(21 votes, average: 4.76 out of 5)
Loading...Every now and then on the Blog I get bored with a topic and simply want nothing more to do with it (for a while). For some reason I feel like that about this question of whether Jesus was really buried on the afternoon of his death. It’s an effort to respond even to the comments. But for some reason I can’t seem ever just to let it die (so to speak). Still, this is my last post about the matter for the next 29 years. I think.
I just want to make one major point, which probably has relevance to a range of topics we deal with here on the blog.
For most of us, if we had to pick one person to name as the Single Most Important and Influential Figure in the history of Western Civilization, it would almost certainly be Jesus. Who else would it be? There are others that people today might choose – Hitler, Constantine, Caesar Augustus, pick your name. But I think it’s pretty obvious that none of them actually had the historical impact that Jesus has. Not only is he worshiped by two billion people in our world today, nearly a third of the entire human race, but in terms of Western civilization, what is the single most powerful and influential institution, ever, measured politically, economically, socially, or culturally – not to mention religiously? Surely, throughout the past 2000 years, the answer has to be the Christian church. And what is the Christian church? It is the group of people who worship Jesus.
I would say the only possible contender for Most Important Figure in the history of the West might be Alexander the Great (and I’m sure many of you will have your own candidates). But still, all in all, I think Jesus is a slam dunk.
Because Jesus is so important for our world, and for our history, and for our civilization, for some reason we just can’t HELP but think that he must have been highly important in his own world, set apart from everyone else at the time.
And so, when we think about his crucifixion …
This post gets controversial. But it’s a REALLY important question. To read the post you need to belong to the Blog. If you don’t belong, you need to Join! It won’t cost much, all proceeds go to charity, and you’ll be able to read 5-6 of these babies every week!
“Why didn’t Pilate just give the bodies over, knowing that the crowds would be upset if he didn’t?”
Good point.
Because he wanted them to be upset — an excuse for slaughtering them. That’s what finally cost him his job after he murdered Samaritans on Mount Gerizim (36 CE?)
A couple of points:
1) Great observation about Alexander the Great. Whole-heartedly agree with you.
2) The question regarding the issue of Jesus’ importance really is not the issue here regarding the special treatment he did or did not receive. I concur with your idea that Christ was not important to the VAST majority of those who had even heard of him prior to his death and alleged resurrection. Again, his importance is NOT the issue.
The issue here is whether or not JOSEPH of ARIMETHEA was important enough or had the influence/ability to convince Pilate to let him remove the dead Jesus to bury him. Based on the texts, there is every reason to believe he does…a rich man who was a member of the Jewish ruling class and Sanhedrin. The texts make it clear that Pilate gave this special treatment at Joseph’s request, not because of the importance of Jesus.
It is a straw man to say this didn’t happen because Christ wasn’t important enough. The issue is rather was Joseph important enough. You have not address that at all and drawn a conclusion based on your own belief system rather than what evidence exists…and there is plenty of textual evidence that supports the immediate burial of Christ.
Offered with respect.
I agree that Jesus is probably the most influential figure in human history. But the big question is – how did a peasant preacher in a tiny corner of the world, whose ministry to the poor lasted less than three years, become the most influential figure in human history – especially when he is only mentioned outside “Christian” writings by Josephus about a century after his death? And those mentions of Jesus by Josephus have been challenged as reliable by credible historians within the last ten years.
Yup, that’s pretty much what my new book is about. Out in three weeks!
It isn’t the “real” historical Jesus who is the most important person in world history, it is the invented and romanticized Jesus. No doubt he was a good, possibly even a great man, but the historical Jesus was co-opted by people, possibly sincere, possibly not, who became mythologized to an incredible extent. It is indeed, The Greatest Story Ever Told. What would have happened in the western world if this myth hadn’t been so artfully developed and expanded is hard to know. While he was always (except for bigots like Reza Aslan), described as a man of peace, his approval and authority were often assumed by warriors and tyrants.
It probably was his radical ideas about Jewish purity and ethnic distinctions in combination with his vision of what it meant to be a worshipper of the Jewish God. Non-violent, radically counter cultural community even by 1st century Palestinian Jewish standards. The notions of radical acceptance of others from all other walks of life, equality of the sexes, emphasis on social justice and forgiveness rather than typical retributive justice. These are not ideas to take for granted even today.
“And that all the governors of Judea did this, contrary to Roman practice, for the entire history of the Roman domination of Palestine?”
Yes, I think every Roman governor removed the bodies of those crucified in and around Jerusalem the same day the crucified were found dead. I think it was standard practice, agreed upon between Rome and Jewish authorities, which is why no one, not even harsh critics of Christianity like Celsus ever question its possibility. Did Jesus receive special treatment? No. He received standard treatment.
Of course, again, this doesn’t mean Jesus was then placed inside a nice, expensive tomb donated by a wealthy benefactor. His remains were probably disposed of in a manner that most Christians today would find ignominious. And, no, his body wasn’t “raised” afterward.
I think if this were true, it would have been widely known and much commented on. We have no reference to this custom in any author, Roman, Greek, Jewish, or Christian. ANd if it was the custom, then Joseph of A. would not have had to ask for the body.
It seems like the inventors of the Arimathea legend take the Roman practice you describe, as a starting point. But could it be that, since Jesus was delivered to the Romans by the temple authorities, there was also a deal involving Jewish burial practices?
There’s no evidence of any such thing, so if it did happen it would be, so far as we know, unprecedented.
To quote that towering intellectual Donald Rumsfeld: “Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.” In the end, we’re both conjecturing. I just think my conjecture has a certain cool factor.
If you don’t mind me asking, because I am curious, why do you think this particular issue is so important to you? I’ve been on the blog almost a year and I think its come up 3 times.
Personally, I don’t think it likely that Jesus raised from the dead (I’d use stronger language if past beliefs didn’t die so hard). That being said, I lean agnostic but don’t call myself an athiest. For me, it doesnt matter if there was a tomb or not. I doubt there was a resurrection regardless and am not committed either way. But as an athiest, does it matter to you? Like it matters to a mythicist whether Jesus existed or not (I agree that Jesus’ existence is more solid than his burial)?
Yes, it is, and I think it’s because among all the things I’ve ever written for a popular audience, it is just about the *only* one that is very much a minority position among scholars, that I have not produced any scholarship on, but only addressed at this level. So I’ve felt a need to “make the case.”
Do you expect to produce any scholarship on it?
I’m not a biblical scholar, so I don’t think it’s likely I will point out something about the matter you haven’t heard of, but something did occur to me recently. I agree that the likelihood of Pilate granting an exception is extremely unlikely. What I find plausible is the he would have allowed a pre-existing tradition to continue that someone of a different temperament might have granted. Although Josephus suggests this was the case, the gospels actually support the opposite. That Joseph of Arimathea would need to go to Pilate to obtain the body suggests that the bodies could not be routinely taken down. So if you accept the biblical account, you have to accept that it was an exception, which makes it hard to accept. Unless perhaps Joseph bribed Pilate lol. It does say he was rich, and that is the other golden rule!
No, my scholarly work right now is on something completely different. Not enough hours in the day!
I find your last few posts convincing. Considering Joseph of A, if he existed, would have had first hand knowledge of how brutal Pilate could be. I don’t think he would have any reason to expect Pilate to give him the body, let alone walk in and ask.
Furthermore, we know why the story would need to be invented, which is to fuel the resurrection empty tomb narratives. But those accounts are also unreliable historically.
It seems to me, the story also furthers the idea that the Jews were responsible for Jesus’ death not the Romans, so there’s an additional incentive to perpetuate the narrative in this way. I think it’s telling that John says Joseph is afraid of the Jews, but not of Pilate.
The Sanhedrin were the ruling body of Judea. They were on the same team as Pilate. They’d have no trouble asking him for a favor. He’d have no problem giving them a favor. It wouldn’t even occur to Pilate that his followers might steal the body. Again, as the story goes, Pilate never heard from his followers, only his accusers and the rabble.
It is utterly false to say that the Sanhedrin was “on the same page” as Pilate, although the gospels reporting the fictional trial of Jesus disparage the Jewish leaders in this manner; and even paint Pilate as the good guy. Sure. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s incredible to think a rich man might have access to Pilate, who certainly was corrupt enough to expect, if not a bribe, then a future favor. As for the Sanhedrin, they would no doubt be anxious to avoid a massacre, examples of which Pilate had earlier shown his penchant for, and which ultimately destroyed his governorship.
We don’t actually know that the Sanhedrin wanted Jesus killed. We don’t have any independent confirmation of that. Jesus had challenged their authority–which is the same thing as challenging Rome’s authority. If they say nothing, they risk giving the impression to the Romans that they’re fine with what could be perceived as insurrection (and Jesus had reportedly told his followers to obtain swords, though so few as to make it seem more symbolic in nature–he may have in fact been trying to provoke a reaction).
They may, of course, have felt that his death would end the problem, and avoid further bloodshed, but it still would have been controversial–Jesus had committed no violent act, had actively condemned violent for any reason. He was an observant Jew, who was reputed to have healed the sick. He had a certain reputation for holiness.
Nobody can completely control the course of events. Pilate couldn’t control everything the Jews did, nor could they control everything he did, and nobody at all could control Jesus of Nazareth.
I think it would be easy for the high priests to convince Pilate of Jesus being a subversive presence in Roman occupied Judea- he’d proven himself to be at the temple- he was preaching things that were undermining their authority, so they already didn’t like him too much. They may have been informed by Herod Antipas that he was a follower of the equally subversive and probably better known Galileean, John the Baptist (based on Josephus coverage). Pilate may have found out independently about this connection if he’d inquired enough. I get the feeling both Sanhedrin and Pilate saw a very powerful magnetism in Jesus’ character that was a true threat, even if he were non-violent, and found out, when after the temple incident they looked into this fiery character with an obvious entourage surrounding him (maybe helping cleanse the temple) and hear rumors of a growing popular movement extending all the way back to Galilee that challenged class separation and hierarchy. There may be some truth to the charges that he got in the way of Roman taxation, and that might’ve been enough for Pilate, who may have grown accustomed to seeing rebellions start this way, to send him to the cross.
I’m not Bart, but I have the definitive answer. No one knows. Paul didn’t care. The people writing stories about him decades later didn’t know. We don’t even know which stories came to these authors via writings which no longer exist, stories orally passed to them from various sources (credible or not) and which they invented themselves. You might as well ask whether the wallpaper in your heavenly mansion will be blue.
Mark, the earliest gospel, didn’t even mention the subject. That part was added later. Those diarists who wanted to show a resurrection needed scenarios whereby a resurrection could plausibly be shown as observed. So show him buried in a guarded tomb. Unused meant there were no other bodies in it. They could have described him left on the cross for days while people watched the vultures eat him. That would be distasteful to Jews. It would also make bodily resurrection challenging. Yeah, toss that version of the script and go back to the tomb scenario. For bios narratives, it’s not necessary that all the pieces fit and be consistent.
