(17 votes, average: 4.76 out of 5)
Loading...Here is the third and final section of the paper that I read at the Life of Brian conference. The entire paper tried to argue that parody can be an effective historical method. By providing a caricature of a narrative or an alleged historical event, the film was able to highlight some very important historical realia that otherwise are too easy to miss, or that have not been given enough prominence by biblical scholars and historians.
This third part of my paper is the really controversial one (although part 2 raised some concerns as well!). Here is where I argue that Jesus was not given a decent burial, and I use the film to explain why.
I should say that in a few days I am going to be devoting a sustained thread to just this issue, of why I think the story of Joseph of Arimathea in the NT is legendary, that Jesus was almost certainly not given a decent burial on the day of his crucifixion. My thread will be a response to criticisms of that view, especially as made most systematically by Craig Evans in the response book How God Became Jesus. I will be conceding that Evans has made the best case possible that Jesus was buried decently; and I will be arguing that his case completely fails to convince. My posts will be written to explain why.
But before going there, we still have some Monty Python to cover! Be sure to watch the film clips at the appropriate spots, as they are crucial for my argument here.
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One of the most significant parodies of the Life of Brian involves his crucifixion, but here I am not principally interested in always looking on the bright side of life or, in fact, any episode explicitly covered in the movie, either for Jesus or for Brian. I am instead interested in the question of whether a Jew crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem would have been given a decent burial.
There is a prescient but fleeting shot early in the movie, right after the famous stoning scene, when Brian and his mother are walking along outside the walls of Jerusalem.
Please watch video segment in the page as to remain in context with outline.
Notice that
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Sure, Christian gospels, sources and traditions are suspicious of the inherently faulty nature of human memory, while all other sources and recollections are above any such suspicion and are absolutely impartial, unbiased and fully reliable…
While I was in elementary school at a Saratoga church Sunday school, the Bible teacher [not the main service]: Evidence of Christ- the empty Tomb!
45 years later I wonder what he thinks.
That Jesus was not buried would make sense of the sense of oblivion which bookends the gospels. The early elements – the Virgin birth, the flight into Egypt, the going to Bethlehem – savour of the fanciful, something which is partially lost during Jesus’ ministry and passion. It resumes, however, after his crucifixion and death, when the muddled and, at times, murky experiences of the early church (baffled fishermen and former persecutors included) hoves into view.
Is there archeological evidence of mass burials of victims of crucifixion in or around Jerusalem?
The specificity of NT burial stories are probably an indication they are made up. Given this, it may be that whatever the “appearances” were, they began to be told well after his death. No hint of anyone checking out the cross on which the body hung.
It is interesting that the burial stories are pretty specific, but the appearance stories are vague and inconsistent. You’d think something as remarkable, and frightening, as a dead man showing up before you would be a memory seared into the person’s mind.
My sense is the stories started out with someone’s dream or hallucination and got taken up by others who desired to prove their faith to their compatriots- those who loved Jesus the man and were grieving over what happened.
Denial is a strong motivation to see and experience something that isn’t real. I characterize Christianity as a cult of denial. I’ve had relatives who never grieved over a dear loss because they thought the person continues to live somewhere and that they will see them later. It leads to troubled emotions. If only the disciples had properly grieved!
If Jesus’ body was left on the cross to decompose, wouldn’t opponents of the early Christians have known this and made use of it in their polemics? For example, wouldn’t someone like Celsus have known that Romans always left bodies on the cross to decompose and noted that in his anti-Christian writings? Instead, he chooses to focus on the fact that the resurrected Jesus only appeared to a few followers, calling into question the validity of his resurrection. To me, that suggests that Celsus believed in the basic tradition that Jesus was given a good burial.
If Christians were making their claims just a few days or weeks later in Jerusalem, yes, that would be right. But I don’t think there’s any way that was happening. The disciples fled Jerusalem and weren’t even there for a long time, well after any authority (or anyone else) would have even remembered that someone named Jesus had been crucified. In fact, I doubt if anyone much knew while it was happening. It would have been a small affair, another person crucified (any more than they would have known, say, a day later, the names of the other two who were crucivfied with him.
