Thoughts about Reza Aslan and Jon Sorensen

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(Continued)

Craig Evans in his article Jewish Burial Traditions and the Resurrection of Jesus has this to say further:

Even Roman justice outside the Jewish setting sometimes permitted the crucified to be taken down and buried. We find in the summary of Roman law (a.k.a. Digesta) the following concessions:

The bodies of those who are condemned to death should not be refused their relatives; and the Divine Augustus, in the Tenth Book of his Life, said that this rule had been observed. At present, the bodies of those who have been punished are only buried when this has been requested and permission granted; and sometimes it is not permitted, especially where persons have been convicted of high treason. (48.24.1)

The bodies of persons who have been punished should be given to whoever requests them for the purpose of burial. (48.24.3)

The Digesta refers to requests to take down bodies of the crucified. Josephus himself makes this request of Titus (Life 75 §420–421). Of course, Roman crucifixion often did not permit burial, request or no request. Non-burial was part of the horror—and the deterrent—of crucifixion. But crucifixion—during peacetime—just outside the walls of Jerusalem was another matter. Burial would have been expected, even demanded. The evidence thus far reviewed strongly encourages us to think that in all probability Jesus was indeed buried and that his corpse and those of the two men crucified with him would not have been left hanging overnight and perhaps indefinitely, or at most cast into a ditch or shallow grave, exposed to animals. Quite apart from any concerns with the deceased men or their families, the major concern would have had to do with the defilement of the land and the holy city. Politically, too, it seems unlikely that on the eve of Passover, a holiday that celebrates Israel’s liberation from foreign domination, Pilate would have wanted to provoke the Jewish population. Moreover, it is equally improbable that the ruling priests, who had called for Jesus’ death, would have wanted to appear completely indifferent to Jewish sensitivities, either with respect to the dead or with respect to corpse impurity and defilement of the land. It seems most probable that the priests would have raised no objections to the burial of the three men. Indeed, they probably would have arranged to have them buried, before nightfall, in tombs reserved for executed criminals.​

http://www.theomegadays.net/Images/Topic images/burial.jpg

Byron McCane in his article Where No One Had Yet Been Laid: The Shame of Jesus’ Burial adds:

On balance, then, the Romans involved with the death of Jesus naturally would have expected that the body would remain on the cross, unless Pilate ordered otherwise. It was something of a commonplace in the Empire that victims of crucifixion would become food for carrion-birds, unless the clemency of a governor intervened. Certainly Rome had its reasons for leaving its victims on public display. This fact can help to explain an interesting detail in Mark’s account of the burial of Jesus: Mark 15:43 says that Joseph of Arimathea “dared” (τολμήσας) to approach Pilate and request the body of Jesus. Why “dared?” Because such a request would indeed have been daring in light of the fact that victims often remained hanging on crosses as symbols of Roman will. (7: Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 1216-17.) On the other hand, a request by a Jewish leader for the body of Jesus would not have been out of place, either, since Roman prefects—including at least one that we know if in first-century Jerusalem—did allow the burial of crucifixion victims. In the case of Jesus, such an allowance was likely, since Jesus was not caught up in a mass crucifixion, and his death did not come at a time of revolt against Rome. The Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day generally cooperated with Pilate in preserving public order in Jerusalem, and the occasion of Jesus’ death was a Jewish religious holiday. It may have taken a little nerve, then, but someone like Joseph of Arimathea could have reasonably expected that Pilate would grant his request for the body of Jesus.

Taking another break.
 
steve53 said:
I am not sure why Crossan became so famous, unless his odd views on Jesus and the Gospel narratives fit the national-media agenda towards an atheistic society, and so he was adopted.
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People like J.D. Crossan, Bart Ehrman, and Reza Aslan are all darlings of the media because they have one thing in common: they have the gift of being able to present their theses in public in terms a layman could understand. Not too many academics have that gift. AFAIK a majority scholars are private people who spend most of their time teaching lectures in universities or publish hefty reference books filled with technical language or write papers in peer-reviewed journals - if they do appear on TV it would mostly be in stuff like documentaries in the form of ‘talking heads’. Only fairly recently did we have a new breed of academics who broke away the traditional image of scholars as snooty recluses: people who can actually bring themselves to public exposure, doing stuff like holding press conferences or writing books intelligible to the man on the street.

