Reference: Verses 33–34 echo Mark 16:15–16: “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” These allusions might be seen as more problematic than other New Testament phrases because they are part of what scholars indicate is the “longer ending” of Mark. Some scholars consider that the authentic text ends at Mark 16:8 and that the following verses were added later. C. S. Mann, special assistant for humanities projects at Coppin State College in Baltimore, summarizes the problem of the “longer ending”: “Not even among writers who reject the notion that Mark deliberately ended his gospel at 16:8 is there to be found any suggestion that vv. 9-20 are from the hand of the evangelist. The vocabulary is not Markan, the whole tenor of the pericope is far different in tone from all we have seen of Mark, and even at first glance it appears to be a collage of a series of resurrection traditions.… The reader may be aware that this anonymous ending is rejected as Markan on account of manuscript evidence.”
How does the text of the Book of Mormon echo language of a text that was not original to Mark? While the question seems more difficult than understanding how the Book of Mormon might allude to an original passage in Mark, they have, in fact, the same answer. Neither Mark nor this additional section had been written at the time the Book of Mormon was written, so the wording of the original could not be the same as that of Mark—or of the additional text. However, the meaning on the plates could be the same. Because both Mark and the extended text were in the KJV, both could provide Joseph Smith with a model vocabulary in which to couch that meaning.