Paul wrote of burial and resurrection within three days after the crucifixion (1 Corinthians 15:4), much sooner than the dating associated with the Gospels. He would have heard/read of those events several years before he wrote about them. Historically, it seems reasonable that Paul’s written accounts so soon after the actual events (compared to 2,000 years for modern-day assessments contrary to written accounts) would give biblical historians pause to simply conclude that Jesus’ crucifixion was standard. It’s hard to believe Jesus would have hung on the cross for several days before dying, and then remain there to rot and be scavenged without Paul acknowledging this, or at least attempt to dispute such claims, particularly when he swears he saw him alive afterward. I think written accounts and the narratives would have been much different with the horror and finality of a standard Roman crucifixion – if they would have been written at all. The very fact that Christianity came into existence implies – if not necessitates – it was not a standard Roman crucifixion. Is that historically implausible?
Yes, Paul wrote this about 25 years after the event, and says he learned it and passed it along to the Corinthians before that. Certainly the claim that Jesus died and was raised three days later was in circulation before Paul converted some three years after Jesus’ death.
The disciples of Jesus had fled Jerusalem, and no one there would have cared about yet one more person being crucified (any more than for the other two crucified with him). If months later Christians came to Jerusalem, they would not have been widely known, and even if outsiders did learn of their claims, there’d be no way for anyone one to have the faintest idea when Jesus was actually killed or what happened to him. Outisers would not even know who the Xns were referring to.
Bart,
You wrote, “Certainly the claim that Jesus died and was raised three days later was in circulation *before* Paul converted some three years after Jesus’ death.” How do you know that; why couldn’t the third-day belief have been formed *after* Paul’s conversion? Also, is the third day belief referenced off the day Jesus *died* or the day Jesus was *buried*?
Ah, first question: good point, it could have been. And second questoin, even better point: right — it’s three days after the burial!
According to Paul’s letters, Jesus’ own brother, James, was a prominent leader in the early Jesus movement in Judea. Don’t you think James would have told Paul that his brother rotted on the cross? I don’t believe James was one of the disciples who fled Jerusalem.
Peter would surely have known what had happened to Jesus’s body? And Paul says he spent a whole 2 weeks with Peter. Surely he would have taken that opportunity to get his facts straight about this pivotal event? And what about James the brother of Jesus and Mary the mother and Mary Magdalene? Surely they would have known what happened to the body? They were undoubtedly part of the early Christian community, so surely the fate of the body would have been known about and transmitted to the other strands of developing Christianity?
I don’t think Peter would have known what happened to Jesus’ body. The disciples probably went straight to Galilee (possibly right after Jesus was crucified), and that would have taken a week; by that time no one would have had any idea what happened to this one crucified victim (any more than they knew what happened to the other two crucified with him).
I disagree that no one would have known of Jesus rotting and being scavenged on the cross for days. You have not addressed members of his family, who were not disciples. And his own brother, James, later became a leader of the Christian movement in Jerusalem, whom Paul interacted with. Yet Paul never expressed animosity towards Romans for such a cruel and horrible form of crucifixion. Paul held his animosity for the Jews.
when he says “buried and that was raised acc to scriptures”
Does he mean buried same day acc to scriptures or raised three days after burial? If after burial, then paul is early proof that jesus was not buried on the day of death?
Because of jewish sensity when coming to address the dead, would jesus’ brother have said “my bro rotted on the cross ” or would he say he was buried Because of jewish sensity when coming to
It’s that he was “raised in accordance with the Scriptures” Paul doesn’t say which day Jesus was buried. Romans didn’t care about Jewish sensibilities about crucified victims; they cared about containing sedition.
“The disciples of Jesus had fled Jerusalem”
Why are we so sure? Because it is so in the gospels?
Apparently the Jews that contend with early christians said that :
‘His disciples came by night and stole [Jesus’s corpse ] away.’
(Matthew 28:13)
This would mean that not all the disciples had fled Jerusalem.
Yes, if you think the Gospels are always accurate i nwhat they say, then there’s no more debate about what htey say! (Matthew assumes they went to Galilee after Jesus’ death; I think that’s right. And I think they probably got out of town with some haste after his arrest, since obvioulsy they may have been next….)
