Q. Is the close, of Mark (ch. 16:9 to the end) authentic and genuine?
A. Having long since protested against those who treat this most interesting passage, and the beginning of John 8 with Suspicion, I proceed to state my reasons, passing over the disputed portion in John, which: has already been well defended in another place by another hand.
Even Dean Alford, who certainly does not err on the side of credulity, admits that the authority of the close of Mark is hardly to be doubted. Eusebius, and the Vat. and Sin. MSS., omit it; and several others note its absence in certain copies, but generally add, that it appears in the oldest and best. All else of the Greek MSS., all the Evangelistaria, all the Versions (except the Roman edition of the Arabic), and a large proportion of the earliest and most trustworthy Fathers are allowed to be in its favor. Lachmann, in spite of his notorious tendency to follow the very slips of the most ancient copies, edits the entire section without hesitation.
In his notes the Dean urges that the passage is irreconcilable with the other gospels, and is disconnected with what goes before; and that no less than twenty-one words and expressions occur in it (some of them repeatedly) which are never elsewhere used by Mark, whose adherence to his own phrases is remarkable, and that consequently, the internal evidence is very weighty against his authorship. That is, he believes it to be an authentic addition by another hand.
Before examining these criticisms, I must object to a reasoning which affirms or allows that to be scripture which is irreconcilable with other scriptures. If its authority be clear, every believer will feel that, with or without difficulties, all must be really harmonious. For God cannot err.
But, it is said, the diction and construction differ from the rest of the Gospel. Did the Dean or those who think with him adequately weigh the new and extraordinary circumstances which had to be recorded? In such a case strange words and phrases would be natural if Mark wrote (nor does he by any means want ἅπαξ λεγόμενα elsewhere); whereas, a supplementer, adding to Mark, would as probably have rigidly copied the language and manner of the Evangelist.
Πρώτῃ σαβ. (ver. 9) is alleged to be unusual. Doubtless; yet, of the two, it is less Hebraistic than τῆς μιᾶς. (ver. 2), and each might help the other to a Gentile or a Roman ear. And, so far from being stumbled by the way Mary Magdalene is mentioned here, there seems to me much force in Jesus appearing first to her out of whom he had cast seven devils. Who so suitable first to see Him and hear from Himself the tidings of His resurrection, Who through death annuls him who had the power of death, that is, the devil? As to the absolute use of the pronoun in 11, 12, is it not enough that the occasion here required what was needless elsewhere? If πορεν is found only in 10, 12, and 15, it is because the simple word best expressed what the Holy Ghost designed to say, whereas elsewhere the evangelist employed its compounds in order to convey the more graphically what was there wanted. Thus, he uses εἰσπορ. eight times, while Matthew, in his much larger account, has it but once. Is this the least ground for questioning Matt. 15:1717Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? (Matthew 15:17)? So, again, Mark has παραπορ in four different chapters, Matthew once only (27:9), Luke and John not at all. Leaving these trivial points, the phrase τοῖς μετ’αὐτοῦ is to me an argument for, rather than against, Mark's authorship. Compare with it chap1:36; 3:14; and 5:40. As to ἐθεάθη ὑπ’αὐτῆς and its difference from τοῖς θ. αὐτόν, the answer is, that the word is most appropriate here and uncalled for in other places, and if the difference prove anything, it would show two hands instead of one supplementing Mark's narrative! Thus, for instance, the same verb occurs but once in all the Epistles of Paul: are we therefore, to suspect Rom 15? Matthew has θεωρέω only twice; are we for a score of such reasons as these to speculate that “another hand” added Matt. 27 and 28?
As to reiterated mention of unbelief and the Lord's upbraiding the eleven with it, what more instructive, or in better keeping with the scope of the context and of the Gospel? It was wholesome for those who were about to preach to others to learn what their own hearts were, and the Lord in His own ministry sets them right before announcing, their great commission. Even if we only look at the word ἀπιστία, it occurs in Mark 6:6; 9:246And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching. (Mark 6:6)
24And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. (Mark 9:24). If the verb is found only in chap. 16:11, 16, what more marvelous than Luke's having it only in his last chapter (ver. 11, 41), and never once using the substantive either in the Gospel or in the Acts of the Apostles? It is true that μετὰ τ.. and ὕστερον are found in no other passage of Mark, but his customary precision may be one reason why the former is not more common; and the latter occurs once only in Luke and John. It is confessed that τὸ εὐαγ. π. τῇ κτίσει is in Mark's style. The fact is, neither of the later Gospels contains the noun day. and Matthew always qualifies it as “the gospel of the kingdom,” or “this gospel;” whereas, whether or not Mark has the qualified phrases in chap. 1:14 and 14: 9 (for MSS. etc. differ), he repeatedly has “the gospel” elsewhere, as chap. 1:15; 8:35; 10:29; 13:10. This, then, affords no slight presumption that the passage is the genuine production of Mark, as well as authentic.
Παρακολ. in 17, ἐπακολ. in 20, occur nowhere else in Mark, and that for the best of reasons; the accuracy which the compounded forms impart was demanded here, and not before, where the simple form sufficed. And this is the less surprising, inasmuch as the former appears only in Luke's preface, and the latter nowhere else, as far as the four evangelists are concerned.
As to the singularity of καλῶς ἔξουσιν, what simpler, seeing that this promise (as well as that about the new tongues, serpents, etc.) is revealed here only, and was unquestionably Verified in the subsequent history? It is the natural converse of a common scriptural designation for the sick οἱ κακῶς ἔχοωτες; and if the occurrence of ἄῤῤωστος should be here objected to, the reader may find it twice already in Mark 6, while Matthew and Paul use it each only once.
Only one further objection remains worth noticing, the use of kύπιος in 19, 20. In Mark 11:33And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him; and straightway he will send him hither. (Mark 11:3), I suppose it is equivalent to Jehovah, and at any rate I would not press this as in point. But the absence of such a title before seems to me a beauty, not a blemish, in Mark, whose business was to exhibit the service of Jesus. But now that God had vindicated His rejected Servant by the resurrection, now that He had made Him both “Lord” and Christ, what more natural, or even necessary, than that the same Gospel which had hitherto traced Him as the Servant, Son of God, should make Him now known as “the Lord?” But this is not all. The Lord had uttered His charge to those who were, at His bidding, to replace Him as servants, and in a world-wide sphere; He was received up to heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. Now it was Mark's place, and only Mark's to add that, while they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord was working with them. Jesus, even as the Lord, is, if I may so say, servant still. Glorious truth! And whose hand so suited to record it as his who proved by sad experience how hard it is to be a faithful servant; but who proved also that the grace of the Lord is sufficient to restore and strengthen the feeblest? (Compare Acts 13:13; 15:3813Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia: and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem. (Acts 13:13)
38But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work. (Acts 15:38); Col. 4:1010Aristarchus my fellowprisoner saluteth you, and Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas, (touching whom ye received commandments: if he come unto you, receive him;) (Colossians 4:10); 2 Tim. 4:1111Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry. (2 Timothy 4:11).)
There is no doubt of the fact that this section had its present place in the second century, i.e., before any existing witness which omits it or questions its authorship. And even Tregelles, notoriously subservient as he was to favorite voices of antiquity and to points of detail, owns that the very difficulties it contains (exaggerated as I have shown them to be) afford a strong presumption in its favor. Thought and expression point to Mark only. It is therefore genuine, as well as authentic.