Of course, my previous posts show that I don’t think of it that way, with Jesus being given “special treatment” because he was “important”! I go the other way, speculating that Pilate didn’t give much thought to what would be done with Jesus’s body precisely because the man was a “nobody,” who never had (as Pilate saw it) posed a threat.
I’m guessing that if Jesus hadn’t been arrested and crucified (with followers claiming he’d been resurrected), his ministry would have petered out, and we never would have heard of him.
As the gospel diarists tell the story, some Jews accused Jesus of being a threat because he was a Zealot. Both Pilate and Herod acquitted him of that charge. But those Jews (and the rabble they roused) made him a threat by threatening to riot. Pilate would have executed Jesus for that reason alone. The story explains why a good man would be executed by Rome.
The early ministry of Jesus (that of John the Baptist) petered out by the end of the first century, when everyone was forced to admit that the apocalypse didn’t happen. The later ministry of Jesus (as a sage of Second Temple Jerusalem) persists to this day in the form of Rabbinic Judaism.
We have never heard of lots of people who were arrested and executed by Rome in the first century.
I partly disagree with Paul. Jesus could still have been the universal sacrifice without a resurrection. The only thing a sacrificial animal has to do is die.
Right. But since Paul believed he did rise, (because he heard Jesus speak to him) there has to be a reason for it, and he, as the prime interpreter of Jesus, as he sees it, has to learn what that is.
There’s no logical reason to believe anything, you know. Beliefs are never about logic. They’re about trying to find some kind of internal balance. “I know this is right, I know this is wrong.” In terms of pure reason, nothing is ever right or wrong, good or evil.
Which is why we can’t live on reason alone.
Paul didn’t have to KNOW why Jesus was raised from the dead. All he needed was a hypothesis, either one he formed himself, or one he heard from someone else. Jesus must have been important for God to raise him from the dead. Paul thought it was because God had accepted his death as the universal sacrifice. That was enough for Paul. His hypothesis became his axiom.
On a different topic, how would we know anything historically about what happened at Jesus’s trial by the Sanhedrin or at his trial by Pilate? It doesn’t appear that any of Jesus’s followers were witnesses (well, maybe Peter at the Sanhedrin but that certainly sounds legendary (eg, the cock crowing two or three times) and even if it wasn’t could Peter have actually heard and seen what was going on at the Sanhedrin?). It sounds like the oral tradition must have started with people imaging what happened at those events rather than with familiarity with what happened from eyewitnesses.
Yup, it’s a huge problem.
I agree, of course, that the stories were made up. But a believing Christian would say that during the time Jesus spent with his disciples after his resurrection, *he told them* what had happened when he was with the Sanhedrin, and with Pilate. For a “true believer,” no problem at all! Except for differences among the various Gospel accounts – for that, they’d have to say some of the disciples’ memories had been faulty.
From a theoretical level, why would Jesus want to inform about Pilate when Pilate remained a disbeliever and jesus was handed over by Pilate? Jesus is said to have been doing teachings, but no one recorded his words even though he allegedly was in hiding for forty days. Why would a post ressurected person want to talk about what Pilate did when sadness and death is no longer a problem ? So if Jesus was partying and full of joy, then why would he ruin the partying b y talking about Pilate and Pharisees ??
Jesus’ “trial” as portrayed in the gospels is almost certainly entirely fictional. Pilate was probably chomping at the bit to get a troublemaker in his grasp that he could crucify as an example, and Jesus just happened to be one of the unlucky ones. I mean, do you think it was a coincidence that Pilate crucified Jesus and the other two “criminals” within sight of hundreds of thousands of Jewish pilgrims? He was sending a message. “I am the law and order governor.”
There was a meeting, perhaps a confrontation, but no “trial.” That’s a later and fanciful invention– and clearly an attractive fiction.
Sir, have you read the sources below? (I do not mean to insult your intelligence.)
What you’re saying could make sense if the gospels were all post 70 A.D. documents.
I believed for decades that they were.
If there’s any way I could get you to see the strength of the case for Peter’s trip to Rome in 42 A.D. I would. I say that as a non-Catholic.
John Wenham spelled it out nicely in 1972. (nine pages)
DID PETER GO TO ROME IN AD 42? By JOHN WENHAM, Tyndale bulletin 23 (1972) 94-102
http://www.tyndalehouse.com/tynbul/library/TynBull_1972_23_04_Wenham_PeterInRome.pdf
καὶ πέτραν σκανδάλου
Then he knocked it out of the park in 1992. (240 pages plus 60 pages of foot[end]notes)
REDATING MATTHEW, MARK, AND LUKE: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem, by John Wenham
https://www.amazon.com/Redating-Matthew-Mark-Luke-Synoptic/dp/0830817603
καὶ πέτραν σκανδάλου
But there’s nothing quite like George Edmundson’s 8 Lectures to Oxford University in 1913
THE CHURCH IN ROME IN THE FIRST CENTURY: An Examination of Various Controverted Questions Relating to its History, Chronology, Literature, and Traditions by GEORGE EDMUNDSON (237 pages plus footnotes)
https://archive.org/stream/cu31924029214918#page/n19/mode/2up
καὶ πέτραν σκανδάλου
Here’s one little tidbit that none of the above mention:
Romans 9:33
As it is written:
“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall,
καὶ πέτραν σκανδάλου
and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”
καὶ πέτραν σκανδάλου
And a PETER who makes them fall. And the one who believes in him (PETER) will never be put to shame.
No, I haven’t read any of the links. It’s clear, in any event, that Peter was not in Rome when Paul wrote them in 60 CE, since he is not among those greeted in chapter 16.
Paul wrote Romans in 57, not 60.
Has it occurred to you that Paul goes out of his way NOT to mention Peter?
Peter was 1) a non-Roman citizen and (2) a FUGITIVE!!!!
Wenham wrote in 1972:
“It is hardly conceivable if we take seriously (as we must) the
strong tradition that Mark’s Gospel in some way represents
the teaching of Peter in Rome, and if we take the usually
accepted view that Peter did not get to Rome until the 60s.
“If however—as I wish to argue—we put Peter’s first visit to
Rome in 42, the whole position is revolutionized.
“I have to confess that such an idea had never made any
serious impact on my mind till a couple of years ago, when I
chanced upon a popular book by G. R. Balleine, entitled
Simon Whom He Surnamed Peter (Skeffington, London, 1958),
which argued that the ‘another place’ to which Peter went
after he had been released from prison in Acts 12:17 was
Rome.
“The idea was so novel and the implications so far reaching
that I felt scarcely able to trust my own judgment in
the matter.
“Further reflection, however, has made me feel that
the case is sound and that it should again become a subject
for serious study by Christian scholars.
….
“Direct evidence for Peter’s movements after the death of
Stephen are scanty: we find him at Samaria, and (initiating
the first Gentile mission) at Caesarea and at other places in
Palestine.
“During Agrippa’s reign (41-44) he escaped from
Jerusalem and fled Agrippa’s territory.
“He was in Jerusalem
again for the famine visit of Paul and Barnabas in 46 and for
the Apostolic Council of 49.
“He visited Antioch (Galatians 2:11)
and had associations with the churches in northern Turkey
(I Peter 1:1).
“In 54 Paul can speak of Peter ‘leading around a wife’,
presumably moving from place to place in missionary
work (I Corinthians 9:5).
“Beyond this we are left to inference……..
Chronologically the twenty-five year ‘episcopate’ spans the
period from Agrippa to Nero neatly.
Agrippa’s reign was 41-44
and Nero died in 68, which tallies well with Eusebius who dates
the episcopate from 42 to 67.
That Peter could have escaped to
Rome is clear enough.
‘There was no small stir . . . over what
had become of Peter.
And when Herod had sought for him
and could not find him, he examined the sentries and ordered
that they should be put to death’ (Acts 12:18f.).
Agrippa was
in deadly earnest and Peter in deadly peril.
To escape to a
neighbouring province would have been to invite extradition,
but the ports (where Peter had friends) were full of ships waiting
to take the Passover pilgrims home.
Peter could have escaped
to Egypt, Ephesus, Carthage, Spain, but none of these places
claims him.
The most likely place in the world to harbour an
escaped prisoner was also the home of a vast Jewish population;
There seems to be absolutely no reason why Peter should
not have gone (to Rome), unless Luke’s cryptic statement that he
‘went to another place’ proves to be an insurmountable obstacle.
If Peter went to Rome, why does not Luke say so?
It is of
course impossible to know for certain, but it is well to bear in
mind that Luke is a past master at avoiding things which lie
outside the scope of his book, and it could be that at this point
(in Blaiklock’s words) ‘he is preparing to usher Peter from the
stage, as Paul steps to the forefront.
The apostle to the Jews
has played his part.
He has, in fact, prepared the way for the
apostle to the Gentiles’.
To have mentioned Rome at this
juncture might have evoked a crop of side-tracking questions
which would have distracted the reader from following Luke’s
developing story.
A more probable reason, however, is this.
If, as we have
argued, Acts was published in Rome while Paul was awaiting
trial, and if (as seems likely) it had the part-purpose of inclining
those in positions of influence to look favourably on Christianity,
it might not have seemed tactful to call attention to the fact
that the church of Rome was founded by a much-wanted
criminal who was a fugitive from justice.
His alleged deliverance
from prison by a miracle might not have carried sufficient
conviction to offset the fact that he was a man wanted by the
law.
Looked at in this light the cryptic phrase (which is really
rather odd) suddenly makes sense.
Any other destination could
have been mentioned by name without embarrassment, and
one would have expected such mention, but Rome was the
one place that required disguise.
It thus seems untrue to say that the possibility of a period of
work by Peter in Rome, beginning some twenty-five years
before his death, is contradicted by the evidence of the New
Testament or is inconsistent with the known facts; it also seems
to say (as we have just seen) that the one superficially
serious objection to the hypothesis really presents any difficulty;
furthermore it is untrue to say that the hypothesis is based on
an argument from silence unsupported by positive evidence.
The unwavering tradition of the Roman Church is itself weighty
evidence, and we believe that the literary argument for the
early date of the Synoptic Gospels provides further evidence.
In addition, the significance of Paul’s remark in Romans
15:20-24 needs to be carefully weighed.
In spite of his longing
of many years to come to them, he was intending only to pay a
passing visit to Rome, ‘lest’ (he said) ‘I build on another man’s
foundation’.
This suggests (what missionary experience in
general confirms) that the church of Rome did not arise
through the chance movements of Christian converts, but was
in large measure the result of one man’s vision and work.