“It’s hard to believe Jesus would have hung on the cross for several days before dying, and then remain there to rot and be scavenged without Paul acknowledging this, or at least attempt to dispute such claims, particularly when he swears he saw him alive afterward. ”
QUOTE:
“Christianity should have been stopped in its tracks by: Producing the body of Jesus”
i disagree. first century jewish resurrection eschatology didn’t involve reanimation of corpses. paul’s concept is based firmly in this when he describes his theology in 1 cor 15, where the resurrected (including jesus) are given new heavenly bodies. the old bodies are about as relevant as a seed to the tree that grows out of it.
paul seems to be concerned with theological belief, not historicity.
“died for sins” is a theological claim and paul needs a crucified jesus for sins. paul never mentions where, when and by who jesus was killed. i think that for paul it is not neccessary that the body which is buried is IDENTICAL to the body which is raised, the buried shell does not seem important to paul at all.
I have recently been wondering the same thing. The emphasis on the type of body seems to be different between the apostles account and Paul’s despite his being earlier. If it is a spiritual body given to Jesus after his death, then an empty tomb is not a requirement. Much in the same way when a loved one dies today, some say ‘they are in a better place’. But are still ‘fine’ with seeing the physical dead body at the funeral. So was the importance of the empty tomb more in line with the type of resurrection believed? I find myself wondering why it’s so important that the tomb was empty in the first place? Certainly it would be in a more traditional Hebrew resurrection (like Matthew’s account) with other bodies being raised up and walking around.
Bart,
I have a question about scholars supporting this or that hypothesis in general. It has been almost ten years since you proposed that Jesus was left on the cross and then at some point buried by the Romans. Unless I’m missing something, I haven’t seen an increase in other scholars supporting your hypothesis. How do you explain this? One explanation would seem to be that nobody with expertise in this area is buying your hypothesis. Another explanation would seem to be that a whole lot of scholars are sitting on the sidelines and simply not weighing in. Maybe there are other explanations as well. I’m curious how you explain the lack of any significant scholarly rallying around your hypothesis that Jesus was left on the cross and then eventually buried by the Romans.
My sense is that the view is so firmly ensconced in our public consciousness that no one sees any reason to challenge it. I’ll be reposting my full account of my views in a couple of weeks.
Let’s assume Jesus was buried: According to Mark it was evening before Joseph went to Pilate to request the body of Jesus; the sun is setting in the west. I assume he had to request an audience, unless Pilate had an open door policy which seems unlikely. Pilate then had to send for the centurion to find out if Jesus was already dead. Then Joseph had to return to the cross and take down Jesus’ body, and proceed to the tombs. The women from Galilee, unfamiliar with the tombs, are following. By now it is dark. Two days later they return to the tombs. The sun is rising in the east; the lighting and shadows are reversed compared to the other evening. They go to the wrong tomb, which is empty. They ask the caretaker where the body is. The caretaker, snickering under his breath at these Galilean hicks, says, “Oh, he rose from the dead and walked out of here!” The women spread the news. Thus Christianity began with a surly cemetery caretaker.
The sequence of events you describe is tight, unless Pontius Pilate was the one in control, running the show. The interaction between Pontius Pilate and Joseph of Arimathea is odd, but not impossible. The oddness of the interaction should give people pause to realize something unusual was going on. The burial itself was odd – multiple attestation, including Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:4 – all pointing towards events not associated with a “standard” Roman crucifixion. Why would Gospel writers invent Joseph of Arimathea for such an odd role?
There are indeed impossible accounts in the NT; resurrection two days after death, having a god impregnate a woman to create a son of the god, true healings as described in the NT, etc. However, human interactions between Pontius Pilate and Joseph of Arimathea are not impossible. Jesus’ foretelling his arrest and Judas’ betrayal at the Last Supper is close to impossible. However, if the arrest was pre-planned, then it was not a “foretelling” and the arrest in the garden in the middle of the night was not implausible. Staged miracles are not impossible.
Maybe Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea were pawns in a twisted game.
from The Life of Flavius Josephus 420-421
…I saw many captives crucified; and remembered three of them as my former acquaintance. I was very sorry at this in my mind, and went with tears in my eyes to Titus, and told him of them; so he immediately commanded them to be taken down, and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to their recovery; yet two of them died under the physician’s hand, while the third recovered.
That’s right, it’s a hugely important passage. But it doesn’t say anything about policies of buring crucified victims on the day of hteir death (it’s referring to an administrative intervention to prevent their death!)
