The Lost Ending of GMk, pt. 2

Now consider the idea that the entire Markan gospel was originally one big super-chiasm.  This idea has been best put forward by M. Philip Scott, in Biblical Theology Bulletin ("Chiastic Structure: A Key to the Interpretation of Mark's Gospel", BTB 15.1, pp. 17-26), laid out in rather intriguing detail.  Pairs of opposed ideas do seem to be spread throughout the gospel, in nested conceptual brackets, just like they are within individual pericopes.  For example, Scott characterizes the beginning and end of the gospel (ibid, p. 18) as "An angel witnesses to his coming" with "An angel witnesses to his going", though I would amend the second half slightly to “An angel witnesses to his returning”.

So once we recognize the overall chiastic structure of Mark's gospel in general, the remaining pieces of the missing ending fall into place, along with the original super-structure.  Notice that what we have at the beginning of Mark’s gospel is not just John’s announcement of the coming of a messiah, but also some substantial baptism imagery.  Not only do we have the baptisms of John's followers, but we also notably have the baptism of Jesus.  Furthermore, we have John's promise that Jesus will baptize in the Holy Spirit--and, following Mark's adoptionist theology, we also have Jesus' own baptism in the spirit.

But read through Mark's gospel from start to finish, ending at Mk 16:8.  Nowhere in it will you find Jesus baptizing in the Holy Spirit.  Nowhere--not once.  This is remarkable.  And, according to basic rules of both narrative and theology, completely intolerable--you can't have John the Baptist promise at the very beginning of the gospel that someone will come who will baptize in the holy spirit, and fail to deliver on this promise.

However...we do have a missing ending to Mark's gospel, don't we?  Follow the principle of the super-chiasm...where would we find such a baptism in the spirit?  This baptism in the spirit was promised at the beginning of the gospel.  So we would find the fulfillment of that promise at the very end of the gospel, wouldn't we?  So that's where this baptism in the spirit must have been found--at the end of the gospel.

And in Jn 20:22, Jesus does precisely that--even though he didn't promise he would in GJn--he only promised in GMk!  Why would Jesus deliver on a Markan promise in the Johannine gospel?  He could only do that if...John were using GMk as a source.  And it can't be the case that John is just trying to fulfill the promise made in Mk 1:8—again, there is no way Mark made that promise but failed to deliver on it in his own gospel.  So the Johannine baptism in the spirit must have been taken from GMk.

Furthermore, there's another baptism at the end of GJn, isn't there?  Peter leaps into the water to reach Jesus.  There is too much resonance between this event and the beginning of GMk for this to be coincidence--Peter leaps into the Sea of Galilee in Jn 21 to follow Jesus, just as he is called by Jesus on the very same sea in Mk 1...he sees Jesus on shore from a boat in Jn 21, just as he does in Mk 1...Jesus tells Peter to follow him in Jn 21, just as he does in Mk 1. 

Nor does it make sense to think that John was just conflating Mk 1 with Lk 5 (where Luke himself has already conflated the calling of the disciples with a miraculous catch of fish).  Luke (actually Marcion here) conflated GMk with whatever other source he was using (the HSH claims it was Q).  But how could John just so happen to pick out the Markan details that Luke/Marcion left out of his version of the calling of the disciples, put each and every one back into its proper place, and move the whole thing to the end of the Johannine gospel?  Why would John be motivated to return to Mk 1 at all, if he had Lk 5 in front of him?  Lk 5 already has all the details he would need—and yet we know there are parallels to Mk 1 in Jn 21.  Furthermore, this would be a rather ad hoc decision by the Johannine author to suddenly dip into an early point of the Lukan narrative, here at the end of the story.  To assume John was using Lk 5 to write Jn 21 is actually too complex—it’s simpler to assume that the whole thing derives from the sources we already have evidence that John used: (original) GMk, and the Signs Gospel.  John can't be using GLk at all.