I mean, many people would recognize Aslan, Ehrman, Crossan, Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar as a whole (even if they can’t name or distinguish between the individual members). People with a bit more exposure might know more names like Geza Vermes, N.T. (Tom) Wright, Marcus Borg, or E.P. (Ed) Sanders - since at least they published books for a popular audience and/or appeared occasionally on documentaries and programs even if they don’t have the same degree of public exposure as the others. But does the average joe know, say, Sverre Böe (Cross-bearing in Luke), Lance Jenott (The Gospel of Judas), Mark A. Chancey (The Myth of a Gentile Galilee, Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus) or Timothy Henderson (The Gospel of Peter and Early Christian Apologetics) - much less be able to name scholars from other countries like, say, Wolfgang Stegemann, Sasagu Arai or Kenzō Tagawa? I don’t think so. It’s quite a shame really, because there’s quite a number of interesting stuff out there and the general public don’t get any proper access to a good deal of them.
 
Aslan notes further:

It is possible that, unlike practically every other criminal crucified by Rome, Jesus was brought down from the cross and placed in an extravagant rock-hewn tomb fit for the wealthiest men in Judea. But it is not very likely.

This is where I could praise Crossan for having better knowledge of the archaeological evidence:

We know from Josephus that thousands of Jewish victims were crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem in the first common era century, from “two thousand” by Varus in 4 B.C.E., according to Jewish Antiquities 2.75, to “five hundred or more” a day by Titus in 70 C.E., according to Jewish War 5.450. Yet only one crucified skeleton has so far been found in that area from that or any other period ([Nicu] Haas; [Joseph] Naveh; [Vassilios] Tzaferis; [Yigael] Yadin). The twenty-four to twenty-eight-year-old man found in northeastern Jerusalem during June of 1968 had died with his arms tied to the crossbar, with a foot nailed on either side of the upright, with legs unbroken, and he was found with an iron nail still impaled through his right heel. He had been buried in one of the niches within a rock-cut tomb, and after his flesh had decomposed, his bones had been reburied in an ossuary ([Joe] Zias & [Eliezer] Sekeles). Apart even from the tomb itself, ossuaries or small boxes used for the secondary burial of bones “were an expensive luxury, and … not every Jewish family could afford them” (Tzaferis 1970:30). He was probably, in other words, an exception. His family had enough money, power, or influence, not to save his life but at least to regain his body for proper burial. It recalls the exceptional situation, in which, as in Philo’s text above, a governor might allow proper burial in honor of a festive occasion.
  • The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant, p. 391-392
In June of 1968 the only crucified skeleton ever discovered in the Jewish homeland was found at Giv’at ha-Mivtar, just north of Jerusalem, in a tomb dating from the first century but probably prior to the First Roman War in 66–73/74 C.E. There were four tombs in all, carved like small rooms into the soft limestone, each with an anteroom and then a burial chamber whose niches were deep enough to take a human body headfirst at burial. Such tombs were used over and over again for generations, because the bones, after decomposition of their flesh within the niches, were buried together in pits dug in the floor or, as a much more costly alternative, gathered together into ossuaries or limestone bone boxes. The niches were then reused for more recent burials. In this complex there were fifteen such ossuaries, mostly packed to the top and containing the bones of thirty-five different individuals, eleven males, twelve females, and twelve children. Of those thirty-five, one woman and her infant had died together in childbirth for lack of a midwife’s help; one of 6-8 months, one of 3-4 years, and another of 7-8 years, had died of starvation; and five individuals had met violent deaths: a female and a male by burning, a female by a macelike blow, a child of 3-4 years by an arrow wound, and a male of 24-28 years, 5 feet 5 inches in height, by crucifixion. His name, inscribed on the ossuary, was Yehochanan, and the box also contained another incomplete adult skeleton as well as that of Yehochanan’s son, a child of 3-4 years. All of that reads like a rather sad commentary on the first century in Jerusalem, even before the great war with Rome. After appraisal and reappraisal by scholars from Israel’s Department of Antiquities and Jerusalem’s Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, the manner of crucifixion became clear (Zias and Sekeles). His arms were not nailed but tied to the bar of the cross, probably with hands to elbows over and behind it. His legs were on either side of the upright beam with separate nails holding the anklebone to the wood on each side. A small olive wood plaque was set between the nail’s head and the heel bone lest the condemned man manage to tear his foot free from the nail. But the nail in the right heel struck a knot in the upright, and its point became bent so that when the man was taken down, the nail, olive wood, and heel bone all remained fixed together in burial and discovery. Finally, there was no evidence that the man’s legs were broken to speed his death by asphyxiation.

