What are the contradictions in Mark?

Answer 1

Another answer from our community:

There are none. There are some things hard to understand and especially many deep spiritual truths, but no contradictions. Since Mark, like the rest of scripture is divinely inspired, God knew what He wanted written through the mind and pen of Mark. He did not forget as He went nor did He contradict what He said previously in other places.

Answer 2

Although Mark's Gospel was the primary source used directly (Matthew and Luke) or indirectly (John) by the authors of the other gospels, there are many contradictions between Mark and those other gospels, but there are relatively few (as one would expect) within the same gospel.

An interesting, but obscure, contradiction within Mark's Gospel is verse 15:42, which states, "And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath." Tradition says that Jesus was crucified on a Friday, the day before the Sabbath, which according to Jewish custom began at evening, so as soon as evening came, it was already the Sabbath - unless Jesus was crucified on the Thursday. Verse 15:46 says that Joseph of Arimathea then bought fine linen, which no Jew would have done once the evening of the Sabbath had begun, and no Jew would have sold it to him. Presumably, the author of Mark simply did not fully understand Jewish culture.


The story of the empty tomb (Matthew 28:1-8) contradicts all the other gospels as to which women were present, whom they spoke to and what happened.

• Mark says that Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome went to the tomb, whereas (for example) John says that only Mary Magdalene went to the tomb.
• Mark (as well as Luke and John) is quite clear in saying that the stone was already moved before they arrived. Matthewsays that the stone was in place, but an angel came down and moved the stone in their presence, then sat on it.
• Mark's Gospel says the women went inside the tomb and saw a young man there; they fled in terror, telling no one. Matthew says, taking the angel's word that Jesus was risen, the women did not look inside but ran back joyfully to tell the disciples. Luke's Gospel also says the women went into the tomb, but they saw two men in shining garments. John says that Mary Magdalene (who had come alone to the tomb) saw the stone had been moved and simply assumed that they had stolen the body.

Writing of the contradictions in the story of the empty tomb, Archbishop Peter Carnley said: "The presence of discrepancies might be a sign of historicity if we had four clearly independent but slightly different versions of the story, if only for the reason that four witnesses are better than one. But, of course, it is now impossible to argue that what we have in the four gospel accounts of the empty tomb are four contemporaneous but independent accounts of the one event. Modern redactional studies of the traditions account for the discrepancies as literary developments at the hand of later redactors of what was originally one report of the empty tomb... There is no suggestion that the tomb was discovered by different witnesses on four different occasions, so it is in fact impossible to argue that the discrepancies were introduced by different witnesses of the one event; rather, they can be explained as four different redactions for apologetic and kerygmatic reasons of a single story originating from one source." That one source was Mark's Gospel, so the contradictions result from redactions by the later authors.