Paul’s firmness in this matter gains added point, if the other
foundation-layer was the very man whom he had agreed was
to be acknowledged as the leader in the establishment of (predominantly)
Jewish churches, while he was to be acknowledged
as the leader in the establishment of (predominantly) Gentile
churches (Gal. 2:7-9).
Paul’s concern for the unity of the
church kept him steadfastly loyal to his agreement.
C. K. Barrett
speaks of ‘the delicacy of the situation that leads to the obscurity
of Paul’s words’ in this passage.
The delicacy of the relation between the two apostles
may well have been part of the reason
for the delicacy of the situation.
Another scrap of positive evidence is to be found in the
presence of a Cephas-party in Corinth……….
Well said. For the Jewish leaders, Jesus was a false prophet who threatened the religious system For the Romans, Jesus was a threat to Roman rule. He was without honor in his own time. How that all changed with the development of the Christian Church is an amazing story.
Bart,
Red herring and straw man arguments again. Many people disagree with your proposal for the disposal of Jesus’ body do not think “because Jesus is so important for our world, and for our history, and for our civilization…can’t HELP but think that he must have been… set apart from everyone else at the time.” And the choice is not between your proposal or burial in Joseph of Arimathea’s family tomb. There are many possibilities in between.
But in answer to all of your questions, Jesus (and the two others who were with him, if indeed they are historical) could plausibly have been an *exception* to normal crucifixion procedures because *he was crucified on the eve of a major Jewish festival celebrating Israel’s liberation from foreign domination with tens of thousands of extra Jews in the city riled up more than normal about their nationalism*. For this reason, Pilate could plausibly have not wanted to rile the Jews more than normal and risk a mass riot and loose the peace, which could get him fired. This is the same reason you admit that Pilate backed down in the blasphemous images incident. Pilate *not* backing down in the temple treasury incident makes perfect sense because in that case there was a *massive monetary payoff* that was worth the risk of riot (his bosses in Rome would approve!).
The above proposal is consistent with Jewish War 4.317, Digesta 48.24.1 (which is not “explicit” in saying what you say it says), the blasphemous images incident and temple treasury incident, and every other piece of evidence on this topic.
If Jesus’ corpse was given to the Jewish authorities on Friday, an obscure ground burial by the Jewish authorities would seem likely, just like your colleague Jodi Magness says and is outlined by this respected up and coming scholar at: https://celsus.blog/2018/01/20/bart-ehrman-and-jodi-magness-on-the-burial-of-jesus-and-the-empty-tomb/comment-page-1/#comment-7785. This would explain why there is a “buried” tradition in 1 Cor 15:4 but no discovered empty burial tradition in the Creed, Paul, or Acts 13:29-31. In contrast, I cannot find in your book, nor have I been able to figure out here on your blog, how you plausibly account for the word “buried” in 1 Cor 15:4.
Since I saw someone else cite my blog here, I want to clarify that my post is not intended to express disagreement with Dr. Ehrman’s thesis. It is only intended to show that Dr. Magness’ arguments are actually fairly compatible with Dr. Ehrman’s arguments expressing doubt about Joseph of Arimathea’s burial and the empty tomb, with modification on some points regarding Jesus’ burial. The post simply explores another hypothetical angle for a scenario in which Jesus was obscurely buried. Also, the link given was to the comments (and to someone else’s comment, not mine, at that). Here is the link to the blog essay itself: https://celsus.blog/2018/01/20/bart-ehrman-and-jodi-magness-on-the-burial-of-jesus-and-the-empty-tomb/
Sorry about the bad link to your web page. No intent to suggest that you disagreed with Ehrman or thought he was mistaken on something. Just pointing out that you have a good ground burial scenario that accounts very well for the word “buried” in the 1 Cor 15:3-4 creed, which I see as harder to explain on Ehrman’s hypothesis.
Bart,
Three separate commenters on this thread accused you of setting up a “straw man/men” argument. What do you make of that?
I think they don’t know what a straw man argument is.
Bart,
Suit yourself, but the straw man I saw you construct thinks “Pilate (politely) complied” with Joseph’s request for Jesus’ body and then Jesus was “given a decent burial with customary care and rituals”. And all of this “because Jesus is so important for our world, and for our history, and for our civilization…[we] can’t HELP but think that he must have been… set apart from everyone else at the time.” None of the above seems to apply to the folks asking questions on the blog.
If I may please: perhaps if may help if we had a common understanding/definition of the term “strawman,”
Please see here –> https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/169/Strawman-Fallacy
>> Description: Substituting a person’s actual position or argument with a distorted, exaggerated, or misrepresented version of the position of the argument.
lol
Bart,
Can you please provide one example from any ancient source that depicts the Romans removing a crucified body from a cross for further disposal by the Romans? Surely if that ever happened, it would have been widely known and much commented on. We have no reference to this custom in any author, Roman, Greek, Jewish, or Christian.
You’re right. All the references are to bodies who were left to rot.
Bart,
Why couldn’t Jesus have been an *exception* to normal crucifixion procedures because *he was crucified on the eve of a major Jewish festival celebrating Israel’s liberation from foreign domination with tens of thousands of extra Jews in the city riled up more than normal about their nationalism*. For this reason, Pilate could plausibly have not wanted to rile the Jews more than normal and risk a mass riot and loose the peace, which could get him fired.
YOu’d have to say the other two men crucified that day, and everyone else ever crucified in those circumstances for many decades, were the “exceptions” — and we have no record of such exceptions.
Bart,
I am proposing that *every* Jew who was ever crucified in Jerusalem *on a major Jewish festival with tens of thousands of extra Jews in the city riled up more than normal about their nationalism* were given to the Jewish authorities for burial on the same day they died. Your objection is “we have no record of such exceptions”. But there are very few days a year that this would apply, and I presume very few Jews were getting crucified in peacetime, so why in your mind should we expect a record of such rare occurrences?
Also, you assert that the Romans removed crucified bodies from the cross for further disposal by the Romans, and yet we have zero record of such a thing. So why do you require literary evidence in one case but not the other? You seem to have a double standard.
is the gospel of mark the ONLY source which says that the jewish people were able to get pilate to do their job hours before jewish holy day?
Also the Gospel of John.
Bart,
You keep saying, “we have no record of such exceptions”. Why *should* we expect to have a record of Pilate occasionally giving crucified corpses back to the Jewish authorities when he was concerned about losing the peace at major Jewish festivals like Passover?
Since a place known as Arimathea has never been identified, what’s you best guess as to how the Greek breaks down, i.e., the word’s meaning, if any? Also, can you cite a few ancient sources that discuss the practice of Roman crucifixion?
I’ve played with the idea that the name meant something like “the best disciple” and that the legend simply called him that. Roman references to crucifixion are scattered: there is no sustained discussion anywhere. But as to bodies being left on the cross, there are lots of side-off-the-cuff comments. I give some of them in my book How Jesus Became God.
But I’m sure I’ve read, somewhere, that there *was* a place named Ramathaim-Zophim. Not sure exactly where it was, but close enough to Jerusalem that some have thought it was “Arimathea.” Considering that the Gospels were written decades after Jesus’s death, outside Palestine, it’s not impossible that the story could have come to include a (simplified) corruption of that place-name.
Just as it’s possible that the place-name Kerioth evolved into “Iscariot.” That seems to be the most widely accepted explanation of Judas’s “identifier.”
There have been lots of options suggested over the years.
I know this is your opinion, but it will remain unresolved because your colleague, Dr. Tabor, thinks that it is possible that Joseph of Aramethia or one of his associates convinced Pilate to let them bury Jesus in a temporary tomb. Later he was moved to what is now known as the Talpiot tomb. There are various political reasons that people want to deny the validity of the Talpiot tomb; however, evidence is mounting in favor of it. So long as equally qualified scholars have differences of opinions about this, it will remain an open possibility.
I agree with you, Bart. Pilate’s and Rome’s purpose of crucifixion was humiliation and deterrence. Jesus was essentially a nobody with a small group of followers. Was there even a crowd at the crucifixion? I always figured that it was Mary and maybe a few other women that were even there. Bart, do we know if the Romans or Pilate insisted on the people in the city showing up for a crucifixion? As a resident or visitor, I would have avoided it. People were too busy with the holiday and other problems. The point of leaving the bodies on the cross was to ensure everyone saw the effects since they most likely weren’t there for the initial event. I also think Pilate wasn’t risking much in leaving a Jewish rebel with a few followers that most Jews thought was a bit heretical up on the cross. He was meshuggeneh (crazy)!
One of the questions that begs to be addressed is why would Mark make a Jewish member of the Sanhedrin a hero in the story? Why would he list Arimathea in the title? It seems that if you’re going to invent Joseph, you shouldn’t link him to the Sanhedrin who had just stood as his accusers. Similarly, it seems that if you’re going to designate a title upon him, you shouldn’t list Arimathea, a place whose historical location is still not known. It would appear the location was probably a sparsely populated area that would have been identifiable to locals, tax collectors, or anyone else who cared to search for it at the time.
Dissimilarity is a fantastic and difficult to understand methodology and I don’t think anyone has done more to advance its usefulness than Dr. Ehrman. Bart, do you have any thoughts on this? Does the story of Joseph of Arimathea pass the scholarly muster of dissimilarity?
He knows that none of the disciples is going to go up to Pilate and ask for the body (else they’d be next); so it has to be someone with influence. No Roman would be interested. So he makes up a Jewish leader to do it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if archaeologists dug up some mention of Joseph of Arimathea some time down the road. In the meantime, it’s all speculation, even if based on what can be known contemporarily.
Thanks Bart! I know you’re weary of this issue, but it’s one that intrigues me (and others, apparently) and I appreciate the time you’ve devoted to it. In the context that you’ve put it, it certainly does seem most likely that Joseph of Armathea is a legend created later and the fate of the body of an obscure Jew would mean nothing to Pilate. Historically, do we have a sense of whether the first ‘sighting’ of Jesus post-crucifixion was in the Galilee by Peter or in Jerusalem by Mary M?
No, it seems to be a toss up.
On a similar note–I have heard some argue that the reason that Pilate, who wasn’t such a nice guy to the Jews, suddenly had a ‘change of heart’ in October of 31 CE. At that time, Sejanus led a failed revolt against Tiberius. Over the next few years, Tiberius was rounding up possible co-conspirators, and Pilate was doing everything he could not to ‘rock the boat’. So, Pilate became more compliant with the Jews’ wishes, so that nothing negative about him would be reported back to Tiberius.
This same argument has also been used to support the date of 33 CE for a crucifixion–prior to 31, Pilate would have just casually condemned Jesus to death, without thinking of whether this was a good political move.
