Mark 16:9-20

Dubious Denoument (2009) (32" x 16 3/4" x 1 1/4")

collage in type case



If most of you try to look up these verses in your Bible, they will be missing or given in small type. This is because they are not present in the earliest existing manuscripts of Mark that we possess. There are several theories to account for their appearance in later manuscripts. The most popular one is that Mark either intended to end his Gospel at verse 8 or that the original ending was lost early in the process of transmission. In either case, someone later on appended verses 9-20 to provide a "more appropriate" ending.

My own feeling, based on structural analysis, is that the last verses of Mark's original Gospel were lost, but that we can go to the ending of Luke's Gospel to get a good idea of how it originally read.