1-8 Finding Tomb Empty
1: And when the sabbath was past, Mary Mag'dalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salo'me, bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2: And very early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had risen. 3: And they were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?" 4: And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back; -- it was very large. 5: And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were
amazed. 6: And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him. 7: But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you." 8: And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid. 

NOTES

1: And when the sabbath was past, Mary Mag'dalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salo'me, bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.


v1:  Zindler (2000) writes:


 It is interesting to note that Codex Bezae, which has so many important primitive readings that disagree with the so-called received text, renders the name Melegada, instead of Dalmanutha. In the margin of the text are instructions left by a later scribe telling how to alter the word Melegada -- which already had been converted into the word Magada -- to turn it into something more like Magdala. "Insert dal after g, erase the da."  We seem to be witnessing the birth of a star's hometown.


v1: Whatever her origin, as Theissen and Merz (1998, p498) point out, Mary Magdalene comes first each time a group of women are listed in every one of the canonical gospels (Mark 15:40, 15:47, 16:1, Luke 8:2, 24:10). Thus many exegetes assign her a place of importance in the early Christian tradition.

v1: "bought spices" before sunrise on the day after Sabbath? Jewish or not, it is highly unlikely that shops would be open at such as ungodly hour. Arguing that there was no Jewish custom supporting the women's desire to anoint the body, Kirby (2002) writes:

"It comes as little surprise then that Matthew and John, who are usually thought to have more knowledge of things Jewish, do not state that the women came to anoint the body on Sunday morning."



v1:  In addition to the historical implausibility, another strike against this verse is the presence of the Markan theme of Jesus disciples' lack of faith: although Jesus has said time and again that he will rise on the third day, the women have purchased spices in anticipation of annointing a dead body, not finding a resurrected man (Crossan 1998, p558).

 2: And very early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had risen.

v2: Carrier (2005, p160) argues that the writer of Mark is tracking the Septuagint of Psalm 24, for the Greek of "the first day of the week" occurs only there in the entire OT. Our modern version, based on the Hebrew, does not have that phrase. Thus v3:

Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?(RSV)

 
would be a reference to the young man in the tomb, while v7:

Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in. (RSV)


echoes the "gate" in Mark, the great stone in front of the tomb. Carrier further argues that the writer of Mark has thus composed a triplet of scenes: Psalm 22 for the Crucifixion, Psalm 23, a funeral psalm, representing Christ's journey to the realm of the dead, and then Psalm 24, representing his resurrection.


v2: although some have argued that there is a contradiction between "very early" and "the sun had risen" that is just typical Markan doubling.

v2: Doherty (1999) identifies this with Hosea 6:1-2:

1"Come, let us return to the LORD . He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. 2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. (NIV)

and also Jonah, who was three days in belly of the whale.


v2: Richard Carrier (2004b) points out that the three day period was customary in Judaism for determing that a person was indeed dead.


 "...several passages in the Midrash Rabbah, which tie into the Mishnah, suggest a third-day motif could have been latent throughout a Jewish understanding of the dead. These laws are especially relevant to the passion narrative of Jesus, possibly inspiring the very idea that he was raised 'on the third day'..."

After listing and discussing some of the relevant passages from the rabbinical writings and the Torah, Carrier writes:


 Thus, a resurrection on the third day reverses the expectations of the Jews: to physicalists, instead of departing, the soul of Jesus reunites with his body and rises; to spiritualists, instead of departing, the soul of Jesus is exalted by God, raised to his right side, thence to appear in visions to the faithful. Either way, a resurrection before the third day might not be a true resurrection, but a mere revival, or the ghost of a not-yet-departed soul, but a resurrection on the third day is true evidence that death was in either sense defeated. This "third day" tradition in Jewish law may in fact be very ancient, possibly lying behind the prophecy of Hosea, "He will revive us after two days, He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before him" (6.2), and no doubt had something to do with Paul's conviction that Jesus "was raised on the third day according to the scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:4).

v2: Crossan (2002) similarly observes:


 Those who spoke of Jesus’ resurrection insisted that it was “after three days” or “on the third day.”15 That was when, in Jewish tradition, it was customary to visit the tomb not just for mourning but to make sure the person was definitely dead. That, of course, is why Jesus waited until, Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days” (John 11:17), until, that is, he was securely and definitely dead. When Christian Jews spoke of Jesus’resurrection after or on the third day, therefore, they were insisting that he had been really and truly dead.


v2: Carrier (2005, p159) points out that three-day motifs are widespread in the OT. In addition to the passage in Hosea, 2 Kings 2:17 has the men search for three days to find Elijah, but no trace of him is found:


 2:17 But when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, "Send." They sent therefore fifty men; and for three days they sought him but did not find him.(RSV)


v2: Another point of contact with Paul's letters, for 1 Cor 15 says that Jesus was raised on the third day.

