I discussed that with someone over ten years ago, on another forum entirely.  This was a Christian, who wanted to believe in the Virgin Birth, while I was in the position of doubting Thomas, and still am on that score.  To him, Hurtado’s writings were a way of getting around Paul and Mark and John never mentioning it.  His argument was that if Hurtado said the virgin birth story was around fairly early, that proved it was true.  

I am pretty busy, and while I am sure his books are upstairs, no time to go get them and look through the indices.  Sorry. 

Paul never tells us who his sources were–but we know he met early Christian leaders, including Peter and James.  It was clearly believed by everyone that Jesus had been buried.  He didn’t go into detail (as is typical of his epistles), because everybody knew that everybody knew. 

If it’s such common knowledge crucifixion victims were often buried, why have I never read about it here on this thread, and why did Bart re-post this to his blog quite recently?

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On the burial, it would have been highly unusual, in the opinion of a number of historians, for the Romans to have granted a proper burial for someone they chose to disgrace and humiliate through crucifixion.

He goes on to use the phrase ‘more commonly’ (not substantiated by John Granger Cook’s research), and say that we have found only one body that was definitively crucified, which actually may be untrue, since there was another one found in Italy. 

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I don’t know which ‘number of historians’ he means (would you let me get away with a statement like that?).   He mentions that he just glanced at Cook’s opus.  (Which was published in 2014–pretty sure Crossan  hadn’t read it way back when he made that famous statement of his). 

Many crucified people were tied, not nailed, to the cross, and there would be no way to know they were crucified (this wouldn’t apply to Jesus, but it would to many others).  The crucified were typically slaves and the poor–not Roman citizens. (Romans were shocked that the Carthaginians often crucified very high-ranking citizens who met with disfavor for some reason).  So the fact that we don’t  have much physical evidence doesn’t prove much of anything–how come we haven’t found any crucifixion pits, which Bart mentions in his post?  The bones would be no less (or more) well-preserved than remains in an ordinary grave. Nails would have been removed, when possible, from bodies buried by friends and family. But an entire pit of crucified people?  If those existed, where are they?  We know they existed.  We haven’t found them.  Bone doesn’t disappear that quickly.  (That’s why the Nazis had concentration camp prisoners pulverize the bones of people they’d gassed.)

It’s a weak argument to say we haven’t found the bodies. They were almost all poor people.  You don’t want to know how many poor people (or slaves) whose unmarked graves you walk over on a daily basis, in almost any city. 

Bart’s issue is not burial, but resurrection.  He wants to establish that the story couldn’t have happened as the gospels describe it.  I don’t think that it did either, but I do think that it’s much harder to explain how the resurrection legend began, if he was left to hang on the cross a long time.  There would have been too many people who remembered that.  Because that was the entire point of leaving the body up on the cross a long time.

Sometimes, in the desperate desire to find something solid and undeniable to bolster their arguments, historians fall into errors.  This is one of those times.  There is simply no reason to assume Jesus wasn’t buried, when all Christians seem to have agreed that he was, before a single gospel was written.  We don’t have to assume anything specific about his burial–we can leave open the possibility it came later than the gospel accounts say. 

But with the surviving sources about crucifixion making it clear that bodies frequently were taken down and allowed decent burial, with all sources relating to Jesus saying there was a burial (and Paul’s account being very spare and unspecific, as you expect from him), and no sources until modern times alleging anything to the contrary–I really think you have to say that the case for non-burial is much weaker, and based entirely on unsubstantiated assumptions, rooted in an ongoing battle between skeptics and believers–and I’m neither.  Or both.  I’m not sure.  Good night.  (Fun discussion.)

You’re right, and I said as much further up.  We don’t know how often they were buried, or how often they were left on the cross to rot, then tossed into a mass grave (none of which have been found, or else we wouldn’t say that just one or possibly two crucifixion victims are known to archaeology).  

The fact that even Philo (strongly motivated to dwell on the worst aspects of Roman rule in Palestine, and particularly the cruelty of Pilate) mentions burial indicates that it couldn’t have been that rare.  I would assume it was rather commonplace to leave Jews who rebelled violently against Roman rule to be left on the cross a long time, but at this point I’d want to do a lot more reading before I assumed that.  I do not question at all that this happened often, but usually under more extreme circumstances than we have reason to believe existed in Jerusalem that Passover, when no riots or demonstrations are known to have occurred (unless you credit the story of the mob demanding the release of Barabbas and Pilate washing his hands).  

Crossan probably was aware that burial was an option, but he is unlikely to have read anywhere near as many sources as Cook cites substantiating this fact.  And you know, one gets the impression he’s the kind of gent who likes to make an entrance.  Some very well-known scholars are like this–theatrical, let’s say–better to be a bit controversial, make a strong-sounding unproven statement, get the discussion really going, arouse interest.  Like (in a far more ancient field of study) “T-Rex was no predator, but a cowardly scavenger, an eight ton Turkey Vulture!”  