That discovery emphasizes two points. First, however it was managed, be it through bribery, mercy, or indifference, a crucified person could receive honorable burial in the family tomb in the early or indifference, a crucified person could receive honorable burial in the family tomb in the early or middle first-century Jewish homeland. Second, with all those thousands of people crucified around Jerusalem in the first century alone, we have so far found only a single crucified skeleton, and that, of course, preserved in an ossuary. Was burial, then, the exception rather than the rule, the extraordinary rather than the ordinary case?
  • Who Killed Jesus? p. 167-168
http://cojs.org/cojswiki/images/0/00/Crucifixion_bone_fragment_close-up.jpg
Yehohanan’s heelbone

At least Crossan acknowleges the existence of Yehohanan, a victim of crucifixion who was buried in a rock-hewn tomb in the suburbs of Jerusalem near the time of Jesus. Although as noted earlier, Crossan’s reading of Josephus leads him to mishandle this evidence.
 
(Continued)

As Byron McCane points out in a footnote to his article I linked earlier:

Crossan … completely misunderstands the significance of this find when he writes, “With all those thousands of people crucified around Jerusalem in the first century alone, we have so far found only a single crucified skeleton…Was burial, then, the exception rather than the rule?” (168). The archaeological report plainly states that it was only an accident which caused Yehohanan’s remains to be preserved in such a way as to identify him as a crucifixion victim. Only the nail through his ankle provided evidence of crucifixion. And why was the nail still in Yehohanan’s ankle? Because the soldiers who had crucified him could not extract it from the cross. When the nail had been driven in, it had struck a knot in the wood, bending back the point of the nail. As any carpenter (or fisherman) knows, it is almost impossible to extract a nail with a point that has been bent back like the barb of a hook. Thus if there had not been a knot strategically located in the wood of Yehohanan’s cross, the soldiers would have easily pulled the nail out of the cross. It never would have been buried with Yehohanan, and we would never have known that he had been crucified. It is not surprising, in other words, that we have found the remains of only one crucifixion victim: it is surprising that we have identified even one. Crossan’s inference on p. 168 is quite misguided.


Reconstruction of possible way Yehohanan was crucified (as per Joe Zias and Eliezer Sekeles)

Archaeologist Jodi Magness (Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus, p. 167ff.) concurs. I recommend reading the whole thing in the link:

Crossan argues that, “with with all those thousands of people crucified around Jerusalem in the first century alone, we have so far found only a single crucified skeleton, and that, of course, preserved in an ossuary. Was burial, then, the exception rather than the rule, the extraordinary rather than the ordinary case?” In fact, the exact opposite is the case: the discovery of the identifiable remains of even a single victim of crucifixion is exceptional. Crossan’s assumption that we should have the physical (archaeological) remains of additional crucified victims is erroneous for several reasons. First, with one exception (the repository of the late Iron Age cemetery at Ketef Hinnom) not a single undisturbed tomb in Jerusalem has ever been discovered and excavated by archaeologists. This means that even in cases where tombs or ossuaries still contain the original physical remains, the skeletons are often disturbed, damaged, or incomplete. Second, the Jerusalem elite who owned rock-cut family tombs with ossuaries favored the preservation of the status quo through accommodation with the Romans. Presumably, relatively few of them were therefore executed by crucifixion. Instead, the majority of victims crucified by the Romans belonged to the lower classes — precisely those who could not afford rock-cut tombs. Third, and most important, the nail in Yohanan’s heel was preserved only because of a fluke:

The most dramatic evidence that this young man was crucified was the nail which penetrated his heel bones. But for this nail, we might never have discovered that the young man had died in this way. The nail was preserved only because it hit a hard knot when it was pounded into the olive wood upright of the cross. The olive wood knot was so hard that, as the blows on the nail became heavier, the end of the nail bent and curled. We found a bit of the olive wood (between 1 and 2 cm) on the tip of the nail. This wood had probably been forced out of the knot where the curled nail hooked into it. When it came time for the dead victim to be removed from the cross, the executioners could not pull out this nail, bent as it was within the cross. The only way to remove the body was to take an ax or hatchet and amputate the feet.