3: And they were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?"

v3: refers back to 15:46. Karel Hanhart has argued that this is constructed off of Gen 29:3


When all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone away from the well's mouth and water the sheep. Then they would return the stone to its place over the mouth of the well. (NIV)

v3: The verse also makes the three women into fools, for why would they knowingly go to put spices on a body in a tomb whose covering stone they could not move? The visit of the women looks like literary invention designed to create witnesses to the Empty Tomb. It is important to note that under Jewish law women could not be "fully qualified as witnesses" (Theissen and Merz 1998, p497). Markan irony at work again?

4: And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back; -- it was very large.

v4: redactive -- the comment on size emphasizes the power of the miracle. Richard Carrier (1999) and other scholars have been wont to argue that the stone "rolled" in front of the tomb is an anachronism dating Mark to after 70, since round stones were not used prior to that time on tombs of commoners. However, a square stone may also be "rolled" in some sense, so the wording, while strongly suggestive, is not conclusive.

v4: Carrier (2005,p221,286fn) observes echoes of the story of King Asa in 2 Chronicles.


2 Chron 16:14: They buried him in the tomb which he had hewn out for himself in the city of David. They laid him on a bier which had been filled with various kinds of spices prepared by the perfumer's art; and they made a very great fire in his honor.(RSV)

Note that both Jesus and Asa are laid in tombs hewn from rock. The "very great" is used in both passages, and the burial is connected to spices (aromata, same word in both passages in Greek). Carrier also points out that the tomb is called "his own," an addition of Matthew's to the story in his account of the Empty Tomb. Matthew frequently returned to the OT to find the sources of Mark's stories and add more details.
 5: And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were amazed.

v5: This of course recalls the young man of Mark 14:51-2. As McVann (1994) points out, many exegetes have seen the idea of a baptismal initiate in the sequence, with the young man starting out naked in Mark 14:51-2, like an initiate, and then re-appearing in Mark 16:5 in white, like a new initiate.

v5: Ludemann sees a possible parallel with 2 Macc 3:26 (2001, p113) but other than the idea of heavenly young men, the two passages do not have much directly in common. However, the young men in 2 Macc 3:26 are saving the Temple from being plundered and destroyed. Plundered and destroyed temples are a theme of the writer's citations -- for example, his use of Nehemiah and Jeremiah in Mark 11:15-19, and the use of Jehu's cleansing of the Temple of Ba'al as a framework for his own Temple Cleansing, and the use of Mal 3 in Mk 1:2. So perhaps there is a link, especially as one of the stories underlying the Temple Cleansing may well be 2 Macc.

v5: The young man also recalls the young man of Tobit 5:14 who is also an angel. This is a more probable origin for the scene, for Tobit is a story about a problem arising from a burial. Daniel J. Harrington (1999, p12-3)  writes:


"In addition to the Hebrew Bible, the author probably drew on the story or motif of 'the grateful dead.' What initially got Tobit into trouble was his zeal in seeing to the burial of fellow Israelites. He first loses all his property (see 1:20) and then is struck blind after having attended to a burial at Pentecost (see 2:7-10). When Tobit is healed and Raphael reveals himself as the angel of God sent to heal him, a major reason was to repay Tobit's willingness to bury the dead (see 12:13)."

In Tobit also the blind are healed and demons are driven out.

v5: Crossan (1998, p567) notes that Matthew and Luke, who copied Mark, eliminated the young man of 14:51, and changed the young man of 16:5 to an angel. "No other canonical dependent accepts Mark's strange 'young man.' It is too Markan."(p567).

v5: "amazed" is another instance of the unique verb for amazement found only in Mark, and may be a sign of a redactor's hand. (Koester 1990, p284).

v5: Robert Price (2000, p214-21) has shown that empty tombs and resurrection scenes were a staple of early Greek and Roman popular romances, occuring in such stories as Chaereas and Callirhoe, Xenophon's Ephesian Tale, Leucippe and Clitophon, Daphnis and Chloe, Heliodorus' Ethiopian Story, The Story of Apollonius, King of Tyre, Iamblichus' Babylonian Story, and in places in Apuleius' The Golden Ass.

v5: the young man is sitting on the right side. Jesus has just said in 14:62 that they would see him sitting at the right hand of the Power.

v5: Cliff Carrington (Flavian Testament) is one of a minority of exegetes who see a close relationship between Josephus and the New Testament. Carrington observes:

"He descended into the cave. So, for two days he continued in hiding. On the third, his secret was revealed by a woman who had been with them. The death of J. was found to be a fiction, it became known that he was alive.”

