The Lost Ending of GMk, pt. 3

Before I proceed, I wanted to mention this article that James McGrath published in February of this year, essentially on the same subject: the probable existence of a missing ending to GMk based on the internal, textual evidence of GMk up to Mk 16:8, and the witness of GPet to the content of that missing ending. 

At any rate, in the last post, we got a kind of rough outline of what a missing ending of GMk might have originally looked like, based on the principle that the first verses of Mk 1 would form a kind of super-chiasm bracket with it--that is, that we should expect to find the specific themes of Mk 1 replicated at the end of the Markan gospel.

And I argue we can go even further with this, and figure out the specific details found in this final pericope.  In a previous post on the signs in GMk, I provided two lists from Raymond Brown’s Anchor Bible commentary on GJn: one of parallels between Lk 5:1-11 and Jn 21, and another of parallels between Mt 14:28-32 and Jn 21. 

The list of Lukan parallels is as follows (with triple parallels in the Matthean Water-Walking underlined)

• The disciples and Peter fish in a boat all night unsuccessfully
• Jesus tells them to cast their nets
• There is a large catch of fish
• There is an effect on the nets
• Peter reacts
• Jesus is called Lord
• There are other silent fishermen
• Following Jesus is the theme at the end

Brown also says they are both symbols for evangelization, but I am not sure about this—I think John is accessing an earlier symbolism that was unrelated to evangelization.  Nevertheless, that evangelization symbolism may have been in the Markan version. 

Brown also mentions that the name “Simon Peter” occurs in both the Lukan and Johannine version, but it may be an addition or interpolation in GLk, so I leave it aside for now.  Brown does point out several other verbal parallels, however.

Brown also mentions the presence of the Sons of Zebedee, but admits that this could be an element taken directly from the calling of the disciples in Mark (which is obviously being conflated here with the catch of fish).  We can at least accept however that the presence of disciples with Peter is an element common to both versions (and indeed to all three).  I should also point out that the theme of following could also be borrowed by Luke/Marcion from the Markan calling of the disciples, but that doesn’t stop Brown from including it in his list of GLk/GJn parallels, so we’ll leave that on the list.

Lastly, Brown mentions Peter’s contrition.  He tries to explain it away with the suggestion that it is a natural reaction of “an ordinary mortal’s sense of unworthiness” in the presence of a miracle worker, but I find this suggestion ad hoc at best.  We should really add it to the list of Lukan parallels: 

• Peter is suppliant before Jesus

The list of Matthean parallels is (again, with triple parallels underlined):

• Peter (and disciples) in a boat (at the end of night)
• Sees Jesus from a distance
• Recognizes Jesus (a reaction)
• Calls him Lord
• Leaves the boat to come to Jesus
• Jesus saves Peter after chastising him

To this we can also add the parallels I brought up previously in the odd logion in GMt about the fish and the coin.  Those parallels are:

• Jesus tells peter to cast into the sea for a fish
• The assumption is made that Peter will make a catch

So there is a central core of elements that are shared among all three versions: 

• Peter and disciples are in a boat all night
• Jesus tells Peter to cast for fish
• Peter catches fish
• Peter reacts to this
• Jesus is called Lord
• Peter is suppliant before Jesus

This is remarkable: in the material shared among all three versions, we have the skeleton outline of a complete pericope.  This is pretty solid evidence that there was an original version lying behind all three, and that each author has adapted it in his own way.  This means that when there is a parallel between two versions, though not among all three, those are just instances of one author or another dropping an element that was in the original.  So we can flesh out this skeleton by adding all the remaining double-parallels.  This gives us:

• Peter and disciples are in a boat all night, fishing unsuccessfully
• They see Jesus from a distance
• Jesus tells Peter (and the disciples) to cast for fish
• Peter and the disciples catch many fish
• There is an effect on the nets
• Peter reacts to this, recognizing Jesus
• He leaves the boat to come to Jesus
• Jesus is called Lord
• Peter is suppliant before Jesus
• Jesus admonishes him but saves him
• There are other silent fishermen
• Following Jesus is the theme at the end

(We can even notice that GPet shares elements with the first one: in GPet, Peter and disciples head off to the sea to go fishing, presumably in a boat).