I just read this article which supports what you’re saying…. I haven’t verified its references.
https://www.xenos.org/essays/sejanus-and-chronology-christs-death#_ftnref52
The question of whether Pilate would have respected Jewish customs regarding Jesus’ burial should now be considered a shut case. After 31 CE, Pilate had every reason to be fearful, because the person he’d been taking orders from, Sejanus, had been executed for treason. Tiberius had Sejanus executed 18th October 31 CE. Pilate was likely a Sejanus appointee.
After Sejanus’ execution, Tiberius was rounding up co-conspirators from 31 CE at least till 34 CE. Some historians say 100’s, others less than 50 were ultimately executed. Pilate had clearly been carrying out Sejanus’ anti-semitic policies, but after 31 CE, he was under orders from Tiberius to respect Jewish customs and the Jews were to be told that punishment was only for the guilty.
When the Jewish leaders said “if you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar” (non es amicus Caesaris) ” Pilate would have been shaking in his boots.
I am not sure about your point
from your last post
“he [Pilate] was offensive, intransigent, and brutal”
so are these same invectives appropriate toward the Sanhedrin judge (was it Caiaphas?) ?
I mean if Pilate was so obviously BAD, what does it tell you about the guy who brings an innocuous (i.e. harmless) preacher in front of an obviously corrupt judge???
Was the presiding judge in in the Salem witch trials more guilty of an innocent person’s murder than the prosecutor (Cotton Mather) who brought and testified against that innocent person in the court ? i think you could argue it either way [they are both pretty weak and spineless characters, imho]
I’m afraid we don’t have any record of Caiaphas being offensive, intransigetn, and brutal.
his presiding over an inquisition where someone was spit upon (mk 14:65)
Was Jesus the most important person in history? What did he do that might have earned him this accolade?
He did not originate or recast the animating idea or driving force behind his ministry, the expectation that this world of injustice and misery would be supplanted by a new one. Jesus , and he was hardly alone in this, inherited this apocalyptic eschatology from those who had suffered at the hands of the Seleucid kings. He was innovative but also mistaken in his belief that the kingdom would soon come and that he and his disciples would by God’s hand rule over it. If E.P. Sanders is to be trusted, nothing Jesus taught can be taken to be unique or original.
Was Jesus important? His ideas may not have differed in essentials from those of John before him. His ministry was (it appears) brief and attracted only a few dozen followers. It’s obvious that his followers were extremely devoted, and from the recollections of his message that have come down to us, that he proclaimed the message with extraordinary eloquence. Yet the fact remains the message wasn’t in its essentials innovative, nor was it even after his death embraced by others as he understood it.
Who invented the world’s greatest religion? Maccabean apocalypticists are entitled to a copyright on half of it, with Jesus earning a share for having put it so well.
Credit for the other half must go to Peter, Paul, and Mary-to the devoted followers of Jesus who saw him risen from the dead and convinced a few others what they’d seen was really there.
But among the founders of the world’s greatest religion not to be found is Jesus, who borrowed his own religion from the apocalypticists hoping for relief from economic distress and the oppression of Roman and local oligarchical rule. Those from whom Jesus borrowed are founders of his religion. The founders of new one are those who after Jesus’s death proclaimed him to have been raised from the dead and exalted to heaven from whence he would soon return, bringing with him the kingdom he had himself so winsomely proclaimed.
Between them (and putting aside Constantine’s claims), the founders of Jesus’s own religion and the founders of the new one centered in the expectation of his or His return, are more important to the rise of Christianity than was Jesus himself.
I don’t think the hisotrical Jesus was at *all* significant in his day. But the “remembered” Jesus changed all history. This is a point I make in my book Jesus Before the Gospels.
Yes, I’d state it more as the “Idea of Jesus” as fashioned by others (such as Paul).
The nexus of the importance of this (largely imagined) personage would bear close similarity to that of Alexander — the partial syncretization of Greek and “Oriental” culture, Athens and Jerusalem, the two great “cities of Western ideas”
You’ve articulated my position on this much better than I ever have. But I have an even bigger quibble with Christianity. The lesser included evil is the whole blood sacrifice thing, with eating the body and drinking the blood. And we think the Aztecs were barbarous for eating hearts.
But the greater quibble is this: what sort of “sacrifice” is it for God to be born of a woman, live 30 some years in obscurity, preach for one to three years and then spend a few hours hanging on a cross? When you consider what real human suffering is, the Jesus story is just a walk in the park for a god.
You want sacrifice, read Sophie’s Choice.
“Special” in what sense?
You’ve trotted out a lot of straw men here, and I’m sure there are people who you do hear these various bad arguments from, but you really shouldn’t be assuming everybody who questions the “Jesus was left to rot” scenario is proceeding from one of them, or just can’t stomach the thought of that happening. Providing food for hungry animals would go down as my personal preference for how my mortal remains should be disposed of.
And no, I don’t think Jesus would have been seen by the Romans as deserving special considerations after his death. Or that Pilate was a nice guy.
And I don’t think Jesus was looking for any special treatment. But whatever happened, happened after he was dead.
As many others have pointed out, there is no source that says he was left to rot. There are multiple sources saying he received some kind of burial. No, this isn’t proof, but there’s no proof for the other story at all. Other than “This is what usually happened.” Seems to me what usually happened was, the crucified man would be forgotten by history. How many crucified people can be named at all? (Don’t say Spartacus, nobody knows what happened to him. Kirk Douglas got crucified. Spartacus, for all we know, was buried.)
So again, the question is, how is it that we have this story? If Jesus’ followers could bear to believe he’d been crucified–which quite possibly none of them saw happen–why couldn’t they bear to believe he’d been left to rot, when that’s what usually happened? They could have had visions of him either way–they DID have visions of him either way.
The empty tomb is a good image, but it’s not an essential one. That’s from Mark–not the burial. Earliest reference we have is Paul. So this is a story that started very early–we have no basis for assuming it wasn’t being told just as soon as the resurrection stories. Why?
What’s the simplest explanation? Jesus received some kind of burial. Of course most of the supporting details could have been cobbled together later. But do we really know so much about Pilate (a man whose existence couldn’t be independently confirmed until recently) and crucifixion (they’re still debating how it was done) that we can be sure it was a universal practice to let victims rot?
And do we know, for a fact, that Pilate or some subordinate official, couldn’t have had his palm greased to look the other way, because there were some qualms among the locals about letting a fellow Jew–who had, after all, been renowned for his piety–be left for the scavengers?
This was not a huge crackdown–the disciples all got away. They figured it was all over. Who are they making an example for? He wasn’t a criminal. He wasn’t an insurrectionary. He was just–inconvenient. Making trouble for no reason. Caught up in the wheels of a system that treated you harshly when you did that.
He was a person of no great significance in the eyes of Pilate or any other influential person of that time. Most never heard of him at all then. But he was special. If he hadn’t been, we wouldn’t be having this argument. You wouldn’t be writing these books of yours. We’d never have heard of him. Because the disciples would have just forgotten him and moved on. His followers wouldn’t have had those visions.
It’s not utterly impossible Pilate was impressed by him. Nor is it impossible, that as in the Anatole France story, he forgot all about him. He might also have forgotten to check what happened to the body. He might not have cared. You can’t say “Jesus was incredibly unimportant to Pilate” and then say “But Pilate would have made very sure that body was left to rot.”
Again, the problem is not that you’re saying you think this is what happened. It’s that you’re making unwarranted assumptions about why anyone would question that, when in fact it’s a very new idea, that basically nobody brought up at all until recently. And an obvious idea, yes. But we just don’t have the data to make it anything close to a certainty, because we need to explain how the idea of a burial got started so early.
The simplest explanation is that there was some kind of burial, because that’s a thing people could have actually known if it happened or not.
If the Messiah could be crucified, he could just as easily be left for the dogs and vultures. But if the Jewish revulsion for such a thing was so strong that they’d make up a story to deny it–what might his followers not have risked to see that it didn’t happen at all?
There’s a lot of holes, no matter how you argue it. Because we don’t know enough. So yeah, probably best to let it go for now.
My assumption is that even though Jesus is very important now (and throughout history), he was relatively unknown in his own day. He only became the exception people today think he is long after his death and probably after the gospels were written and circulated. Obviously he had to be somewhat influential for the gospels to be written at all, but influential to whom? Not Pilate, or any historian living at the time, is my guess.
Does this seem fair? It seems to be a totally unfounded assumption to think that Jesus was special in his own day, and treated differently by Pilate as a result. I’ve probably just paraphrased your post, but just wanted to check my understanding wasn’t completely off.
Yes, it was Jesus as remembered, not as he was in history, that changed everything.
But it was Jesus as he was, not as he is remembered, who made it possible for him to be remembered. And Jesus as he was is still there, talking to us. If we care to listen.
I have to vote for Alexander III of Macedonia… Without Alexander, no GrecoRoman world for a Jesus to become apocolyptic over… Perhaps not even this modern world with us in it to ponder the matter!
Bart, in accordance with your wish to move on from the topic of crucifixions and burials, I will boldly go off-topic with something I’ve been wondering about for some time. I noticed in one of your Youtube debates, you mentioned Sam Harris’ criticism of religion to be sophomoric, saying that a knowledge of religion would be nice. In that vein, what is your opinion of the so-called New Atheists, Dennett, Dawkins, Harris, and the late Hitchens? (I wonder when they’ll stop being referrred to as “new”?)
I think they’ve done a world of good, and they are all amazing experts in their own fields. But their knowledge of Christain theology is wanting.
I totally concur. All we can really say (IMHO) is that he was a charismatic apocalyptic preacher who ticked off the wrong people and paid the ultimate price for it, and whose followers claimed that they saw him alive after he was crucified. Since they saw him alive, he must have been raised from the dead; hence the ’empty tomb’; hence he must have received a decent burial. All we have to “go on” in trying to pull together what actually happened are unreliable and often contradictory stories. As you have pointed out, compare Mark’s version of the passion with Luke’s. In John’s version of the trial/conviction, Jesus and Pilate meet multiple times privately; who was there to record those meetings? How do we even know that there were two criminals crucified with him, as much if not all of the stories in the Gospels are unreliable as to fact. To your point, Bart, people WANT to believe that Jesus was buried just as people WANT to believe that he rose from the dead. It makes them comfortable. But if looked at through clinical eyes, weighing all that we do know as fact/history, one must come to the conclusion that the suggestion that Jesus received a common burial must be rejected.
Thanks for the blog!!