The question, as I see it is this–we have evidence (not positive proof) that Jesus was buried.  We have no evidence he was left to rot, and nobody claimed this until quite recently.  We know that burial of the crucified was not uncommon, and if you read some of the sources in Cook’s work, you’d know this was widely understood to be the case in the Empire.  Leaving the body to rot was an additional punishment to crucifixion itself, meant to intimidate survivors, and not always deemed necessary, or serving any useful purpose (and what purpose would be served by leaving the body on the cross if none of Jesus’ disciples were around to see it?)

This being the case, would you say the two positions–some kind of burial (perhaps arranged by sympathetic Jews who felt crucifying Jesus had been, to coin a term, overkill) or left to rot then possibly tossed into a mass grave, to make room for new bodies–are equally well substantiated?  

Is the scale tilting a bit more one way than the other?  Yes or no? 

Then there is no solid compelling basis for anyone (including Bart) to say he wasn’t buried.  And I am certainly not claiming to know that he was, but again–one final time–I will mention that in the many arguments Christians had with Jews and pagans, nobody even once is reported to have said Jesus rotted on the cross.  Nobody claimed that his burial story must be a lie, because Pilate wouldn’t have allowed burial.  It’s an obvious retort to make, particularly if that was the overwhelmingly common practice.  And certainly opponents of Jesus in Jerusalem would have remembered if that had been the case, wouldn’t have been shy about bringing it up, after followers of Jesus had resurfaced a short time later, and began to start trying to convince other Jews of what they believed had happened.  

We know for a fact–and there is ample evidence of this in Cook’s 2014 book–that Jesus’ crucifixion was repeatedly brought up as a negative by opponents of Christianity.  In the Empire, crucifixion was a punishment largely limited to slaves, the poor, habitual criminals, and political dissidents.  It was a shameful way for anyone to die, and not what either Jews or pagans considered a fitting end for a savior of humankind.  (Though please note, a very large portion of early Christian converts were slaves and poor people–who also had to fear crucifixion–and might have been less convinced that it proved anything other than the cruelty of Rome).  

They were constantly bringing it up, and we have responses Christians made.  And nowhere in that do we see any mention of his not being buried–of his rotting on the cross, and being dumped in a pit.  Since his tomb was such a central part of the story Christians were telling, why did no one attack that story at the root–by saying there was no tomb of any kind, no grave, nothing?  Why did they claim instead that the body had been stolen, leading to the story being tweaked in the gospels, tomb guards, giant rock, etc?  Because Jesus was known to have received burial, and probably both sides were vague on the details, but the opposition in Jerusalem certainly would have known if he was left up there to rot and be eaten by birds.  

That’s all I have to say on this.  The more we debate it, the more obvious it becomes to me that non-burial is a very weak horse.  If you have something to add you haven’t already mentioned, go ahead.  

Fair enough, but Josephus and many others remembered what had happened before that.  He was of course born after Jesus’ death, but that just tells you how durable the memory of Jesus (and his death) had been among the Jewish population there (and that the Christian population in Jerusalem was large and vocal enough to bear mentioning at the time he wrote).  The entire population of Jerusalem was not wiped out by a long shot, and if you don’t think people in Jerusalem had (and have) long memories, I don’t know what to tell you.  Mark’s audience is neither here nor there.  Stop referring back to earlier arguments (I still think he had Aramaic sources, but that doesn’t mean he was living in Jerusalem.)  I was not saying Mark went around interviewing elderly Jerusalemites.  (Is anybody saying that?)

I did forget to mention one other thing, so I do (predictably) have another point to make after all.   And it relates, of all things, to The Iliad.

You know as well as I that as Christianity drew upon Judaism, Roman Imperial culture drew upon the Greeks, as a template.  The Roman world’s lingua franca was in fact Greek, not Latin.  They patterned themselves after that culture, both in its ‘classical’ form, and in the later imperial version that followed Alexander.  And there was no work that impacted them more than The Iliad.  (Arguably no single written work that  impacted them as much–I mean, they lost Augustus’ memoirs, so obviously those were very boring). 

And what is the single  most famous story in The Iliad?  Achilles dishonoring the body of Hector.  Hector’s father, a king, coming to Achilles’ tent, humbling himself, begging for the body of his son, to receive proper honors and burial.  And Achilles, feeling remorse at long last,  his rage abating, granting this–because for all his vainglorious arrogance, he is at heart an honorable man, and it is dishonorable to humiliate a defeated enemy.  I doubt any Roman patrician didn’t play out this scene in his head as a boy, taking the part of Achilles, saying they would do the same in his place.  They would show mercy.  And as always happens, the reality doesn’t live up to the ideal, because reality is harsh and merciless, and so was Rome, most of the time.  But the model for proper behavior is there, all the same, in the collective consciousness of the Roman ruling class. 

