Mark 16
The women come to the tomb and find the stone rolled away. The base text breaks off at verse 8 and carries the shorter and longer endings inside ⟦ ⟧ — this edition reproduces those marks.
Bought spices — they buy after the Sabbath, and so come late.
The sun having risen — Matthew 28:1 and John 20:1 have it still dark. The books are left as they stand.
Who will roll away the stone — the question is asked on the way, not at the tomb.
For it was very large — the writer gives the reason after the fact.
A young man — this book does not call him an angel. Struck with dread is the word used of Jesus at 14:33.
Why this rendering
Mark.16.5 Observation
Syntactic observation
The text does not say angel. νεανίσκον — a young man. And the word occurs twice in Mark, the other at 14:51: the young man who left the linen and fled naked. Here he sits clothed in a white στολή. στολή likewise occurs twice, the other at 12:38, where the scribes love to walk about in long robes. περιβεβλημένον, clothed, is the same participial form as the περιβεβλημένος of 14:51 — only what is wrapped around him has changed. The women's reaction, ἐξεθαμβήθησαν, is one of four in the book: at 9:15 when the crowd saw Jesus, at 14:33 of Jesus in Gethsemane, and here at 16:5 and 6 of the women. Mark says nothing about who this person is.
Rendering options · 2
Basis Renders the word the text uses. Keeping both young men in one word lets the reader join them unaided.
Basis Names what the figure is.
Rejected There is no ἄγγελος in the text. Supplying one says what Mark did not, and cuts the verbal link to 14:51.
Lost in translation
Whether it is the same person the text does not say. Only the word is the same, and keeping it the same is all a translation can do.
He was raised stands in the passive — the text does not say who raised him.
Why this rendering
Mark.16.6 Observation
Syntactic observation
ἠγέρθη is aorist passive — he was raised. Not that he rose but that he was raised, and by whom the sentence does not say. Elsewhere the book uses both voices for it (the ἀναστῆναι of 8:31, 9:31, 10:34 active; the ἐγερθῆναι of 14:28 passive). τὸν ἐσταυρωμένον is a perfect passive participle — the crucified one: the act finished and its state still on him. The aorist of being raised stands beside the perfect of having been crucified. ἴδε ὁ τόπος, see the place, is not look, the tomb is empty but look at the spot where they laid him — and 15:47, where the two Marys were watching where he was laid, has marked that spot in advance.
Rendering options · 2
Basis Renders the passive as passive. The text does not name who raised him, so neither does the translation.
Basis Renders it in the natural active.
Rejected The active changes the subject: the Greek says he was raised and leaves the agent empty, and that empty place is the shape of the sentence.
Lost in translation
The crucified (perfect, the state remaining) and was raised (aorist, a point) sit in one sentence, but in English the two forms sound alike and the pairing does not show.
And Peter — he is named apart from the disciples, after the denials.
Why this rendering
Mark.16.7 Observation
Syntactic observation
καὶ τῷ Πέτρῳ — and to Peter. After the disciples have already been named, one name is attached separately. Peter is one of the twelve, so grammatically it is redundant; what fills the redundancy is that he is the man who denied three times at 14:66-72. The last thing Peter did in this book was weep (14:72), and after that he does not act — here he is only named. Προάγει, he goes ahead, is present tense, and it is the verb of the promise at 14:28: after I am raised I will go ahead of you into Galilee. That promise is laid down again here, and καθὼς εἶπεν ὑμῖν, as he told you, points to it. προάγω comes five times in Mark; at 10:32 he walked ahead of them going up to Jerusalem. And in v.8 the women do not deliver the message.
Rendering options · 2
Basis Leaves the added name added. Why one man is singled out the text does not explain, so the translation does not either.
Basis Brings out the emphasis.
Rejected In particular is not in the text, and it makes the translation announce the reason for the emphasis. The Greek attaches one name with a conjunction and stops.
