Is it true that All the earliest examples of Mark’s Gospel have a much truncated version of the resurrection?
Are the Alexandrian Texts the earliest ones in existence that omit the last few verses?
Well, it is true that the undisputed part of St. Mark’s Gospel end with verse 8 in a cliffhanger. The ‘young man’ in white has announced that Jesus has been raised and is going ahead of the disciples to Galilee. The women, afraid, flee from the tomb and keep quiet about what they saw. Verse 8 ends, when translated literally: “
they were afraid, for…”
For the record, there are actually two extant endings to the Gospel: the ‘Longer’ and ‘Shorter’ Endings. The one most people are familiar with (Mark 16:9-20) is termed the ‘Longer Ending’. As mentioned, St. Justin Martyr in the mid-2nd century seems to already be familiar with it, showing that the ending was already in existence then. The patristic evidence for the ending is over a century older than the earliest copy of Mark 16, which may show that if it is an addition to the original text written by Mark, it would have been added pretty early. The shorter ending, present in some manuscripts, is the one that goes like: “
And they reported all the instructions briefly to Peter’s companions. Afterwards Jesus himself, through them, sent forth from east to west the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. Amen.” (NAB)
The last twelve verses are not present in two 4th-century manuscripts, Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, the earliest
complete manuscripts of Mark. (
Papyrus 45, from circa AD 250, is the oldest extant manuscript that contains text from Mark, but it has no text from chapter 16 due to extensive damage). Codex Vaticanus has a blank column after ending at 16:8 and placing
kata Markon, “according to Mark.” There are three other blank columns in Vaticanus, in the Old Testament, but they are each due to incidental factors in the production of the codex—a change to the column-format, a change of scribes, and the conclusion of the Old Testament portion of the text—whereas the blank column between Mark 16:8 and the beginning of Luke is deliberately placed. Although it has been suggested that Codex Vaticanus may be reflecting a Western order of the gospels with Mark as the last book (Matthew, John, Luke, and Mark), the scholars making this suggestion (such as Daniel Wallace) have not explained why any scribe would feel that the normal blank space at the end of a Gospels-codex would be worth perpetuating in a new copy in which the Gospels were arranged in a different order.
Sinaiticus also ends with 16:8 and the words
euangelion kata Markon, “the Gospel according to Mark.” The scribe who made this replacement-page in Codex Sinaiticus was very probably one of the scribes who helped produce Codex Vaticanus. Aside from this, we have 100 Armenian manuscripts, as well as two Georgian manuscripts which also omit the appendix. Eusebius of Caesarea and St. Jerome (who was repeating part of Eusebius’ statements, condensing them as he loosely rendered them into Latin) also testify to others which omit the ending.
Another 12th century manuscript, minuscule 304 also omits the last twelve verses in question.
Codex Washingtonianus (late 4th-early 5th century) includes verses 9–20 and features an addition between 16:14-15 known as the “Freer Logion” (which
you can see in the NAB).
Meanwhile, the group of manuscripts known as
Family 1 and others add a note to Mark 16:9–20, stating that some copies do not contain the verses. Codex L adds the ‘Shorter Ending’ after 16:8 and then follows it with vv. 9–20.
[/sup]1 has text of Mark 16:9-10 without numbered
kephalaia (chapters) at the margin and their
titloi (titles) at the top (or the foot).
Mark 16:9–20 is preserved in its traditional form in about a dozen uncials (the earliest being
Codex Alexandrinus from the early 5th century) and in all undamaged minuscules.
The Latin
Codex Bobbiensis (ca. 4th-5th century) is the only manuscript which has the Shorter Ending alone, with a unique interpolation between 16:3 and 16:4 and with the last phrase of 16:8 omitted.
Various theories have been proposed as to why the ending is so abrupt. Either Mark intentionally ended his Gospel at 16:8, or he was somehow prevented from finishing it (at which someone else stepped in to fill the gap), or he did write an ending which was either accidentally lost or was deemed to be inadequate for some reason and was suppressed, with a new one being written. Then there is also the one which posits that verses 16:9–20 were indeed written by Mark, and were omitted or lost from Sinaiticus and Vaticanus for one reason or another, perhaps accidental, perhaps intentional.
