What Is The Real Ending To The Gospel of Mark?

What Is The Real Ending To The Gospel of Mark? James D. Tabor PhD

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Gospel of Mark is the most influential piece of literature from the ancient world. Even though Paul’s letters are written earlier, they offer us no “Jesus Story.” Mark is our earliest narrative presentation of the figure of Jesus. However, it is purposely constructed as a “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” And even though it is now embedded in the New Testament, it is essentially lost and forgotten.

Matthew and Luke are essentially “rewritten Mark.” These writers use Mark as their main source, but utterly deconstruct and, as a result, essentially “destroy” it. Even though they incorporate up to 80% of Mark as their core story—once edited and embedded in their narrative, Mark as Mark basically ceases to exist. In that sense it has remained “unread” for the past two millennia.

Mark is in fact a kind of anti-gospel or counter-gospel. It could even be seen as “anti-Christian.” It stands in opposition to the master narrative of the Jesus Story that becomes the heart and core of the Christian Gospel—cobbled together from Matthew, Luke, and John—and the early Christian Creeds, all of whom completely lose—and even reject—Mark’s presentation.

In this course Dr. Tabor pulls Mark out of the New Testament, strips it from later forms of orthodox and dogmatic Christianity, and places it in its original historical context—as a post-War apocalyptic treatise following the destruction of Jerusalem. Its view of God, of Israel, and of the Messiah, is utterly opposite to and opposed to what emerged as early Christianity.

The focus of the course is a detailed exposition of the Mark as Mark. Mark is a skillfully constructed as a three-part drama, with clear literary motifs that move the story along in very carefully worked out directions, ending with a dead messiah, forsaken by God, his contemporary Jewish culture, and even his closest followers and disciples. The reader is left alone at the end, to try and sort out what it all means, with no direction home. And yet, embedded in the narrative, is a certain “understanding” of the message, but only for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

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#gospel #mythvision #MythVisionPodcast #mvp #dereklambert

[thescoobymike]

I just read Mark and John back to back and the contrast is incredible

[shawn-wrux]

Derek Im an agnostic now. Im still considering Christianity heavily but your channel helps me to see that there actually could be real defeaters for christianity.

[agc]

I just quickly re-read the book of Mark, how anyone can think it's true history is beyond me. It's clearly figurative and written for a particular audience who were presumed to already be familiar with people like Pilate and Herod; but the thing about the original ending that sticks out to me is that only a place is given for Jesus's return not a time. So Galilee must have already meant something to the audience. It must be referencing something that had happened at Galilee the audience were already familiar with, otherwise it's pointless.

[edwardmiessner]

The more Dr Tabor spoke about the true ending of Mark, the more I am convinced that the Gospel of Mark is principally a mimesis of a hagiographic, historical account of the life, death, funeral, and apotheosis of Julius Caesar, but with other _mythoi_ and histories including Homer and the LXX OT weaved into the mix.

[enoynaert]

I wonder if Mark wanted to write a sequel. Perhaps the author of Mark was going to write his own version of Acts. The existing end of Mark feels like an intentional cliffhanger. All it is missing is "To Be Continued" flashing across the screen.

I don't think Mark "didn't know the stories" following the empty tomb. I think Mark knew some stories, but he wove the stories he knew with new stories he was creating. I think "Mark I" was intended to be entertaining and informative. He was not overly concerned with accuracy. He wanted to create a story. He grew a placid Lake Tiberias into a raging, storm-tossed sea. The accurate details were not as important to the author of Mark as the story.

He may not have written "Mark II" yet, but I think he had the outline in his head. It is possible that things like the transfiguration story were a foreshadowing of what was going to happen when Jesus visited his disciples in Galilee.

[DeepDrinks]

Imagine watching this video and not signing up for this course!

[derekhenrich]

It's like a Coen Brothers ending...
Greetings from Germany from one Derek to another

[FatherVampire]

Let me help save you some money: Original Mark ends exactly as we read it does in Ch. 16, V. 8: With the tomb found empty, Yeshua (Jesus) gone... and the women also gone, never to appear again in history. All else after that... most certainly all that was later tacked onto Mark, including the supposed "final appearance" to the "apostles" in Galilee... was concocted later by the "apostles" and/or Saul(Paul). Thus, all we know for sure is that in the end, the "apostles" were left clueless as to what had actually happened... and why.

