Was there a lost ending of Mark?

[mlinssen]

This doesn’t solve the problem of how abrupt the ending is that we have. In order to completely discount any possibility of a lost ending, we’d have to find really solid arguments that the ending per Mark 16:8 is intentionally abrupt.

For many the ending at 16:8 isn't a problem at all. I think it's pretty cool and fitting.

From a psychological pov (sorry!) it seems to me that the undertaking to discover that there was a lost end and to reconstruct a lost end looks like a modern variant form of those ancient attempts to add a longer ending. Joe may have meant the same

"If you are searching and searching for something and you just can't seem to find it anywhere, it probably means it's lost" - Granny Wallack

There's not much of an undertaking there Kunigunde, the earliest MSS simply lack the longer ending.
Nor is there much to reconstruct, there are two extra endings that come after 16:8 - all in early MSS as well

Yes, believe it or not, but some people actually base their claims on written texts. Incredible, isn't it

[Snakeman]

Evan Powell believed that the 21st chapter of the Gospel of John was actually the final chapter of the Gospel of Mark.

Ben discusses that idea the first thread I linked to above and he seems partial to it.

Not saying I necessarily agree yet, but this line seems pretty Marcan.

John 21:7b When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea.

I don't see how that seems at all Marcan. 'Simon Peter' is the standard way of referring to the disciple throughout John but is never once used in Mark. Notably that term is also used precisely once in Luke, and that one occurrence is in the story about the miraculous fishing haul - that suggests to me that this story from Luke is based (perhaps indirectly) on the extant John 21, not both upon a lost Marcan version. That line also has Jesus referred to by the disciples as 'the Lord', an identification which they never explicitly make in Mark (but is consistently used in John's resurrection appearances: cf. 20:2, 20:18, 20:25) - if Mark's Peter had been told that 'it was the Lord' he most likely would've looked on in confused and totally missed the point. That isn't to say it is impossible that John 21 is loosely based on a lost scene from Mark, but at least in its received form it clearly fits John far better than it does Mark.

[Peter Kirby]

Evan Powell believed that the 21st chapter of the Gospel of John was actually the final chapter of the Gospel of Mark.

Ben discusses that idea the first thread I linked to above and he seems partial to it.

Not saying I necessarily agree yet, but this line seems pretty Marcan.

John 21:7b When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea.

I don't see how that seems at all Marcan. 'Simon Peter' is the standard way of referring to the disciple throughout John but is never once used in Mark. Notably that term is also used precisely once in Luke, and that one occurrence is in the story about the miraculous fishing haul - that suggests to me that this story from Luke is based (perhaps indirectly) on the extant John 21, not both upon a lost Marcan version. That line also has Jesus referred to by the disciples as 'the Lord', an identification which they never explicitly make in Mark (but is consistently used in John's resurrection appearances: cf. 20:2, 20:18, 20:25) - if Mark's Peter had been told that 'it was the Lord' he most likely would've looked on in confused and totally missed the point. That isn't to say it is impossible that John 21 is loosely based on a lost scene from Mark, but at least in its received form it clearly fits John far better than it does Mark.

Welcome to the forum! Good points.

[davidlau17]

Evan Powell believed that the 21st chapter of the Gospel of John was actually the final chapter of the Gospel of Mark.

Ben discusses that idea the first thread I linked to above and he seems partial to it.

Not saying I necessarily agree yet, but this line seems pretty Marcan.

John 21:7b When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea.

I don't see how that seems at all Marcan. 'Simon Peter' is the standard way of referring to the disciple throughout John but is never once used in Mark. Notably that term is also used precisely once in Luke, and that one occurrence is in the story about the miraculous fishing haul - that suggests to me that this story from Luke is based (perhaps indirectly) on the extant John 21, not both upon a lost Marcan version. That line also has Jesus referred to by the disciples as 'the Lord', an identification which they never explicitly make in Mark (but is consistently used in John's resurrection appearances: cf. 20:2, 20:18, 20:25) - if Mark's Peter had been told that 'it was the Lord' he most likely would've looked on in confused and totally missed the point. That isn't to say it is impossible that John 21 is loosely based on a lost scene from Mark, but at least in its received form it clearly fits John far better than it does Mark.