But John can't be the one who originally placed these echoes of Mk 1 at the end of the gospel narrative—again, it is inconceivable that John would deliberately reflect Mk 1 at the end of his own gospel, but that Mark would not have done so himself.  Why would John return to the beginning of GMk simply in order to compose an ending to his own gospel?  These reflections must have been in the original Markan gospel.  Peter's leap into the sea is originally a Markan story, not a Johannine one.

And there is typical Markan irony going on here, isn't there?  Peter puts on his clothes, jumps into the water, then climbs out to express contrition and devotion to Jesus.  But this is of course exactly reversed from what baptismal ritual would have been--first came confession, then baptism, then re-clothing.  Peter is being portrayed as quite the bumbler here--but that's typical for Mark. 

Notice other subtle resonances: Peter's clothing is described, just as John the Baptist's is...Peter expresses contrition before Jesus, just as the Judeans confess their sins (an element also remaining in the Lukan version of the Catch of Fish)...Peter behaves as though he is unworthy, just as the Baptist says he himself is unworthy…we can even perhaps point to the mention of Jesus’ food in Jn 21, in comparison with the mention of John’s food in Mk 1.  All of this is a recapitulation of Markan themes from the opening of Mark's gospel.  Again, it is inconceivable that John just so happened to pull this off perfectly, but that Mark didn't try to do it himself.  This bears all the hallmarks of Mark's narrative style, not John's.

So it looks like we know what the original, lost ending of GMk contained; it contained the remainder of the resurrection pericope, in which Peter must have visited the tomb after he hears what the women have to say to him, as I showed above…and then it contained the Markan original of Jn 21, which included at the very least a seaside appearance of Jesus to Peter and the disciples, and probably also the Catch of Fish (It’s just possible that John was the one to conflate this sign from the Signs Gospel with the end of the Markan gospel narrative, which was itself inspired by the original sign, but it's more likely that the original Markan ending did contain a miraculous catch of fish.)  The pericope began with Peter heading off to the sea on a fishing expedition, followed by an encounter with Jesus (probably involving a miraculous catch of fish, though this is not totally certain), a leap into the sea by Peter, a meeting between Peter and Jesus, perhaps a shared meal, the bestowal of the Holy Spirit by Jesus, and a final command by Jesus: "Follow me", perhaps with a final line something like: "And they followed him on the way."

So how would this compare to the beginning of the gospel?  We can line up the beginning and (fragmentary) end of GMk, and add the material we've inferred from not only the Catch of Fish parallels in GJn, GMt, and GLk, but also the half-chaism of Mk 16:1-8.  We'll include the Johannine parallels with the Catch of Fish material.  We'll see that the themes of the first two Markan pericopes are all reflected at the end of John--so if they were originally present at the end of the Markan gospel itself, they would form a nice super-chiasm with the beginning.

A  1 John the Baptist appears to make straight the paths of the Lord.

    2 He baptizes in water for repentance

    [3 John ate locusts and wild honey]

    4 He promises the one to come will baptize in the holy spirit

    5 Jesus is baptized and heads into the wilderness

  B  1 Jesus enters Galilee proclaiming the gospel

      2 He sees the disciples on the sea of Galilee

....

  B' 1 The women meet the young man who proclaims the resurrection

     2 They visit the disciples to tell what they've seen (Jn 20:2-10, 18)

A' 1 Jesus appears (Jn 21:1-7)

   2 Peter leaps into the water (Jn 21:8)

   [3 Jesus provides a meal? (Jn 21:9-13)]

   4 Jesus baptizes in the holy spirit (Jn 20:22-23)

   5 He and the disciples head into the world (Jn 21:19b)

This gives us a good start.  We’ll see in the next post that a careful study of all the parallels among the versions of the Catch of Fish in GMt, GLk, and GJn will confirm this outline, and fill in even more details, enabling us to virtually reconstruct the so-called “lost” ending of GMk (really just the original ending of original GMk).