I think it’s important to distinguish between the historical Jesus and the religious figure of Jesus when we talk about historical impact. Sure, Jesus as a religious icon has had a lot of historical impact. But considering the fact that we can’t just equate Jesus in the New Testament with Jesus the man, it’s not necessarily true that Jesus the man is the most influential person in the last two thousand years. Not only did Jesus have little impact in his own lifetime, but the imagination of Jesus that has shaped history is largely separated from the man himself. While the same can partially be said of Augustus and Alexander, I think the ancient literature that was written about their lives is relatively a more accurate depiction of the historical persons themselves. And, they also had a greater impact during their own lifetime. And so, I would argue that Augustus and Alexander have had a greater impact than Jesus, in terms of historical individuals. Plus, even for religious figures, Mohammed is certainly a contender for Jesus, and Islam is on track to surpass Christianity in terms of demographics worldwide, in the next century.
What would be a couple examples of incidents in the gospels that have multiple independent attestation (MIA), are non-supernatural/non-miraculous, but that do not pass the criterion of contextual credibility and consequently are probably not historical?
Yes, admittedly, I’m looking for something analogous to the story of Jesus’s burial but without the same kind of critical theological implications. I’m thinking it would be a lot easier to look at such stories more disinterestedly and that that would help me look at Jesus’s burial more disinterestedly. And it would help me in general put to put the importance of MIA into a better perspective. My tendency is to place very heavy emphasis on MIA.
You don’t even have to mention Jesus’s burial–though if the criteria I’m saying would make the stories analogous are defective then, well, it would get more complicated.
Paul wrote in 1 Cor 15:3-4 that Jesus was buried and rose on the third day, according to what he was told. Paul was a contemporary of Jesus and a Pharisee as well as (initially) anti-Christian. He was probably quite familiar with the SOP after crucifixion at that time. If such a “special treatment” was nearly non-existent or at least improbable in cases similar to Jesus’ , would Paul have accepted what he was told so readily?
He doesn’t say he was raised the third day after the death but three days after the burial.
Wow. I never noticed that! So it would be perfectly compatible with the Early Creed if Jesus body had been left on the cross for two weeks and then taken down, buried, and three days later someone or someones thought they saw him alive again (resurrection) for some unknown reason. Very interesting.
Question: A Christian I am currently conversing with alleges that in First Corinthians 15 Paul uses a very specific Greek word (that the English translators translated as “buried”) which literally and only means “to ritually bury” as opposed to another Greek word which can also be translated as “buried” but which in Greek was only used to refer to tossing something in the ground and covering it up (like what a cat does with its feces). This Christian alleges that since Paul used the Greek verb for “to ritually bury”, then this means that the early Christians believed that Jesus had received a PROPER JEWISH BURIAL; therefore the Romans could not have buried Jesus as burial by Gentiles would have been the equivalent of what a cat does to its feces! Paul would have used a different Greek verb for this type of non-ritual burial.
This Christian goes on to say that Josephus recorded that in his day if a Jewish burial procession passed by any Jew they were obligated to follow the body to the grave site. So, since Paul says that Jesus was “ritually buried”, there would have been a Jewish burial procession from the cross to his grave, attended and witnessed by every Jew it passed by, and since it was Passover, hundreds if not thousands of Jews would have witnessed the gravesite of Jesus, as thousands of Diaspora Jews and Jews from other areas of Judea and Galilee were camped outside the walls of Jerusalem for Passover!
He states that this “evidence” does not prove that Jesus was buried in Arimathea’s tomb, “but it does refute Bart Ehrman’s claim that Jesus’ body was left up on the cross and later tossed into a pit by the Romans with the bodies of other criminals”.
Wow! What do you think?
Isn’t it just the common word used for burying someone?? THAPTŌ
Below is this Christian’s argument. He is essentially saying that the Greek word “THAPTO” is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word “qabar” which only means “to ritually bury” not just to toss something into a pit and cover it up. As a speaker of Greek, do you believe this is correct? Does “THAPTO” only mean “to ritually bury” or could it be used in a sentence like this: “The dog THAPTO’D the bone.”?
Christian: The Hebrew word for “burial” is qabar, and it’s Greek equivalent is “thapto”. Qabar means “internment with ritual”. NOTE THIS: Every single use of this word (or applicable derivative) in the OT is in reference to a HUMAN internment with ritual. Qabar is not a word like the English word “bury”. In English, we bury humans, cats bury poop. But in Hebrew, humans receive qabar, cats “cover over” poop.
Deceased humans that do not receive qabar are said to have been “covered over” (or, some other descriptive is used). That is, if they did not recieve qabar, then *something else besides qabar happened with their bodies”. And, that means they did not recieve “proper burial” (qabar). Qabar does *not* imply “tomb burial”, and, I never said it did. It does, however, involve ritual.
You ask, “if a Roman digs a trench and throws a body in it and covers it with dirt, is that not burial?”
The answer: unequivocally NO. What you describe here is no different than the Nazis digging a trench and burying murdered Jews at Auschwitz. That is NOT “qabar”, that is NOT “thapto”. That is “digging a hole, dropping a body in it, and covering it over like cat poop”, the “disposal of waste”, and the very antithesis of “qabar”. Paul says that Jesus was “thapto’ed” – “qabar’ed”. He was the recipient of “internment with ritual” – a “decent burial”. Now, having said that, we do not at all have to presume that Paul’s story is correct. He wasn’t there at the “qabar”, after all. He was *told* that Jesus had been “qabar’ed”.
I’m not sure what the Hebrew word has to do with it? Paul didn’t know Hebrew and was writing in Greek, and his audience spoke Greek not Hebrew. (I’m also not sure where he has gotten his understanding of the Hebrew word from, but that’s another set of questions).
How do you know that Paul didn’t know Hebrew?
He quotes the OT in the Greek version and shows no evidence of knowing either Aramaic or Hebrew.
I asked Larry Hurtado the same question, and he seems to believe that “thapto” must mean a ritual burial, not just tossing the corpse in a hole and covering it up. Here is what he said:
“Paul’s statement that Jesus was “buried”, using the Greek verb “thapto” does designate a disposal of the corpse in a burial procedure and ceremony. That’s the use of the verb in the NT and more generally: See, e.g., Franco Montanari, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, ed. Madeleine Goh and Chad Schroeder (Leiden: Brill, 2016). So far as Paul knew (and he had spent lengthy times with Jerusalem followers such as Kephas and James), Jesus received a burial.”
Do you agree?
I don’t really know. What Greek word does he think would be used for putting someone in the ground without a ceremony, or in a common grave?
I asked Dr. Hurtado to clarify, here is what he said:
—I think you may have misread my point. Which is that “thapto” = burial, not simply being cast in a ditch. All the Greek sentences that I know which use the word are sentences referring to a disposal of a body in a grave of some sort, not casting it into a pit.
Gary: So as long as the Romans placed Jesus’ body in a dirt trench and covered it over with dirt, that would qualify as “thapto’d”?
larryhurtado:
—I suppose. But you need to reckon with another matter that is sadly and curiously often under-estimated. Why does Paul include Jesus’ burial as one of the four core affirmations that comprise the kerygma that he says he shares with Jerusalem church? It’s not enough to say that Paul presumed Jesus was entombed. In that case, it would have been enough (as usually the case) to affirm Jesus’ death and resurrection. So, why is the burial included? The most reasonable answer is because Jesus’ burial (and probably the place of his burial) had become (in the Jerusalem tradition) a component of tradition. I doubt that dropping Jesus’ body into a trench would have generated such a tradition. It’s more likely that “thapto” in 1 Cor 15 has its more typical meaning: a body placed in a tomb.
Interesting. I wonder what word he thinks (or knows!) was used for placing a body in an unmarked grave with no ceremony (whether or not that grave had other bodies in it). And btw, the reason the burial is one of the four affirmations is, I think, pretty obvious. Both the key event — the death and the resurrection — are said to have been according to the Scriptures and both are provided with physical proofs — the burial and the appearances. So the burial parallels the appearances as “proof” of the key event.
You, like me, ask too many really good questions.
Readers of the blog might find the December, 2017 issue of National Geographic of interest. It contains an article entitled “The Real Jesus.” All of the different paintings of Jesus illustrate that different people often see Jesus like they see themselves. The article contains a lot of archaeology about Israel and discusses the work of Eric and Carol Myers of Duke University. The central issue is what is legendary and what is historical about Jesus.
it seems to me a lot of your argument rests on your evaluation of Pilate’s intentions character and motivations. He [Pilate] was cruel; he wanted to set an example for anyone threatening Roman rule, he was absolutely insensitive to Jewish sensitivities, etc. etc. and you do present some evidence to support this evaluation.
But doesn’t all that imply that Pilate truly thought Jesus was a threat to Rome? But if that were the case, I would expect cruel, brutal, intransigent Pilate to search out everyone connected to this dangerous revolutionary leader.
I am hesitant to ascribe intentions to a guy who lived 2,00 years ago, but I dont see why Mark’s [15:10] recognition of Pilate’s intentions and motivations wouldn’t be just as or more accurate a representation than yours.
. . . Pilate, knowing it was out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him.. . .
it really happens all though out history jealous, self righteous individuals (often of religious persuasion) attack (using political means) an innocuous powerless individual who doesn’t conform to their ideas (see inquisition, Joan of Arc, Salem witch trials, etc)
I am not intending to minimize Pilate’s crime.
I don’t think you can call it a crime, since Pilate was simply overseeing the penal system imposed on Palestine by the Romans, who did whatever they felt was in the interests of the Empire, and never lost much sleep over it. It was cruel and unjust. No penal system has ever failed to commit cruel injustices. Ours has, and does, and will.
Pilate’s character is not very relevant, as I see it. He could have been a very nice man personally, and still felt obliged to deal with this odd preacher who was making trouble. He could have been a sadistic bastard and let him off on a whim (there’s a story that has him almost doing that, you’ll recall.) What we know about him comes almost entirely from people who didn’t like him. We know he existed, and we know what job he had at the time, and that’s about it.
I agree that the failure to pursue the disciples doesn’t make it sound like they were all that interested in the Jesus cult. If the disciples fled shortly after Jesus was taken, it became apparent he had no wide-spread following, that most Jews didn’t really care that much if he lived or died–what purpose does it serve to make an example out of him? The people in charge of his odd religion don’t like him, or he them. And he seems to have been touched in the head, talking about kingdoms that are not of this world.
I can think of endless reasons why they might release the body, or look the other way if somebody took it down. Bureaucracies are not that precise, in practice. Pilate has a lot of other duties. We don’t even know for sure that he personally oversaw the trial, if you want to call it that.
When I first read Dominic Crossan’s assertion that Jesus wasn’t taken up into heaven, he was eaten by dogs, it sounded persuasive, but I’ve come to realize that it’s not even meant as a historical argument. It’s a rhetorical argument. It’s Crossan, in true Irish fashion, making a colorful and memorable point about what he now believes–in a fully human Jesus, who was not a significant figure in his own time (which I agree with, far as that goes).