"This is a description of a resurrection after three days in a cave. No, J. is not Jesus, but Josephus. This is from the account of the fall of Jotapata where Josephus hides in a cave for three days before he was found out by a captured woman who knew of their hiding place. He arose from the cave. After a short time he ascended to the right hand of the Father, Vespasian, the Emperor. Josephus went on to live in the mansion of his Lord."


6: And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him.

v6: the Greek says "Nazarene" not "Nazareth."  This verse constitutes supernatural fulfillment of earlier predictions of Jesus in Mark 8, 9, and 10. As Peter Kirby (2002) notes, this story is found only in Mark and in documents dependent on it. It is not found in Paul, which scholars believe constitutes the earliest version of the Jesus stories.

v6: Weeden (1971) notes that prior to Mark, traditional proof of the resurrection for Christians had been the appearances of Jesus to his followers. Here the writer creates proof by the testimony of an angel, rather than direct experience of Jesus.
7: But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you."

v7: Another prediction that Jesus will appear in Galilee and hence, evidence that the Gospel once had a more complete ending. Both the underlying idea and the words -- "go before" -- parallel Mark 14:28.

v7: As Robert Fowler (1996) has pointed out, if the reader had no idea from the other gospels that Judas had killed himself, he would have to assume that Judas was among those supposed to meet Jesus in Galilee.

v7: Fowler (1996) writes:


"Another puzzle here is what Galilee is. We might once have thought that we understood what Galilee was, when Jesus began his ministry there back in Mark 1:14-15, but through what kind of Galilee does a crucified and raised Jesus now walk? In retrospect, Galilee may alway have been more of a metaphor of space rather than a literal geopolitical region, but all the more so now. Whatever Galilee was before, it is now obviously a figure for wherever it is that the crucified Nazarene "goes ahead" of his disciples."(p248)

v7: Carrier (2005, p162-63) writes:


 "Orphic Mysteries were one of the most popular categories of salvation cult in the ancient world, widely known to everyone. A common motif was that initiates would be taught the secret of eternal life, which often included instructions to follow after they died. Several metal plates preserving secret instructions have been recovered from the graves of initiates. The best example, from around 400 BCE (and thus contemporary with Plato) is the Gold Leaf of Hipparion. Though this preserves the instructions in a significantly older form, and in a different dialect, than what would be known to Mark, the links remain startling and informative. According to the plate, when an initiate enters the land of the dead, they will find "a white cypress" on "the right-hand side" (leuka and dexia). In Mark 16:5, when the women enter the tomb (the land of the dead), they find a "boy in white" on "the right-hand side" (leuken and dexiois). The initiate is told go beyond the white cypress, where guardians of the sacred waters will ask them "What are you looking for in the land of the dead?" In Mark, too, the women are searching for something in the land of the dead: Jesus, the water of life. Yet they, too, are supposed to go further (physically, to Galilee); but psychologically, to a recognition of the truth), for they are told that though they are "looking for Jesus," he is not there (Mark 16:6)."

8: And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid.

v8: This ending as it stands is enigmatic and to some, quite beautiful. The term "the disciples and Peter" may recall the passage in 1 Cor where "Cephas and the disciples" see the Risen Jesus.

v8: The ending of the Gospel is truncated (see Excursus below). The other known endings are all later creations.

v8: Darrell Doughty (2000) writes:


 "A problem that has always exercised interpreters of Mark is the fact that the story concludes in 16:1-8 without any resurrection appearances of Jesus. All we have is an angel who tells the women that Jesus is risen and will meet them and his disciples in Galilee. We are also told that the women fled, saying nothing to anyone, which leaves only Peter and the disciples as to meet Jesus after his resurrection. I would suggest that the story is continued in chapter 1, where following his "death and resurrection" (1:9-10), Jesus enters into Galilee, meets his disciples by the Sea, and makes them "fishers of men" (1:14-21). Robert Fowler rightly observes that "the awkward gar at Mark 16:8, coupled with the ambiguous allusion to Galilee in 16:7, signals the reader to return to the beginning of the Gospel, to begin reading all over again" (Let the Reader Understand, 262)."

