“Take out your Bibles and turn to Mark, chapter 16…”: Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD

“Take out your Bibles and turn to Mark, chapter 16…”

Or

The Creative Tension of Textual Criticism and Faithful Reading

There are times, particularly for those of us who live in the long corridor between scholarship and faith, when a passage of Scripture places us in a kind of creative tension. We are compelled to look critically and honestly at what the text actually is, how it came to us, and what can be reasonably said of its origins. At the same time, we are called—still—to read with reverence. To read within the life of the Church. To allow the text to speak not merely as artifact but as proclamation. One of the clearest examples of this tension is the ending of the Gospel according to Mark.

Mark 16 forces us to think carefully. Most biblical scholars, regardless of tradition, will tell you that Mark 16:9–20—the so-called “Longer Ending”—was almost certainly not part of the original Gospel. That is not a conclusion rooted in suspicion, but in evidence. Good, solid, historical evidence.

To begin with, the earliest and most reliable Greek manuscripts, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, both from the fourth century, end Mark at 16:8. That is not a marginal opinion; it is the clear witness of the manuscript tradition. The text, in those codices, concludes with the women fleeing the empty tomb in fear and silence. There is no appearance of the Risen Christ, no commission to the apostles, no final words of triumph. Just awe. And silence.

Further, some later manuscripts that do include verses 9–20 mark them with asterisks or marginal annotations, indicating scribal hesitation or uncertainty. We also find in the manuscript tradition two alternate endings—a “Shorter Ending”, and a version where both endings appear, stitched together in sequence. When scribes start offering options, we are no longer dealing with a simple case of textual continuity. We are witnessing theological anxiety—early Christian communities wrestling with how the Gospel should end.

The patristic evidence aligns with this. Eusebius of Caesarea, writing in the early 4th century, tells us that nearly all the manuscripts available to him ended at 16:8. Jerome, in the Letter to Hedibia, says the same—that the longer ending was absent from many Greek codices. Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Jerusalem—there’s no sign that either of them knew of verses 9–20. These are not peripheral figures. They are, in many ways, the stewards of Christian doctrine. If they were unaware of the longer ending, that is no small matter.

And it’s not just external evidence. The internal clues are equally telling. The Greek style of 16:9–20 departs noticeably from the rest of Mark. The vocabulary is strange—words like apisteō (“disbelieve”) and blaptō (“to harm”) are nowhere else in Mark’s Gospel. Mary Magdalene is reintroduced in verse 9 as though she hadn’t just been mentioned. It reads more like a patchwork of post-resurrection narratives drawn from other sources—Luke, John, Acts—than a seamless continuation of Mark’s voice.

So what do we do with all that?

Well, here’s where the tension becomes fruitful rather than paralyzing. We don’t pretend the evidence isn’t there. Nor do we throw up our hands and dismiss the passage. What we do—what the Church has done—is to read it canonically.

That is to say, we acknowledge that the longer ending was probably not written by Mark, but we also recognize that the Church, in its liturgical and pastoral life, received it. It was read, prayed, preached, and absorbed—not because it solved a critical problem, but because it affirmed a theological truth. Jesus is risen. He appeared. He commissioned. He sent. Those are not late inventions. They are the faith of the Church.

The longer ending functions, in a sense, like a resurrection appendix—a liturgical footnote that ties up loose ends with content drawn from elsewhere in the New Testament. Mary Magdalene’s encounter? That’s John 20. The disciples’ disbelief? Luke 24. The Great Commission? Matthew 28. The signs and wonders? Acts 2–5. It is summative, not innovative. And that matters.

But I would argue something more. That the original ending at verse 8—with its strange final note of fear and silence—is not an accident. It is, perhaps, the most Markan ending possible. Throughout his Gospel, Mark has emphasized secrecy, astonishment, incomprehension. The disciples never quite get it. The crowd is amazed but unsure. And here, at the tomb, the women are told the truth… and they flee. The ending is not polished. It is unsettling. And that may well be the point.

Because the Gospel does not conclude with a resolution. It concludes with a summons. Go to Galilee. He is not here. It is the reader who must now act. We are left not with a conclusion, but with an open door. The resurrection, in Mark’s telling, spills over the frame of the narrative, as if to say, “You finish the story.”

That kind of open-endedness is not a failure. It is a provocation. And the longer ending, rather than correcting it, reflects the Church’s desire to fill out the picture, to give voice to the appearances and instructions that the other Gospels describe. If you’ve preached from those verses, you’ve not preached error. You’ve proclaimed what the Church has long known—that Christ is risen indeed, and has sent his people into the world.

So we live in the tension. We let the manuscripts speak. We let the fathers speak. We let the Church speak. And in the midst of all that, we read with humility. Textual criticism does not destroy the authority of Scripture. It reminds us that the Word has come to us not on golden tablets, but through the hands of faithful communities—imperfect, yes, but carried by grace.

In that light, we may still hear the angel’s voice: He is not here. He is risen. Go and tell…

Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD