First, a little background. Take a look in your Bible at Mark 16. There are probably brackets around verses 9-20. There may also be a footnote explaining why there are brackets. Mine says, “some of the oldest manuscripts do not contain verses 9-20.” A manuscript is just like it sounds – a hand written copy, in this case, a hand-written copy of the gospel of Mark.
Let’s take a moment and appreciate that the reason we have any of the books of the Old and New Testament is that a whole lot of people through Christian history, long before the printing press, took the time to write it the Bible by hand. Amazingly, all of these handwritten copies of all the books of the Bible are about 95% the same, across the board. The differences, you will happy to know, mostly deal with things like tenses of verbs, whether a noun is singular or plural, spelling of names, etc. No major doctrinal issues are at stake in the differences between manuscripts. And when manuscripts differ there are always footnotes to let you know. It’s not hidden. One of those manuscript differences is in Mark 16.
What the footnote means to verse 8 means is that in the oldest copies of Mark, the gospel ends at verse 8. The women who followed Jesus went to his tomb, and found an angel there who said Jesus rose from the dead. And then the concluding statement of the book: “And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
The End.
Wait, what?
The end? How can that be the end? Some scholars propose that this is NOT the end, that the oldest copies are missing a piece (not the last page – no books yet, it would be missing a section of scroll). Others propose this was the original end, but made so little sense later copyists borrowed details from the end of other gospels for verses 9-20, just to make sense of the thing.
I am of the latter opinion. I think verse 8 was the original ending, and that it ends that way on purpose.
The reason: it’s a cliffhanger!
Mark’s gospel hurries along in a bit of a rush. He uses the word “immediately” eight times in sixteen chapters. Look at your Bible. Almost every paragraph starts with “and.” It’s as if each incident in the story is rushing headlong, barely stopping to let the last one sink in. “And then, and then, and then…” A cliffhanger ending makes sense given the breakneck pace of the rest of the gospel.
In talking about this passage in our devotional time with the ESL class, the translator explained the English idiom “cliffhanger” as; “like the end of an episode of a novella (Spanish soap opera).” The characters are in danger, a moment of crisis, what will happen next?! “Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion…”
Now, if you aren’t expecting a cliffhanger ending, it can be a little jarring. My brother told me a story about going to see the first Lord of the Rings movie. (Joel, correct me if I mis-remembered this!) Someone in the theater apparently didn’t know it was the first part of a trilogy. So when Frodo and Sam march off into Mordor and Aragorn and the gang head the other way, and the credits started to roll, that person said loudly, “That’s it!?!”
And if verse 8 is the end of the gospel, you might get the same feeling. So why would you end a story, particularly the story of the life of Jesus, with a cliffhanger? I think Mark did it for the same reason you end anything else with a cliffhanger – you want people to stick around for the sequel. And in Mark’s case, I think he is trying to get readers of the gospel to realize they are IN the sequel.
Obviously, the story of Jesus didn’t end with the women not speaking, or there would be no gospel. Somebody said something to someone! But by ending the gospel this way, it’s as though Mark is saying, “So, Jesus is alive. What are YOU going to do about it?”
The choice is offered – do you believe what the angel said? Do you believe what Jesus said? Or will you will keep silent? Will you be “gripped with trembling and astonishment?” Will you be afraid? Or will you believe that “He has risen?” You are living in the sequel to this gospel. How will it turn out?
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