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Mark

Markchapter 16

20 verses · BSBMark book hub →

Speaks with:John 20×5Matthew 28×4Luke 24×41 Corinthians 15×2Luke 10×2Luke 23×1

Summary

Chapter summary

Resurrection morning; the women find the stone rolled away; the young man in white announces 'he is risen.' The shorter ending closes with fear and flight (16:8). The longer ending (16:9–20). Appearances to Mary Magdalene, to the two on the road, to the eleven; the Great Commission; ascension; signs following. See the textual-evidence panel on this chapter for manuscript and patristic data.

Context

Gospel · Mark — Mark overview

  • A. 1–8 Spices at Sunrise; the Stone Rolled Back
  • B. 9–14 He Appears to Mary and to the Eleven
  • C. 15–20 Go into All the World; Received Up

The outline

  1. A.Spices at Sunrise; the Stone Rolled Backvv. 1 to 8

    Read vv. 1 to 8 →

  2. B.He Appears to Mary and to the Elevenvv. 9 to 14

    Read vv. 9 to 14 →

  3. C.Go into All the World; Received Upvv. 15 to 20

    Read vv. 15 to 20 →

The world behind this chapter

Mark 16
When
The morning of the resurrection · The Sunday after Passover, c. AD 30 or 33
Where
A rock-cut tomb in a garden outside the city wall, at sunrise
Who first heard it
Roman readers who had to decide whether the tomb story could be believed

The history

The women come to finish a burial that had been done in a hurry. Bodies were washed and wrapped with aromatic spices, but the Sabbath had begun at sunset on Friday and no work could be done until it ended at sunset on Saturday — so the earliest possible moment was first light on Sunday.

Their worry about the stone is a practical one. Tomb entrances were low openings closed by a heavy stone, sometimes a disc rolled in a channel, far beyond what three women could shift.

The women are named, and they are the witnesses. In that world a woman's testimony carried little weight in court, and Greek and Roman writers say the same. That every Gospel puts women at the tomb first is not the shape a fabricated case would take.

The ending of Mark is a genuine textual question and worth stating plainly. The two oldest complete Greek manuscripts finish at verse 8, with the women fleeing in fear; other ancient manuscripts carry the longer ending, verses 9 to 20, and a few preserve a shorter alternative. Most printed Bibles include the longer ending with a note. What no manuscript disputes is the empty tomb and the message: he has risen, he is not here.

What it meant to them

The angel's instruction includes two words that would have meant everything to Mark's first readers: tell his disciples and Peter. The man who denied him is singled out by name to be told.

And the meeting place is Galilee — back where it started, in the ordinary working country of fishermen and villages. For a frightened church in Rome, Mark's Gospel ends where their own discipleship had to be lived: not in a shrine, but back at the day job, with the risen Lord going on ahead.

Sources cited

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This site records the readings below for this chapter. Spelling and word-order differences that change no meaning are passed over.

  • Mark 16:9-20

    The Ending of Mark

    The last twelve verses of Mark are in the great majority of Greek manuscripts and are quoted by Irenaeus around AD 180, and they are missing from the two oldest complete Bibles we have.

    What the manuscripts read here →

Textual evidence — Mark 16:9–20

Verdict: Authentic

The longer ending of Mark is absent from Sinaiticus and Vaticanus but present in Alexandrinus, Ephraemi, Bezae, the Peshitta, the Old Latin, and in the vast Byzantine tradition. It is cited by Irenaeus around AD 180, older than the two great uncials that omit it. A Greek narrative ending on γάρ (16:8) is grammatically unsustainable. The verdict summarized here follows Burgon's 1871 evidence trail.

Manuscript census

The verses are present in the overwhelming majority of Greek manuscripts, in the early versions (Latin, Syriac, Coptic), and in lectionary tradition. Absent from only two major 4th-century uncials (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) and in a handful of later witnesses.

  • absent
    Codex Sinaiticus (א)(4th century)

    Ends at 16:8; blank column before Luke, scribal awareness of a disputed terminus.

  • absent
    Codex Vaticanus (B)(4th century)

    Ends at 16:8; blank column before Luke.