In other words, the means by which victims were affixed to crosses usually leave no discernable traces in the physical remains or archaeological record. Some victims were bound with ropes, which were nailed to a cross, the nails had to be pulled out so that the body could be taken down. This is exactly how the Gospel of Peter (6:21) describes Jesus’ crucifixion: “And then they drew the nails from the hands of the Lord and placed him on the earth.” The nail in Yohanan’s ankle was preserved only because it bent after hitting a knot in the wood and therefore could not be removed from the body.​
 
(Continued)

Magness goes on:

Jesus came from a family of modest means that presumably could not afford a rock-cut tomb. Had Joseph not offered to accommodate Jesus’ body in his tomb (according to the Gospel accounts), Jesus likely would have been disposed of in the manner of the lower classes: in a pit grave or trench grave dug into the ground. When the Gospels tell us that Joseph of Arimathea offered Jesus a spot in his tomb, it is because Jesus’ family did not own a rock-cut tomb and there was no time to prepare a grave — that is, there was no time to dig a grave, not hew a rock-cut tomb (!) — before the Sabbath. It is not surprising that Joseph, who is described as a wealthy Jew and perhaps even a member of the Sanhedrin, had a rock-cut family tomb. The Gospel accounts seem to describe Joseph placing Jesus’ body in one of the loculi loculus = shelf, niche] in his family’s tomb. The “new” tomb mentioned by Matthew probably refers to a previously unused loculus. The Gospel accounts include an accurate (although not necessarily historical) description of Jesus’ body being wrapped in a linen shroud. When Joseph departed, he sealed the entrance to the tomb by blocking the doorway with a rolling stone.

This understanding of the Gospel accounts removes at least some of the grounds for arguments that Joseph of Arimathea was not a follower of Jesus or that he was a completely fictional character (although, of course, it does not prove that Joseph existed or that this episode occurred). In addition, the tomb must have belonged to Joseph’s family, because rock cut tombs were family tombs … There is no evidence that the Sanhedrin or Roman authorities paid for and maintained rock-cut tombs for executed criminals from lower-class families. Instead, these unfortunates would have been buried in pit graves or trench graves. This sort of tradition is preserved in the New Testament reference to the Potter’s Field (Matt 27:7-8).

There is no need to assume that the Gospel accounts of Joseph of Arimathea offering Jesus a place in his family tomb are legendary or apologetic. The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ burial appear to be largely consistent with the archaeological evidence. In other words, although archaeology does not prove there was a follower of Jesus named Joseph of Arimathea or that Pontius Pilate granted his request for Jesus’ body, the Gospel accounts describing Jesus’ removal from the cross and burial accord well with archaeological evidence and with Jewish law. The source(s) of these accounts were familiar with the manner in which wealthy Jews living in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus disposed of their dead.

To end this section, Craig Evans again:

There are other details in the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ execution that agree with Roman practices, such as mocking the victim (Mark 15:16–20; cf. Philo, Flaccus 6 §36–39; Plutarch, Pomp. 24.7–8), dividing up the victim’s property and clothing (Mark 15:24; cf. Digest 48.20.1; Tacitus, Annals 6.29: “people sentenced to death forfeited their property”), and placing a titulus on or near the cross (Mark 15:26; cf. Suetonius, Caligula 32.2; Domitian 10.1; Dio Cassius 54.3.6-7; 73.16.5; Eusebius, *Hist. Eccl. *5.1.44).

But the place where the story differs from Roman tradition is in the burial of the executed Jesus and the two men, at the end of the very day of their death. The reason for this exception, as argued above, was due to their execution in close proximity of Jewish population, in this case, the city of Jerusalem. It seems to me highly improbable that the bodies of Jesus and the other men would be left hanging on the cross overnight—in contradiction of Deut 21:22–23—during peacetime and on the eve of the Passover holiday.

