Hi all,

I’m a first time poster to the forum. I wanted to get people’s thoughts on something that I think is interesting and curious in the gospel of Mark..the lack of any information or description of the location of Jesus’ tomb.

It seems to me that Mark’s passion narrative beginning with the agony in the Garden is closely linked with identifiable places until the tomb burial. Jesus prays and is arrested in Gethsemane. Jesus is then taken to the house of the high priest, and Peter follows into the courtyard. Afterwards, Jesus is taken to Pilate and then led by soldiers into the Praetorium. Jesus is then taken to Golgotha and crucified. Mark goes out of his way to mention the location of the events… until the burial. All Mark says is that Joseph placed Jesus’s body in a tomb cut out of rock. That’s it. Mark gives no indication or description of the location. Mark doesn’t even give general information…like the body was buried in a garden near the place of crucifixion (as stated in John). Interestingly, Mark states that the two Marys saw the location where the body was buried (perhaps an apologetical statement aimed at addressing a claim that they went to the wrong tomb), but he doesn’t follow up on that statement with any description of the location. The subsequent story of the women’s discovery of the empty tomb provides no location information either.

This would seem to indicate that Mark inherited a tradition which “remembered” with some specificity and placed importance on the location of the events that happened in the last hours of Jesus’ life…up until his burial. That’s strange. Why would tradition “forget” where the tomb was? One would imagine that the location of the tomb would be of great importance to early Christians. After all, it’s the place where early Christians believed Jesus was raised from the dead! The location would also be important for apologetical reasons (see, doubters, here’s the tomb and it’s empty!). At the very least, one would imagine that the tomb location would be as important to Christians as the place where Jesus prayed and was arrested, was taken after arrest and was crucified. Why would early Christians prior to Mark pass along the tradition that Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane, was led into the Praetorium, was crucified at Golgotha, etc., but fail to pass along the tradition of the location of the tomb? One potential explanation is that early Christians didn’t “forget” the location…they never knew it in the first place.

Neither Matthew or Luke, who have additional sources outside of Mark, seem to display awareness of a tradition of the location of the tomb either. Matthew adds the detail (which is likely an embellishment or a guess) that the tomb was Joseph’s own tomb, but that’s it. It isn’t until the later gospel of John that we get any information on the location of the tomb, and it’s very general (in a garden near the place of crucifixion).

Do you think that this is a potential indication that there wasn’t a wide-spread tradition prior to Mark of where the tomb was located?