Mark’s gospel, according to
pretty much everybody, was the first gospel written, and the one that the
authors of Matthew and Luke used as a model, or at least a jumping off point,
for their own gospels. Also, according to pretty much everybody, this first gospel
originally ended at verse 8 of the 16th chapter, with verses 9-20 added on by
someone else at a later date.
And so — at least if we accept the
pretty much universal scholarly conclusion that it ended at verse 8 — what is
the last word of the last chapter of this first gospel? The final word of verse
8 of chapter 16, according to just about every translation one looks at, is ...
“afraid.” So the RSV, the NRSV, the NIV, the NABRE, the Good News Bible, the
NASB, the ESV, the USCCB commentary ... and, last but certainly not least, the
King James Version!
According to all these biblical
texts, the last word in Mark’s gospel is ... afraid. The women, the
first visitors to Jesus’ tomb on that first Sunday after Jesus’ death on the
cross, the first witnesses to the actual, physical resurrection of Jesus Christ
that we’re celebrating this morning, when they are first confronted with
the fact of resurrection — what do they do? We’re told that they “went out and
fled from the tomb ... they said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.”
That is, to say the least, an inauspicious end to the earliest gospel, and an
inauspicious beginning to the first day of the church. (That may be why the
Lectionary for Mass omits verse 8 from its reading of Mark 16 for Easter.)
Skeptical,
are you?
