Abstract
For decades biblical scholars have been convinced of the inauthenticity of the longer ending of Mark's Gospel. Given the overwhelming consensus on the matter, it might seem like folly even to raise the issue afresh. Yet it is my contention that the foundation on which this position has been built is somewhat faulty. One of the major reasons that interpreters have rejected the longer ending is stylistic variance. But in many cases, stylistic assessments have been based on surface-level examinations of the text without any methodological constraint. The purpose of this essay is to propose a basic methodological procedure by which to evaluate the syntactical style of Mark 16:9–20 in relation to the rest of Mark's Gospel, and then to test the longer ending on this basis.
