Ask · Scripture & How We Got It
Is the ending of Mark really in the Bible?
The short answer
The last twelve verses of Mark, Mark 16:9-20, are printed in most Bibles with a note, because the two earliest complete copies of Mark, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, end at Mark 16:8, and early writers such as Eusebius and Jerome already knew copies that lacked the longer ending. The passage is old and widely received, but its place in Mark's original Gospel is genuinely questioned.
The fuller answer
Mark's Gospel, as most copies carry it, ends with women fleeing the empty tomb in fear. A longer ending then adds resurrection appearances, a commission to preach, and signs following believers. The question is not whether Jesus rose, which Mark already proclaims in chapters 14 to 16, but whether Mark himself wrote those final twelve verses or whether a later hand supplied a fitting close from the other Gospels.
This is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Mark 1:1 (BSB)
The manuscript facts are specific. Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, our earliest complete witnesses, stop at Mark 16:8. Some later manuscripts add a shorter ending, others the familiar longer one, and some mark it with symbols of doubt. Eusebius of Caesarea, in questions addressed to Marinus preserved in his church history tradition, noted that accurate copies ended at 16:8, and Jerome likewise knew the longer ending was absent from many Greek copies. Printers have handled this honestly for generations, setting the passage in the text with a note, or in brackets, so the reader receives both the tradition and the evidence together.
Early on the first day of the week, after Jesus had risen, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had driven out seven demons. She went and told those who had been with Him, who were mourning and weeping. And when they heard that Jesus was alive and she had seen Him, they did not believe it. After this, Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them as they walked along in the country. And they went back and reported it to the rest, but they did not believe them either. Later, as they were eating, Jesus appeared to the Eleven and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In My name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not harm them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will be made well.” After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked through them, confirming His word by the signs that accompanied it.
Mark 16:9-20 (BSB)
Honesty and confidence can sit together here. Churches have read the longer ending for centuries, and nothing in it teaches what the rest of the New Testament does not teach elsewhere on firmer ground. At the same time, no doctrine should be built on this passage alone, and preachers should say openly what the footnotes say. Mark's own purpose, to bear witness that Jesus is the Son of God, stands complete either way.
But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.
John 20:31 (BSB)
In practice, most churches keep reading the longer ending aloud, with its note, and that is a defensible settlement: nothing is concealed, nothing essential depends on it, and an ancient witness is honoured without being overstated. What no one should do is rest a practice, such as handling snakes or drinking poison as a test of faith, on these verses, which even their defenders admit stand on unusual manuscript ground. Build practice on the clear and repeated teaching of Scripture, and let this passage do the devotional good it can without carrying weight it cannot bear.
Sources
- Berean Standard Bible (BSB)
- Eusebius, Church History
- Metzger and Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament (2005)
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