The Good Book Club, Monday, 15 Feb 2021. Mark 16:1-8 RISEN!

Mark 16

The Resurrection
(Matthew 28:1–10; Luke 24:1–12; John 20:1–9)

1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so they could go and anoint the body of Jesus. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they went to the tomb. 3 They were asking one another, “Who will roll away the stone from the entrance of the tomb?” 4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, even though it was extremely large.

5 When they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth (actually, τὸν Ναζαρηνὸν the Nazarene*), who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here! See the place where they put Him. 7 But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him, just as He told you.’ ”

8 So the women left the tomb and ran away, trembling and bewildered. And in their fear they did not say a word to anyone.

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The Gospel according to Mark ends here, ends suddenly, an ending meant to bring the reader (that's you) up short and move you to shout "What? they didn't say nothing to nobody, are you kidding me?" and jump up to run out and tell the story yourself. After all, it's the story of the Son of God and has to be told. That's what Mark the Evangelist calls you and me to do: proclaim Christ.

About "the rest" of Mark. Thinking something must be missing, well-meaning fixers saw what Matthew and Luke added as post-resurrection appearances and tacked on several more verses, including the bizarre line about snake-handling that has led to fringe cults of Christianity. TGBC includes them as the ending and sponsors them as to be read tomorrow, Shrove Tuesday.

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*A Nazarene is not the same as a Nazarite. A Nazarene is a resident of Nazareth, a city in Galilee. A Nazarite was an Israelite consecrated to the service of God, under vows to abstain from alcohol, let the hair grow, and avoid defilement by contact with corpses (Num. 6)

The mysterious Salome. Salome never appears in Mark until she's reported (15:40) showing up at the Cross with the other women. Now at 16:1 she goes to the tomb with the women. We know the other women, but who was Salome?! Other sources name Salome as the dancing daughter of Herodias. And I came across an assertion that Salome was the wife of Zebedee and the mother of James and John (non-scriptural rubbish based on reading backwards from Matthew 27:56). The extra-canonical documentation of Salome related to Mark is back in Mark chapter 10, the verses called "Secret Mark" in which Jesus raises a young man from death: Salome is his mother. And perhaps that young man is the same lad who was at Gethsemane with Jesus and who, as Jesus was arrested, broke free from the arresting authorities and, his garment ripping loose, ran away naked. Scholars have discussed the possibility that early church authorities excised that account from Mark's gospel very early for various reasons.

Art: pinched online. I appreciate this visualization of the "Women at the Tomb" a painting by Graham Braddock.

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