And for his purposes, that image, that story, works better. It’s still just a story. Told by an Irishman. And that’s something I do know about. 😉
I just had another thought. I was asking myself, “If I see Jesus as having been a ‘nobody,’ how can I justify thinking it possible that a member of the Sanhedrin – ‘Joseph of Arimathea’ – might have taken an interest in him?”
And I came up with an answer. “Joseph” – if that was really his name – might have secretly taken an interest in *John the Baptist*, who’d been preaching in the Jerusalem area for a much longer time. In that case, he might have been intrigued on hearing Jesus had similar views. Admired the *man* because he agreed with the *doctrine*.
Well, many people did associate Jesus with John, and for good reason. Jesus was almost certainly John’s disciple.
So good point–it wouldn’t just be the limited notoriety Jesus had achieved in the last few years, but also the association with the cult of the Baptist, which at that time might have been larger (and which is believed to have continued for a long time after John’s death, though they were apparently not very good proselytizers, and perhaps did not aspire to be).
This explains why the gospels go out of their way to associate Jesus with John–while at the same time, they increasingly attempt to make John somehow subordinate to Jesus. Jesus probably considered John an equal (“No man born of woman is greater than John the Baptist”) but I’ve long thought that John’s execution must have had a very profound impact on him. It changed the trajectory of his own ministry. Now he knew that God would allow one of his prophets to be killed. So he had to make sense of that.
And not everyone believes Jesus had been preaching for “a few years”! I’m more inclined to think it was merely a few *months*.
Neither John the Baptist nor Jesus was a proselitizer by any means. Both appealed only to Jews to repent. Neither spoke to Gentiles. Neither wanted Gentiles to do anything, especially not to convert to Judaism. Both wanted non-practicing Jews to repent and resume obedience to Torah.
Off-topic … I’ve been on Bart’s blog for several years, and have read (since Sept. 2012) most of his books, and I’m most glad the blog’s management has preserved a great 2008 lecture Bart gave in Berkeley, CA related to his book “God’s Problem.” Bart fielded an interesting set of questions at the end. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz-MQgzxua8
Maybe the idea of “worshiping Jesus” could be misleading to nonbelievers, since I suspect that among the 2 billion people, in round numbers, who call themselves Christians, there are at least a few million who do not so worship, but rather God the Father only. Jesus was a person, and the NT writings present him as a role model, and the writings are obviously imperfect, even more so when translated into various languages over the past 2000 years. Any attributed perfections to him or the NT text is idolatrous, not to mention illogical. I know some Christians so think, maybe also in your own household, eh Professor?
And how about Larry Wayne Jones, aka Chipper, voted into the HOF in a landslide!
I guess rounding up it’s still around 2 billion? Chipper: no surprise — he was the main star on a team of stars. Good days for the Braves.
It will be an Underworld freezeover, so to speak, before the Braves have another team like that.
Yeah, golden days.
Ironically, Bart, the “buried” or “unburied” Jesus continues to be resurrected!
The story of Joseph of Arimathea’s obtaining Jesus’s body is part of what forensic investigators would call a “Chain of Evidence.” In this case it’s a chain of evidence demonstrating to believers that Jesus truly experienced a bodily resurrection. There are several other stories in the chain (the guards, the stone, preparing the body, etc). And the Bible stories in that chain changed over time, as Christian writings evolved.
The chain is designed to answer the many questions of early skeptics, such as “But how do we know what happened to Jesus’s body after the crucifixion since the disciples (who wrote gospels, according to tradition) had fled town?”
Without the claim of the resurrection, we wouldn’t need so many details about each step in the progression of Jesus’s body, from being nailed to the cross, to passing away, to being removed from the cross, to being prepared for burial, to being buried in a certain, known place, to the sealing and guarding of that place.
To me, just the existence of so many details in this chain of evidence suggests that most or all of the stories were invented for theological purposes, including that of Joseph of Arimathea.
Doesn’t explain why Paul said Jesus was buried, and mentioned nothing else about it.
These supporting details may not have existed at the time Paul wrote, or may not have been known to him, or may have been so widely known he felt they were not worth mentioning–but Paul goes out of his way to mention things he believes are essential to Christian belief. (I think he avoids mentioning things that are controversial when he doesn’t have a dog in that particular right.)
We do see the overall story getting more elaborate as time passes, but that doesn’t apply exclusively to Jesus’ crucifixion and burial. It applies to Jesus’ birth (that Paul and Mark don’t refer to), to his baptism, to many individual stories in the gospels.
We know a lot of this added material isn’t historical, but we also know that most of it isn’t made up out of whole cloth either. It’s adding to an existing story, fleshing it out, and this is something humans do everywhere and always, even in religous myths that entire cultures revolve around, and are not in any way controversial. You tell a different version of the story because you want to make a different point.
There are, for example, many versions of the stories told in the Mahabarata. No Hindu is saying “That didn’t happen” (these are stories set in a fabulous magical time before the dawn of history, nobody pretends to know what really happened). You tell a different version of a story because you want to make a different point.
We shouldn’t think of it simply as a con job. None of these people are con artists. They aren’t doing it to make a buck, or to get power. If they are, it’s not working for them. They’re taking what is remembered of events from decades past (not millennia) and trying to make a coherent narrative out of them.
So yes, Joseph and the tomb might be one way of doing that. But what are they trying to explain? How Jesus got buried. Because they have heard that he was. Why? Maybe he really was. How? Who the hell knows? Exceptions exist within every penal system ever devised. Maybe the Romans just didn’t care what happened to his body. And somebody else did.
And of course maybe he was left on the cross, and eventually thrown in a garbage pit to be eaten by dogs.
But we don’t know that. We probably never will. To say that’s what happened is us making up a different story to make a different point. We just don’t know. But he could certainly have been buried.
I think it must be significant that two men named Joseph play an important role at the beginning and the end of Jesus’ life in multiple gospel traditions. Mark has no birth narrative but he names Joseph as his father and also has a Joseph see to his burial, as his namesake did for his father Jacob/Israel in Egypt – which Christians sometimes used as an epithet for Jerusalem.
I am new to this site and haven’t had time to read everything that’s already been posted on this topic, so please pardon any repetition of ideas that have already been offered; but as I have been reading this current thread, a few things come to mind.
There is at least one other first-century account of a Roman official allowing the retrieval of Jewish victims after crucifixion. The Jewish historian Josephus tells in his autobiography (ch. 75) how during the First Revolt he discovered three of his acquaintances who had been taken captive and crucified by the Roman army. He says he went “with tears in his eyes” to Titus, the Roman commander, who “immediately ordered them to be taken down”. What is even more remarkable is that the men were taken down while they were still alive, and one actually recovered.
It seems to me that if a Roman military commander could be persuaded during time of war to release three crucified insurrectionists while they were still alive, it’s also plausible that a Roman civilian official could be persuaded in time of relative peace to release the body of a crucified religious leader after he was safely dead. In either case the critical factor would have been who was doing the asking and why. Titus seems to have liked Josephus, who had gone from insurrectionist to collaborator and was making himself very useful to the Roman cause. Similarly, it is not inconceivable that Pilate would accede to a personal request from a member of the Sanhedrin, a highly respected governing body which could be of use to him in keeping things quiet in Jerusalem.
If the gospel accounts are given any credence at all, they strongly suggest that a major concern of both Pilate and the Sanhedrin was the ever-present danger of rioting during the festival, when vast numbers of pilgrims were crowded into the city. Given the prominent public placement of Golgotha and the well-known Jewish sensibilities about treatment of the dead, it could have occurred to members of the Sanhedrin after the crucifixion that leaving the bodies on public display to rot during Passover was not a good idea. If so, they might well have sent one of their number to Pilate to ask that the bodies be taken down to prevent further trouble–in which case a member of the council who was sympathetic to the “Jesus movement” might have volunteered for the job, and also taken advantage of the situation to do something special for one body in particular. (Yes, Pilate was a thug and a butcher, but he also sometimes gave in to Jewish religious sensibilities, especially when matters threatened to get out of control. See, for example, the incident of the imperial standards which Josephus describes in Antiquities, book 18, chapter 3.)
There is also a curious statement in the Talmud which may bear on the issue. In Sanhedrin 43a there is a discussion about the crucifixion of Jesus which alleges that efforts were made by the Council to find witnesses in his defense before they passed sentence, but no one came forward. To this it is objected that Jesus was an “inciter” against the true religion, and therefore would not be entitled to a defense but should have been killed without delay. The response to this is that the case of Jesus was unusual, because “he was near to the kingdom” (qrwv l-mlkwt hwh). It’s hard to know what to make of this, and the translators offer a number of different interpretations: He was “close to the ruling power”, or he was “near to the kingdom of God”, and so forth. But the one that seems most likely to me is that “he was related to royalty”–i.e., he was believed to be of the House of David. Of course the gospels explicitly claim this for him, and the claim is not intrinsically unbelievable. According to Eusebius, the Romans were still hunting down Davidic claimants (including members of Jesus’ own family) at least until the time of Domitian; and Judah the Prince, the compiler of the Mishnah, was also believed to be descended from David and survived into the third century AD. If indeed the authorities believed it possible that Jesus was related to the royal line of Judah, that might not have been enough to save his life, but it may well have been enough to entitle him to a proper burial.
I’d say the difference is that Josephus was not requesting burial for an crucified victim; he asked that the execution itself be stayed. I see that as a big difference. In his case they decided not to go through with it.
According to Josephus, the Romans had already “gone through with it” to the extent that all three of his acquaintances had already been nailed to crosses and left to die. The difference is that Titus ordered the three to be “taken down” alive and given medical assistance (although in two of the three cases the victims died anyway from their wounds). This incident would seem to prove that being nailed to a cross by the Romans did not inevitably mean being left to die and subsequently rot; the process could be interrupted at any point along the way if someone with sufficient authority gave the order to do so. And, again, if a Roman official felt free to order three Jewish insurgents to be taken down alive and set free in time of war, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that a Roman official in time of peace might be willing to order a crucified preacher to be taken down after death and released for private burial. Of course that doesn’t prove that it *did* happen, but it does suggest (at least to me) that it could have.
