Mark 16:9-20 — "The Longer Ending"

Methodists, like most mainstream Protestants, recognize through biblical scholarship that Mark 16:9-20 is likely a later scribal addition, not original to Mark's Gospel. The passage is absent from the earliest manuscripts. This is taught in Methodist seminaries and acknowledged in Methodist biblical scholarship.

However, Methodists affirm the theological truth of the longer ending: Jesus rose from the dead, appeared to his disciples, and commissioned them to preach the Gospel. These truths are attested in all four Gospels and in the Epistles. Methodists distinguish between the origin and authority of a text and its theological content. The scholarly conclusion about textual origins does not diminish Methodist faith in the resurrection or the commission to evangelize.