The Gospel writers include only the most pertinent information in their narratives. They don’t give us every historical detail at their disposal. For example, here in Mark 16:5, only one angel is found in the tomb, whereas Luke 24:4 says there were two. Is this a contradiction? No, Mark doesn’t claim there was only one angel. He simply aims his spotlight on the one angel and how that angel functions in the scene. The evangelists only included details that hold interpretive value.

Good stories often include odd details. But what first strikes the reader as odd or random may later turn out to be interesting and insightful. Have you noticed, for example, that Doc Brown’s bandana in Back to the Future Part III is made from the same material as his shirt in Part II? What appears to be a run-of-the-mill piece of clothing takes on new significance when it’s viewed in light of the larger narrative.

There’s a similarly odd but significant detail in Mark 16. The ending of Mark’s Gospel has long been problematic for some commentators because it lacks an explicit resurrection appearance (vv. 1–8). Matthew, Luke, and John narrate Jesus appearing to the disciples and to two women. But an odd detail in Mark’s ending may be one reason Jesus doesn’t make a post-resurrection appearance in this Gospel. Could an angel’s enigmatic posture hold an important clue?

Vivid Description

Mark 16 opens with three women—Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of John and James, and Salome—approaching Jesus’s tomb at dawn on Sunday (vv. 1–2). On their way, the women wonder who could roll away the large stone that sealed the tomb. But when they arrived, to their surprise, the stone had been rolled away (vv. 3–4).

The women ventured into the tomb and observed “a young man sitting on the right side [kathēmenon en tois dexiois], dressed in a white robe” (v. 5) Mark divulges three vivid details here: the presence of an individual (“young man”), the man’s apparel (“white robe”), and the man’s posture and location (“sitting on the right side”).

Repeated Wording

These concrete details certainly underscore the three women’s eyewitness account, but perhaps there’s another significant reason Mark mentions them. He may have included the odd detail of the angel’s “sitting on the right side” (kathēmenon en tois dexiois) because of its symbolic significance.

A literal rendering of the phrase is “seated on the right.” Often, the adjective “right” (dexios) occurs by itself and lacks a noun, so the context determines the implied noun (e.g., Matt. 6:3; Mark 10:40; Luke 1:11). In Mark 16:5, the “right” likely means the “right side” of the bench inside the tomb. But “sitting at the right” only occurs two other times in Mark’s Gospel:

David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand [kathou ek dexiōn], until I put your enemies under your feet.’” (12:36)

Read More