Christian Texts and History • The Best Bad Explanation

argued that the original ending of the Gospel was suppressed in the interests of harmony because of the rivaling Jerusalem and Galilean resurrection appearance traditions, which found their place in
the Lukan and Matthean accounts respectively and jointly in chapters 20 and 21 of the Fourth Gospel, where the Galilean tradition is added as an appendix in the final chapter to recon-cile both theories.4

Mark probably assumed some familiarity among his readers with the appearance traditions, and so he chose to end the Gospel subtly and dramatically by leaving the readers acknowledging the resurrection and looking forward to the parousia.

• 1. As far as we know GMark is the original Gospel narrative that all others were based on.
  2. Most of GMark's hearers probably had never heard of Jesus.
  3. Orthodox Christianity has always claimed that the most important assertion of Christianity is that there was known
  historical witness to a resurrected Jesus. Strange/bizarre/macabre that the original Gospel would not only not show this but put a lot of effort into denying it.

The dominant theme of 16:8 is not the women’s disobedience but their fright. The women were seized with terror and bewilderment (τρόμος καὶ ἔκστασις). They were scared (ἐφοβοῦντο). Their actions, too, display their fright. They fled the tomb (ἔφυγον ἀπὸ τοῦ μνημείου), and they did tell anyone. Whatever the function of 16:8 is, it must involve fright.

I propose that this theme of fright was meant to enhance, not undercut, the authority of the young man in white.

This lack of closure may perhaps have seemed less problematic in the context of early Christian communities in which visions of the risen Christ were part of their religious experience. It also needs to be placed in the context of a vibrant oral tradition that was both the author’s and the readers' primary mode of contact with stories about Jesus. There can be no doubt that, even if the written Gospel of Mark ended at 16:8, the story known to the author and his readers did not.

He just never finished it

Part of my argument was that Mark 16:8 does not depict the women as disobeying and failing to do what they were told to do–to go to Peter and the Twelve with news of Jesus’ resurrection. Instead, “they said nothing to anyone” should be read as meaning that they said nothing to anyone else.

I believe that the external and internal evidence support the view that Mark 16:9-20 was in the Gospel of Mark in the form in which it was first transmitted for Church-use. The passage is more likely to have been attached in the production-stage than at a later stage.