Then apparently either they or someone else recalled Yeshua (Jesus) promising His Galilean disciples that following their trip to Jerusalem for the Passover, He would return to Galilee, again ... and then they apparently later heard that, indeed, He actually had returned to Galilee... and to His disciples there, who all had strangely... disappeared along with the women! All that were left were the few Jerusalem disciples and the Galilean "apostles" who had remained in Jerusalem throughout the Passover weekend. Thus... they missed Yeshua's promised Galilean return. OOPS!

Thus these supposed "apostles" learned the hard way that they weren't part of Yeshua's true Inner Circle, after all. And, they had been left behind. Thus, all they had was the hope of hopes that Yeshua might still return again someday for them, too... this time in "clouds of glory" and all that stuff they later invented for Him. Of course, He never did. And so as they waited... the "apostles" decided to work together to fabricate a new mission and meaning and identity for Yeshua that would permit them to start a NEW religion using their concocted "Christology" as its foundation. And from that... all the later stories (beginning with the tacked-on longer version of Mark) were concocted by them, deliberately fabricated so as to falsely paint them as Yeshua's "apostles" fully commissioned by Him to create and proselytize what eventually became what we today call "Christianity."

[aaronaragon]

I'm in...very interesting. Dr Tabor is amazing.

[djfrank]

Just signed up for the course. Hope I have time to complete before March 5. :-)

[TheWayofFairness]

Fiction does not actually have an ending.

[stevenv]

Interesting that someone combined the three other gospels for this ending. Paradoxically if that longer ending could be dated to a specific time, wouldn't that show that these four gospels were considered canonical at the time?

[toxendon]

I really want to do the course but I'm working on march 5....

[thebadcellist]

The simplest, most obvious theory is that Mark originally went past 16:8 and the original ending has been lost, with later endings clumsily tacked on. Dr. Tabor MUST know of this theory -- it's probably held by a majority of scholars -- but he doesn't even mention it. Why not? Instead, he holds that Mark, in Chapter 16 and nowhere else, decides to play postmodern/Camus on us by making us scratch our heads.

[sassybanjo]

We need to consider the Interlinear Greek when the last word in verse 8 is "for". Mark did not finish the sentence? Perhaps he died, was arrested or perhaps Peter tore off the ending of what Mark wrote because Mark was his personal assistant and he didn't like the ending. It appears to be open ended (because of the one conjunction "for") and I do not believe Mark intended to leave it that way.

[momszycat]

This course sounds so interesting, however I have to buy medications this month as I do every month going to happen. But thanks for the opportunity

[uncleanunicorn]

And of course, adding new pericopes to suit a theological purpose of later Christians ruins whatever metaphors and messages the original author was trying to convey.

[thegambitbandit]

Will there be a way to replay this teaching once purchased?

[jessknauftofsantaynezvalle]

At about five minutes & forty seconds into the video Tabor makes the claim that the longer ending was probably forged in the 6th, 7th or 8th century. Now that is an astounding claim as, among other things, Ireneaus clearly sites the longer ending as being part of a Gospel of Mark that he had access to. Born around 120 AD, Irenaeus grew up in the city of Smyrna in Asia Minor. He reports that in his youth he heard the teachings of Polycarp (who had, in turn, been a companion of Papias, and had heard John).

In reading Irenaeus, we are chronologically within a very short period away from the apostles themselves. Irenaeus has a continuationist view of healing miracles, as he gives testimonials to signs, wonders & healing miracles occurring in his day. His testimonial claims function as a type of reciprocal historical analogy for those involved in the chain of custody of the Gospel manuscripts. That is because this serves as evidence that the custodians believed the versions of that Gospel that contained the longer ending of Mark (with a general promise of signs & wonders) was not written to be read as a pious form of fictional Harry Potter type magical narratives.


James Snapp has done a lot of research in this area. I think he would be a good person to debate Tabor on this issue. Snapp holds to the view that the longer ending John Mark is not fraudulent, but is a later supplemental ending that Mark added to his Gospel. He points out:

[rocioaguilera]

All of the evangelists are fictitious characters.
The gospels were written by many people and they didn't care for the inconsistencies.