v8: Carrier (2004c) observes:


"But we have one definite proof that the resurrection motif in fiction predates the 1st century: the Latin satire of that very genre, The Satyricon by Petronius. This is positively dated to around 60 A.D. (Petronius was killed under the reign of Nero, and makes fun of social circumstances created by the early Caesars) and is a full-fledged travel-narrative just like Acts, with a clear religious motif. However, Petronius is making fun of that motif, and also writing in Latin, yet we know the genre began in the Greek language. Thus, in order for Petronius to move the genre into Latin and make fun of it, it must have pre-existed the time of his writing and been popular enough to draw his attention. Indeed, the satire itself may actually have existed in a Greek form before Petronius took it up: P. Parsons, "A Greek Satyricon?" Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 18 (1971) pp. 53ff. It should be noted that Petronius pokes fun at the resurrection theme in section 140.frg2, where the hero compares his restoration from impotence to the "resurrected Protesilaus," and attributes it to Mercury's known role in "bringing back the dead." Similarly, Plutarch relates a spoof of the motif in popular theatre, where a performing dog acts out its death and resurrection on stage to the delight of the emperor Vespasian ("On the Cleverness of Animals," Moralia 973e-974a). In order to have something to spoof, the motif must predate the year 80."

v8: Weeden (1971) writes:


 "For Mark, the fact and reality of the resurrection is attested by the story of the empty grave. To state the matter in this fashion is no glib rhetoric. Such a statement speaks to a curious and puzzling phenomenon. Before Mark there is no evidence that the early church ever sought to verify its resurrection fath through recourse to Jesus' empty tomb. Nor is there any hard evience that the early church ever knew of Jesus' grave's being empty."(p102)

v8: David Rhoads (2004) writes:


 "Perhaps it is the sublety and ambiguity of Mark's marvelously exasperating ending that explains why so many studies of Mark focus on the disciples."(p9)

Historical Commentary

Ludemann (2001, p114) notes: "It is doubtful whether a complete story about the tomb existed before Mark, as the text is overlaid with Markan redaction." Similarly, Kirby (2002) and Crossan (1998) argue that the empty Tomb story is a post-easter fiction. Kirby writes, in discussing James Dunn's idea that early Christians did not venerate the Tomb precisely because it was empty, concludes:


 "I agree that it would be most reasonable to conclude that early Christians did not know that Jesus was resting in his tomb because we would then expect tomb veneration. I agree that this is evidence against knowledge of a full tomb. But I would state further that this is equally evidence against knowledge of an empty tomb. It is plain to see that the site of the tomb of Jesus would become a site of veneration and pilgrimage among early Christians regardless of whether it were full or empty. The factors of nagging doubt, pious curiousity, and liturgical significance would all contribute towards the empty tomb becoming a site of intense interest among Christians. Contrary to Dunn, and in agreement with Peter Carnley, the obvious explanation is that early Christians had no idea where Jesus was buried....For this reason, the fact that there was no tomb veneration indicates that the early Christians did not know the location of the tomb of Jesus, neither of an empty tomb nor of a full tomb" (2002, p 201-2)

OT creation may also be at work here, in two ways. Recall Mark's previous dependence on the Elijah-Elisha Cycle: 


Mark 16: 6-8 2 Kgs 13: 20-1
The dead are raised The dead are raised
(young man at tomb) (the raised man on his feet)
the women are frightened the pallbearers are frightened
the tomb is Jesus' the tomb is Elisha's

In addition to this, the book of Daniel has structured the overall narrative of Jesus trial, death, and resurrection. 


Mark Daniel 6
The chief priests and scribes try to trap Jesus with arguments over the law The satraps and adminstrators trap Daniel with a law
Joseph of Arimathea, a leader of the nation opposed to the spokesman for the people of God secretly reveres Jesus (as Pilate becomes steadily more Christianized in Christian legend, he assumes this role) Darius a leader of the nation opposed to the spokesman for the people of God secretly reveres Daniel
the death of Jesus is required by law (implied in Mark) the death of Daniel is required by the law of the Medes and Persians
Pilate is reluctant to execute Jesus, tries to convince crowd to let him go Darius is reluctant to put Daniel in the lion's den, Darius exerts himself until evening to save Daniel
Pilate, though distressed, is forced to put Jesus in a tomb
Darius, though distressed, is forced to put Daniel into a lion's den
Joseph of Arimathea looks forward to the kingdom of God Dairus tells Daniel his god will save him
At dawn, as soon as it was light, the women who cared deeply for Jesus go to his tomb Just after sunrise Darius who cares deeply for Daniel goes to the lion's den.
Joyful news: Jesus is raised! Joyful news: Daniel lives
A mysterious young man, perhaps an angel, announces the news An angel shut the lion's mouths