Parody is a deliberate exaggeration of details of a similar event, It is these exaggerations of sometimes missed details that reaveal those missed details. Parody brings to light things that are commonly bypassed forcing one to confront such detail. In other words, apply “crittical thinking” of such details of the event parodied.
Bart
I’m open to your conjecture on this as Paul never speaks of Jesus’s fleshy body being raised from death. It also raises questions as to whether the other Apostles really saw a flesh version of Jesus or saw similar “visions” as Paul’s claim. If so, that could help explain their acceptence of Paul having equal authority as them and Pauls claim of equal authority of the others.
Question then arises…
Exactly “why and when” would there need to be a “fleshy” Jesus to have been risen from the tomb? Such would have to give argument of some belief/doctrine. All of the Gospels place Jesus’s body in a Tomb and then his body rising from the dead. Paul does not teach a resurection of “flesh” so at what time did resurection of Flesh begin prior to our current gospels?
I’ve been questioning “why” and when the Gospels were written?
There wasn’t a “need” for a fleshly resurrectoin per se. I think in a sense it’s the other way around. The discpiples agreed with Jesus that the future life would be a bodily existence here on earth (not a soul going to heaven) — the standard apocalyptic view. For them, afterlife simply was a bodily existence, just as htis life now is simply a bodily existence. So if someone returned to life after death, it was in the body. THere wasn’t any discussion of it, any more than there’s a discussoin of whether when a baby comes into the world it has a body or not. So when they came to believe Jesus returned to life, necessarily, for *them*, it was bodily.
Bart
In continuing my previous comment, Only the Gospel of Peter opens the possible view that Jesus’s flesh did not rise. So this then presents an alternative viewpoint of the living spirit rather the the dead flesh arises. This more closely fits with Pauls vision, which may give indication that Gospel of Peter could have been written very near the time the other Gospels were written, even possibly before. Peters Gospel still places Jesus’s body in the tomb as all the other gospels
My view is that these different beliefs took 2-4 genealogical generations to evolve thus 75-100 years after the event. That would place the first of “our gospels” to be written around 115 ce with last written as late as 150 ce. This gives a whole generation (25-30 years) with two competing veiws between first and last of our present gospels. Plenty of time for competing gospels to be written.
I believe our present gospels each came from earlier sources possibly even of the same name. Papias’s Mark and Mathew are not our present Mark and Mathew, but a Proto Mark and Mathew of our current gospels written earlier that lend to an earlier dating of our current books
I’d say quite the contrary: the Gospel of Peter emphasizes a bodily resurrectoin. The body is HUGELY tactile, in every way. It’s not a spirit that rises but a giant body (supported by two other bodies, as it comes out of the tomb.)
Paul “knew” that Jesus was buried (1 Colossians 15:4). Did Jesus tell him, or was it “received” from someone else, who might be wrong?
I”d say *every* Christian “knew” Jesus was buried; otherwise they couldn’t believe he’d been raised (since being raised presupposes he’s in the ground somewhere) .disabledupes{aac7d37d229acc92abf2605e4c6a171b}disabledupes
With Philo’s comment on executions without a trial, is it possible or even likely that Jesus had no trial and was just crucified? That would mean that Jesus trial is a later “false memory” ?
I think it’s entirely possible, and lately I”ve been leaning that way.
And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’
And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day.
(Matthew 28:12-15)
It is hard for me to figure out why the Jews that confronted early christians at most a few decades after the crucifixion (the story was spread before Matthew was written around 80 AD) would invent a story of bribed soldiers instead of saying “come on, everybody knows that Jesus just as any other victim of crucifixion was left on the cross for his body to deteriorate ” . If it is rather clear for modern scholars it would be so for people living in those days that most probably were themselves witnesses of crucifixions.
Dr Ehrman are you saying that 20-30 years is enough time for a story to change from “he was left on the cross” to “he was buried in a tomb” ?
i think 20-30 years is enough time for stories to change.
i see one assumption beiing made again and again
“everyone would havve known that famous jesus was left on the cross”
really ?
Stories like that can be invented overnight.
It would be astounding if anyone had obtained permission to bury only Jesus’s body in the evening after crucifixion, so this is almost certainly not what happened.
Josephus (Wars of the Jews) says “The Jews used to take so much care of the burial of men that they took down those that were condemned and crucified and buried them before the going down of the sun” so it would be quite reasonable if the High Priest asked Pilate to allow burial of all three bodies.