Who could have seemed more defeated than Jesus and his followers after the crucifixion–and while I don’t think they asked for the body, if someone else did, I see no reason to think that request wouldn’t have been granted.  Because it would have been easy to appeal to that tradition, inherited from the Greeks, of being magnanimous in victory.  There was no ongoing rebellion to humiliate and crush.  There was just a tiny scattered pack of religious fanatics, who had run away, and a man who had clearly never intended any violent rebellion, but just had odd ideas about the world. 

How could they know?  How could any of them have known? 

Mark was drawing on earlier sources, oral and/or written, and we know the other gospel writers had different sources, and Paul had sources as well, which certainly dated back years before he wrote (and possibly before the author of Mark was born–certainly before he was converted). 

And when Christians had Jesus’ ignominious fate rubbed in their faces, nobody seems to have ever once suggested he hadn’t been buried.  It’s one hell of a strong argument from silence.  Absolute dead silence.  The best possible retort to their claims–and it was never once made.  Jesus couldn’t rise from the grave if he never had one, and certainly not a short time after his death, if he was still hanging from the cross. 

It’s almost certainly not Mark’s burial story, not in its entirety–it’s a story adapted from earlier accounts, which were themselves adapted from imperfect recollections, tinged with grief and religious fervor.  It’s the earliest surviving attempt to tell the story, not the first attempt ever, and that is a fact.  It is also quite certainly an inaccurate story on many counts.  But when everybody who tells a story agrees on one point of it, and no one dissents, it’s bad scholarship to dismiss that, just because some people want to buy the whole hog for religious purposes. 

Was there anyone in the Roman World not painfully familiar with how crucifixion was typically carried out by their own government?  It was so widely known, that (as Bart recently mentioned on the main blog) they didn’t bother to explain the mechanics of it when writing of it–ie, driving the nails through the wrists.  Because everyone knew. 

They also knew whether or not it was likely for a crucified man to receive burial.  And nobody once said it wasn’t. Because everyone would know that was nothing remarkable. The practices certainly varied a bit from place to place, time to time, situation to situation–but not that much.  Nobody thought it was odd Jesus received burial.  Because they all knew of similar incidents. So it was never raised as a weak spot in the story.  Until very very recently, by people who never saw a crucifixion in their lives. 

If the argument for burial is weak, the argument for non-burial is basically non-existent.  There is no reason for it to exist other than to debunk the resurrection.  Which is truly odd, because obviously anyone who can credit the physical resurrection of the dead isn’t going to be impressed by a lecture on Roman crucifixion practices–that isn’t even that well-informed. 

Speculation would be a term better reserved for those who want to believe he wasn’t buried, and are looking for a way to bolster that claim–which pretty much began with John Dominic Crossan.  I take a certain perverse ethnic pride in any Irishman’s persuasive eloquence (let’s just call it blarney), but the fact is, he’s the outlier here.  The burial has long been considered historical. 

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And here’s another fact–dogs can’t climb up a straight piece of lumber, no matter how hungry they are.  Scrawny smallish dogs at that.  Maybe one could snag a toe with a bit of extra effort, but I greatly doubt it.  Why did anyone take Father John seriously on this?  I half-suspect he was surprised anyone did. But the colorful phrase stuck in everyone’s mind, and you just figure anyone that cocksure must have good reason for it.  It’s called The County Tipperary, boyo.  I was there summer before last.  😉

Have you read Crossan’s book where he makes this claim?  You said ‘pretty sure’ so I’m guessing not.  His argument is summarized (perhaps inaccurately, but they really vet the scholarly Wikis) on the Wikipedia article you probably didn’t click the link for (why do I even bother?)

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And agreed that scholars should put their personal concerns aside, but human nature is what it is.  And scholarship can be such a lot of dreary drudgery.  Anything that might spice it up–a colorful turn of phrase, a controversial claim, a spirited argument–is always going to be a welcome change of pace.  And it’s good to debate it.  It wasn’t wrong to suggest the possibility.  But it isn’t the consensus, never was, that Jesus rotted on the cross.  That was an extraordinary claim to make, without any positive evidence at all to back it up.  And I think most scholars who get any attention outside the world of scholarship are all going to do what Bart did–mention John Granger Cook’s book–glance at it, perhaps–and never read it through. (Neither have I, yet.  But the subject index,  unlike the other two crucifixion tomes we have–Hengel and Samuelsson–is not bad.)

Truthfully, more information is not only not always available on a given scholarly topic–it’s not always wanted.  It makes life more complicated for everybody.  So everybody sticks to his/her own side–and maybe switches sides, now and again, for a bit of variety.  And over time, hopefully, we all learn something.