One thinks of Philo, who bitterly complains of Flaccus, Roman governor of Egypt. Philo regards the governor’s conduct as exceptional in not allowing the bodies of crucifixion victims to be taken down and be buried on the eve of a holiday: “I have known cases when on the eve of a holiday of this kind, people who have been crucified have been taken down and their bodies delivered to their kinsfolk, because it was thought well to give them burial and allow them the ordinary rites … But Flaccus gave no orders to take down those who had died on the cross” (Flaccus 10 §83).

It is far more probable that arrangements would have been made to have Jesus and the other men interred. The story of Joseph of Arimathea, who otherwise is not known, is probably historical. There are apologetic touches, to be sure. In the telling of the story, Joseph grows in sympathy and allegiance to Jesus. But at its core is a story, in which Joseph either volunteers or was assigned the task of seeing to the prompt and unceremonious burial of Jesus and, probably, the other two men.
 
(Continued)

Pilate is accused of accepting bribes, so it has been suggested that Joseph may have bribed the governor. Perhaps. It is more likely that Pilate only required confirmation that the crucified men were indeed dead. Having their bodies taken down and out of public view for the Passover holiday would have been desirable.

…] Outside of the Gospel tradition is Paul’ statement that Jesus “was buried ἐτάφη]” (1 Cor 15:4). This is pre-Pauline tradition, which clearly implies an early belief that Jesus was indeed buried, in keeping with Jewish customs and that though he was crucified, his burial was permitted out of respect for Jewish sensitivities. Elsewhere Paul presupposes the burial of Jesus, when he speaks of being “buried with συνετάφημεν] him” (Rom 6:4; cf. Col 2:12). Usage of forms of θάπτω can only refer to being properly buried, not left hanging on a cross or thrown into a ditch. To be left on the cross is to be unburied (ἄταφος).

I return to question of the significance of the archaeological evidence of Yehohanan, the one man whose properly buried remains have been discovered, known to have been crucified. It has been argued that in light of the thousands of Jews crucified in the first century, in the vicinity of Jerusalem, the discovery of only one properly buried crucifixion victim is evidence that the normal Roman practice of not permitting burial must have obtained, even in Jewish Palestine.

There are at least four objections that must be raised against this inference. First, almost all of the bones recovered from the time of Jesus are poorly preserved, especially the smaller bones of the feet and hands, which will normally provide evidence, if any, of crucifixion. It was the presence of the nail in the right heel of Yehohanan that made it clear that he had been crucified (and certainly not the undecipherable sobriquet inscribed on the side of the ossuary that contained his bones). The presence of the nail was a fluke. It was due to the sharp end being bent back (like a fishhook), perhaps because the nail struck a knot in the beam. When Yehohanan was taken down from the cross, the nail could not be extracted. Accordingly, no statistics should be inferred from this unusual find.

Second, many crucifixion victims were scourged, beaten, and then tied to the cross, not nailed. Thus, skeletal remains would leave no trace of the trauma of crucifixion. Accordingly, we do not know that Yehohanan is the only crucifixion victim discovered in a tomb.

Third, the best-preserved skeletons are found in the better-constructed tombs, within bone pits or in ossuaries. These tombs were mostly those of the rich, not the poor. The poor were usually buried in the ground, or in smaller natural caves. Not many of their skeletons have been found. The significance of this point is that it is the poor who are most likely to be crucified, not the wealthy and powerful. Accordingly, those skeletons most likely to provide evidence of crucifixion are the skeletons least likely to survive.

Fourth, the vast majority of the thousands of Jews crucified and left unburied in the first century, in the vicinity of Jerusalem, died during the rebellion of 66–70 C.E. They were not buried because Rome was at war with the Jewish people and had no wish to accommodate Jewish sensitivities, as Rome did during peacetime. It was during peacetime—indeed, during the administration of Pontius Pilate—that Yehohanan and Jesus of Nazareth were crucified. That both were buried, according to Jewish customs, should hardly occasion surprise. Jewish priestly authorities were expected to defend the purity of Jerusalem (or at least give the appearance of doing so), while Roman authorities acquiesced to Jewish customs and sensitivities.

WARNING: Following section not for the faint of heart. You have been warned.

Incidentally, just drive the horror of crucifixion home, here’s a rather grisly picture of a Japanese servant tied to a cross and then speared during the mid-19th century. His crime? Murdering his employer’s son during a robbery. (Yes, the Japanese adopted crucifixion as a means of execution after Christianity was introduced - many of the famous martyrs of Nagasaki were crucified.)

