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This article discusses one of the most perplexing questions in textual criticism – the wide variety of endings for the gospel of Mark. The most reliable early manuscripts end at verse 8, but this is a very strange ending, and other endings seem to have been added later: the shorter and the longer ending. The article discusses various hypotheses about whether an original ending was lost or whether this ending was deliberate and concludes that Mark decided to end this way because of conflicting versions of the Easter story circulating in his community: One was the early traditional version, probably proclaimed by the Jerusalem apostles and taken up by Paul, that Peter was the first one to see the risen Christ. The other was more controversial and had implications for questions of authority and leadership in the church: the testimony that Mary Magdalene, or several women, were first. Mark chose to allow the women the place of first witnesses to the empty tomb, but to leave open the question of who had the first encounter with the risen Christ. The different factions were then free to choose their own ending. As the empty tomb was not an integral part of the Petrine resurrection narrative, Mark’s version did not undermine this early Easter account, but opened the way to integrate the women’s story in official Christian tradition. Keywords: Ending of Mark, Mark 16, Mary Magdalene, Resurrection, Empty Tomb, Easter, Mark 16:8

International audience; Available in OA on Serval: https://serval.unil.ch/fr/notice/serval:BIB_94927C83CD64Building upon a five years research SNSF grant on digital methodology and Mark 16, this article highlights scribal practices in New Testament textual criticism by focusing on the test-case of endings in Mark’s Gospel, pointing to a specific tradition of the so-called shorter ending in Latin Codex Bobiensis or G. VII.15. This tradition differs from the usual Greek shorter ending. Section 2 first argues that contemporaneous scribal practices still exist in Greek NT scholarship, whereas Section 3 presents nine cases of scribal practices in Mark 16 – seven Greek NT manuscripts (Gregory-Aland 083, 099, 019, 044, 1, 304 and 579, in chronological order), one Latin NT manuscript (codex k), and the Harklean Syriac version of Mark.

International audience

International audience; Article in OA on Peeters website. The present article offers a first presentation of a five-year research project on Mark 16 financed by the SNSF. It first surveys the variety in recent scholarly opinions on the end of Mark’s gospel after several decades of nearly unanimous agreement that Mk 16,8 constituted the original ending. The possibility to look online at digital manuscripts increases the NT scholars’ aware-ness of the three witnesses that present the end of Mark’s gospel in verse 8: 01, 03 and 304. Secondly, the article discusses the most recent hypothesis on Mk 16,8 by Stephen Hultgren. Starting from the assumption that there may be a link between Dan 10,7 and Mark 16,8, Hultgren draws attention to the widespread motif of having fear in front of a divine epiphany. Finally, the article paves the way for further inquiries in order to take into account the diversity of early Chris-tian readings in Mark 16.