Notice that the first half of the list contains a miracle: the catch of fish.  Markan miracles almost always take up the center of a chiasm, so we should guess that it does here, as well.  And in fact we can construct a chiasm out of these elements.  Here it is (remember that the first line must be along the lines of “Then they returned to their homes”, as in GPet and perhaps dimly reflected by APHLQEN in Mt 27:60, but also in Jn 20:10).

A They return to their homes (i.e. Galilee)

B Peter and disciples go fishing

                        C That night they catch nothing

                                    D They see Jesus but do not recognize him        

                                                E He tells them to cast their nets

                                                E’ They catch fish, which pull on the nets

                                    D’ Recognizing him, Peter puts his clothes on

                        C’ He jumps in the water

            [B The disciples bring in their catch]

A’ Peter swims to Jesus

The opposed brackets are as follows:

A/A’ They return to their home/Peter swims to the shore of Galilee

B/B’: The disciples go fishing/they bring in their catch (here we add the detail that some disciples do something with the fish after the catch, as we read they do in Lk 5:7 and in 21:8—this is not a parallel that Brown notices, though I think it is a real one)

C/C’: They catch nothing/Peter himself becomes the catch

D/D’: They don’t recognize Jesus/Peter (or someone) recognizes Jesus

E/E’: Jesus tells them to cast their nets/they cast their nets and catch fish

(It’s also possible that the young man whom Jesus raised from the dead (i.e. John’s “beloved disciple”) was aboard, and is the one who recognizes Jesus, as he does in GJn.  In which case the B’ and C’ brackets would read:

D’ The young man recognizes him

                        C’ Putting on his clothes, Peter jumps in the water

This would make for a sly commentary by the Markan author: it is not Peter who first recognizes Jesus, but rather the young man.  Also there is an amusing contrast between the young man, who came to Jesus by night clothed with a sindon and learned the mystery of the kingdom, and Peter, who only puts his clothes on after he fails to accomplish anything by night.)

That leaves us with the last few parallels on the list, which would start and end the following chiasm:

A Peter swims to Jesus

            B Falling before him, he calls him Lord (and begs him to depart—GLk)

                        C (Jesus raises Peter?) [admonishes him]

                                                D The other disciples arrive (dragging the fish?)

[missing verses]

            B’ “Follow me”

A’ They follow him

One might try to form a chiasm out of these verses alone, but the narrative is too brief and anticlimactic; there must have been more to it.  We can, however, at least guess that if the narrative ended with the theme of following, the Jesus must have been going somewhere, in which case he must have directed the disciples to follow him.  If so, this must have been in the B’ bracket, and that is most likely opposed by a B bracket in which Peter begs Jesus to depart from him, as he does in GLk.

Now remember that the promise of John the Baptist in Mk 1 indicates there must have been a baptism in the spirit at the end of the gospel.  So it must have been found here.  Indeed, such a momentous event must have lain at the heart of any chiasm.  What would that have looked like?

In GJn, Jesus does baptize in the spirit.  In Jn 20 he breathes upon the disciples, then gives them what looks like an apostolic commission: “What you forgive is forgiven; what you retain is retained”.  Notice this is closely parallel to the Matthean commissions, to Peter in Mt 16 and to the disciples in Mt 18.  Now notice that Mt 16 is the first piece of uniquely Matthean material to fall after the Matthean material in Mt 14 we’ve been working with, the Petrine Water-Walking, and that it doesn’t fall far after Mt 14.  Unusual, no?  Now notice that the apostolic commission in Mt 18 is found in the first segment of uniquely Matthean material falling after Mt 16.  These two commissions must be related; they must have been in the mind of the Matthean author as he wrote and edited his material.  Many have suggested that the group commission is in fact the original version.  GJn seems to be evidence that they’re right.  What might that tell us about a common source between GMt and GJn?

It might tell us that there was a commission at the end of one of Matthew’s sources.  It wasn’t at the end of GMk, so most likely it was at the end of Q.  It’s absence in GLk is not much of a problem, since Marcion was the author of original GLk (i.e. “proto-GLk”), and he would not have been interested in giving apostolic authority to any church, so he would have left it out.  Matthew, on the other hand, was already relocating the Catch of Fish material to a spot earlier in the gospel, so he may have just continued the process with the next few verses in the original ending of Q/GPet, singling Peter out for special treatment.  He couldn’t award Peter the commission during his Petrine Water-Walking, since there he has Peter sink beneath the waves.  So he saves it for just a bit later, conflating it with Peter’s post-Transfiguration confession.  Then, a bit after that, he makes sure to give the commission to the rest of the apostles.