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/4619/2wgz.jpg

This is a very far cry from the serene, peaceful Christs we often see in our crucifixes.
 
Get some Carrageen Irish Moss, boil or simmer a bit in a few of cups of water for a while. Strain and keep the water. Add juice of one lemon to it while how but not boiling. Then add 2 or 3 teaspoons of honey, or more. Then peel and very very finely grate about 1 inch of ginger root and add. Stir well and enjoy. Have as many times during the day as you want. Or drink it all winter long. You can also chew the seaweed, but maybe not when you are sick.
 
Now for Jon Sorensen’s answer to Aslan.

Myth #5: "Jesus was buried in a tomb."

Aslan asserts that it is highly unlikely Jesus was brought down from the cross and placed in a tomb after the crucifixion. In his opinion, this would have been “an extremely unusual, perhaps unprecedented, act of benevolence on the part of the Romans.”

I don’t see how this could have constituted an “act of benevolence.” Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate if he could retrieve the body of Jesus. Pilate agreed, but only after confirmation that Jesus was dead (Mark 15:44). It’s not as though the Romans took the body down themselves and handed it over to the disciples. Joseph was a respected member of the Jewish community (Mark 15:43), and we are not told how he persuaded Pilate to release the body; only that he did.

Aslan also claims it is not very likely that Jesus was taken down and placed in a rock-hewn tomb fit for the wealthiest men in Judea because this would be unlike every other criminal crucified by Rome. This is true, but Joseph was a rich man with the means to provide such a tomb (Matt. 27:57), and he was secretly a follower of Jesus (John 19:38).

Well, first of all I could commend him for being able to answer concisely in a couple of paragraphs. 🙂 (If only I had the same gift. ;)) The only ‘problems’ I have with his answer are:

(1) I think Aslan’s mention of “an extremely unusual, perhaps unprecedented, act of benevolence on the part of the Romans” refers more to the fact that a crucified victim was even allowed to be taken down off the cross and given a proper burial - something which Aslan (and Crossan) think is near impossible for a person like Jesus.

(2) About Joseph of Arimathea: I don’t think his answer, correct as it is, really goes to the heart of Aslan’s claim. Aslan is likely not so much disputing whether Joseph had the necessary means to bury Jesus - Aslan is probably disputing whether a figure like Joseph of Arimathea really existed at all. At least in Crossan’s scenario, Joseph is a fictional character, a product of the early Christians’ trying hard to cover up the fact that no one knew what exactly became of Jesus’ body because no one was brave enough to come near His cross.
 
Paddy_Walker said:
Get some Carrageen Irish Moss, boil or simmer a bit in a few of cups of water for a while. Strain and keep the water. Add juice of one lemon to it while how but not boiling. Then add 2 or 3 teaspoons of honey, or more. Then peel and very very finely grate about 1 inch of ginger root and add. Stir well and enjoy. Have as many times during the day as you want. Or drink it all winter long. You can also chew the seaweed, but maybe not when you are sick.
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…Hate to break this, but are you sure you’re on the right thread? Oh well, at least, Crossan is Irish. 🤷 😃
 
patrick457 said:
…Hate to break this, but are you sure you’re on the right thread? Oh well, at least, Crossan is Irish. 🤷 😃
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patrick457:
I currently have a cold and am stuck in the house.
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Ancient Irish cure. Patience is rewarded…
 
Before I go on, I would like to point out something.

You would notice that even among those scholars who accept that Jesus was really buried you would notice some differences in views about the circumstances of the burial. Byron McCane and Craig Evans for example while disagreeing with Crossan in that they believe that the burial of Jesus is an historical fact, nevertheless agrees that the story has become elaborated with time (i.e., Joseph shifting from “a prominent council member who was waiting for the kingdom of God” to “a rich man” who is also a disciple of Jesus, the sepulchre going from “a tomb hewn out of rock” to “[Joseph’s] new tomb” to a garden tomb).

They believe that historically, Jesus must have been buried by Joseph in a cemetery specifically reserved for criminals - the type of burial described in the Mishnah. Let me quote it again:

And they did not bury him [the executed person] in his ancestral tomb, but two burial places were prepared by the court, one for those who were decapitated or strangled, and the other for those who were stoned or burned.

