McDowell quotes Wilbur Smith as
saying:
“…we
know the very tomb in which his body was placed., the name of the man who owned
it, Joseph, of a town known as Arimathea. We know even where this tomb was
located, in a garden nigh to the place where he was crucified, outside the city
walls. We have four records of this burial of our Lord, all of them in amazing
agreement, the record of Matthew…”
The historian Alfred Eldersheim
gives these details of the burial customs of the Jews:
“Not
only the rich, but even those moderately well to-do had tombs of their own,
which probably were acquired and prepared long before they were needed…In
caves, or rock-hewn tombs, the bodies were laid, having been anointed with many
spices, with myrtle, aloes, and at a later period, also with hyssop, rose oil
and rose-water…”
About Christ’s burial,
Eldersheim writes:
“The
proximity of the holy Sabbath, and the consequent need of haste, may have
suggested or determined the proposal of Joseph to lay the body of Jesus in his
own rock-hewn new tomb, wherein no one had yet been laid…”
McDowell also provides other
quotations which underline the idea that it was in accordance to the Jewish
customs to anoint dead bodies and place them in tombs. He quotes Michael Green
who says that St. John’s Gospel tells us that some seventy pounds of spices
were used for Jesus’ burial.
Although Wilbur Smith claims “they” know where Jesus’ tomb
was located, there is absolutely no evidence that any of the apostles knew
where the tomb was located. From Paul’s letters and writings, neither Paul,
Peter nor James ever paid a visit to that tomb, or visit the place (Calvary)
where their Lord was supposedly killed for the sins of the world. Is this to be
expected? Wouldn’t one have expected them to make regular pilgrimages to that
site and maybe enshrine it as a monument of their Lord’s suffering or treat it
as a place of adoration? At the very least, we would expect them to mention the
empty tomb, but they do not.
That they show no knowledge that
their Lord actually died at a specific location and was buried at a particular
tomb is evidence that such a place, or tomb, to their knowledge did NOT exist.
About anointing dead bodies,
McDowell is right that it was a Jewish custom, however, the women could not
have been going to embalm Jesus because the body was customarily washed and
anointed before being placed in a tomb or grave, which Joseph of Arimathea had
already done to Jesus body.
In John 19:38-40:
38Later,
Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a
disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate's
permission, he came and took the body away. Nicodemus, the man who earlier had
visited Jesus at night, accompanied him. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh
and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. 40Taking Jesus' body, the two
of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance
with Jewish burial customs.
Peter Kirby in Improbabilities
in Mark says:
“There
was no such thing as a second anointing. The body was washed and anointed
before the body was placed in the tomb or grave. Not only is this Jewish custom
for burial, but it is also common sense that a body would be cleansed of sweat
or blood before being wrapped in the cloth (usually white). Again, there is no
example available for people going to a corpse after it was buried, removing
the shroud, and anointing the corpse for a second time (since it would have
been already washed/anointed before). This would make absolutely no sense; it
would not occur to anyone, especially not in a Jewish culture, to anoint the
body after it had been buried properly…”
The women are portrayed as
unthinking and foolish when they travel to the tomb then on arriving, Mark 16:3
says they asked each other: Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of
the tomb? It’s as if they went to the tomb expecting to find someone to roll
it back for them.
It would have been bizarre and
ghastly for the women to get the buried corpse, remove the shroud, unwrap any
other wrappings from it and then anoint it. It also would have been nonsensical
to anoint a body that had been properly buried.
Joseph of Arimathea is said to
have taken the body of Jesus from the cross as Mark 15:43-46 says
“Joseph
of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for
the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body. 44Pilate
was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he
asked him if Jesus had already died. 45When he learned from the
centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. 46So Joseph
bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and
placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the
entrance of the tomb.”
Bryon R. McCane, a professor of religion, in The Scandal of the
Grave says:
“Jewish
funerals almost always took place the same day as the death. The eyes of the
deceased were closed, the corpse was washed with perfumes and ointments, its
bodily orifices were stopped, and strips of cloth were wrapped tightly around
the body—binding the jaw closed, fixing arms to the sides, and tying the feet
together. Once prepared, the corpse was placed on a bier or in a coffin and
carried out of town in a procession to the family tomb, usually a small
rock-cut cave entered through a narrow opening that could be covered with a
stone…But the Jewish rituals of death did not end with the
burial. A week of intense grieving, called shiv'ah ("seven")
followed, during which family members stayed at home and received the
condolences of friends. (Mary and Martha were in this period of grief for
Lazarus when Jesus arrived at their home.)”
Regarding
the burial of criminals in the Jewish society he says:
“In
Jesus' day, shameful burial meant two things: (1) a condemned criminal could
not be placed in the family tomb until secondary burial, and (2) a condemned
criminal could not be mourned in public. The family was not to observe either shiv'ah
or shloshim. On the contrary, they were expected to agree with the verdict
of the court.”
Then he adds:
“It is
striking that the burial of Jesus conforms to both these Jewish customs of
dishonorable burial. In each Gospel story, Jesus was neither buried in a family
tomb, nor did anyone observe the rituals of mourning for him. Even when the
women came to the tomb, they came only to "see the tomb" or to anoint
the body…Furthermore, Matthew, Luke, and John each explicitly described Jesus'
tomb as one "where no one had yet been laid””
He then concludes:
“Jesus'
humiliation, then, did not end with his crucifixion. Even after he died, Jesus'
body was treated as an object of shame—he was buried in disgrace like a
condemned Jewish criminal.”
But who buried Jesus and where was he buried?
Mark’s Gospel establishes that
it was only Joseph of Arimathea who took down Jesus’ body and buried him
in his own new tomb. Luke and Matthew echo the same account. But is Mark’s that
consistent with other books?
John 19:39-40 adds Nicodemus
also and that they carried seventy pounds of spices.
In Acts 13:28-29: Though they
found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him
executed. When they had carried out all that was written about him, they
took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.
What do the non-canonical books
say about Jesus’ burial?
Peter
Kirby, in The
Historicity of the Empty Tomb Evaluated: Burial Traditions, provides
information on the Gospel of Peter 21-34:
“And then they plucked the nails
from the hands of the Lord and laid him upon the earth: and the whole
earth was shaken, and there came a great fear on all. Then the sun shone forth,
and it was found to be the ninth hour. And the Jews rejoiced, and gave his body
unto Joseph to bury it, because he had beheld all the good things, which he
did. And he took the Lord and washed him and wrapped him in linen and brought
him unto his own sepulchre, which is called the Garden of Joseph. Then the Jews
and the elders and the priests, when they perceived how great evil they had
done themselves, began to lament and to say: Woe unto our sins: the judgement
and the end of Jerusalem is drawn nigh. But I with my fellows was in grief, and
we were wounded in our minds and would have hid ourselves; for we were sought
after by them as malefactors, and as thinking to set the temple on fire. And
beside all these things we were fasting, and we sat mourning and weeping night
and day until the Sabbath. But the scribes and Pharisees and elders gathered
one with another, for they had heard that all the people were murmuring and
beating their breasts, saying: If these very great signs have come to pass at
his death, behold righteous he was. And the elders were afraid and came unto
Pilate, entreating him and saying: Give us soldiers that we (or they) may watch
his sepulchre for three days, lest his disciples come and steal him away and
the people suppose that he is risen from the dead, and do us hurt. And Pilate
gave them Petronius the centurion with soldiers to watch the sepulchre; and the
elders and scribes came with them unto the tomb, and when they had rolled a
great stone to keep out (al. together with) the centurion and the soldiers,
then all that were there together set it upon the door of the tomb; and
plastered thereon seven seals; and they pitched a tent there and kept watch.
And early in the morning as the Sabbath dawned, there came a multitude from
Jerusalem and the region roundabout to see the sepulchre that had been sealed.”
The Secret Book of James (dated
circa 150 C.E.) says:
“The Lord answered and said: ‘What is your
merit when you do the will of the Father if it is not given to you by him as a
gift, while you are tempted by Satan? But if you are oppressed by Satan and are
persecuted and you do the Father's will, I say that he will love you and will
make you equal with me and will consider that you have become beloved through
his providence according to your free choice. Will you not cease, then, being
lovers of the flesh and being afraid of sufferings? Or do you not know that you
have not yet been mistreated and have not yet been accused unjustly, nor have
you yet been shut up in prison, nor have you yet been condemned lawlessly, nor
have you yet been crucified without reason, nor have you yet been buried in
the sand, as was I myself, by the evil one? Do you dare to spare the flesh,
you for whom the spirit is an encircling wall? If you contemplate the world,
how long it is before you and also how long it is after you, you will find that
your life is one single day and your sufferings, one single hour. For the good
will not enter the world. Scorn death, therefore, and take concern for life.