If this scenario is correct, then these Matthean commissions are just relics of the original Q ending, in which a commission is given to all the disciples.

Furthermore, in Jn 20, Jesus appears before the disciples, “shows them his hands”, and then confers the Holy Spirit upon them.  In Lk 24, Jesus says “I send forth the promise of my Father on you”, which could be nothing but the Holy Spirit, and the next verse says “He lifted up his hands, and blessed them”, which likewise sounds suspiciously like a conferral of the Holy Spirit. So it seems as though GLk likewise has a fragmentary version of this commission, just one missing the bit about forgiving sins.  This provides further evidence that there was a commission in Q, probably at the end: Matthew just moved it to the middle of his gospel, Marcion left it at the end but redacted it so it didn’t sound like Jesus was establishing the disciples as ecclesiastical authorities. 

There must be a relationship among the commissions we have (in GMt, GJn, and GLk), and the hypothetical ones in Q and GMk, and the simplest explanation is that it was original to GMk.  So to the list above, we can add:

• A commission to the disciples (Mt 16:17-19, 18:18; Lk 24:47-50; Jn 20:21-23

So what verse in the fragmentary chiasm we built above would this commission oppose?  It could easily oppose the verse about the disciples coming ashore, especially if they brought the fish along with them—the fish representing the church of believers they have converted.  So we could construct the following:

A Peter swims to Jesus

            B Falling before him, he calls him Lord, begs him to depart

                        C (Raising him?) [admonishes him]

                                                D The other disciples arrive (dragging the fish?)

                                                D' [Jesus bestows the Holy Spirit, saying the disciples can forgive]

C' [missing verses]

            B' “Follow me”

A' They follow him

That leaves us with at least one remaining missing verse.  What could it have been?  It would have had to oppose Jesus’ words to Peter.  What were those words?  In GLk they are “Don’t be afraid”.  In GMt they are “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?”  Which of these is closer to the original?

Well, in GJn, Jesus’ words to Peter are an elaborate exchange (“Do you love me?” etc.) that is clearly an attempt by John to exonerate Peter from his abandonment of Jesus at his arrest.  So what is John more likely to be reacting to—the words “Don’t be afraid”, or “Why did you doubt?”  He’s much more likely to be reacting to the latter.  So it’s likely that the risen Jesus’ words to Peter on the sea-shore were something along the lines of “Man of little faith, why did you doubt?”  Notice also the echo of this in Lk 24:25, “slow of heart to believe”.  Whatever the exact words were, they clearly impugned Peter’s faith.

So, the opposing concept to that is, of course, knowing.  And we have a description of knowing in Jn 21, don’t we?  In Jn 21:12, John reassures the reader that the disciples knew who Jesus was, despite the fact that in 21:4, he said they didn’t.  John seems to be protesting a bit too much here, trying to explain away a somewhat embarrassing detail.  In addition, Jesus feeds them in 21:13, and in 21:14 John says this was the third time Jesus was “revealed” to the disciples.  Does this not echo the account in Lk 24:16, where the disciples at first do not recognize Jesus (24:16), but then share a meal with him in 24:30, and recognize him in 24:31?  This uncertainty is even reflected in GMt, at Mt 28:17, where “They worshipped him, but some doubted”, as well as in John’s account of Thomas’ doubting in Jn 20.  We even read that the disciples “were glad when they saw the Lord” in Jn 20: 20b.  So it seems the missing line was something along the lines of “Then they recognized him and believed”.  So we can add the following parallel to the list:  
 

• The disciples recognize Jesus and believe (Lk 24:31; Jn 20:20b, 21:12, 14)

And adding that to the chiasm would give us:

A Peter swims to Jesus

            B Falling before him, he calls him Lord, begs him to depart

                        C (Raising him?) “Why did you doubt?”

                                    D The other disciples arrive (dragging the fish?)

                                    D' [Jesus bestows the Holy Spirit, saying the disciples can forgive]

C' [the disciples recognize Jesus and believe]

            B' “Follow me”

A' They follow him

So are we done?  We have a complete chiasm.  It would seem we’ve accomplished all we need to; technically, we have a complete lost ending of GMk.

But no, this chiasm feels just slightly incomplete.  There was probably more to it.  In the next post, we'll explore what more there might have been to the story, and complete the pericope, and with it, complete the lost ending of the Gospel of Mark.