Pentecostal Hermeneutical Reconsideration of the Longer Ending of Mark 16:9–20
Author(s): Marius Nel (North-West University, South Africa)
Published in: Verbum et Ecclesia, Vol. 41, No. 1 (2020)
DOI: 10.4102/ve.v41i1.2089
Abstract
Early Pentecostals treated Mark 16:9–20 as authoritative, reading “these signs shall follow” as both a summons to worldwide mission and a test of the authenticity of Pentecostal experience. Nel accepts the manuscript evidence — the most ancient witnesses end the Gospel at 16:8 — and asks what follows for a tradition that built so much on the passage. He argues that Pentecostal hermeneutics can accommodate textual criticism without abandoning the text, proposing that its long reception by the church grants it canonical standing even if it is not original to Mark.
