and saves 16:15–20. Ewald and Holtzmann conjecture the original conclusion from 16:9, 10 and
16–20; Volkmar invents one from elements of all the Synoptists.
III. Solutions of the problem. All mere conjectures; certainty is impossible in this case.- Mark himself added the section in a later edition, issued perhaps in Alexandria, having
been interrupted in Rome just as he came to 16:8, either by Peter’s imprisonment and martyrdom,
or by sickness, or some accident. Incomplete copies got into circulation before he was able to finish
the book. So Michaelis, Hug, and others. - The original conclusion of Mark was lost by some accident, most probably from the
original autograph (where it may have occupied a separate leaf), and the present paragraph was
substituted by an anonymous editor or collector in the second century. So Griesbach, Schulthess,
David Schulz. - Luke wrote the section. So Hitzig (Johannes Marcus, p. 187).
- Godet (in his Com. on Luke, p. 8 and p. 513, Engl. transl.) modifies this hypothesis by
assuming that a third hand supplied the close, partly from Luke’s Gospel, which had appeared in
the mean time, and partly (Mark 16:17, 18) from another source. He supposes that Mark was
interrupted by the unexpected outbreak of the Neronian persecution in 64 and precipitously fled
from the capital, leaving his unfinished Gospel behind, which was afterward completed when
Luke’s Gospel appeared. In this way Godet accounts for the fact that up to Mark 16:8 Luke had no
influence on Mark, while such influence is apparent in the concluding section. - It was the end of one of the lost Gospel fragments used by Luke 1:1, and appended to
Mark’s by the last redactor. Ewald. - The section is from the pen of Mark, but was purposely omitted by some scribe in the
third century from hierarchical prejudice, because it represents the apostles in an unfavorable light
after the resurrection, so that the Lord "upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart"
(Mark 16:14). Lange (Leben Jesu, I. 166). Unlikely. - The passage is genuine, but was omitted in some valuable copy by a misunderstanding
of the word τέλοςwhich often is found after Mark 16:8 in cursives. So Burgon. "According to the
Western order," he says (in the "Quarterly Review" for Oct., 1881), "S. Mark occupies the last
place. From the earliest period it had been customary to write τέλος(The End) after 16:8, in token
that there a famous ecclesiastical lection comes to a close. Let the last leaf of one very ancient
archetypal copy have begun at 16:9, and let that last leaf have perished;—and all is plain. A faithful
copyist will have ended the Gospel perforce—as B and א have done—at S. Mark 16:8." But this
liturgical mark is not old enough to explain the omission in א, B, and the MSS. of Eusebius and
Jerome; and a reading lesson would close as abruptly with γάρas the Gospel itself. - The passage cannot claim any apostolic authority; but it is doubtless founded on some
tradition of the apostolic age. Its authorship and precise date must remain unknown, but it is
apparently older than the time when the canonical Gospels were generally received; for although
it has points of contact with them all, it contains no attempt to harmonize their various representations
of the course of events. So Dr. Hort (II., Appendix, 51). A similar view was held by Dean Alford.
For full information we refer to the critical apparatus of Tischendorf and Tregelles, to the
monograph of Weiss on Mark (Das Marcusevang., pp. 512–515), and especially to the exhaustive
discussion of Westcott and Hort in the second volume (Append., pp. 29–51). The most elaborate
vindication of the genuineness is by Dean Burgon: The Last Twelve Verses o f the Gospel according
A.D. 1-100.