I often see that atheist and Biblical skeptics like to use the controversial ending of Mark’s Gospel as an evidence that the early disciples didn’t believe Jesus rose from the dead, not in a physical sense. Note one well known Christian skeptic and New Testament scholar’s take:
“The oldest form of the Gospel of Mark that we can reconstruct ended with 16:8. Jesus has been dead and buried, on the third day some women go to the tomb, Jesus is not there, a young man who *is* there tells them that he has been raised and that they are to tell the disciples that Jesus will meet them in Galilee, and then – the climax of the scene, and arguably of the Gospel – the women “fled from the tomb and didn’t say anything to anyone, for they were afraid.” Period. That’s it. That’s where the Gospel ends.”i
So, if we take this account of Mark’s Gospel to end at verse 8 of chapter 16, per Bart Ehrman; “Period. That’s it.” Mark’s ending is supposed to leave us wondering if the early church truly believed in a resurrected Jesus, bodily. Generally speaking, most New Testament scholars do believe the verses following verse 8 are spurious and not Mark’s words.
“It soon became clear that there were a number of variant endings of Mark found in the manuscript tradition. In recent times, it has become clear that the longer ending of Mark is not Markan, and that the earliest recoverable ending of Mark ends at 16:8.”ii
If we assume, for the sake of argument (I think there are very compelling reasons why Mark probably ends at verse 8, or at least verses 9-20 are not the original ending and there are some good arguments that maybe Mark DID have an ending that is lost to us now!), that Mark’s gospel ended at verse 8, is it proof that the earliest Gospel denies a bodily resurrection of Jesus? I think there are three very good arguments, using the accepted ending (vs. 8), that Mark was pointing to a resurrected Christ. The first two are found within the text itself and the third is more controversial and takes a little more imagination to concede. First, the Greek word ἐγείρω, then the empty tomb, and finally the early date of Mark’s Gospel. Let’s look at these three arguments more in depth.
ἐγείρω
The Greek word ἐγείρω (transliteration: egeirō) found in Mark 16:6, translated ‘risen’ in most English translations, is very telling. It means; “probably akin to the base of (agora) (through the idea of collecting one's faculties); to waken (transitive or intransitive), i.e. rouse (literal from sleep, from sitting or lying, from disease, from death; or figurative from obscurity, inactivity, ruins, nonexistence) :- awake, lift (up), raise (again, up), rear up, (a-) rise (again, up), stand, take up.”iii The question is, what did Mark mean by ἐγείρω? Jesus uses the word two times (9:9 and 14:28), and clearly meant to convey His resurrection, bodily, by it. The most powerful example of its use is in the early part of Mark as Herod used the same word. Mark 6:14-16 (CSB) “King Herod heard about it, because Jesus’s name had become well known. Some said, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that’s why miraculous powers are at work in him.” 15 But others said, “He’s Elijah.” Still others said, “He’s a prophet, like one of the prophets from long ago.” 16 When Herod heard of it, he said, “John, the one I beheaded, has been raised!?”” Herod had a controversy with John the Baptist and ended up beheading John at the behest of a young girl he fancied (see Matthew 14 and Mark 6). As Mark describes the scene, Jesus’ prominence had Herod fearing that John had been “raised” which is the same word ‘ἐγείρω’.
Just as Mark used ἐγείρω in 16:6 he used it in 6:14 and 16 to convey someone rose from the dead. The angel was conveying a clear meaning to the women as they entered the tomb. Mark used a particular word for ‘risen’, one he had already authorial conveyed its meaning to us. He quotes Jesus using the same language, in prediction of the resurrection, Mark 14:28 (KJV) “But after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee.” Some mistakenly believe the word Mark uses isn’t for a bodily resurrection, but only a ‘spiritual sighting’:
“What Mark believes is that Jesus has been “lifted up” or “raised up” to the right hand of God and that the disciples would “see” him in Galilee. Mark knows of no accounts of people encountering the revived corpse of Jesus, wounds and all, walking around Jerusalem. His tradition is that the disciples experienced their epiphanies or “sightings” of Jesus once they returned to Galilee after the eight day Passover festival and had returned to their fishing in despair.”iv
This interpretation of the text seems to be a bit of a strain, as we have already shown that Mark’s use of the word ἐγείρω was shown to mean a resurrected person (see Mark 6:14-16). I think Mark was clearly trying to demonstrate that Jesus had ‘rose’ from the dead, to a bodily resurrection.
Empty Tomb
Within the account, we encounter the angel (‘young man’), Mark 16:6 (ASV) “And he saith unto them, Be not amazed: ye seek Jesus, the Nazarene, who hath been crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold, the place where they laid him!” He states, “he is not here: behold, the place where they laid him!” Clearly Mark is conveying the fact that the once dead Nazarene was no longer in the tomb. Of course, skeptics and doubters have conveyed conspiracy theories of body snatching and the ‘revived’ Jesus (stabbed, nailed, and beaten) walking out of the tomb. These theories have been thoroughly debunked, and are not held to by serious critics. The empty tomb is a powerful evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, as a well-known apologist notes:
“Something happened to the body of Jesus. Of this we can be sure. Not only was Jesus publicly executed in Jerusalem but “His post-mortem appearances and empty tomb were first publicly proclaimed there.” This would have been impossible with a decaying corpse still in the tomb.”v
J. Warner Wallace uses the empty tomb as a ‘Minimal Fact’ in the ‘Minimal Facts Approach’ to the resurrection of Jesus (as do great apologists like Dr. William Lane Craig). This apologetic approach is explained by Dr. Gary Habermas:
“I have argued that, surrounding the end of Jesus’ life, there is a significant body of data that scholars of almost every religious and philosophical persuasion recognize as being historical. The historicity of each “fact” on the list is attested and supported by a variety of historical and other considerations.”vi
Basically, the ‘Minimal Facts’ are those generally recognized by Biblical Scholars/Historians across all theological, religious, or philosophical persuasions as historical facts. Generally speaking, the empty tomb is one of the facts seen in this category. Mark was attesting to this fact as well. The women were shown an empty tomb by the angel and was easily proven to be so, and no reason to believe otherwise.
