Enjoying Max McLean's stage production of Mark's Gospel recently I was struck by how ill-fitting "the longer ending of Mark" really is. Having listening to Mark's breath-taking account for a good 90 mins, the abrupt ending feels "right".
Joel Barker's review of Jack R Lundbom's.Biblical Rhetoric and Rhetorical Criticism (Hebrew Bible Monographs, 45; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2013) reports that in his essay “Closure in Mark’s Gospel”
Lundbom finds an inclusio in the shorter ending with the story of a healed leper in Mark 1:44–45. He suggests that both highlight disobedience of a heavenly command, since Jesus commanded the leper to be silent, while the angel commanded the women to tell of Jesus’s resurrection. The focus is on the call to proclamation in all circumstances, since even one commanded to be silent could not keep quiet.
