aa5874

The preparation of the body for burial and Jewish customs at that time in relation to burials may answer your question.

Look at Mark 15:46-47, 'And he bought fine linen, and he took him down, wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre.'
And Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid..

Mark 16:1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and annoint him.'

From these three verses, we see that the supposed body of Jesus was wrapped in linen and buried. It appears that Magdalene and the mother of Joses did not annoint the body before it was wrapped with the linen.
A few days later, Magdalene, the mother of James and Salome, decide to annoint the body. Now bearing in mind the decomposition, stench and unwrapping of the linen from the body, this story appears to be suspect.

Does anyone know of Jewish burial tradition in the 1st century. Would a Jew return to a grave to annoint a body after being buried for a few days?

hatsoff

Kelly Iverson wrote the following concerning the idea that Mark's original ending has been lost:

Having argued that the last twelve verses appear to be a later scribal addition, we are left with yet another question. Did Mark intend to end his Gospel at v 8? Three options seem plausible, either (1) Mark was unable to finish the Gospel due to death, martyrdom, imprisonment, etc., (2) the original ending was lost at a very early date prior to the multiplication of the manuscript, or (3) Mark purposely ended his account at v 8.

Option (1) though possible is purely conjecture and lacks any concrete evidence. Option (2) makes several questionable assumptions. First, if the book was not in widespread circulation, Mark or someone familiar with the autograph could have easily corrected a lost ending. If the ending was in circulation then it seems highly improbable that the entire textual tradition vanished. The only legitimate means of arguing this view is to suppose that the conclusion was lost during an extremely narrow window of time subsequent to Mark’s death (and for that matter anyone else familiar with the text) and prior to widespread circulation.

Second, the hypothesis that the ending was lost assumes that the Gospel originally circulated in the form of a codex. If this were the case then the mutilation and/or misplacement of the last leaf (i.e., the ending) would be readily understandable given its somewhat precarious position in the book. Considerable evidence has been marshaled to suggest the early and widespread use of the codex in early Christian literature. BUT there is little evidence to date the birth of the codex prior to the 2nd century. In fact, three New Testament books that post-date the second evangelist independently suggest that Mark’s Gospel was written on a scroll.

There is compelling evidence to think that Luke-Acts, Hebrews, and Revelation were all written on scrolls. This being the case, although the employment of the codex may have come during the infancy of the church, its penetration and adoption in the 1st century seems to have been limited. It seems unlikely then that Mark’s Gospel, which scholars acknowledge pre-dates these other books, was written on a codex. If this is correct, as seems to be the case, then a lost, hypothetical ending is difficult to substantiate. For unlike the codex where the beginning and end of the document were most susceptible to damage, the end of the scroll was the most secure piece of the document.

Generally the beginning of the scroll was located on the outside of the document. One hand was used to unwind the scroll and the other was used to roll up the previously read portion. When the document had been read in its entirety, the text was then re-rolled to allow the next reader to start from the beginning. The end of a document was almost always on the inside of the scroll where it was sheltered from damage. In other words, if any portion of Mark’s Gospel were preserved it would likely be the conclusion.

I'm not sure it's quite as cut and dry as he apparently believes, but I do ultimately agree with his final conclusion that v.8 was very probably the original ending.

aa5874

In order to determine credibility, it is very important that the other 'Gospels' be taken into account, because the author of John contradicted Mark with regards to the preparation before burial.

John 19:38-40, 'And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus.......came therefore, and took the body of Jesus.
And therefore came also Nicodemus..... and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.

Then they took the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices as the Manner of the Jews is to Bury.

Mark does not know how the Jews prepare a body for burial?

Now this is incredible, the NT itself cannot get it's story straight.