One other question: If indeed the body of Jesus was left to rot on the cross or even just taken down and thrown into a common grave, this fact should have been common knowledge in Jerusalem and especially among the Jewish authorities. If so, why was there no push-back from those authorities when Christians started circulating stories about the empty tomb? Even if those stories didn’t start circulating until a generation or two later, we know from the Talmudic tales about Yeshu and his disciples that the Jewish authorities were not at all reluctant about circulating counter-stories to ridicule and/or refute them. It would have been easy enough for someone to say, “Ah, but my grandfather was there and saw it all, and he said Yeshu was left to be devoured by dogs.” But so far I’ve never run across even a hint of any such counter-narrative. As far as I can find, all we have is the one given at the end of Matthew–“his disciples came by night and stole him away”–a story which we are told “has been spread among the Jews to this day.”
a) There’s a big difference between stopping an execution and changing a policy about what happens to a person who *is* executed; b) the disciples were back in Galilee. I don’t think anyone in Jerusalem knew or much cared what happened to the body, since probably no one there knew or much cared about Jesus. (Our problem is thinking that everyone had him on their minds as one of the most significant people of the time)
“In his The Jewish War, Josephus criticizes the Idumeans sharply for not burying their dead. He also contrasts this with Jewish concern to bury even the crucified. Would Josephus have written what he did, if the criticism of the Idumeans applied equally to his Roman patrons’ prohibition of burial of the crucified in Judaea? It seems unlikely. Does this make it more likely that Ehrman is incorrect in his argument that we should assume that usual Roman practice, of preventing the burial of crucifixion victims, was imposed in Roman-governed Judaea? Does it increase the likelihood that, as even our earliest source says, Jesus was buried? It would not have been an honorable burial, to be sure, as I have explained elsewhere. But it would have been a burial, as required by the Torah.” – Dr. James McGrath, Butler University
Biggest point is that Josephus was a client of the Romans and went out of his way in his writings not to alienate or say anything negative about them.
“Except that Josephus clearly depicts Jewish resistance to other things that involved violation of their laws, such as the introduction of idolatrous images. And so that response isn’t at all adequate in view of the kinds of things that Josephus tells us about. If non-burial and prevention of burial of the dead were the norm, it is implausible that Jews would not have objected, and if they had, we would expect Josephus to mention it as he does other things.” – Dr. James McGrath, Butler University
Bart,
Why do you think Paul never mentioned a discovered empty tomb/grave?
I suspect he had never heard teh stories.
Bart,
You previously said, “On Paul and the empty tomb, I would assume he *does* know of that, though it is very curious he never mentions it” (https://ehrmanblog.org/did-romans-allow-jews-to-bury-crucified-victims-readers-mailbag-january-1-2018/). But now you say, “I suspect he had never heard teh stories.” Can you please clarify? In your view, did Paul know of a discovered empty tomb/grave tradition or not?
Sorry — I can see how that was confusing. In the first quotation I was saying that I assume Paul thought that wherever Jesus was originally buried, his body was no longer there (even though he never says that). In the second I was saying that I suspect Paul had never heard the stories that are related in the Gospels about the women finding the tomb empty.
Bart,
That misunderstanding in the previous thread led to a ton of back and forth where you thought I was twisting your words. Hopefully you can see where that came from now and hopefully no hard feelings.
So if I understand you correctly, Paul *believes* Jesus’ body is gone from its final resting place (I agree), but knows nothing of the Gospel discovered empty tomb story (I agree). So here is my two part question: In your mind, does Paul know of *any* tradition of a burial location being *discovered* empty and, if so, what is that tradition (e.g., a ground burial spot from a Jewish burial, a rock-hewn tomb from a Jewish burial, a burial spot in a garbage dump)?
I don’t know if he knows a tradition or not — if he did, I think it would be odd that he doesn’t mention it (e.g., in 1 Cor. 15:3-8). If he did know a tradition, I have no idea what it would have been.
Bart,
Ok, then let’s try the 1 Cor 15:3-4 creed. In your mind, do the *initial* formulators of the creed know of *any* tradition of a burial location being *discovered* empty and, if so, what is that tradition (e.g., a ground burial spot from a Jewish burial, a rock-hewn tomb from a Jewish burial, a burial spot in a garbage dump, etc.)?
We obviously don’t know.
Bart,
Ok, I totally understand what you are saying now. You think Paul and the originators of the 1 Cor 15:3-4 creed *believe* that Jesus’ body is gone from its final resting place (I agree), but you don’t know if Paul or the originators of the 1 Cor 15:3-4 creed had in mind *any* kind of tradition of a burial location being *discovered* empty. Since there are lots of possibilities here, let’s just explore one.
Let’s say Paul and the originators of the 1 Cor 15:3-4 creed did *not* have in mind *any* kind of tradition of a burial location being *discovered* empty. In this scenario, can you provide *any* hypothetical plausible scenario that would account for the word “buried” in 1 Cor 15:4 that is consistent with your theory that Jesus was left on the cross and later disposed of by the Romans?
My undergraduate students today all think Jesus was buried. But when I ask them if they know about the Joseph of Arimathea story, they have never heard of it. So they think he was buried, adn have thought that for many years, but have never bothered to learn the details. My guess is that a very large number of people over the centuries have been like that.
Bart,
The Joseph of Arimathea story has nothing to do with it (red herring). If you had asked all of your undergraduate students *where* Jesus was buried, they would all have said in a rock-hewn tomb. So even your undergraduate students have *some* kind of burial in mind. So to repeat my question: If Paul and the originators of the 1 Cor 15:3-4 creed did *not* have in mind *any* kind of tradition of a burial location being *discovered* empty, can you please provide *any* hypothetical burial scenario that they *could* have had in mind that would account for the word “buried” in 1 Cor 15:4 and that is consistent with your theory that Jesus was left on the cross and later disposed of by the Romans? (You’re not trying to avoid the question are you?)
I’m afraid they wouldn’t have said that at all. They would have no idea.
Bart,
Paul and the *originators* of the 1 Cor 15:3-4 creed are also not the equivalent of your undergraduate students, but, rather, are the equivalent of *you*, the instructor! So you can bet they had *some* kind of burial in mind when they said Jesus was “buried” (1 Cor 15:4). So I think it is a very legitimate question to ask you what kind of burial they could possibly have had in mind if Jesus was left on the cross and later disposed of by the Romans and there was not yet any tradition of a burial location being discovered empty. What do you think it could have been?
Bart,
Ok, so your undergraduate students are coming in basically never having read the bible and are just *assuming* that Jesus was buried. Are you saying that Paul and the *originators* of the 1 Cor 15:3-4 creed are doing the same thing, i.e., just *assuming* that Jesus was buried with no specifics in mind?
I keep saying: we don’t know!
Bart,
I know we can’t “know” for sure; it’s just a hypothetical question. If Paul and the originators of the 1 Cor 15:3-4 creed did not have in mind *any* kind of tradition of a burial location being *discovered* empty (which is definitely one possibility based on neither mentioning such a tradition, and you acknowledge this), then what kind of burial could they *possibly* have had in mind to account for “buried” in 1 Cor 15:4? I can’t think of any. Can you? You actually seemed to be suggesting with your analogy to your students that Paul and the originators of the creed just *assumed* Jesus was buried and had no specifics in mind. Is that the best possibility you can come up with? Do you have any other suggested possibilities? To be honest, you seem evasive on this question.
You can keep asking the same question, but no matter how many times you ask it, the answer is we don’t know what they had in mind, if they had anything in mind. As to possibilities, you could come up with a dozen as easily as I!
Bart,
I’m afraid I cannot come up with even one possibility (let alone a dozen) to make sense of the word “buried” in 1 Cor 15:4 under your hypothesis that the Romans retained control of Jesus’ body. That’s why I was asking you. Frankly, your explanation that “we don’t know…if they had anything in mind” seems implausible to me because it seems to paint Paul and the originators of 1 Cor 15:3-4 as unthinking or doltish. Can you provide another possibility?
You’re saying that you cannot imagine a single possibility for how Jesus could have been buried if it was not Joseph of Arimathea putting him in a rock-hewn tomb? OK then.
Bart,
No, I’m afraid I am not saying that. A Jewish burial would 100% explain “buried” in 1 Cor 15:4, but it need not include Joseph of Arimathea or a rock-hewn tomb. In contrast, if the Romans retained control of Jesus’ body as you propose, and there was no discovered empty burial location legend before Paul wrote (which appears to be the case), I cannot think of *any* way to explain “buried” in 1 Cor 15:4. There is not a single source that mentions the Romans ever removing crucified bodies from the cross and disposing of them further, let alone covering them with dirt (please give one example if I am wrong). So I see no way that Paul or the originators of the 1 Cor 15:3-4 creed could think Jesus was “buried”. One of your solutions seems to be that Paul and the originators of the 1 Cor 15:3-4 creed were unthinking or doltish (“we don’t know…if they had anything in mind”), but that seems unlikely. You say there are a dozen other possibilities, but I can’t find any of these other possibilities in your book HJBG, so can you please give another possibility that you think explains “buried” in 1 Cor 15:4 if the Romans retained control of Jesus’ corpse?
Only philosophers bothered to even try to explain their religions. Until Christians had some contact with Jews of Palestine, they wouldn’t even think that a dead man wasn’t buried. By then, the creeds had already been written and circulated. So now they needed a way to rationalize that anomaly away. They wrote a plausible scenario for why Jesus could have been buried. It’s harder to visualize a resurrection without an intact body.
I’ve been reading Crossan and what he has to say about Jesus’ burial. I think his reasoning is problematic because he predates the Gospel of Peter before Mark and seems to be thinking that Mark not only took his information from the Gospel of Peter but expounded on it. He also seems to be saying that Matthew, Luke, and John purposely fill in the gaps for the burial story with John being dependent on the other gospel accounts.
He believes that just about everything concerning the crucifixion scene written by Mark to be unhistorical. What about Jesus being charged (for high treason) with the notice that read King of the Jews? He doesn’t explain how Mark knew that but can’t know anything else.
I’ve read a couple of authors refer to the dumping grounds of carcasses as burial pits. What I don’t think is clear is whether the ancient sources called them burial pits or if the author is using terminology that was not used by the ancient world.
Add’l note: Crossan believes the Epistle of Barnabas to predate Mark as well. Combined with the Carabas narrative, he says Mark created his crucifixion scene. The Gospel of Peter (Crossan calls it independent, but he really means it was first) serves as a springboard for Mark to embellish the tomb story. Those texts might line up chronologically for the crucifixion and burial story, but everything else contained within them would need line up chronologically as well.
How is that not manipulating the texts in order to fit his theory?
Yes, you’ve identified his achilles heel. He argues for independent attestation at the earliest stage of the tradition, but he puts sources in that stage that almost no one else ever would.
Dr Ehrman …Although it is likely that Jesus was executed for a charge of treason, isn’t it possible that Pilate just used this as a trumped up charge? The Sanhedrin apparently wanted rid of him for being a troublemaker (E.P. Sanders attributes this to the disruption Jesus caused at the temple), and it was they who turned him over to Pilate. While Pilate might not be inclined to do their bidding, if he was truly sadistic he might delight in the opportunity to kill someone.
If that occurred, then he wouldn’t have necessarily seen the need to make an example of him by leaving the body to rot, and therefore might not have cared if someone wanted to bury him.
