These are the Lord's very own words His very own statements, exhortations, commands.
this is not the philosophy or wisdom of men, this what God Himself has commanded.
Hummmmmm.
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."
This passage may be dispensed, in my view, without discussion of baptism. The evidence is strongly against its inclusion (and that of Mark 16:9-20 as a whole) in the text:
External evidence. The two earliest parchment codies, Vaticanus B and Sinaiticus, plus 2 minuscules and several versions and manuscripts, do not contain verses 9-20. Two important early Christian writers testify that these verses are not found in Mark: Eusebius (Quaestiones ad Marinum I) says that they are not in "accurate" copies of Mark and are missing from "almost all" manuscripts; Jerome (Epistle CXX.3, ad Hedibiam) testifies that almost all Greek manuscripts of his time lack vss. 9-20.
Many manuscripts that do have these verses "have scholia stating that older Greek copies lack them," and other textual witnesses add "conventional signs used by scribes to mark off a spurious addition to a literary text." There are also several variant endings of Mark in circulation. Our vss. 9-20 are the most common, but there is also a "short" ending, and seven Greek manuscripts with both the long and short ending.
Internal evidence. There is a sudden change in subject from verse 8 (the women) to verse 9 (Jesus). Mary Magdelene is introduced as one from whom Jesus had cast out seven demons, as though she had not been introduced in the Gospel before. The form, language, and style "militate against Marcan authorship."
There are seventeen non-Marcan words or Marcan words used in a non-Marcan sense. There is no instance of the typical Marcan stylistic transitions or methods (such as beginning a phrase with a parataxis). Overall, the passage has the "distinct flavour of the second century" and appears to be a pastiche of material taken from other Gospels. [See for this data Markan commentaries by Brooks (272-3), Lane (601-4), and Anderson (358).] ~ JPH (literature specialist)