04 — The Ending of Mark
The collection’s flagship textual section: the problem of how the Gospel of Mark ends. The earliest and best Greek manuscripts (Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus) close the Gospel at 16:8, with the women fleeing the empty tomb in fear and silence; the majority of later manuscripts and the received text continue with the “longer ending,” 16:9–20; a few witnesses preserve a “shorter ending”; and the Church reads the longer ending liturgically as the third of the eleven Matins Resurrection Gospels. These files set out the manuscript evidence and the scholarly positions, and then read the empty-tomb narrative that all the endings extend.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle and Evangelist)
No textual problem in the New Testament is more famous than the ending of Mark. The question is not whether 16:9–20 is Scripture as the Church has received it — it is read at the Divine Liturgy and as a Matins Resurrection Gospel — but whether it stood in Mark’s original autograph or was added to round off a Gospel that, on the manuscript evidence, appears to break off at the women’s fear at 16:8. This is a textbook case of the difference between the liturgically and canonically received text and the earliest recoverable text, and it is handled here as a structured dispute, naming the manuscripts, the patristic witnesses (Eusebius, Jerome), and the modern editions. The companion file then treats the empty-tomb scene (16:1–8) on its own terms.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Endings of Mark | The textual problem of Mark 16: the abrupt ending at 16:8; the longer ending (16:9–20) in the majority text and its liturgical use as the third Matins Resurrection Gospel; the shorter ending; the omission in Sinaiticus and Vaticanus; the witness of Eusebius and Jerome; and the scholarly positions presented as a structured dispute. |
| The Empty Tomb | Mark 16:1–8: the women coming to the tomb, the rolled-away stone, the young man in white, “He is risen, he is not here,” and the women’s flight in fear and trembling — the resolution (and the mystery) of the Gospel’s ending. |
See Also
- The Way of the Cross — the passion the resurrection answers
- Authorship and Dating — how the ending bears on the Gospel’s composition
- Great Feasts — Pascha and the resurrection the empty tomb proclaims
- Holy Scripture — text, canon, and the received liturgical Gospel
References
- The Gospel according to Mark 16:1–20. Greek New Testament (NA28) consulted, with the double-bracketed longer ending.
- Metzger, Bruce M. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. 2nd ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994.
- Metzger, Bruce M., and Bart D. Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
- Eusebius of Caesarea. Ad Marinum (Quaestiones ad Marinum). On the discrepancy of the resurrection accounts and the manuscripts of Mark.