I suppose it’s possible. But he would have had no reason for a trumped up charge. There were no laws that had to be obeyed. If he wanted him crucified, he didn’t need a charge — he could just order his death.
And that’s exactly what I think happened. Jesus just got crucified as “riff raff”. Hence, no big charges of “Treason”, and therefore, no particular inclination to deny someone’s request for his body, once he died.
Dr Ehrman –
With apologies –
I made an error in a post I left earlier, and didn’t catch it until it was too late to edit my comment.
I went to see if I could somehow delete the comment, but I couldn’t find out how. So, I’m hoping you’ll disregard my last comment, and remove it rather than wasting any of your time in responding. (and, of course, remove this one, too).
I’d like to re-submit the idea I was talking about, using the *corrected* version, if you’ll disregard that previous post I did.
Thanks
Regarding “thapto”:
Did thapto *always* mean a “burial with rites / honors”?
The LXX, Jer 22:7, “With the burial of a donkey he will be buried and dragged along and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem”.
This would be “(with the) “tafi” of a donkey he will be “thapto’ed” and dragged out… beyond the gates of Jerusalem”.
Clearly, this is not a “burial with rites”; it is the “burial of a donkey”. But equally clearly is that this is a very mocking, derisive declaration. It is akin to me saying “oh, yes, I graduated with honors. I had the honor of being last in my class”. Or, perhaps better, like some Mafia guy saying “oh, yeh, we gave the guy a decent burial – right in the bottom of the Hudson river” (clearly mocking the notion of a “decent burial”).
What I’m getting at is that this use of thapto, in this very derisive fashion, *confirms* that the normal usage of it was *not* in regards to the “tafi” *of a donkey*, but was, in fact, used to signify a burial with honors or rites. And, that’s the very thing that makes this particular usage of thapto – and thus, the whole sentence – to be derisive.
The second clue is the use of the word “tafi”, for “burial”. This word is used only *once* in the NT, in Matt 27:7: “And they conferred together and with the money bought the Potter’s Field as a burial place for foreigners.” This word “foreigners” would, of course, refer to the “goyim” — gentiles.
In every other instance in the NT, the word commonly translated as “burial” is ” entaphiazein” (or, whatever form was appropriate in the context). Gentiles – foreigners – one’s that did not have a “proper *Jewish* burial” – were “tafi’ed”, according to their own customs. Deceased Jews were “sepulchered” – which would indicate that they were handled in a process that would eventually lead to having their bones placed in a sepulcher, which would occur about a year after they were entombed or buried in the ground.
What we see, then, is that in the two instances in which either an ignoble burial or a gentile burial are addressed, even when the word “thapto” is used, it is given a “qualifier”, to signify *something other than a ‘proper Jewish burial'”. Thapto, to a Greek-speaking Jew – would *still* mean “a proper Jewish burial”. (I think it could be easily argued that the first-century Jews considered burial with the same level of importance as did the ancient Greeks.)
Thus, when Paul says that Jesus was “thapto’ed”, he was, by default, referring to a “proper Jewish burial”. If he had said “Jesus was ‘thapto’ed’ with the burial of a gentile” (or with that of a donkey), then we could most certainly presume his burial was not up to Jewish standards. But if we are to treat the “normal” usage of words as if they have actual, set *meaning*, then Paul was talking about a decent burial.
Now, does this mean Paul knew what he was talking about? Could Paul simply have been *told* that Jesus’ had an “ensepulchering” and that he was afforded bona-fide “thapto”? Yeh, sure, that’s possible. Maybe that was the “big lie” being passed around by Peter, et al. But, that’s another issue altogether.
I looked up Jeremiah 22:7 in the LXX, but I think you must have the wrong verse reference.
I’m willing to discuss the Greek texts with you, but do you know Greek?
you’re right… Jer 22:19… sorry about that…. typo? Thinking about Matt 22:7? I dunno…
I’m merely a student of Greek, and can’t possibly imagine that I’d know the Greek texts as you do. I’m not at all sure I would have a great deal to contribute to a discussion.
But, I would be extremely interested in hearing your take on what I’d postulated in that earlier post…
OK, thanks. I see it now. The verse actually proves my point. ταφήσεται is actually the future tense of θάπτω, and obviously a donkey is not being “buried” with formal ceremonial rites.
ταφήσεται is indeed the future tense of thapto. That’s why I brought that passage up in the first place.
You argue that “The verse actually proves my point…. obviously a donkey is not being “buried” with formal ceremonial rites”
I would argue quite the opposite, but oddly enough, for the very same reason.
The evident meaning in this passage from Jeremiah is that Jehoiakim should have a burial that is not worthy of calling a burial – that his body, like that of a donkey, should be thrown into a pit or be left to be consumed by various beasts and birds.
Saying “we’ll give him the funeral of a cow turd” doesn’t change the *meaning* of funeral at all. It is because “funeral” *does* have a meaning that this statement can be seen as being sarcastic.
And the word thapto does not lose it’s meaning here simply because it’s being applied to a burial that is not worth calling “thapto”. It is used here with a sense of sarcasm, and that’s what gives the statement “with the burial of a donkey he shall be ‘thapto’ed'” it’s derisive “bite”: donkeys were *not* given “decent burials” – and neither will Jehoiakim be given a “decent burial” – and that’s the whole point of this passage.
As I contended earlier, it’s like some Mafia guy saying “yeh, sure, we gave the guy a decent burial — in the bottom of the Hudson River”.
This clearly does *not* mean that being sunk to the bottom of the Hudson is a “decent burial”. This is making a sarcastic mockery of what was actually done to the guy. And, this is what’s going on in the passage from Jeremiah.
Dr Ehrman – My apologies for multiple posts – I don’t mean to “flood” you. This is simply a continuation of my previous post.
I want to provide the following observations by others that support my view, and I’d ask you to note that all of these commentaries indicate that the passage means “there will be no burial at all”.
“buried with the burial of an ass”. Note the Figure of speech Oxymoron, which gives the meaning that he was not buried at all (for asses have no funerals). – E.W. Bullinger [NOTE: Bullinger’s use of the word “Oxymoron” is precisely what I was getting at when I said the passage was ironic, sarcastic – “donkeys don’t *get* buried”, just as you pointed out. They don’t *get* “thapto’ed”. That’s the Oxymoron – “thapto” applies only to *human* burials.]
He shall be buried with the burial of an ass; that is, *he shall not be buried at all* — Matthew Poole’s English Annotations on the Holy Bible
He shall be buried with the burial of an ass,…. Have *no burial at all*, or no other than what any brute creature has; which, when it dies, is cast into a ditch, and becomes the food of dogs, and the fowls of the air. — John Gill’s Exposition of the Whole Bible
Cast out, and *left unburied*, or *buried without any funeral solemnities* — Adam Clarke Commentary
Rather, the people would treat his corpse with great disrespect. They would give him a burial similar to that of a donkey (or Jezebel), which people dragged outside the city gate and left to rot (cf. Jeremiah 36:30; 1 Kings 21:23-24) . Josephus wrote that Nebuchadnezzar had his body thrown before the walls *without any burial* [my emphasis] – Dr Thomas Constable
His corpse shall be cast out, like carrion, into some bycorner. … he who had such a stately house in Jerusalem, should not have a grave to house his carcase in: sed insepulta sepultura elatus, (a) as Cicero phraseth it; but *without the ordinary honour of burial*, should be cast out, or thrown into a ditch or a dunghill, to be devoured by the beasts of the earth and fowls of heaven. — John Trapp Complete Commentary
Jehoiakim shall not only be cast forth, but also drawn as an ass or a dog, lest his foetor should infect the city; as though he was *unworthy not only of a grave*, but also of being seen by men — Calvin’s Commentary on the Bible
He shall be buried with the burial of an ass – i:e., he shall have the same burial as an donkey would get – namely, he shall be left a prey for beasts and birds (Jerome). [ ie, no “burial” at all ] — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Not to be “buried” [ed: thapto’ed] was a sign of divine disapproval, both on the surviving kinsmen and on the nation… Jeremiah prophesied that Jehoiakim would “be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem”. [hence, no “burial with rites”] — Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary
To Sum Up My Contention: Saying “a burial of a donkey he shall be buried (thapto’ed)” is like saying “this airplane flys like a brick”. Bricks don’t fly, donkeys don’t get “burial with rites”. And that is the whole point. You’ve actually said it yourself – “obviously a donkey is not being “buried” with formal ceremonial rites”. Yes. That would be exactly correct. Donkey’s *don’t* get buried with formal ceremonial rites. They don’t get “thapto’ed”. Thapto *is* burial with rites. And, this, I would also contend, is exactly what Paul was saying in 1 Cor 15 when he claims that Jesus was “thapto’ed” – buried with rites.
dr ehrman,christianity never told us anything about the burial of judas. From theoretical perspective , he would have been given honourable or dishonourable burial even though we have no details. so i can understand now how details could have been invented for jesus’ burial just based on assumption .
Dear Bart, RE you opinion that Jesus’ body was eaten by wild dogs. Wouldn’t this create a public health problem? Did the Romans really just let dead bodies rot on the cross after a crucifixion? For example, what happened to the slaves who were crucified in the aftermath of the Spartacus slave revolt? Weren’t they eventually buried (or maybe burned?)
Wouldn’t bodies hanging on crosses attract rats, files, etc? Wouldn’t such a policy lead to epidemics?
Also it doesn’t seem very civilized, and both the Romans and the Jews were civilized people. Would the Jews really tolerate a stray dog walking down the streets of Jerusalem with a human arm in his mouth and the same happy look on his face as a modern dog with a steak bone?
Yes, normally the bodies were left on the cross to rot and be subject to scavengers. I don’t know about dogs and rats, but the sources do sometimes mention scavenging birds. And of course ancient people didn’t know about the causes for the spread of epidemics, or anything that we would think of as basic rules for hygiene.
As far as I know the only discovered remains of a crucified victim (Jehohanan, the son of Hagakol: First Century) was discovered at Givat HaMivtar in an Ossuary. If the remains are authentic wouldn’t that show at least one victim of crucifixion being buried?
Also I believe Josephus said that wood was so scarce in the area of Jerusalem that when the Romans besieged the city in 70CE they were forced to transport wood from 10 miles away to build their siege engines. Eliezer Sekeles and Joe Zias contend that because wood was so scarce it’s possible the Romans would’ve reused crosses repeatedly, meaning the bodies would’ve had to come down eventually one way or another. Unless it was possible to reuse a cross that someone decomposed on (which honestly I wouldn’t be an expert on).
I’ve dealt with that at length on the blog — just look up Jehohanan. And yes indeed, it shows that his remains were buried. But we have no way of knowing if he was buried the day he was crucified or three months later, so it doesn’t help either way.