They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid — the base text of this edition ends the book here, on a fear. What follows in double brackets is the shorter ending, which the manuscripts carry as an addition; the brackets are the base text's own mark and are kept.
Why this rendering
Mark.16.8 Observation
Syntactic observation
The last word of the body is γάρ — ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ, for they were afraid. γάρ is the conjunction that hooks what follows onto what precedes, so it rarely stands at the end of a sentence, let alone of a book. The sentence breaks where it should continue. And the vocabulary of the last paragraph echoes backwards: ἔκστασις, being out of oneself, is what came over the people at 5:42 when the girl rose; ἔφυγον, they fled, is what the disciples did at 14:50 and the young man at 14:52. The women flee too. οὐδενὶ οὐδὲν εἶπαν, they said nothing to anyone, is the place where the silence commanded throughout the book (1:44, 5:43, 7:36, 8:30, 9:9) turns over at the end — told to speak (v.7), they do not. SBLGNT then prints, inside double brackets ⟦…⟧, the shorter ending. The brackets are the editor's mark that he does not take it for the original text, and we render neither with the mark erased nor with the bracketed matter hidden. SBLGNT marks a variant in this verse (⸀γὰρ ⸁γάρ.).
Rendering options · 2
Basis Reproduces what the base text prints: the body breaks off at fear, and what is bracketed stays bracketed.
Basis Ends the text at v.8.
Rejected Our rule is to render what the base text prints (DECISIONS C1), and the base text prints this in the body, bracketed, not in a note. Its status differs from the absent verses (7:16, 9:44, 46, 11:26, 15:28): those are not in the base text, this is in it, marked.
Lost in translation
English for can close a sentence, so the oddity is softened. How strange it is for this word to stand last in Greek does not cross over.
Verses 9 to 20 are the longer ending, marked in double brackets by the base text as an addition. It begins by introducing Mary Magdalene as if she had not just been named — a sign that it was joined on.
Why this rendering
Mark.16.9 Observation
Syntactic observation
SBLGNT prints vv.9-20 inside double brackets ⟦…⟧ — the opening bracket at the head of v.9, the closing one at the end of v.20. Present in the body, marked as not original. The style backs the mark. Verse 9 begins having risen with no subject named, while the subject of v.8 just before is the women, so the sentence does not continue from it. And Mary Magdalene is introduced here as though for the first time, with the note that seven demons had been cast out of her — though she has already appeared three times, at 15:40, 47 and 16:1. For a reader who has come through the book that introduction is unnecessary. The vocabulary parts too: 16:9-20 uses φανερόω (12, 14), ἀπιστέω (11, 16), βλάπτω, θανάσιμος, ἄρρωστος — words the earlier book does not use — while εὐθύς, the word Mark leans on throughout, does not occur here once. SBLGNT marks a variant in this verse (⸀παρ’).
Rendering options · 3
Basis Exactly as the base text prints it: the content is rendered and so is the editor's mark, so the reader knows what is being read.
Basis Follows the traditional shape of the text.
Rejected It would erase a mark the base text put there. This project's rule is to publish the grounds of judgement; removing the editor's mark takes information away from the reader.
Basis Keeps only what is judged original.
Rejected It would delete what the base text prints — an intervention in the opposite direction from not adding absent verses. Marking and rendering keeps both facts.
Those who had been with him — the phrase is not this book's usual way of naming the disciples.
Did not believe — the first of three unbeliefs in this ending.
In another form — the road scene of Luke 24:13 told in one line.
They did not believe them either — the second unbelief.
Hardness of heart is the callus-word of 3:5, 6:52 and 8:17 — this ending uses the book's own vocabulary.
To the whole creation — the sending is put at its widest.
Condemned (κατακρίνω, katakrinō) is the verb used of the council at 14:64.
New tongues — new is καινός (kainos), new in kind.
Deadly renders one word (θανάσιμος, thanasimos) used once in the four Gospels.
The Lord Jesus — the full title is used nowhere else in this book.
Confirming the word through the signs — the book that began with a proclamation ends with one.