.
29:14
It is not merely, excuse me, it is not just that verses 9
29:18
through 20 contain over a dozen words found nowhere else in
29:21
Mark. You cannot just look at 1 rare
29:23
word and cry foul. Every author uses unique words
29:27
occasionally based on the subject matter.
29:29
Precisely. Yeah.
29:30
The issue is not the presence of rare words, it is the cumulative
29:34
density of those anomalies. There is not a single passage in
29:38
the entirety of Mark 1.1 through 16.8 that is comparable to the
29:42
dense cluster of stylistic, grammatical, and lexical
29:45
anomalies found in those final 12 verses.
29:47
Yeah, the transition between verse 8 and verse 9 is
29:50
incredibly disjointed. In verse 8, the grammatical
29:53
subject of the sentence is the women at the tomb.
29:55
In verse, the subject suddenly shifts to Jesus, but without
29:58
explicitly naming him in a way that smoothly connects to the
30:01
previous sentence. In Greek, it reads like the
30:03
beginning of an entirely different document that was
30:05
glued on to the end. Furthermore, there is a.
30:08
Major source critical clue hiding in plain sight.
30:11
We mentioned earlier that Matthew and Luke clearly use
30:14
Mark as a primary source document for their own gospels.
30:18
When you read them side by side, Matthew and Luke follow Mark's
30:21
narrative template incredibly closely.
30:23
They use his sequence of events. But when you get to the post
30:26
resurrection accounts, Matthew and Luke's suddenly look
30:29
drastically different from each other.
30:31
They diverge completely. Matthew has Jesus appearing on a
30:34
mountain in Galilee. Luke has Jesus peering on the
30:37
road to Emmaus and in Jerusalem. The absolute best explanation
30:41
for this sudden radical divergent is that they lost
30:43
their shared literary map. Their copies of Mark ended at
30:47
16.8, so they had to rely on their own independent sources to
30:50
finish the story. Now, some defenders of the.
30:53
Long Ending argued that verses 9 through 20 do contain some
30:56
recognizable Mark and ISM specific phrases or vocabulary
30:59
words that Mark favors throughout his Gospel.
31:02
They argue this proves Mark wrote it, but Wallace addresses
31:05
this counter argument with a brilliant historical parallel
31:08
involving a modern scholar named Morton Smith.
31:10
This is one of the wildest. Stories in Biblical Scholarship
31:14
Decades ago, Morton Smith claimed to have discovered a
31:17
lost manuscript in a monastery, which he called the Secret
31:21
Gospel of Mark. He produced photographs of a
31:23
text that he argued was a longer, alternative version of
31:26
the Gospel right. Several top tier linguistic
31:29
scholars analyzed the Greek text Smith provided and concluded
31:33
that its internal style was overwhelmingly marking.
31:36
It had all the right vocabulary. It sounded a lot like Mark.
31:39
But it turned out Smith executed an elaborate hoax.
31:43
He forged the document himself. He literally sat down and
31:46
reverse engineered Mark's writing style to trick the
31:49
academic community. The implication for Mark?
31:52
16 is undeniable. If a modern scholar whose native
31:55
tongue is English, not Greek, can forge a document that mimics
31:58
mark style far better than the long ending does, then an
32:01
ancient scribe, a native speaker of coin Greek living in the 2nd
32:05
century who intentionally set out to write a satisfying ending
32:08
for the Gospel, could certainly sprinkle in a few recognizable
32:12
mark in phrases. In fact, even the intermediate
32:14
ending and the freerlogen, which absolutely everyone agrees are
32:18
later fabrications, contain mark and linguistic features.
32:21
A forger naturally tries to sound like the original author.
32:25
Identifying a few familiar words does not prove authenticity when
32:28
the broader stylistic fingerprint is a total mismatch.
32:31
So we arrive. At the $1,000,000 crawl, if the
32:34
physical manuscripts, the historical timeline, and the
32:37
internal grammar all point to Mark 16.8 being the true ending,
32:41
why would an author finish a book so abruptly?
32:43
Why end with the women flinging in fear and saying nothing to
32:46
anyone? We have to tackle the final
32:48
literary argument. We do, scholars.
32:50
Who reject the? Idea of an intentional short
32:52
ending usually raise three main objections.
32:55
First, they argue that open-ended books are a modern
32:59
Kafka esque literary convention that ancient readers would
33:02
simply not understand. Second, they repose the
33:05
mechanical lost leaf theory, suggesting the final page of the
33:08
original document simply tore off and blew away before it
33:11
could be copied. Third, they point out a
33:13
grammatical issue. Mark 16.8 ends with the Greek
33:17
conjunction gar, which translates to for.
33:20
They argue a book written in Greek simply cannot end with the
33:23
word for. Let us systematically.
33:25
Dismantle these objections, starting with mechanical ones.
33:28
The lost leaf theory sounds plausible until you look at the
33:30
physical realities of ancient bookmaking.
33:32
The theory assumes Mark was written in a codex with bound
33:35
pages that could easily detach, but we know that late 1st
33:38
century texts were almost exclusively written on scrolls
33:42
and the mechanics of a. Scroll destroy the lost lift
33:45
theory. When you make a scroll you glue
33:47
sheets of papyrus together. The outer edge beginning of the
33:51
text takes all the beating from the elements and the constant
33:53
handling, but when you are finished reading, the end of the
33:57
document is rolled securely on the inside of the cylinder,
34:00
wrapped tightly against the wooden owl.
34:01
It's totally safe, yeah. The ending is actually.
34:04
The most heavily protected part of the entire physical text.