  • present
    Codex Alexandrinus (A)(5th century)
  • present
    Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C)(5th century)
  • present
    Codex Bezae (D)(5th century)
  • present
    Codex Washingtonianus (W)(4th/5th century)

    Contains the longer ending with a distinctive interpolation after 16:14 ('Freer Logion').

  • partial
    Old Latin (k, Codex Bobbiensis)(4th century)

    Has the shorter ending only; one of the few Latin witnesses to diverge.

  • present
    Vulgate / later Latin tradition(late 4th century onward)
  • present
    Peshitta (Syriac)(4th/5th century)
  • present
    Byzantine majority(9th–15th century)

    Effectively universal in the tradition that produced the textus receptus.

Heptatic analysis

Greek words in the passage175 = 25 × 7
Letters in the passage553 = 79 × 7
Distinct vocabulary words98 = 14 × 7
Words used elsewhere in Mark84 = 12 × 7

Panin's numeric patterns are not a proof text; they are a literary-statistical footnote. The density of sevens is harder to explain on the hypothesis of a later interpolation than on the hypothesis of a Markan original.

Source: Panin, Numeric Greek New Testament (1934, PD)

Patristic witnesses

  1. Justin Martyrc. 150
    First Apology— 45

    Language of 'going forth and preaching everywhere' echoes 16:20, predating the 4th-century uncials by nearly two centuries.

  2. Tatianc. 170
    Diatessaron

    The harmony incorporates the longer ending, implying its presence in the Greek text Tatian harmonized.

  3. Irenaeusc. 180
    Against Heresies— III.10.6
    “…in fine autem Evangelii ait Marcus: Et quidem Dominus Jesus, postquam locutus est eis, receptus est in cælos, et sedet ad dexteram Dei.”

    Direct quotation of 16:19, concrete evidence in the mid-second century, earlier than Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.

  4. Hippolytus of Romec. 215
    Apostolic Tradition / On Charismata

    Cites 16:17–18 in discussions of spiritual gifts.

  5. Vincentius of Thibaris (at the Seventh Council of Carthage)256
    Sententiae Episcoporum

    Quotes 16:17 as Scripture in public conciliar deliberation.

Theological integration

  • A Gospel cannot end on γάρ

    If Mark intended to close at 16:8 the narrative would end with the Greek particle γάρ ('for'). No extant Greek composition of any length is known to close this way. The grammatical argument was already forceful in Burgon's day and has only tightened since.

  • Resurrection witness across the Gospels

    Matthew 28 and Luke 24 both narrate post-resurrection appearances, the commissioning of the disciples, and the ascension. A Gospel ending at Mark 16:8 would leave Mark uniquely silent on the events the other three evangelists treat as indispensable, a silence unaccountable on literary and theological grounds alike.

  • The Great Commission parallel

    16:15 (‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature’) tracks Matt 28:19–20 and Luke 24:46–48. Rather than a scribe inventing a commission that already exists in two other Gospels, the natural reading is that Mark preserved the shared apostolic memory in his own voice.

  • Stylistic consistency

    Burgon catalogued the vocabulary and phrasing of 16:9–20 and showed that Markan fingerprints, καί in narrative sequence, πορεύομαι in the missionary sense, run through the pericope. The Freer Logion interpolation, by contrast, is stylistically unlike Mark and is rightly rejected.

Sources

  • John W. Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark Vindicated (1871), 72-page monograph cataloguing the manuscript and patristic evidence.
  • Ivan Panin, The New Testament in the Original Greek (1934), Source for the heptatic figures; public-domain Greek text.
  • Frederick H. A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament (1894), Reference catalogue of Greek uncials, versions, and lectionaries.
  • Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies (tr. Roberts & Rambaut) (1867), Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. I, for the Latin text quoted above.

Connections from this chapter

v. 7 · Bookends: the same words open and close

Peter is the first named disciple in Mark (1:16–18) and the last one named (16:7), bracketing the whole Gospel. Bauckham reads that bracket as Mark naming his eyewitness source: the ancient convention of an “inclusio of eyewitness testimony.”

Mark 1:16→

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (2006/2017); critical reviews (allkirk.net)

Where scholars push back(1)

Mark 1:16. Reviewers answer that Peter's prominence at both ends may simply reflect his prominence in the story, without signalling authorship.

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

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