Remember my cross and my death and you will live.’"
Peter Kirby, explains:
“…The
setting (for the Secret Book of James) of the work is a
post-resurrection encounter with the risen Lord. The summary description of the
hardships undergone by Jesus includes that Jesus was buried "in the
sand." This Coptic phrase is sometimes translated non-literally to mean
"shamefully," but it should be made clear that the very reason why
the burial is shameful is that it is a burial in the sand… Thus, the Secret
Book of James reflects a tradition that Jesus was buried in the sand or, to
speak generally, in a dishonorable makeshift shallow grave instead of in the
tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.”
Epistle of the Apostles (the
Epistle of the Apostles is also known as Epistula Apostolorum. It
was originally in Greek, but also has Coptic and Ethiopic translations) it
says:
“He of
whom we are witnesses we know as the one crucified in the days of Pontius
Pilate and of the prince Archelaus, who was crucified between two thieves and
was taken down from the wood of the cross together with them, and was
buried in the place called [the place of the skull], to which three women
came, Sarah, Martha, and Mary Magdalene. They carried ointment to pour
out upon his body, weeping and mourning over what had happened. And the
approached the tomb and found the stone where it had been rolled away from the
tomb, and they opened the door and did not find his body. “
In Summary, the Gospel of Peter says the Jews, not
Joseph of Arimathea, took down Jesus from the cross. The Secret Book of James
says that Jesus was buried in the sand by the “evil one”. The Epistle of the
Apostles says that Jesus was taken down from the three cross together
with three Jews and was buried in a tomb, not Joseph of Arimatheas’ tomb.
This proves that there are other independent
traditions that do not entail the anonymous and shadowy figure of Joseph of
Arimathea (it is not said from whence he came or where he disappeared to, the
gospels say he was a wealthy man from Arimathea who took sudden interest in
burying Jesus’ body then disappeared) and tomb burial. These traditions
contradict Marks tradition, which as has been demonstrated, leaves a lot of
questions unanswered and contradicts even other canonical burial traditions.
Peter Kirby adds:
“It is possible that Mark unwittingly
retained a pericope that was formed by Christians who did not believe Jesus was
given proper tomb burial by Joseph of Arimathea. The Parable of the Tenants is
interpreted as referring to Jesus. In Mark 12:8, it is said, "So they
seized him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard." This quite
plausibly reflects an early tradition that those who arranged the execution of
Jesus also arranged his shameful burial”.
Robert Funk W. and The Jesus Seminar, in The
Acts of Jesus, Funk writes:
“Mark15:42-47
tells that Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. The seminar sees
this only as Mark’s hope that “he was properly buried”. In reality, Jesus
suffered the shame of not having a proper burial and was left hanging as a
warning to others. The burial was only part of the empty tomb story which is
the central fiction of Mark” (Funk,161)
The Jesus Seminar was a team of scholars that was
set up to examine the truth behind the Gospels.
On the website of the Westar Institute under
the Jesus Seminar’s Acts of Jesus
we find that:
“For
more than ten years, the Jesus Seminar has researched and debated the life and
death of the historical Jesus. They have concluded that the Jesus of history is
very different from the icon of traditional Christianity: Jesus did not walk on
water, feed the multitude, change water into wine, or raise Lazarus from the
dead. He was executed as a public nuisance, not for claiming to be the son of God.
And in the view of the Seminar, he did not rise bodily from the dead; the
resurrection is based instead on visionary experiences of Peter, Paul, and
Mary.”
What is evident thus far is that Joseph of Arimathea did
not necessarily bury Jesus in a tomb as McDowell would have us believe. In
fact, Jesus could have been buried as a criminal, which would have been in line
with Jewish customs. At the very best the Markan burial tradition is shaky and
is contradicted by both non-canonical and canonical gospels.
Send
your comments to jaliet_2000@yahoo.com