Pilate is described as fierce and mean-spirited but people often act out of character so he possibly agreed to the Jewish request in this instance. Jesus’s claim to become King of the Jews rather than Roman Emperor threatened the Sanhedrin rather than the rule of Rome, and did not involve armed revolt.
Unanimous decisions are always suspect in authoritarian regimes so the Temple Council possibly included a dissident who volunteered to deal with Jesus’s body. Anyway, it was probably servants and not Temple Officials who did the work so those responsible remained unidentified to onlookers.
Overall, is it reasonable to completely discard the possibility that Jesus was buried on the Friday evening?
I don’t think it’s a 100% slam-dunk that he wasn’t buried that day, but I think it is HIGHLY improbable. I think the Josephus quotaoitn is highly problematic. I’ll be explaining why in a post in a couple of weeks.
Is there any particular reason why you think it is HIGHLY improbable that Jesus was buried on the Friday evening?
What evidence is there that the disciples fled to Galilee when Jesus was arrested?
The particular reason is that all of our references to crucified victims in every surviving Roman source indicates that Romans left the victims on the cross for days as part of the punishment. I don’t know why they would make an exception in this case (certainly not because it was the Son of God) but I can think of very good reasons for later Christians *saying* they did (so that Jesus could come out of the tomb on the third day). Matthew and Mark indicate that the disciples were in Galilee when Jesus appeared to them, so they must have gone there. They don’t say they waited for a while, and since the appearances were said ot have happened soon after the rusrrection, one can assume it was almost immediatelythat they left.
I think my favorite scene in Life of Brian is when the different interpretations of Brian’s prophesying splinters into a dozen different factions in 30 seconds – the shoe and the gourd. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS42gDNvMAQ
Growing up, the various forms of Christianity was always explained using a tree as a metaphor, where Jesus message was the foundation and the branches were all connected to the core message, but with slightly different interpretations. I feel like this scene may have better reflected the history in that every church and passing preacher may have many different views on who Jesus was and what he believed.
The Pythons were mostly Oxford and Cambridge alum and in those days probably latin school boys and perhaps they went back to chat with some of their old Dons. We know what happened to those who ran afoul of the Romans, the King and the Temple.
I think it was days not hours from arrest to the cross, as they would want to crush this movement and roundup others involved.
This is an issue I have not thought about. I do have a question. If it was common practice for crucifixion victims to be left on their crosses for several days (and then their bodies were thrown into a common grave) how can we make sense of Paul’s claim in 1Cor15:4 that Jesus was buried and then raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures? Jesus would still be on his cross on the third day and then, after more days, thrown into a common grave. Paul’s claim that Jesus was buried is consistent with his body being thrown into a common grave several days after his death. But for Jesus to be raised after his burial “on the third day” his body must have been buried earlier. One could argue that the claims of tomb burial rely on Mark’s gospel, since Matthew, Luke, and Acts, used Mark and John’s gospel, written so much later, might rely on an oral tradition started by Mark’s gospel. But Paul had first-hand information and was writing before any of our gospel accounts were composed. Although Paul doesn’t say Jesus was buried in a tomb, 1Cor15:4 strongly suggests Jesus was treated differently.
Paul was repeating the early Christian views that Jesus was raised, and for that to happen, of course, he had to be buried. Paul doesn’t say anything about whether Jesus was treated differently from other Christians, he’s simply repeating what he heard, that jesus was raised on teh third day. That, of course, means it was a fulfillment of Scripture (Hosea 6:2, possibly the book of Jonah); we don’t know when Christians started saying that. On the third day after his death, the disciples who had fled Jerusalem would have been about half way back to Galilee. I don’t think there’s any way they would have known about what happened to his remains, and no one who disposed of them would have remembered any more than they would have remembered happened to the other two that morning (or those the day before or the day after)
Yes, but Paul’s claim in 1Cor15:4 seems ambiguous to me. Does Paul mean that Jesus was raised on the third day after his death or on the third day after his burial? If Jesus was left on his cross for several days, and then buried in a common grave, then Paul could be interpreted to say that Jesus rose three days after his burial (which might be, say, ten days after his death). It seems to me that Jonah and Hosea, interpreted as prophecies of a resurrecting messiah, are consistent with either scenario. It’s unclear to me if 1Cor15:4 has no ambiguity in the original Greek. For that, I think us non-scholars need the expertise of scholars like yourself. The idea you’re advocating, that Jesus followers fled Judea immediately after Jesus was crucified, is very plausible. But did all of them flee? Perhaps Mary Magdalene and a few others didn’t. If a close friend or family member of mine was crucified in a town we were visiting, I couldn’t leave even if I thought my life might be in danger.
