The Last 12 Verses of Mark

By:  J. Dietrich Bondurant

July 2006

One of the passages in the Bible that authenticates itself as being supernaturally authored is the last twelve verses of the Gospel According to Mark.  It is interesting to note that some scholars debate whether these verses even belong in the Scriptures.  Your own bible may even have the words “added later”.

These verses possess some amazing properties that many believe to be “fingerprints of the Author”.  Every bible reader is aware of the frequent use of the number seven in God’s Word.  There are over 600 explicit occurrences of “sevens” throughout the Bible.  But there are also evidences of design hidden behind the text!

Taking a close look at the Greek text of Mark 16:9-20 one might notice that there are 175 (7×25) words. There is also a vocabulary of 98 different words (7×14).  Now, this might be viewed as a coincidence, but let us look further.  The total number of letters equals 553, also a precise multiple of seven (7×79).  The total number of vowels is 294 (7×42).  And the total number of consonants is 259 (7×37).  Isn’t this amazing!

Of the 98 vocabulary words in the text, 84 (7×12) are found earlier in the Gospel of Mark leaving 14 (7×2) that are found only here.  The Lord’s address (verses 15-18) include 42 (7×6) words and 56 (7×8) are not found in His vocabulary here.

The Greek language is alphanumeric meaning the letters also have numerical values.  The total numerical value of the passage equals 103,656 (7×14,808).  And, the numerical value of each verse is a multiple of seven also!

Here’s a look as just one word, “deadly”.  It is found no where else in the New Testament.  It has a numerical value of 581 (7×83).  There are 42 (7×6) vocabulary words that precede “deadly” in the passage and 126 (7×18) total words that prior to it in the passage.

This information is the legendary work of Dr. Ivan Panin (search for his work on the internet).  He identified 75 “heptadic” (having to do with sevens) features in the last 12 verses of Mark.  This article only highlights a few.  This proves without a shadow of a doubt that this passage was authored by the Creator of the Universe!  It simply could not have been written by man.  Even modern man with the aid of supercomputers working day and night for millions of years could not duplicate this level of design perfection.

Evidences of supernatural design in the scripture assure us that the Bible is not man made but that It is, in fact, God’s Holy Word!  Praise the Lord!