What idiot told Alex O’Connor there is no resurrection in Mark’s gospel?
We will tackle this issue by zooming in to Mark’s gospel and then zooming out of scriptures altogether.
We zoom in to Mark’s gospel…
The popular narrative that the divinity of Jesus is an evolution from Mark to John is unfounded and I have previously made a case showing that Jesus is God in the gospel of Mark and in many ways, Mark’s gospel has Christology either higher than or at the very least on par with John’s gospel. The article will be linked below.
It is only against the backdrop of the very erroneous view that Jesus is not divine in the book of Mark that there can be any objection to the fact that Mark does give an account of the resurrection.
For the uninitiated, the argument is that in the shorter ending of Mark, there is no resurrection account of Jesus neither are there any post resurrection appearances of Jesus to His disciples so perhaps the resurrection was not as central to the early church if it is not in the earliest gospel.
Before I make the case for why this is false, let me perfunctorily rehash some of the points proving that Jesus is God in Mark’s gospel (Please refer to linked article below for a fuller discussion of the below with relevant references).
- Mark in the very beginning of his gospel applies prophecies relating to YHWH directly to Jesus.
- Jesus, as Son of Man proves He has authority to forgive sin as only God can.
- Jesus, as Son of Man, calls Himself the Lord of the Sabbath while Old Testament theology stated that the Sabbath is a “Sabbath to YHWH”
- Demons called Jesus the divine Son of God, worshipped Him and acknowledged His authority as eternal judge over them.
- Jesus at His trial claimed to be the Son of Man coming in the clouds of glory, a clear unequivocal allusion to the divine Son of Man figure in Daniel 7:13–14. For the avoidance of doubt, the high priest tore his clothes at the blasphemy so no doubt as to how he understood that statement.
With all this in mind, consider that in the same gospel of Mark, Jesus does over and over again, predict His resurrection from the dead.
“And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”
(Mark 8:31)
And again,
“For He taught His disciples and said to them, “The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. And after He is killed, He will rise the third day.”
(Mark 9:31)
And again,
“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him to the Gentiles; and they will mock Him, and scourge Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.”
(Mark 10:33–34)
So three times in the gospel of Mark, Jesus predicts His death and resurrection on the third day. If Jesus really is YHWH as the book of Mark presents Him then surely it stands to reason He DID rise on the third day like He said He would.
Is this just my logic speaking or does the text of Mark itself support me? Let’s find out..
Jesus also predicts His resurrection a fourth time and please pay particular attention to this one,
“Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written:
‘I will strike the Shepherd,
And the sheep will be scattered.’
“But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee.”
(Mark 14:27–28)
Now compare this with how the original ending of Mark goes:
“Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him. Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. And they said among themselves, “Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?” But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away — for it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.
But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples — and Peter — that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you.”
So they went out quickly and fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
(Mark 16:1–8)
The original ending of Mark contains an account of the empty tomb and a “young man” telling the women that Jesus is risen from the dead and to go and tell the disciples that Jesus will be going ahead of them into Galilee as He said to them! So the text does support my logic after all, who knew?
Now just in case you think this man (who spoke to the women) was not an angel or anything divine, remember this “young man” was not present when Jesus told His disciples He will meet them in Galilee after His resurrection, even the women were not there! It was a private meal in the upper room between Jesus and His disciples so this would mean the specific reference to Jesus being in Galilee would have been some sort of, to borrow a charismatic term, “word of knowledge”, to the disciples that would have confirmed the women were not making things up.
Jesus’ prophecy of rising on the third day made no sense to the disciples at the time…
“ For He taught His disciples and said to them, “The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. And after He is killed, He will rise the third day.” But they did not understand this saying, and were afraid to ask Him”
(Mark 9:31–32)
…so this business about Galilee would have been the last thing on their minds after witnessing the gruesome death of the Messiah they had dedicated their lives to and given up everything to follow.
So ignoring the long ending of Mark, there is enough within the original ending and the whole gospel itself to support the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
Some Bible scholars who have forgotten more about theology than I could ever learn in a lifetime have also proposed that the shorter ending of Mark was deliberate and so composed because the resurrection was an already accepted fact and it was ended in that manner to pose the question to the reader, “Now what will you do with this information?”. This is another plausible explanation for the abrupt ending of Mark.
Zooming out a bit further, we have early church tradition that tells us Mark wrote down the gospel based on the recollections of Peter.
Papias for instance quoting John says,
“The Elder used to say: Mark, in his capacity as Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately as many things as he recalled from memory — though not in an ordered form — of the things either said or done by the Lord.”
Did Peter believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus? Well let us look at the sermons he preached in the book of Acts,
“Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.”
(Acts 2:29–32)
And again,
“But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.”
(Acts 3:14–15)
And again,
“The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree.”
