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The problem with Mark 16:9-20 is that almost every Bible and every commentary speak of the passage as a later addition. In other words, Mark didn’t write it. Someone might say that because it’s in their Bible, that’s enough for them to believe that Jesus rose on Sunday. But there is no Sunday theologian who would agree with them. Not one. Why not?
Also, there’s no mention in all the New Testament of a change from Sabbath assembly to Sunday because of the Resurrection. In other words, where does Scripture tell us that God changed the day? It’s not written, even in Mark. And if God hasn’t changed the day, Man has no authority to do it.
The Wycliffe Bible Commentary states this about Mark 16:9-20:
‘Textual note,’ Mark ‘16:9-20. In the two most trustworthy manuscripts of the Greek NT (the Vaticanus and Siniaticus) the Gospel ends with 16:8 , as it does also in several early versions.
Both Eusebius1 and Jerome2 state that the ending was missing from most of the manuscripts of their day. In addition, several texts and versions offer a shorter substitute in the place of 16:9-20. By far the greater number of manuscripts have the longer conclusion, but many of them are of a late date and an inferior quality.
By the recognized standards of textual evaluation, both the longer and shorter endings must be rejected , and this is the judgement of almost all textual scholars. Lenski is one of the few commentators who argue for the longer ending (Interpret. of Mark, pp. 750-755).
In addition, an examination of verses 9-20 cannot fail to impress the careful student with the fact that these verses differ markedly in style from the rest of the Gospel. Perhaps the most acceptable explanation is that the end of the original Gospel may have been torn off and lost before additional copies could be made. Perhaps others attempted to supply a substitute ending, the most successful of which was that which now appears in 16:9-20.’3
The ending of Mark which seems to include an alleged Sunday resurrection is not authentic. Mark didn’t write it. That’s just one problem with it.
To understand why Yeshua was first seen on that Sunday, one needs to know about the Feasts of Israel. All the Apostles kept the Feasts of Israel both before and after the Resurrection.4 After the Resurrection they understood the deeper spiritual meanings of the Feasts as revolving around Yeshua. In the Feast of First Sheaf, which comes on Sunday in Passover week, the High Priest offered up barley grain as the first sheaf from the spring harvest. He dedicated it to Yahveh sanctifying the spring harvest and all the other harvests that followed it (Lev. 23:9-14). Why did Yeshua tell Miryam not to cling to Him in John 20:17?
Yeshua said to her, ‘Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father . But go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father and to My God and your God.’
What did Jesus mean? He was already resurrected. The ascension He speaks of is the fulfilling of the Feast of First Sheaf. Yeshua is the first to be raised from the dead, to die no more. All we who believe will follow Him in our turn, as Paul states in 1 Cor. 15:20 and 23:
‘But now Messiah has been raised from the dead, the First Fruits (Sheaf) of those who are asleep.’
‘But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming’.
It’s important to understand your ancient Hebraic heritage. Gentile believers have been grafted into Israel to learn of her ways, which she learned from Yahveh (Dt. 4:5-8). With this comes a better understanding of salvation and Jesus.
R. Alan Cole writes this about the longer ending of Mark 16:9-20:
‘omitted in some MSS, and rejected as spurious by most early authorities, such as Eusebius and Jerome. Certainly the style is quite unlike that of the rest of Mark.’5
‘verse 9 itself seems to be introduced without reference to verse 1 above, virtually as a fresh beginning, which is suspicious.’6
‘It would be unwise’ ‘to build a theological position upon these verses alone; and this no responsible Christian group has ever done.’7
Building a Sunday theology on Mark 16:9 would be ‘irresponsible’ according to Cole. There’s also another very significant reason for this. The actual translation of Mark 16:9, in our English Bibles, that says that Jesus rose on Sunday, is highly disputable from a Greek grammatical point of view.
The Expositor’s Greek Testament shares two important things about the ending in Mark. One, that vv. 9-20 may very well be a compilation of resurrection appearances from the other three Gospels and two, that the common English translation of verse 9 proclaiming a Sunday resurrection is very questionable and based on the theology of the translator. It’s interesting to see what Alexander Bruce writes about verses 9-20 after his comments on v. 8:
‘So ends the authentic Gospel of Mark, without any account of appearances of the risen Jesus in Galilee or anywhere else. The one thing it records is the empty grave and an undelivered message sent through three women to the disciples, promising a reunion in Galilee.
Strange that a story of such thrilling interest should terminate so abruptly and unsatisfactorily. Was there originally a continuation, unhappily lost, containing, e.g. an account of a meeting of the risen One in Galilee with His followers? Or was the evangelist prevented by some unknown circumstances from carrying into effect an intention to bring his story to a suitable close? We cannot tell. All we know’ ‘is that vv. 9-20 of Mark 16 in our N.T. are not to be taken as the fulfillment of any such intention by the author of the second Gospel.’8
‘The external evidence strongly points this way. The section is wanting in’ Alef and B9 (Sinaiticus & Vaticanus) ‘and in Syr. Sin’ (Syriac Sinaitic, p. 60). ‘Jerome states’ ‘that it was wanting in nearly all Greek copies (‘omnibus Graecis libris pene’), and the testimony of Eusebius is to the same effect.’10
‘The internal evidence of style confirms the impression made by the external: characteristic words of Mark are wanting, words not elsewhere found in the Gospel occurring’, ‘the narrative a meagre, colorless summary, a composition based on the narratives of the other Gospels’.11
Mark didn’t write those last verses. As for vv. 9-20 being a compilation of resurrection appearances from the other three Gospels:
‘Vv. 9-20 may be divided into three parts corresponding more or less to sections in John, Luke and Matthew, and not improbably based on these:
vv. 9-11, answering to John 20:14-18;
vv. 12-14, answering to Luke 24:13-35;
vv. 15-18, answering to Mt. 28:19.
