But clearly some very early readers of this gospel—those entrusted with the manuscripts—felt there had to be more to the story. Hence we find other endings, but the most well-known is now identified as “the long ending,” vv. 9-20.
This long ending should cause major discomfort to devout Christians today. Let’s look at a few of these issues.
1. Where did these additional verses come from? Where did the author get his information? How many decades after the gospel was written were these verses added? As we shall see, it looks like these came right out a cult handbook. “Just take it on faith” is not a good idea when we’re trying to discover authentic history.
2. Superstition is right up front. In verse 9 we read that Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom “he had cast out seven demons.” This is the thought world from which these verses derived. In other words, be skeptical, very skeptical.
3. The clueless apostles. Mary Magdalene rushed to tell the disciples that she had seen the risen Jesus, but “when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.” (v. 11) Right after this Jesus appeared “in another form” to two followers walking in the country. “And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.” (v. 13) Yet in chapters 8, 9 and 10 of Mark’s gospel, Jesus told the disciples about his upcoming death and resurrection. Richard Carrier points out the blunt reality here:
“Another clue that Mark is writing historical fiction is the way he structures his narrative to suit literary aims rather than historical ones. The ceaseless incomprehension of the disciples, for example, is wholly unrealistic. No real human being would ever be that dense or take so long to understand what Jesus was saying and doing…” (On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, p. 471, Kindle) We are entitled to wonder—if by any stretch of the imagination the disciples were this dumb—why Jesus would have selected followers who were so dense.
[For a thorough analysis of Mark’s gospel, see the 10th chapter in Carrier’s book titled, The Evidence of the Gospels, section 4, The Mythology of Mark (just over 50 pages). Also see Carrier’s July 2024 essay on his blog, All the Fantastical Things in the Gospel according to Mark.]
4. Jesus scolds the disciples for their lack of belief. In v. 14 we read that “Later he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were sitting at table, and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.” And of course, this begs the question why the son of a god—part of the Holy Trinity—would have made such poor choices when recruiting his disciples.
5. Full cult mode on display. In verse 16 we find this typical cult bragging/warning: “The one who believes and is baptized will be saved, but the one who does not believe will be condemned.” In other words, if you’re not on our team, you’re out of luck: no eternal life for you!
6. More cult craziness in vv. 17-18. There are five behaviors that those who do believe (they’re fully in the cult) can count on: by using Jesus’ name (i.e., embracing a magic spell—which continues to this day when the devout say, “In Jesus’ name we pray”), they will be able to cast out demons, speak in new tongues, pick up snakes, drink poisons and not be harmed, heal people by touching them. How many devout Christians today measure their piety by these standards? My guess is that a long time ago this list had been forgotten, certainly dismissed as relevant in any way. This is one of the major defects in this chapter.
7. Jesus returns to heaven, verse 19: “So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up to heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.” There are two major defects here. (1) This reflects the ancient view that earth and a nearby heaven were the only components of the cosmos, i.e., earth was down here, and heaven was up there, above the clouds and beneath the moon. There was no understanding that the earth was one of billions of planets—and that it was a major problem to claim that somewhere out there was the throne of a god.
(2) In the book of Acts, chapter 1, we read that Jesus ascended to heaven after 40 days. The author of this forged ending of Mark’s gospel was not aware at all of this alternate timing of Jesus’ ascent.
8. In verse 15 we find Jesus-script concerning the duty of the disciples: “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” In verse 20 we read that the disciples obeyed this command: “And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by signs that accompanied it.” What could this author have meant by everywhere? Was he aware of Africa or Asia? Of Australia or the Americas? What could he have meant by the whole creation? For him, this meant the Mediterranean and lands nearby. He had no understanding of the cosmos—the whole creation—that we know it today.
9. Finally, please be aware of the dishonesty of modern translators/editors of the English versions. The verses I have quoted in this article come from the New Revised Standard Updated Edition. The 16th chapter of Mark required quite a few footnotes, where the variants are mentioned. These are attributed to other ancient authorities. But we have no idea at all who wrote these variants. It is misleading to call them authorities. That is the practice of translators/editors who want to keep laypeople unaware of how changes happened when manuscripts were copied by hand. Variants could have been added by ignorant scribes, or cult fanatics who wanted to enhance the meaning of the texts. Without knowing exactly who they were, it is daft to call them authorities
The major sin of modern translators/editors, however, is printing Jesus-script in red. This is meant to assure readers today that these were the real words of Jesus. But there is no way whatever to verify that any of the Jesus-script in the gospels was really spoken by Jesus. The red letters are a way of lying—intended to keep modern readers in the dark about how the gospels were created.
The Gospel of Mark, as we have seen in this series of Honest Sermons, is a major disappointment from the standpoint of history and responsible theology—if there is such a thing. Although Matthew and Luke copied extensively from Mark, they made a lot of changes. They were disappointed as well, but they also made far too many mistakes.
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, now being reissued in several volumes:
· Guessing About God (2023),
· Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also available.
· Everything You Need to Know About Prayer But May Not Want to Admit (2025)
His YouTube channel is here. At the invitation of John Loftus, he has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.
The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.
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