Well he says that he was “buried” and *then* on the third day he was raised.
“Life of Brian” is truly a classic and very funny movie – full of deep innuendo humor. I remember when I first watched it in the 80’s, I wished I would have fully grasped all the hidden messages.
It’s clever how the movie slipped in occasional historically-accurate depictions – particularly the scenes with the victims tied to the crosses – not nailed. In the same fashion, Hollywood portrayed Kirk Douglas tied to a cross in “Spartacus.” Ooops! Spartacus was 71 BCE. That would have been an old-fashioned form of crucifixion – before Christianity…
Do you think second-century Christian writers sensationalize the use of nails in the crucifixion, being there is no mention in the early Gospel crucifixion accounts? Even Paul’s letters never mention the common, everyday Christian cliché, “Jesus was nailed to the cross” – such an engrained phrase today, even non-Christians repeat it.
Actually we do know that crucifixion victims were nailed — we have archaeological evidence of all kind (including two skeletal remains and a bunch of crucifixion nails with organic material….)
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has always maintained that a majority of the nails currently held in Israeli museums (let’s put a number to that – 2 of 3) that Jacobovici used in his 2011 TV documentary “Nails of the Cross,” were not from Caiaphas’ tomb. An anthropologist from Hebrew University, Patricia Smith, in the 1977 Israel Exploration Journal concluded the same two, 2-inch-long nails were not from a crucifixion since they did not go all the way through bone.
In an example where we know nails were used in crucifixions, it was explicitly stated so. Josephus wrote in Book V, Chapter 11, Section 1 of The Jewish War at the siege of Jerusalem (70 CE), “the [Roman] soldiers out of rage and hatred, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the crosses, by way of jest.” What does “by way of jest” mean? “Out of [Roman] rage and hatred” is significantly different from accounts in the Gospels. Paul expressed a Christian view of that time that the Jews killed Jesus (1 Thessalonians 2:14-15). 70 CE would have been about the time the Christian rumor was going around that the Romans nailed Jesus to a cross. “Rumor” since there is no written account before 70 CE of Jesus being nailed to the cross.
So, again, what does “by way of jest” mean? It almost makes me angry to think that thousands of innocent Jews may have gone through a particularly horrid form of crucifixion in 70 CE due to sensationalized Christian rumors. “By way of jest” could have other meanings, but Christianity had spread to Rome by this time, and all it would take is a stupid rumor that Romans had nailed the Jewish messiah to a cross to be the source of jest.
There in another rather convincing reason to believe that the body of Jesus was not removed from the cross and buried. The Romans used large spikes to fasten arms and feet to to the wooden cross. There is no way to extract these spikes or saw their heads off so the body parts could be pulled off the cross.
On the other hand, if the Bible’s version is true (which — as Bart wrote — is highly unlikely), then perhaps the soldiers would have tied the body tightly to the cross. The Gospel of John reports that a Roman soldier stabbed Jesus with a spear to ensure that he was not faking death, which would be logical precaution if Jesus had not been nailed with spikes. I might also argue that there are reasons to believe Temple authorities bribed Pilate regularly to get favored treatment, so an additional bribe might have been paid to obtain permission to remove and bury the body of Jesus. This does not mean that the burial site was known to any of Jesus’s followers, and that anyone found the tomb empty a few days later.
Bill Steigelmann
How does the Jehohanan ossuary square with the argument that none of the crucifixion victims were allowed a decent (after-)burial in 1st century Judea? James Tabor argues for two burial sequences…
The question is not whether Jehohanan was buried. The question is how many days passed from the time of his crucifixion to his burial. There is simply no way to know.
It always amuses, and almost amazes, me to see how important most people these days, except for those of us who can think clearly about the facts, think Jesus must have been to the people of that time. Of course, it’s because of the prominence of the Christian religion today. It takes quite some effort to think one’s way back to the reality of that time and place and realize that the vast majority of folks then not only didn’t care about this wandering preacher, one of many — they didn’t even know anything about him.