I was referring to the aspect of the passage in which a disciple was naked and immediately became clothed upon recognizing Jesus. This is in keeping with the imagery of nudity vs. clothing used in Mark, most notably Mark 14:51-52. I admit, however, that there are other elements of the passage that don't seem at all Marcan (its use of "the Lord", "Simon Peter"), which you've diligently noted.

[neilgodfrey]

I was referring to the aspect of the passage in which a disciple was naked and immediately became clothed upon recognizing Jesus. This is in keeping with the imagery of nudity vs. clothing used in Mark, most notably Mark 14:51-52. I admit, however, that there are other elements of the passage that don't seem at all Marcan (its use of "the Lord", "Simon Peter"), which you've diligently noted.

The first thing that strikes me about the Gospel of John's drawing the reader's attention to the short-lived nakedness of Peter is that it is "so very much like" other ways GJohn has been understood to re-write GMark. It's almost as if the Johannine author has deployed a special knack of turning Mark inside out through a step by step dialogue with that gospel.

The naked-then-clothed Peter who denied Jesus in John reminds one of the clothed-then-naked young man who fled from Jesus at his arrest. There is also the reminder of the Geresene demoniac in Mark. Peter is once again put in second place as he was in the scene at the tomb where the "other disciple" was said to have believed but not Peter.

[mlinssen]

Given that Jesus says that he will "go ahead of" the disciples to Galilee in Mk. 14:28 and that the young man in the empty tomb in 16:7 says, "There you will see him, just as he told you,” I'm inclined to think that Mark had a lost ending in which Jesus appeared to his disciples in Galilee. Ben has made an excellent case for a lost ending in these two threads (which I'd somehow never noticed until recently), and the only thing I would add to them is that I think the reason the ending is lost is because it included a resurrection appearance to Judas Iscariot.


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The reason I think Jesus appeared to Judas is that Mark doesn't mention his death and because if Jesus' prediction in 14:27-28 that "you will all fall away" includes Judas then his prediction that "after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee” logically also includes Judas.

I also think that Matthew and Luke/Acts used Mark, and what do they have in common? They both (in different ways) relate the death of Judas, which is an indication to me that a resurrection appearance to Judas was unacceptable to the earliest readers of Mark and that its original ending may have been removed for this reason, perhaps before Matthew and Luke even saw Mark.

Papias (who I date c. 115 CE) relates an oral tradition regarding the death of Judas, and this is another indication to me that a resurrection appearance to Judas was unacceptable to the earliest readers of Mark. And since in my view Papias knew Matthew and says that it was originally written in Hebrew and translated multiple times, I suspect that the Matthew he knew may not have been the NT version (since it has an account of the death of Judas), but was instead the original Hebrew version or a different translation of it than the NT version (which presumably did not have an account of the death of Judas).

All this is entirely speculative and can't be proven, but I think it makes sense of the information we have, at least.

My latest involves the assumption that *Ev didn't have his Jesus resurrect from the dead. Klinghardt's construction demonstrates otherwise but I'm nitpicking it

As such, the mere promise in Mark to go before the disciples, and the empty tomb, are more than enough to mitigate his death.
Of course Matthew needs to fix that just as he fixes most everything else of Mark but it's a solid basis and a large editorial in essence.
And as such, *Ev likely ended at around Mark 15:39, a really fine zooming out of the scene

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

My latest involves the assumption that *Ev didn't have his Jesus resurrect from the dead. Klinghardt's construction demonstrates otherwise but I'm nitpicking it

Well attested for GMarcion are

GLuke 24.1-8, the visit to the tomb, the announcement to the eleven -> Tertullian, Epiphanius
GLuke 24.13-35, the appearance on the road to Emmaus -> Tertullian, Epiphanius, Adamantius
GLuke 24.36-47, the appearance to the eleven in Jerusalem -> Tertullian, Epiphanius, Adamantius, Eznik

Our own Ben C. Smith agreed with Harnack and Dieter Roth.

