One of the most controversial topics involving the bible is the ending of the Gospel of Mark. This is a topic that majority of scholars do not agree on and hold a strong opinion on. “…that such a pivotal work as Mark should end so suddenly, so unexpectedly, has been called the “greatest of all literary mysteries”…” The verses starting at Mark 16:9 are where the controversy begins. Many scholars believe that the Gospel ended at verse 8 and that verses 9- 20 were later added on where other scholars believe that the ending is a true ending provided by Mark. This paper will demonstrate that the Gospel of Mark ends with the short ending at verse 8. The two different endings are called the Long Ending often abbreviated as LE and include verses …show more content…
In some of the earliest manuscripts that we have today the long ending of Mark is not included. Bas M.F. van Iersel has a strong opinion on why the short ending is the true ending. “…almost no expert considers this page as the original ending of Mark. It is absent from the best and earliest manuscripts and is clearly a compilation of the resurrection of the stories from the other three gospels. ” The Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus are the oldest Greek Manuscripts we have for Mark 16. These two contain a large number of differences in just looking at the Gospels. Some scholars have examined the text and when looking at the Greek manuscript Vaticanus there are three columns with two of the columns being full but the third empty. Scholars look at this and think that it might mean the scribe didn’t approve of what was going into that space and decided against putting it in there. Though there is not enough room in the column for the entire LE. The short ending has another name that is commonly used called there Intermediate ending. Though these two manuscripts end at verse 8 there are a large amount of manuscripts that do include the long ending making it difficult to completely rule out the long ending being an accurate ending. In different versions of the Bible different things are added right before the long ending begins. “In 1881 the