(Acts 5:30)
And again,
“And we are witnesses of all things which He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they killed by hanging on a tree. Him God raised up on the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead.”
(Acts 10:39–41)
I have not even gotten to the epistles yet but I get the very vague sense that Peter does believe in the resurrection of Jesus, little wonder the gospel of Mark he shaped does contain the resurrection of Jesus.
Now zooming out overall, let us assume the shorter ending of the gospel of Mark does not contain the resurrection. Does that affect the case for the resurrection?
Not one bit!
The historical case for the resurrection does not rise and fall with Mark. We have multiple eye witness attestation of the resurrection of Jesus from disciples (both male and female), former enemies like Paul, close family members like Mary the mother of Jesus who was in the upper room in Acts 1, close family members who did not initially believe in Jesus but came to do so after the alleged resurrection like James and Jude.
The whole reason the church got started at all is that a bunch of people believed that they saw Jesus alive again after He was publicly executed some days prior and they were willing to go to their bloody deaths bearing witness to this. That still cries out for an explanation other than the fact the resurrection happened so if you want to disprove or cast doubt on the resurrection, the shorter ending of Mark is the least of your problems!
Now a quick word on Alex O’Connor and why I am especially hard on him:
“Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words.”
(Colossians 2:4)
Let me start by saying I am not as enamoured about Alex as most Christians are. I think that despite his immense knowledge, articulateness and sharpness of mind, he is only slightly better than the rest of the new atheists in terms of his reasoning. This might be uncharitable but let me make my case, and this ties in with why I am especially hard on him…
Alex is a very intelligent guy and this is precisely my problem with him! Some arguments he makes are just too stupid to come from such a brilliant mind. When he says for instance that YHWH commanded the r**e of female captives of war in Numbers 31 or that Jesus seems to be against asking for evidence because He rebuked Thomas for wanting evidence or that Mark’s gospel does not mention the resurrection, it is very difficult to believe he does not know any better, I, personally struggle to believe he really is a “non-resistant non-believer” as he puts it. I think he is not as “honest and open” as he lets on and there is huge bias against Christianity which he knowingly or unknowingly disguises under “scepticism” and that brilliant British accent that bumps up perception of your IQ by about 100 points.
I personally do not make much of his claims that he has really tried to believe but just cannot bring himself to do so. I say this because of the sometimes plain stupid arguments he uses against Christianity. That does not scream “seeker” to me, it screams “resistance” on some level. My theory here is somewhat borne out by his admission in his recent chat with Ruslan that he might not have tried as hard enough as the latter would have had him try. He may or may not be honest in his search, I do not know for sure but I lean towards the “not honest” side of the scale.
Do I care about his salvation? Not more than I care about the salvation of any other person on the planet. As the book of Proverbs says,
“If you are wise, you are wise for yourself,
And if you scoff, you will bear it alone.”
(Proverbs 9:12)
Whether he chooses to follow Christ or not is his problem. I do not lose a minute of sleep over it and neither should all the Christians constantly “praying for him and Joe Rogan to come to the Lord”. Funny thing about this is that some Christians in this category have family members and work colleagues who are unsaved! Yet it is Joe Rogan and Alex O’Connor they are worried about because they think Jesus needs hype-men!
Poor old Jesus who sustains everything by the Word of His power needs Alex’s IQ to make waves in the 21st century! Little old Jesus who rose from the dead is just, no pun intended, dying for some attention from Joe Rogan! Christians are very weird in their thinking sometimes.
My friends, Christianity exploded without any podcast or social media. Jesus reshaped humanity with His teaching and His message way before Elon Musk thought about fighting for free speech. Jesus existed before Abraham and correct me if I am wrong but I think Abraham existed before Joe Rogan and Alex O'Connor? I say this to say Jesus and the gospel do not need hype-men. If those guys choose to not repent and perish in their sin, it is their prerogative to do so.
Now a word for the reader:
Winning a debate does not mean truth is on your side. A better debater will do a better job defending a tenuous position than a not-so-good debater defending the truth. Please do keep that in mind.
Now, if the historical accounts around the death and resurrection of Jesus is true we have to take His claims very seriously. He claimed to be “the truth”. I think when we stand before Him, debates, scholarly consensus, rhetoric and all these back and forth disappear into nothingness in His presence! The Lordship of Jesus will be undebatable. How do you debate the truth Himself when every true thing you could possibly say points to Him somehow? Have you not read that,
“For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.”
(2 Corinthians 13:8)
In conclusion, Mark’s gospel does contain the resurrection account, the case for the resurrection still stands independent of Mark and I remain unimpressed by Alex O’Connor.
Further reading:
Jesus is God from the Beginning of Mark’s gospel:
The trinity was invented centuries after Christianity: A rebuttal from the old and new testament
