Week 37 - The Gospel of Mark

In this episode, David and Sophie reach Mark's original ending, covering the burial and the empty tomb in Mark 15:42-16:8. They begin with Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the very council that condemned Jesus, who takes courage to ask Pilate for the body. Sophie reads him as a person of integrity inside a rotten system. They trace the women's unbroken witness chain from the cross through the burial to the tomb, noting that Mary Magdalene and the others are essentially following Joseph to see where Jesus is laid, still not giving up when every male disciple has disappeared. David surfaces a striking detail in the angel's message: "go tell his disciples and Peter," reading the singling out of Peter as both an acknowledgment that Peter may have separated himself from the group after his denial and a radical hint of redemption. The episode closes with Mark's scandalous final line, ending on a conjunction, with the women trembling in fear and astonishment, and Sophie and David sit with what it means that the earliest manuscript simply stops there, leaving the rest to the reader.