What Indications Are There That Mark Knew and
Believed There Were Resurrection Appearances, Whether or Not He Reported Them?
Whether or not Mark originally
included narrative accounts of Jesus’s resurrection appearances, it is more
than clear to contemporary scholars that he was well aware that these events
had actually occurred. As Hurtado contents, “[Mark] 16:1-8 demonstrates that
Mark knew and approved of the tradition that Jesus appeared to his disciples
after his resurrection, whether Mark recorded such an appearance or not.”
Interestingly, as Hurtado adds, “That Jesus is risen and alive . . . is
unambiguously presented in a passage about which there is no textual
uncertainty.” (Hurtado, Mark, 288) Where are those hints in a mere eight
verses?
Fuller mentions Mark’s comments that
Jesus would appear to his apostles in Galilee (14:28; 16:7). Further, the
enigmatic reference to Peter (16:7) portends another appearance to the chief
apostle. (Fuller, Formation of the Resurrection Narratives,66-68) Even
Grayson agrees with the last point that Mark “probably knew the appearance
tradition in part since he awkwardly added ‘and Peter’ to ‘his disciples.’”
(Grayston, “Empty Tomb,” 266)
Emerging from their almost covert
hiding places in Mark’s Gospel, then, there are at least three indicators (or
perhaps even seen as three extended aspects of one loftier point) that Mark was
more than aware of Jesus’s appearances to his followers. (1) Mark records a
number of occasions where Jesus predicts his own death and resurrection (see
Mark 8:31; 9:9, 30-31; 10:33-34; 14:28). Since this Gospel was obviously
written a few decades after Jesus had died, Mark would hardly have included
such false predictions in the account of these events had never occurred at
all! (Now would Mark have concocted the predictions on his own, especially
repeating them so many times. If he knew clearly that there was no reason to
affirm that these previous comments had occurred, he would hardly have placed
those claims on Jesus’s lips in the first place, since they would render Jesus
a false prophet. By far the best conclusion is that Mark both knew of the
predictions as well as at least thinking that Jesus had appeared to his
followers, even though Mark may have chosen not to record them.) Moreover, if
Mark believed that Jesus had not been raised from the dead in the first place,
it would be exceptionally difficult to believe that this Gospel even would have
been written in the first place! Thus, there is little argument from critical
scholars that opposes the view that Mark clearly thought Jesus had been
vindicated!
(2) A key indication that Mark knew of
Jesus’s appearances came from the angelic word at the tomb. Jesus had earlier
predicted his death and resurrection several times. Here the angel repeats
Jesus’s prediction, explaining to the women that the time had arrived: the
Twelve would indeed see him momentarily. The two messages from Jesus and the
angel inside the tomb take slightly different angles. The first is the voice of
the Lord explaining ahead of time what would take place after he had been
abandoned and crucified. Then, seated inside the open tomb, the angel refocuses
the women’s thoughts and steps on where things are going from there. Peter
would see the risen Jesus, as would the other disciples as well—Jesus had
taught them as much when he was with them.
(3) further, when the women witnessed
the angelic announcement, “Go tell the disciples and Peter” (Mark 16:7,
emphasis added), they might have inferred from this that Peter was back in the
Lord’s good graces. Considering that Peter was one of the disciples as well as
his being singled out here, scholars like Fuller and Grayston above have drawn
attention to a fairly popular view, namely, the foreshadowing of Jesus’s
appearance to Peter. If so, this would then be a well-evidenced, multiply
attested event, with the occurrence being referred to here as well as mentioned
briefly in two very early creedal texts (1 Cor 15:5; Luke 24:34). Fuller even
holds that the initial two appearances to Petre and the Twelve would confirm
the first two events in the pre-Pauline creed (1 Cor 15:5) and may indicate
further that Mark was not even attempting to present a narrative description of
the appearance but was following the pre-Paulin creedal practice of listing the
appearances. (67) These three proclamations can even be taken as facts of one
and the same indication of the resurrection—the predictions, the appearance of
the apostles, and the possible hint of the appearance to Peter.
So, did Mark know and understand that
Jesus had already appeared to his disciples even though he did not narrate any
of the actual events? It certainly seems clear that he did know. Of course,
even more questions could be raised if Mark’s Gospel did not end precisely at
16:8. (Gary R. Habermas, On the Resurrection, 4 vols. [Brentwood, Tenn.:
B&H Academic, 2024], 1:790-82)
Habermas leans towards the view that Mark 16:9-20 is a later interpolation. On the issue of the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20, the so-called “Longer ending of Mark,” this pericope was known to the authors of Luke, 1 Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, and, assuming the priority of Mark, Matthew, and other early Christian authors, and a solid case can be made for their authenticity. See Nicholas P. Lunn, The Original Ending of Mark: A New Case for the Authenticity of Mark 16:9-20 (Pickwick Publications, 2014).