Vv. 19-20 wind up with a brief reference to the ascension and the subsequent apostolic activity of the disciples.’12
If vv. 9-11 are based on John 20:14-18, then it cannot be proclaiming a Sunday resurrection but only that Jesus was first seen on Sunday , because that’s all that John states concerning Sunday. Bruce explains the Greek sentence and the problem for v. 9:
Early on the first day of the week: ‘whether these words are to be connected with’ having arisen, ‘indicating the time of the resurrection, or with’ He appeared, ‘indicating the time of the first appearance, cannot be decided ’.13
The Greek text can be translated as it has been traditionally, seemingly to say that Jesus rose on Sunday, or the text can be translated with a comma after arisen:
‘Having arisen, early on the first day of the week He first appeared to Mary Magdalene’.
In other words, in the A.M. of Sunday, Yeshua first appeared to Miryam. And if the content was taken from John, we know that John does not tell us that Jesus resurrected on Sunday but was first seen on Sunday. So why is it traditionally translated as proclaiming a Sunday resurrection with no writing in the margin to tell us it might refer to Jesus first being seen on Sunday? The Sunday theologian-translators have a deep bias.
Also, there’s no other witness in all of Scripture to a Sunday resurrection. If two or three witnesses are needed to establish something in God’s Word, a Sunday resurrection cannot be established (2nd Cor. 13:1; Deut. 17:6; 19:15; Mt. 18:16), especially upon such a grammatically flimsy verse as Mark 16:9.
Whether one wants to believe Mark 16:9 is proclaiming a Sunday resurrection or not, no mention of a Sunday resurrection or the Sunday appearance of Yeshua is used in Mark (or anywhere else), to say that Sunday has replaced the Sabbath Day.
Mark 16:9, the only place in the New Testament that seems to proclaim a Sunday resurrection has two very serious problems. One, Mark didn't write it. And two, it can be said from the Greek that it's saying nothing more than that Jesus appeared on Sunday, first to Mary. And with the evidence of it being a compilation, v. 9 being taken from John, there's every reason to believe that the scribe was just saying that Jesus was first seen on Sunday, not that He rose on Sunday.
In all four Gospels, no mention is made that because of Jesus’ alleged Sunday resurrection (in Mark), or Sunday appearances, that the Sabbath has been done away with and Sunday instituted as the new day for Christians to assemble on. The entire New Testament is silent on Sunday assembly because of the Resurrection, or even the Sunday appearances of Jesus.
If we order our lives by the Word of God, we cannot use the Resurrection of Jesus (or His appearances on Sunday), or Mark 16:9, as reason for assembling on Sunday over Sabbath.
End Notes:
[1] E. A. Livingstone, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 200-201. Eusebius lived from about 260 to around 340 A.D. He was Bishop of Caesarea by 315. He was an Arian who half heartedly repented after being condemned by the Council of Antioch (324-325) and reinstated at the Council of Nicaea in 325. He continued to oppose Athanasius. ‘Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History is the main source for the history of Christianity from the Apostolic Age to his own day. It contains a huge range of material on the Eastern Church’. Page 36: Arianism is a heresy that denies the full and equal deity of Yeshua with the Father. It states that Yeshua was not eternal but created by the Father. The Councils of Alexandria (320) and Nicaea (325) condemned Arianism. Page 42: Athanasius was born about 296 A.D. and died in 373. He was secretary to Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, at the time of the Council of Nicaea was later Bishop of Alexandria (328). He incurred the hatred of the Arians of Alexandria and was exiled a number of times between 336 and 366. ‘In his De Incarnatione he expounds how God the Word (Logos), by His union with mankind, restored to fallen man the image of God, and by His death and resurrection overcame death. Many scholars date this work before 318; others place it some 15-20 years later. As bishop, Athanasius was the greatest and most consistent theological opponent of Arianism.’ ‘He also argued for the Divinity of the Holy Spirit’.
[2] Ibid. p. 302. Jerome lived from 345 to 420 A.D. He was a biblical scholar who knew Hebrew, and was secretary to the Pope (382-385). He preached an extreme form of asceticism. In 386 he settled in Bethlehem. ‘Jerome’s scholarship was unsurpassed in the early Church.’ ‘His greatest achievement was his translation of most of the Bible into Latin.’
[3] Charles F. Pfeiffer, Old Testament, Everett F. Harrison, New Testament, The Wycliffe Bible Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1977), p. 1025.
[4] Acts 21:20 states that all the Jewish believers in Jerusalem kept the Law. The Feasts of Israel (as well as the Sabbath), all fall within the Law. Therefore, they all kept Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, etc. This is also historically proven by Eusebius and others, as well as places within the New Testament, such as 1st Cor. 5:8, etc.
[5] R. A. Cole, M. Th., Ph. D., The Rev. Canon Leon Morris, M. Sc., M. Th., Ph. D., General Editor, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: Mark (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 2000), p. 334.
[6] Ibid. p. 335.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Alexander Balmain Bruce, D.D.; W. Robertson Nicoll, Editor, M. A., LL. D., The Expositor’s Greek Testament: The Synoptic Gospels, volume one (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002), p. 454.
[9] Ibid. pp. 53-54. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, General Editor, Everett F. Harrison, Roland K. Harrison and William Sanford LaSor, Associate Editors, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Volume Four (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979), pp 815-816. Alef is Codex Sinaiticus and B is Codex Vaticanus. These are two of the oldest manuscripts available, dated around the fourth century.
[10] Bruce, The Expositor’s Greek Testament: The Synoptic Gospels, volume one, p. 454.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid., p. 455.
[13] Ibid.
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