Adapted from Helms (1988, p135)  

Carrier (2005b) observes that Matthew makes this dependence on Dan 6 very clear. Not only does Matthew retain the parallels to Daniel 6, he also notes that a seal was placed on Jesus' tomb, just as Darius placed a seal on the stone (Dan 6:17). Matthew uses the same word for seal, sphragizo, that the Greek of the Septaugint uses. Matthew's perception that Dan 6 underlies this scene is further evidence for the existence of the parallel.

Markan style is strongly present, for Mark 16 consists almost entirely of common Markan words (Donahue and Harrington 2002, p459, citing Taylor 1966, p603).

The opening section here is part of a chiasm continued from Mark 15:
A
 There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Mag'dalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salo'me, who, when he was in Galilee, followed him, and ministered to him; and also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.

B
 And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath,


C
 Joseph of Arimathe'a, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus.



D
 And Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph.



D
 And he bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud, and laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a stone against the door of the tomb.


C
 Mary Mag'dalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.

B
 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Mag'dalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salo'me, bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.
A
 And very early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had risen.

Although the center may not look like a doublet, count the number of concrete actions in each one.

It is impossible to reconstruct a chiasm from the remaining verses.


 2: And very early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had risen.
3: And they were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?"
4: And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back; -- it was very large.
5: And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were amazed.
6: And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him.
7: But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you."
8: And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid.

There is no A' bracket to oppose v2, a bracket involving movement from one geographical location to another. v8 resembles a very typical B' bracket that should be followed by an A' bracket reading, in typical Markan style, something like: "And they returned to Jerusalem." 


A
 And very early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had risen.

B
 And they were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?"


C
 And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back; -- it was very large.



D
 And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were amazed.



D
 And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you."


C
 And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them;

B
 and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid.
A
 It was the last day of the feast of the unleavened bread and many people were going out, returning to their houses since the festival was over. (Gospel of Peter)

The lack of an A bracket to oppose 16:2 suggests that the Gospel originally ended at some point past 16:8, and that the current ending was not in fact the original ending.

William Lane Craig, a well-known Christian apologist and debater, has argued that this is a historical event. This article has been comprehensively refuted by Richard Carrier here and by Jeffery Jay Lowder here.

The presence of Markan stylistic elements, creation from existing older sources, historical implausibilities, and the powerful presence of the supernatural indicate that there is no support for historicity from this pericope.

Excursus: The Missing Ending of Mark
Excursus: The Missing Ending of Mark

The Gospel of Mark currently ends at 16:8. This ending has always made readers uneasy, and in antiquity there were several attempts to graft an ending onto Mark. These endings are all considered spurious by the scholarly community. Basically, the current ending offers the reader the choice: did the writer mean for the Gospel to end at 16:8, or did the writer supply another one that has gone AWOL somehow?

Evidence from the Patristic fathers indicates that if the ending went AWOL, it did so quite early, for Longer Ending (Mark 16:9-20), found in some Bibles, is known from sometime early in the second half of the second century. Around that time it was incorporated into a harmony of the four Gospels known as the Diatesseron and generally attributed to Tatian, a heretic who was a student of Justin Martyr's in Rome in the middle of the second century. However, the Longer Ending was apparently unknown to Origen, and Jerome and Eusebius claimed that it was absent from almost all the Greek manuscripts they knew (Donahue and Harrington 2002, p462).

In addition to the Longer Ending, there is also a Shorter Ending found in Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Coptic manuscripts. That ending consists of a few sentences in which the women report briefly to Peter. It is then reported that Jesus appeared to the disciples, and then sent them forth to proclaim the "sacred and incorruptible" message of eternal salvation. The style and vocabulary are decidedly unMarkan.

The so-called Freer Logion adds a number of verses to the Longer Ending. It is generally regarded as scribal gloss inserted to soften the Risen Jesus' criticism of the Eleven in 16:14. (Donahue and Harrington 2002, p463).

Against these, Evan Powell proposed in his 1994 book The Unfinished Gospel that the ending of John, John 21, was formerly the ending of Mark. Powell's argument was based on linguistic and stylistic affinities. David Ross has an excellent review of the idea on his Mark website, along with more evidence to bolster it.