Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Mark 16:11 - 16:11
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
11. κἀκεῖνοι. Here and Mar 16:13 the crasized form is found in the best MSS.; καὶ ἐκεῖνοι (Mar 4:20) is a very rare exception.
ἐθεάθη. Like ἐκεῖνοι as here used, this is a Johannine word (1Jn 1:1; 1Jn 4:12; 1Jn 4:14; Joh 1:14, etc.), and it occurs nowhere in Mk. It was the persistent testimony of those who had had this experience, that they had seen the risen Lord with their own eyes; and few believed that He was alive again until they had seen Him. That the confident expectation of seeing Him again led the disciples to believe that they had seen Him is quite contrary to clear evidence.
ἠπίστησαν. Unbelief was the general result when the testimony of others was received; Thomas was only one of many sceptics (Mar 16:16; Luk 24:11; Luk 24:41; Joh 20:24). Ἀπιστέω (here and Mar 16:16) is not found in Mk.
Whether or no we regard the narrative about the visit of the three women to the tomb (Mar 16:1-8) as referring to the same event as that which is recorded here and Joh 20:11-18, it is remarkable that Christ’s Appearance to Mary Magdalen, with or without other women, is not mentioned by St Paul, when he enumerates those who, from personal experience, could be cited as witnesses for the reality of Christ’s Resurrection. Jn also, when He calls the Appearance at the Sea of Tiberias “the third time” of Christ’s manifesting Himself (Joh 21:14), does not count the Appearance to Mary which he himself records. Women were not official witnesses; and perhaps from the first it was noticed that, owing to emotion and excitement, the story which they told was not coherent. St Paul begins with the “first” of the Apostles and ends with the “least” of them, giving six Appearances in all. St John gives three Appearances, at all of which he himself was present. But, if in examining the witnesses for the Resurrection “the believer is confronted with details that do not harmonize, the unbeliever has to explain away the triumphant progress of the new sect” (Burkitt). Can the success and vitality of the Christian religion be explained, if Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross and never rose again?