If we were to treat the Bible to judicial
scrutiny, as evidence in a courtroom, Mark 16 might be a very troubling passage
for us. Mark is the shortest and
generally accepted as the oldest of the Synoptic Gospels, both Matthew and Luke
had it as a resource as they recorded their gospel accounts. So, if the bible were to be ‘put on the stand’, Mark’s testimony, as the oldest, the ‘closest’ to Jesus, would
carry particular weight.
The problem is that the Gospel seems to end at different spots, according to which
of the oldest manuscripts are used. The
earliest end at a particular damning location, at the conclusion of verse
8. It reads:
16When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother
of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2And
very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to
the tomb. 3They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the
stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”4When
they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been
rolled back. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a
white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6But he
said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who
was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place
they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of
you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8So they
went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and
they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. (italics added)
The problem is…no body, dead or alive. The figure in white says Jesus is alive. Jesus said he was going to rise, but the tomb
is empty, and the women who came to embalm the body fled, saying nothing out of
fear. So, no body and no testimony ever given.
This is
the “Jesus Christ Superstar” ending. If
you watch the movie adaptation, it ends with the
empty cross and the actors climbing onto a bus. Jesus is crucified. He said he would rise…but did he? Did
he arise? Because there is an alternate ending. The leadership who condemned him leaked the story that the
disciples stole the body to create "false news" that Jesus was risen. Those who wrote the play, as near as I can
tell, are seeking to have the audience “decide for themselves”.
Do you
remember learning about the scientific method in school? It begins with a hypothesis-a way to explain why something happens-that is then
experimented upon to see if it holds up.
One of the tenets of the scientific method is that any hypothesis must have stated what will falsify it, what will prove it
wrong. It serves as a guide to the experimental
data, to prove the hypothesis one way or the other.
And
while believing in Jesus is a matter of faith, not of proof, the resurrection
is the very measure by which our religion would be proven wrong. Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 15: 13-14:
12Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can
some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? 13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not
been raised; 14and if Christ has
not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been
in vain.
It looks there were already
challenges to the resurrection of Christ in the earliest church. But Paul puts it bluntly. If Christ is not raised, his proclamation is in
vain and the faith of his readers is a lie.
So when
circumstances are created in which people are asked to ‘decide for themselves’
as to whether or not Jesus was raised from the dead, that is not a 'value neutral' inquiry. They have a term for this in
politics, the ‘push poll’. The push poll
is when someone calls up a voter under the pretense of asking a neutral
question about the upcoming election, like “who will you vote for?” But it is a pretense as the caller will couch
the question in terms that favor one particular answer. “Would you vote for candidate A, who has
served his country in the military and in public service for the last 45 years
or would you vote for candidate B, despite his never having served a day in
uniform, and who has been alleged to have done….”
Now,
the verses that follow do speak of Jesus being alive, of coming to the women,
and to the disciples. But the “evidence”
suggests these were added later, and they parallel the testimony given in the
other gospels. In a courtroom, this
evidence could easily be discredited by a sharp lawyer, making fancy arguments
about the primacy and the veracity of the most ancient witness. And if the remainder of Mark is discredited, the
implication is that the testimony of the other gospels is also suspect.
This
whole process begins with a reasonable premise, that we look at the bible with
a discerning eye. After all, it is the
Holy Book of the Christian Faith, its authority derives from the divine. But when someone or something is put on
trial, it is NOT about discernment. It
is about reasonable doubt. If a jury
finds reasonable doubt, they should not convict. If we read the bible and find reasonable doubt, we should not believe. Apply that pattern of inquiry to the bible, wrap
it up in the lie that this is simply looking at the bible with a ‘discerning
eye’ and we are three quarters of the way to undercutting the most basic truth
of our faith.
How
then should we look at this passage?
That is an EXCELLENT question, and one that we will take up in the next
installment.
