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Mark 16:9-20 - The Disputed Ending

If you've got your Bibles and want to turn, even if you don't have a Bible and don't want to turn, we're still going to be in Mark chapter 16. Mark chapter 16, I'm going to read verses 9 through 20, the end of the book.

Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.

After these things, he appeared in another form to two of them as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.

Afterward, he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.

And he said to them, Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

And these signs will accompany those who believe. In my name they will cast out demons, they will speak in new tongues, they will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poison it will not hurt them. They will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover.

So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.

Textual Issues with Mark's Ending

Well, if you do have your Bible in front of you, your text there that we just read is probably set off in brackets. And you might ask, why are there brackets? And we talked about that a couple of weeks ago, but if you weren't here or if you were here and your eyes glazed over as we spent 15 minutes talking about textual criticism, I would understand that. So I'm just gonna give you the short version this morning.

The end of Mark's gospel is disputed. Most biblical scholars do not believe that Mark, the author of this gospel, wrote verses 9 through 20. Some folks suggest that he wrote a different ending, which was lost at some point. Others, that he simply ended abruptly with verse 8, which is the position that I take. I think Mark intentionally ended with verse 8. And then this later ending, verses 9 through 20, were attached sometime in the first two centuries of the church.

The earliest manuscripts that we have don't include these verses. And early church testimony suggests that these verses weren't there in the earliest copies of Mark's gospel. Nonetheless, early on they were attached. But I think Mark intentionally left us with verse 8. The women are running away from the tomb in fear. They haven't seen Jesus yet. They've just heard the angels who have given the message that Jesus is alive. And I think Mark does that to leave us with this question of what are you going to do with the good news that Jesus is alive? Are you going to believe or are you going to doubt. There's no more important question for you to answer is what are you going to do with the good news of the resurrection of Jesus?

But then we still do have these verses, verses 9 through 20, and they have been around for a long time. Again, second century probably is the first time we see these start getting attached to Mark's gospel, and you can understand how that would happen. Now, if you were in the early church and you're reading copies of the gospel and then you're making copies by hand, right? This is before the printing press, before typing. So you'