Early Date of Mark
Scholars differ on dating Mark, going from as early as 60AD to as late as 80-90AD with most scholars putting it in the 66-70AD range.vii It is widely accepted, with few exceptions, that Mark is the first Gospel account. J. Warner Wallace makes a compelling argument for an even earlier date for Mark, he illustrates it like so:
viii
This argument is based on the facts as noted on the timeline. The writers of the New Testament accounts say nothing of three very important verifiable events, and the dates are very important; the destruction of the Temple (70AD), the siege of Jerusalem (67-70AD), and the death of, arguably, the three most prominent Apostles; Peter, James, and Paul (61-65AD). As Wallace notes, Luke must have written the book of Acts before the death of Paul, at least. As you read Acts, Paul, beginning about chapter 9, becomes the central character in the story. It is highly improbable that Luke would have left off Paul’s death, if he wrote it after that. That Paul quotes Luke in 1 Corinthians 11, in reference to the Lord’s supper, is significant. That then puts Luke’s Gospel account before the writing of 1 Corinthians, which was written somewhere between 53-57AD. Luke’s Gospel must have been written about 50-52AD, and he quotes Mark’s account, “Luke often repeated or quoted entire passages that were offered previously by either Mark (350 verses from Mark appear in Luke’s gospel).”ix Therefore, I believe Mark was written much earlier than many scholars assume or date it.
If we assume, for the sake of argument, the earliest date for Mark, I see a very interesting hypothesis emerge. What if the reason Mark ends with no ‘appearances’ in the ending of his Gospel was the reader was very familiar with the stories of the post resurrection accounts. It is not hard to imagine the readers, only 10 years or less after the resurrection of Christ, being exposed to numerous accounts, testimonies if you will, of Christ’s appearances. Paul mentions a group, 1 Corinthians 15:6 (NLT) “After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.” This group, it is safe to assume most were alive at Luke’s writing, would have been very powerful witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection. If the early date is accepted, then Mark was writing to the earliest church formation, mostly Jewish believers-many still in Judea. Also, the early date puts it in the hands, assuming copies were made relatively early, of Paul (and his quotation in 1 Corinthians is a compelling reason to believe it), Barnabas, Silas, Philip, and other early Apostles/missionaries. Maybe Mark was expecting the bearer of the letter to ‘fill in’ the details of Christ resurrection appearances. It is not hard to imagine 500+ disciples (and maybe it was ‘only’ a couple hundred copies as most of the early disciples went in pairs or small groups) carrying a copy of Mark’s account, and then giving their own personal explanation of the appearance of Jesus. My theory, heavy on conjecture I grant, is that Mark was writing an account of Jesus’ life, and death, to explain why His resurrection (which was explained by the evangelist/missionary bearing the Gospel) was so important.
CONCLUSION
Mark’s ending is a problem for many Christians, as it seems to give an account of Jesus’ death but no resurrection appearances, with a 16:8 ending. I’ve tried to show three very good arguments for why I think Mark was sure of Christ’s being risen from the dead. The first two reasons I give, in my essay here, are very well supported by the text. Mark used a very particular word, ἐγείρω, easily understood to mean a physical resurrection. The empty tomb is clearly demonstrated to be shown in the account Mark conveys. These two arguments alone are enough to show Mark intended his readers to believe Jesus had rose from the dead, bodily. My final argument, and I grant it is theory that lacks as persuasive a case as the first two, none-the-less, gives a good (plausible) reason as to why Mark may have felt no need to include the actual appearances of Jesus. What there is not is a contradiction with the other Gospel accounts. That Mark doesn’t include the women’s, Peter’s, John’s, or any other disciple’s encounters with Jesus is not to say they didn’t occur, as the other Gospels demonstrate they did. Mark believed in a resurrected Jesus, and those early readers would have understood Mark’s Gospel as saying that is was true.
i. Ehrman, Bart https://ehrmanblog.org/snake-handling-gospel-mark/ (retrieved Aug. 8, 2017)
ii. Stein, Robert H. Bulletin for Biblical Research ‘The ending of Mark’ 18.1 (2008) pg. 80
iii. Strong's Talking Greek & Hebrew Dictionary
iv. Tabor, James https://jamestabor.com/the-strange-ending-of-the-gospel-of-mark-and-why-it-makes-all-the-difference/ (retrieved Aug. 8, 2017)
v. Wallace, J. Warner http://pleaseconvinceme.com/2013/the-minimal-facts-of-the-resurrection/ (retrieved Aug. 8, 2017)
vi. Habermas, Gary http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/southeastern_theological_review/minimal-facts-methodology_08-02-2012.htm (retrieved Aug. 9, 2017)
vii. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Mark (retrieved Aug. 9, 2017)
viii. Wallce, J. Warner http://coldcasechristianity.com/2015/why-i-know-the-gospels-were-written-early-free-bible-insert/ (retrieved Aug. 10, 2017)
ix. ibid