34:07
For the ending to be physically lost before any copies were ever
34:10
made, someone would have to leave the scroll completely
34:13
unrolled, upside down, and exposed to the elements for an
34:16
extended period, which was highly irregular and
34:18
irresponsible. If a scroll gets damaged, you
34:21
lose chapter 1, not chapter 16. That leaves the grammatical.
34:25
Objection ending a book with the word gar or for For decades,
34:30
scholars said this was grammatically impossible.
34:32
But the scholar PW Vanderhorst laid that objection to rest by
34:36
searching through ancient literature.
34:38
He found a treatise by the ancient philosopher Platinus
34:41
that ends that way. Furthermore, Kelly Iverson
34:44
researched ancient narrative literature and found numerous
34:47
sentences ending in gar. 1 striking example is.
34:49
Genesis 18.15 In the Greek Septuagint translation of the
34:54
Old Testament, when Sarah is confronted by God about laughing
34:57
at the prophecy of having a child in her old age, she denies
35:00
it. The narrator concludes the
35:02
thought by stating for she was afraid.
35:05
It ends with the exact same Greek construction as Marks
35:08
16.8. So grammatically, it is entirely
35:12
possible to end a sentence and even a narrative scene with that
35:14
word. That leaves only the literary.
35:16
Objection. Is an unresolved cliffhanger
35:19
just a modern existential trick? J Lee Magnus demonstrated in his
35:23
research that suspended endings absolutely existed in antiquity.
35:27
It was a known, albeit rare, literary device.
35:30
In fact, the author Luke likely utilized this exact technique.
35:34
At the end of the book of Acts, he leaves the Apostle Paul under
35:36
house arrest in Rome, his legal fate completely unresolved for
35:39
two whole years. The reader reaches the end of
35:41
the scroll crying out what happened next?
35:43
Did he stand before Caesar? Was he executed?
35:45
The author deliberately refuses to satisfy that curiosity, that
35:49
literary brilliance. Is the key to understanding
35:51
marks design. A suspended ending forces the
35:54
reader to become an active participant in the story.
35:56
The literature expresses more than it says, demanding that the
35:59
reader supply the resolution. When the author suspends the
36:02
narration of a heavily foreshadowed event, like the
36:05
resurrection appearances of Jesus, it makes the impact of
36:08
that event even greater in the expectant mind of the reader.
36:12
So what does this all mean? We've looked at the manuscripts,
36:14
the grammar, and the history. This brings us to the
36:17
theological payoff of Wallace's entire argument.
36:20
There's a stunning literary parallel between Mark Chapter 9
36:23
and Mark chapter 16, Chapter 9, verse 32, right after Jesus
36:27
predicts his death and resurrection.
36:29
Mark tells us the disciples did not understand the statement and
36:32
we're afraid to ask him about it.
36:34
Mark uses a specific Greek verb tense here, an imperfect tense
36:38
verb which conveys continuous ongoing action.
36:40
In the past, they were continually afraid.
36:43
Then when we finally get to the empty tomb in Mark 16.8, Mark
36:47
uses that exact same imperfect verb.
36:49
The women fled and they were continually afraid.
36:52
The thematic resonance. Between those two chapters is
36:54
unmistakable. Throughout the entire gospel,
36:57
Peter and the disciples are depicted as half blind.
37:00
They never quite grasp what Jesus is doing.
37:02
When Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah in chapter 8, he
37:06
envisions A conquering, militant political king who will
37:09
overthrow Rome. He actually rebukes Jesus for
37:12
even suggesting that the Messiah must suffer and die.
37:15
The disciples were consistently slow to get the message they
37:18
wanted, the glory without the cross.
37:20
Mark uses the fear in Chapter 9 and the lingering fear in
37:23
chapter 16 to frame their consistent lack of
37:26
comprehension. If we connect this to.
37:28
The Bigger Picture Mark intentionally drops a narrative
37:31
template to corner the reader. He refuses to neatly tie a bow
37:35
on the story because he wants to confront you, the reader, with a
37:37
choice. He's essentially saying, look,
37:39
the disciples ran away in fear because they could not handle
37:41
the reality of a suffering Messiah.
37:43
What are you going to do? He demands that you answer the
37:46
question for yourself. Will you embrace Jesus in His
37:49
suffering so that you can see Him in His glory?
37:52
Or will you run away in fear when the path requires carrying
37:54
a cross by consciously withholding?
37:57
The comfort of a neatly resolved resurrection appearance, Mark
38:00
forces the reader to rely on faith rather than sight.
38:04
He heightens the presence of the resurrected Christ by making his
38:07
physical absence in the narrative so conspicuous.
38:10
You have to read the abrupt ending not as a failure of
38:13
historical transmission, but as an absolute master class and
38:16
theological storytelling. The abruptness is not a mistake.
38:19
It is the entire point of the book we want to thank you so
38:22
much for. Joining us on this deep dive
38:23
into textual criticism, manuscript history, and literary
38:26
analysis. It is a highly technical topic,
38:29
but looking into the mechanics of how we got our text
38:32
completely alters how you experience reading it.
38:34
We want to leave you with a. Final thought to Mull over on
38:37
your own as you go about your week.
38:39
If the earliest written gospel deliberately withheld the
38:42
comfort of a neatly resolved ending specifically to challenge
38:45
its readers and demand faith, how might that alter the way we
38:49
consume modern media and literature?
38:52
Are we too conditioned by our culture to expect satisfying,
38:55
neatly packaged conclusions in 30 minutes?
38:57
And in demanding that immediate satisfaction, do we miss the
39:00
incredible impact of unresolved tension in our own intellectual
39:03
and spiritual lives? That is a question worth.
39:06
Wrestling with Kee questioning your presuppositions, Kee
39:09
examining the text with a critical eye.
39:10
And be sure to tune in next time for another deep dive.