[mlinssen]

My latest involves the assumption that *Ev didn't have his Jesus resurrect from the dead. Klinghardt's construction demonstrates otherwise but I'm nitpicking it

Well attested for GMarcion are

GLuke 24.1-8, the visit to the tomb, the announcement to the eleven -> Tertullian, Epiphanius
GLuke 24.13-35, the appearance on the road to Emmaus -> Tertullian, Epiphanius, Adamantius
GLuke 24.36-47, the appearance to the eleven in Jerusalem -> Tertullian, Epiphanius, Adamantius, Eznik

Our own Ben C. Smith agreed with Harnack and Dieter Roth.

Harnack must be largely ignored, and so must Roth - their reconstruction was written even before they started and they evade the episodes that are problematic for their thesis. Above all they lack a critical stand to the FF

Having said that, Klinghardt labels 24:1-12 as "altogether well-attested and certainly present", and attests to 24:13-18,25f,31,37-39,41-43

I don't see a business case for *Ev killing Jesus and then having him resurrected - it's pointless. I do see a splendid business case in Mark mitigating the killing of Jesus by Judaics (executed by Romans) by having him resurrected.
He throws in the women as an extra to seemingly soften it all up, and introduces them in 15:40 in order to have them play the main role.
15:41 is a hilarious over explanation typical of Mark and an overt excuse. Klinghardt acknowledges Joseph during the burial, the remainder of Mark 15 is theatre and Judaic linking.
16:6 basically is the only action, yet 16:8 the only verse that matters of everything in between 15:39 and 16:8, and truly apologetic, attesting to the fact that *Ev doesn't have any of it

"Jesus didn't really die, but the goddamn women who were supposed, nay even instructed by a bloody angel to tell everyone, shit their pants and ran away"

That's the Markan editorial to *Ev - and it initially ended with giving away its entire raison d'etre in its final sentence.
Matthew can't drop the dumb scene anymore but cunningly turns it to his advantage by simply repeating it yet having then meekly report out to the disciples and he throws in Jesus as a bonus so we all overlook what happened in Mark - and then he adds the falsifying guards in order to explain how the story that became true after Mark now was no longer true.
*Ev basically ends at Luke 23:47 and the rest is a conflation between Mark and Matthew but Matthew inserts ἀποστόλους into the narrative (one of the four times that he makes that mistake) as the recipients of the news by the women in his haste to have Peter be the first one to actually see the empty tomb

So yeah, I'll be writing that paper

[neilgodfrey]

The Gospel of Mark is not unique among ancient texts with abrupt endings. The Aeneid ends suddenly, too, leaving modern readers frustrated that they don't learn what happened after the death of Turnus. Herodotus's Histories also ends strangely -- with an apparently unrelated reference to the landscape of Persia. Ditto for Acts -- what happened to Paul after two years? Strange endings. I think we begin to stretch the imagination if we say all of these endings are the result of some vandal ripping out and disposing of the final pages, or that all the authors died just before they had time to write the final paragraphs.

Some years back I looked for discussions to help understand these kinds of endings since they are obviously not limited to the biblical literature. I came across

• Roberts, Deborah H., Francis Dunn, and Don Fowler, eds. Classical Closure. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1997.

-- now available via https://archive.org/details/classicalclosure0000unse

I posted often on the ending of Mark as I read and thought more:

https://vridar.org/series-index/the-ending-of-mark-168/

[Ken Olson]

It's a shame Ben Smith is no longer here and can't defend his proposal linked in the OP. His Textecavation.com site is down too and the domain name is available. I think it was still up last month.

I gave a paper on the ending of Mark in the Mark section of SBL in 2006. I defended the theory that Mark originally ended at Mark 16.8 against the criticism of the (at that time) recently published book by N. Clayton Croy, The Mutilation of Mark's Gospel (2003). I emailed Clayton Croy a copy of the paper and invited him to attend, which he did. He did not ask any questions during the Q and A, but introduced himself afterwards and we had a genial conversation and he gave me an annotated copy of my paper with his notes. I was really impressed with him personally. He was encouraging and not at all confrontational.

I don't think I have a copy of the SBL paper anymore, but the editor of BTB asked me if I would like to submit a review of the book, so I did. I'm attaching screenshots of the review in case that is of interest in this thread.

Croy 1.png (263.31 KiB) Viewed 1323 times

Croy 2.png (280.04 KiB) Viewed 1323 times

Best,

Ken