is complete Mark (Mark 15-16)

In the final scenes of Mark we other interesting differences.   

At his trial, Jesus, for the most part remains silent, but when he is asked if he is the Messiah he says he is.  In Matthew he said “So you say I am.”  That is a huge difference.  He is found guilty and taken to Pilate for punishment.  (And, by the way, there is no mention of Judas feeling guilty for his betrayal as we find in Matthew.)

But similar to Matthew, Pilate (with no mention of the wife) questions Jesus and then asks the crowd if they want Jesus or Barabbas.  They call for Barabbas so he orders Jesus to be crucified, but unlike Matthew there is no symbolic washing of Pilate’s hands nor the blame for the death of Jesus being placed on future generation of Jews.  On the cross, Jesus asks why God has abandoned him.   He then dies.

Joseph of Arimathea asks for the body and places it in his tomb and blocks the entrance with a large rock.  Two days later Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (and I still don’t know which Mary) arrive but instead of an earthquake and an angel rolling back the rock as depicted in Matthew, the rock has already been rolled back.  They enter the tomb where a young man in a white robe tells them that Jesus has risen from the dead.  He tells them to go and tell the disciples.  That’s similar to the Matthew story but Mark has them so afraid that they leave and tell no one. 

Jesus then meets Mary Magdalene and asks her to tell the disciples that he will meet with them in Galilee.  When she tells them, they don’t believe her.  Next Jesus meets two of the disciples and when they tell the others, they aren’t believed either.  Finally, Jesus meets the whole group and tells them (after scolding them on their lack of faith) to spread his message.  Jesus is then taken into Heaven.  (Many of those details are not the same in Matthew.  For example Matthew does not mention Jesus going to Heaven.)

I know I am not doing Mark justice but there isn’t nearly as much in Mark.  It is just a shorter version of the Matthew story.  It is hard to read these gospel stories in isolation but my guess is that Mark by itself would not be as powerful a story.  If Mark were the only gospel, I am not sure how much the message of Jesus would have spread and survived.  In fact because of the inconsistencies between Mark and Matthew, I wonder if having both of them is more problematic than helpful.