Bart,
Hypothetically, if Jesus had been buried by a disinterested Jewish burial crew on the same day he died and there was no rush due to an impending sunset, 1) would Jesus have been buried in a rock-hewn tomb or in the ground?, 2) would any of Jesus ‘ followers have attended Jesus’ burial?, and 3) would the location have been marked with Jesus’ identity?
1. slmost certainly in the ground 2. It would depend on whether htey had fled town or not. 3. Almost certainly not.
So do you agree that if Jesus had hypothetically been buried by a disinterested Jewish burial crew on the same day he died (and his followers fled town as you have previously said occurred) that Jesus’ followers would not have known where Jesus was buried, the same result as your Roman burial hypothesis, allowing the belief to emerge that Jesus was resurrected up to heaven?
Well, I suppose if that hypothesis were right (I don’t think it is), then a objector would respond by saying that the apostles would simply ask the Jews who did the job where he was buried. The response to that objector is that Jews would have probably put him in a communal burial pit, or simply in the ground that day, as with the two crucified with him that day, and the three or four the next day, and the guy the following, and the six the next, etc., and that since the tombs weren’t marked they had no idea where this particular person was buried say, a month before.
Exactly. If there was a general area for ground burial of the poor whether crucified or died by indigestion, and if they did not mark these graves with names but just cairns or chalk to warn of uncleanness, and if the Jewish authorities did not keep written records of who went into which hole, and if it was several weeks after Jesus was buried that Christians returned to Jerusalem with their claims of Jesus’ resurrection, then the burial crew may not have been able to identify the exact spot where Jesus was buried, and that assumes Jesus’ followers could even figure out and get into contact with whoever was on Jesus’ burial crew. So doesn’t it seem to you that even IF the Jews buried Jesus that Jesus would have been buried in obscurity in the ground and Jesus’ followers would not have had access to his corpse, the same as your Roman burial hypothesis?
Yes, if the burial place was unknown it was unknown whoever put him into it.
Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you say that if Jesus had been buried by a disinterested Jewish burial crew on the same day he died that Jesus’ followers likely would not have had access to Jesus’ corpse, the same as your Roman burial hypothesis. Two follow up questions. 1) Have you ever considered adding this to your arguments for how the resurrection belief came about to make it clear that you’re not entirely dependent on your Roman burial hypothesis? 2) Are you aware of any other scholars who agree with you that an obscure ground burial that would have left Jesus’ burial place unknown to his followers would have been the likely result if Jesus was buried by a disinterested Jewish burial crew?
I”ve never said that because I very strongly don’t think Jesus WAS buried by a disinterested Jewish burial crew, (so why would I draw conclusions from an event that I don’t thnk happened?). My whole point is that he was NOT.
Totally understandable. I just thought you might want to make a sidenote that the Jews would likely have buried Jesus obscurely in the ground such that his followers would not have had access to his corpse in case your Roman burial hypothesis ever runs into problems or a wide range of people think you have underestimated the possibility that Pilate allowed the Jewish authorities to remove Jesus’ body from the cross in deference to Jewish burial sensitivities and/or to avoid a possible riot on a major Jewish holiday.
There’s little record of the Romans granting exceptions to the “leave them to hang” practice, but, to be fair, there’s very little in the way of depictions of crucifixion in the ancient literature—I think (forgive me if I’m misattributing) Goodacre describes Mark as being the very first writer to actually narrate a crucifixion. We’re not even quite sure of the mechanics of crucifying. So is it that hard to imagine that there could have been other examples of bodies being removed from crosses, but the whole sordid business was simply so taboo, and the ancients so squeamish about it, that it was simply not mentioned?
Mark doesn’t actually narrate a cruifixion (it doesn’t describe the nailing, etc.). And that’s right, we don’t have *any*. But we do have references to crucified victims on the crosses after their death, and in every Roman refernece, they are left hanging for days.
It’s a good question why we have no descriptions. It’s often thought that it’s that it was widley known. (It’s probably the same for the electric chair; you’ll find lots of references to someone dying that way, but not that many explaining the process). But I don’t think people were to squeamish to mention it. There’s actually a lot of jokes made about it in various sources…
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If Jesus was buried then someone paid to take possession of the body, either formally to Pilate or to the soldiers. Maybe it was a regular executioner ‘s perk in out of the way places. History is replete with families paying to regain the bodies of executed members.
