THIS MIGHT SURPRISE YOU

Mark 16:12, in Mark's longer ending (16:9-20), gives one sentence to Jesus appearing "to two of them, as they were walking into the country." Which Gospel story tells of such a walk in full?

The answer

The road to Emmaus, in Luke. In Luke 24:13-35 "two of them" are walking to a village called Emmaus when Jesus joins them. The New Oxford Annotated Bible points from Mark 16:12 to Luke 24:13-31 and calls Mark 16:9-20 a mix from the other Gospels, probably from the mid-second century. The NRSVue prints these verses in double brackets, its mark for wording generally regarded as a later addition to the text.

Why it’s interesting

The return goes differently in each telling. In Mark 16:13 the pair go back and tell the rest, "but they did not believe them." In Luke 24:33-34 they find the eleven disciples and their companions saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!"

Scholarly consensus

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