Roland

I was just reading Robert Price's article on the homepage of the Secular Web and came across a fascinating observation that had never occurred to me before. He claims that perhaps Mark's ending his gospel with the women at the tomb running away and telling no one is Mark's explanation for why the story is unknown up until the time he put it down on paper.

That seems to make a lot of sense to me. What do you all think?

Toto

It makes sense to me, but I don't know of any way to test the idea.

Either that is the way the story was supposed to end, or the ending has been lost. There is a lot of speculation as to the last ending - but it's all speculation.

Peter Kirby

This argument has been around for a while. I have a short discussion here of ways to explain the ending of Mark at 16:8 (assuming it did end there):

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...fictional.html

best,
Peter Kirby

Vinnie

Many have suggested this. It is certainly plausible. We note that the women tell no one and the text never records the male disciples know where Jesus was buried or even that he was, IIRC.

At any rate, this requires much deeper argumentation. Establishing the non-historicty of the events is requires and this piece can serve as one small evidence. It must be backed by more than this however.

But along different lines, Gordon Raynal recently posted something on X-Talk which certainly challenges my own understanding of the end of Mark:

Vinnie

Vinnie

PK raises an interesting point about needing to defend this. Do all the other non-historical details in Mark get explained away or apologized for? Mark sets up JBap as if he preached and prepared the way for Jesus. Surely his readers--if they had knowledge of JBap and the still existing movement that followed him, they would have known this as "non-historical". Yet there is no defense of this. The only evidence favoring this is the voice from heaven which Mark also creates. There are also many other details in Mark that would seem to require a defense but don't. Of course some do get defended in a sort of way (e.g. nullification of food laws!)

Much in the gospels we might think is historical apologetics probably isn't. I think even the guard at the tomb isn't even considered apologetics by some scholars (e.g. Brown!).

As Raynal recently posted to a thread I started on X-Talk: "Mark and his narrative successors weren't interested in historiography, they were interested in theology, ethics, worship firmly rooted in TANAK their "Scripture") as it related to Jesus. GMark is a piece of literary genius."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/15764

Mark contains snippets of history and historical sayings and teachings of which the context has been lost. So rationalizing the historicity of the emoty tomb, though it appears rational to us modern thinkers, probably was NOT on Mark's main agenda. Though it could have played a small role in it. There are different levels of inspiration. Raynal might be onto something about the women's "silence" and the commands to "silence" throughout the Gospel. This might prove to be a better source of info on the end: mining the Gospel of Mark itself.

Vinnie

the_cave

You know, it just occured to me that all these purported different endings for Mark (the centurion, the reasons for the "abrupt" ending, the possibility of a "lost" ending) might just represent different layers of development...perhaps the Centurion was the original ending of the Passion Narrative. Perhaps the awestruck women were the original ending of GMark. Perhaps there was indeed a "lost" ending added later that we no longer have. Etc.

Also, here's an example: I read somewhere that one explanation for the abrupt ending was that GMark is a series of weekly readings; when the angel tells them that Jesus has gone ahead of them into Galilee, the next week's reading is supposed to be the opening event, "Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee"! This sort of thing has been offered as "evidence" that GMark is entirely fiction, written for liturgical purposes.

But this is not necessarily so. If what we're seeing are different layers of scripture, then what we're seeing is the evolution of a text, or multiple texts, as they become used for different purposes, both theological, liturgical, and indeed historical. It may be difficult, or even impossible, to sort them out, but it is not proof that they're fictional. True stories are often used, adapted, rewritten, and even changed, for other purposes. And indeed, often fictional texts are used as models for the "true" stories we tell.

Bernard Muller

Roland:
This is exactly what I had in my web site before Price wrote his book.

How could "Mark" be so sure those women never told anybody anytime about the empty tomb? Except by staying with them all the time. Not realistic.
Solution: he invented the story. I also deduced the empty tomb was an afterthought, that is "Mark" never had it in his mind when he was writing the gospel. He added it up after he ended his gospel at 15:39.

Best regards, Bernard

Vinnie

How could "Mark" be so sure those women never told anybody anytime about the empty tomb?

He doesn't need to be. Its not history. He can omnisciently narrate if he so chooses. Many think the ending serves a literary point consistent with the rest of Mark. Or possibly the solution Gordon Raynal sugested.

That Jesus meets the discples in Galilee afterwards is assumed in Mark. So unless Mark also literally thought the women never meet the men again or ever even speek about the empty tomb then you have no case. I find it hard to merge these facts.

Mark is writing faith-history. He makes up quite a bit and he has no need to justify it in other places (JBap preaching about Jesus!) so we cannot simply assume so here. THe non-existence of the empty tomb before this may be one point of the silence but it may not be the best or only reason.

Mark presumably felt the followers of Jesus believed in Rez experiences. Jesus appears to them in Galilee so this is a must. He created some details. But how can you argue that the misunderstandings in Mark are him trying to explain why the disciples did nopt accept Rez beliefs but he explicitly has Jesus saying he will appear to them and this is reaffirmed this at the end of the Gospel.

So you are right in "How could "Mark" be so sure those women never told anybody anytime about the empty tomb?" The purpose is probably other. Its literary. Used to move the reader or possible to prioritize the women over the men as Raynal suggests. The empty tomb was created by Mark and the silence may be a small aspect of it. Small at best. Maybe the silence here should be taken in tandem with the other commands to silence in Mark?

Vinnie

Matthew_Green

My conclusion is along similar lines. I believe that the ending of Mark is constructed as an explanation not just for why the story was unknown up until that time (because the women kept silent!) but also so Mark could be the first person to tell the story! The young man Mark has in mind, I tend to think is not really an angel, but himself! He wants to be the young man telling the story for the first time! How about that for an explanation?

Matthew

Amaleq13

The text of Mark suggests that the appearances in Galilee would take place whether or not the women related the message. Jesus refers to the disciples as already intending to go to Galilee.