Was the ending of the Gospel According to Mark Added Later?

Question:

My Bible says that the last twelve verses of Mark are not original, are not found in the oldest manuscripts, and were added later. Is this true?

Answer:

This is an example of the difference between facts, and someone's interpretation of the facts. Here are the facts:

Over 5000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament have been found. Some of these are fragments, some are collections of portions of the New Testament (such as the gospels, or Paul's letters), and some are the entire New Testament. When you include all copies of the New Testament, including translations into other languages, there are over 24,000 copies of the New Testament. Of these, more than 10,000 contain the gospels.

So how many of these manuscripts are missing these 12 verses?

Of the 5000 Greek manuscripts, Mark 16:9-20 is missing from four. Of the 24,000 total manuscripts, it is missing from a couple dozen. At first glance, this would appear to support the opposite case, that the overwhelming evidences suggests they should be included, however, two of the four manuscripts from which Mark 16:9-20 are missing are two of the oldest manuscripts that contain Mark in existence: Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Vaticanus, both of which are believed to have been created sometime between 325 and 350 AD. There is only one copy of Mark older than these two books, and it is missing the last few pages, so we have no way of knowing how Mark ended in that manuscript.

What should be noted, however, is that the exclusion of the ending of Mark from the Codex Vaticanus can be interpreted to support the belief that the longer ending should be included.

Each page of Codex Vaticanus is vellum, which is made from leather. The text on each page is arranged into three columns, and since vellum was relatively expensive, when one book ended, the next book would start in the very next column. For example, here is the end of Luke and the beginning of John in Codex Vaticanus.

Here is the ending of Second Thessalonians and the beginning of Hebrews.

The entire New Testament is this way. When one book ends, the next books starts in the very next column. But not so for the ending of Mark and the beginning of Luke.

When Mark ends, the next column is left blank (the very light text visible is bleed over from the beginning of Luke on the next page). This is the ONLY time in the Codex Vaticanus that a blank column appears after the end of one of the books. What I find interesting, is that in the one book of the New Testament where there is a dispute about the ending, the Codex Vaticanus leaves a blank space where it appears the longer ending could be added. In fact, here is what happens if we attempt to insert the longer ending of Mark in that space using the exact same letter size and spacing as the rest of the page.

It just so happens that one blank column is almost exactly the space that would be needed to add the missing verses to the end of Mark.

This means at the very least, the copyist who created Codex Vaticanus knew about the longer ending (but possibly did not have access to it), and intending to add it later, left enough space to include the full ending. So the exclusion of the ending of Mark in Codex Vaticanus may not be as clear cut as some have indicated.

But even more telling, almost two hundred years prior to the creation of the Codex Sinaiticus (approx. 325 AD) and Codex Vaticanus (approx. 350 AD), early church fathers quoted from the longer ending of Mark. Over the first few hundred years of Christianity, the end of Mark is quoted numerous times, including in 160 AD Justin Martyr referenced Mark 16:20, in 172 Tatian used the full longer ending of Mark when he created a harmony of the four gospels, and in 184 Irenaeus quoted Mark 16:19.

So the real evidence is that the longer ending of Mark is attested by numerous Christian writers in the second and third centuries, is missing from two Bibles in the fourth century (although one of them left enough blank space to include it later), and is found in almost every other manuscript in existence. To me, the overwhelming evidence is that the longer ending has existed from the very beginning, and so, I think the case for the originality of the longer ending in Mark is very strong.

But even if I am wrong, the resurrection has already been recorded prior to that section, and every single doctrine found in the longer section is found somewhere else in the New Testament, so even if we exclude it, it has no impact on our faith or doctrine.