Mark 16

Perfumes and fragrant spices placed on the body and in the linen wrapped around the body helped mask the smell of decay while family and friends mourned at the tomb.

So had the Son.

Funny thing about the writer credited with writing this book that seems to have misplaced its ending. He was perhaps most famous for not finishing what he started. He joined his cousin Barnabas along with Paul on Paul’s first-known mission trip. But when they reached the swampy southern coast of Turkey, “John Mark decided to turn around and go back to Jerusalem” (Acts 13:13). Paul was so livid that he rejected Mark’s request to let him come on the second mission trip. But the two reconciled later and traveled together.

The Gospel of Mark ends here in the oldest copied manuscripts. Those are the ones that Bible experts generally say are the most reliable. They suggest that someone later added the following verses by pulling from the other Gospels—possibly to give Mark an ending that doesn’t leave people saying, “Huh?”

This closing section (Mark 16:9-20) reads like a compilation borrowed from the other Gospel stories. Many Bible experts say that somewhere along the line, some editor probably felt that the Gospel of Mark needed a little extra material added to the end of the book. So the editor pulled a few strands from the other Gospels to wrap up the loose ends in Mark. Most writers know that editors are certainly willing and able to do this, if given the chance. When scholars review all of the ancient copies of Mark, there are actually four different endings. (1) The most reliable ends at 16:8. (2) There’s another, nicknamed the “Short Ending,” which includes this little wrap-up paragraph after verse 8: “The women briefly told Peter and the other disciples what happened. Later, Jesus sent the disciples on the road east to west with the message of salvation that is holy, indestructible, and loaded with the gift of eternal life. And that’s the truth.” (3) A third ending, nicknamed the “Long Ending,” includes all 20 verses. (4) The fourth ending includes all of the 20 verses given in the text, plus the “Short Ending.” We might as well go ahead and call that the “Long and Short of It Ending.”

“Two followers of Jesus were walking to the village of Emmaus, about seven miles [11 km] from Jerusalem. . . . Jesus caught up and started walking with them” (Luke 24:13, 15).

More literally, “he appeared in another form.” “They weren’t able to recognize him” (Luke 24:16).

The writer uses the Greek word glossa, often translated as “tongues.” It can mean other human languages. But it can also mean a spiritual language that can sound to others like gibberish. Many early Christians, including Paul and Christians in Corinth, seemed to believe that the Holy Spirit allowed some people to speak in a language that Paul once described as the “tongues of angels” (see 1 Corinthians 13:1). Some Bible experts say that Paul put this gift last on this list because it was causing problems at the church in Corinth. It disrupted worship services when someone would stand up and start talking in a language that made no sense to most people in the room. Paul addresses the problem in 1 Corinthians 14.

Whoever wrote this may have had in mind Paul’s snakebite (Acts 28:3-5) or snakes that bit the Jews when Moses led the Jews on their exodus out of Egypt (Numbers 21:4-9). Or maybe it referred to Jesus telling his 72 followers, “You can walk on snakes and scorpions. Nothing can hurt you” (Luke 10:19).