It may be difficult to choose Mark's account of the resurrection this Easter instead of selecting the alternative gospel portion from John. The fact is nobody much likes Mark 16:1-8 because it is so different from what we expect to hear on Easter morning. Even the earliest Christian scribes found Mark's conclusion too odd and abrupt and felt compelled to paste a pastiche of awkward postscripts on it in order to make it "more like" the resurrection accounts in Matthew, Luke and John. If first-century believers had trouble with it, is it any wonder that our late 20th-century culture which gladly sat through "Rocky V" and "Friday the 13th, Part 6" feels cheated out of a complete (and happy) ending?

Mark's abrupt ending is endearing perhaps only to biblical scholars, who relish it as rich feed…