Alternatively my understanding is that governors weren’t paid. They made their money out of their provinces not only from a cut of the tax but from bribes. Cicero began his career by prosecuting the governor of Sicily for demanding bribes but that was an excessive case. Perhaps the gospel writers recognised this and cast around for a suitable candidate and the choice fell on Joseph and Nicodemus or maybe they were made up out of whole cloth.
And if your belief is based on post death appearances, if someone’s going to rise from the dead they can do it from a pit as well as from anywhere else. “His spirit departed and they threw his body into the common grave, yet three days after, he appeared to the Twelve etc “
In critical studies we ask why things were written. Why invent the tomb?
Part of it is because the death/resurrection narrative is constructed in a way so as to fulfill scripture — e.g. Isa. 53, that he was crucified surrounded by evil doers, and was silent the entire time, and was in a rich man’s grave (a way to read Isa 53:9).
I like to try to imagine in detail how something might be accomplished, for instance the “taking down” of a crucified body by one person, assuming nails are holding it in place. How strong a person would be required to handle the dead weight, how would you go about reaching the hands or wrists? How do you extract the nails? I picture a guy on a crude ladder, prying out iron nails, the corpse flops forward when the first nail is extracted, then hangs by its feet when both hands are free, and perhaps then the weight causes the corpse to rip free, leaving bits of flesh and bone on the nails or nail that held the feet– grotesque and unlikely is my judgement on the gospel scenario. If you take it literally.
You hammer them out and then use plyers, appearently (really!)
It has long seemed to me that the account in Matthew 28:11-15 of paying off the soldiers to spread the rumor that Jesus’ “disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep,” only makes sense if in fact it was true that “this story is still told among the Judeans to this day.” That is, Matthew is confronting a particular story that opposed the gospel narrative. But why would opponents of Christianity (or anyone else) spread a rumor that the body was stolen, if they could just refer to common knowledge that the bodies of the crucified were not buried to begin with?
The remains of crucified victims were *eventually* disposed of, just not on the day of their death. They may have been referring to someone stealing Jesus’ remains. (In any event, it’s not completley clear to me that the Matthew passage is responding to an *actual* claim among Jews; it could also be a bit of anti-Jewish polemic, a kind of straw scarecrow that could be easily knocked down by Christians to show how vapid the Jewish opposition was).
I think it very probable that not all bodies were left on the cross to rot. If the Romans crucified hundreds, if not thousands, of Jews, many every day, pretty soon there was no space to put more crosses. If the family of the crucified was interested in retrieving the corpse, and the Roman guard did not have objections, they would let them do it, to have a vacancy for the next one.
Also, I think the story of Joseph of Arimathea may be true. He would be somebody rich and powerful, probably curious about Jesus, that could bribe the guards, and decided to let Jesus into his tomb, because it was near, and they were in a hurry. But the tomb was for him and his family. So, as soon as the sun set on Saturday, he ordered his servants to drop Jesus body in the common pit.
Actually, when they destroyed Jerusalem, they did run out of lumber. In any event, on the day of Jesus’ death, they crucified three. If that was abouyt average adn they left people on the cross for, way, a week, they’d need about 20 crosses. BUT, the other point is that this is happening only when Pilate was in Jerusalem, which was only occasionally. It wasn’t happening throughout the year.
Why can’t Joseph of Arimanthea have bribed Pilate, or the Centurion in charge of the crucifiction, to get permission to take down and bury the body?
Sure, he could have. I”d say there are lots of possibilities that we could hypothesize or speculate about: Maybe he had a cousin who bribed Pilate. Or maybe he lied about burying jesus. Or maybe…. etc. etc. My view is that we need to think of all of these as options and then figure out which ones are plausible, and which not, and once we have a list of things that *could* have happened, we need ot figure out what the evidence suggests is the most plausible. One thing you would look for: how much evidence do we have of any one in the Roman world successfully bribing an official to release a crucified victim? There were many thousands of people crucified. I don’t know of any instance of a successful bribery (or an attempted bribery) to remove a body. So if we don’t know of it ever happeneing, and we don’t have any indication in any source that mentions the event that it happened here, what’s the likelihood, in comparison with other options?