When the flesh was completely decomposed, the bones were gathered and buried in their proper place.

In the Mishnah’s scenario, the dead body is first interred in a special burial complex reserved by the court for those who were executed. Only after did the body decompose (traditionally held to be in a space of a year) can family members retrieve the bones and ‘rehabilitate’ it by burying it “in their proper place.” In defense of using the Mishnah (which is admittedly a later source and in many cases probably do not reflect actual 1st-century practice) McCane writes:

But would a member of the council have approached Pilate about the body of Jesus? Or would the Jewish leaders of the first-century Jerusalem have been content to let Pilate do whatever he wanted with the body? The evidence indicates that they would not have wanted the body of Jesus to be left hanging on the cross. Based on what we know of Jewish culture, they would have preferred for Jesus to be buried, and promptly. Jewish burial practices in the days of Jesus are well-known: hundreds of tombs have been excavated, and many texts—from Josephus, the Mishnah, and the tractate Semahot [8]—explicitly discuss the care of the dead. Indeed, archaeological and literary evidence presents a remarkably complete picture, and the following portrait of a typical Jewish funeral is based on the combined witness of texts and tombs. [9]
  1. The tractate Semahot (lit. “rejoicings,” certainly a euphemistic title) dates from the third century CE and is an earlier form of the Talmudic tractate Ebel Rabbati. For this date and a discussion of the evidence, see D. Zlotnick, trans., The Tractate “Mourning” (Semahot) (New York: Yale University Press, 1966).
  2. Comment is called for here on current scholarly suspicions regarding the value (or lack thereof) of the Mishnah as a historical source for the world of Jesus. Of course one cannot naively assume that this third-century text preserves reliable information about first-century Jewish life. In many cases it demonstrably does not. On the specific topic of burial practices, however, there is strong evidence in favor of using the Mishnah. First, at points where it can be checked against the archaeological evidence the Mishnah has already been shown to be accurate. m. B. Bat. 6:8, for example, records a rabbinic discussion about the ideal dimensions for burial niches, and the dimensions given in the Mishnaic text correspond closely to the actual dimensions of so-called “loculus” niches typically found in first-century Jewish tombs in Palestine. m. B. Bat. 2:9 stipulates that tombs should be located at least fifty cubits outside of a town or city, and archaeology confirms that this practice was typically followed both in first-century Jerusalem and at Qumran. Second, it is an anthropological commonplace that burial practices change very slowly (see below). Theological ideas about death and the afterlife are typically vague and fluid, but burial practices and customs have a weight and mass all their own. From this point of view, there would be nothing particularly remarkable about a third-century text which accurately preserved information about burial customs from two centuries earlier. For these reasons I do not hesitate to make critical use of the Mishnah—along with the tractate Semahot—in conjunction with other sources of evidence on this specific topic. Cf. B. R. McCane, Jews, Christians, and Burial in Roman Palestine (Ph.D.diss., Duke University, 1992); P. Figueras, Decorated Jewish Ossuaries (Leiden: Brill, 1985); D. Goldenberg, Halakhah in Josephus and in Tannaitic Literature: A Comparitive Study (Ph.D. diss., Dropsie University, 1978); R. Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Land of Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1988); S. Klein, Tod und Begrabnis in Palastina zur Zeit der Tannaiten (Berlin: Itzowski, 1908); E. M. Meyers, Jewish Ossuaries: Reburial and Rebirth (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1971); L. Y. Rahmani, “Ancient Jerusalem’s Funerary Customs and Tombs, Part Three,” BA 44 (1981) 43-45; S. Safrai, “Home and Family,” in S. Safrai and M. Stern (eds.), The Jewish People in the First Century (2 vols., CRINT 1.1-2; Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976) 2.773-87.
 
(Continued)

McCane argues that “because [Jesus] held such a prominent place in the worship of early Christians, their stories naturally seek to refine, polish and beautify the circumstances of his interment.” But even despite that, the gospels could not/would not totally cover up the fact that the historical Jesus was buried in shame.

In view of this clear tendency, one characteristic of the burial narratives stands out as strikingly significant: the canonical Gospels depict Jesus’ burial as shameful. Even though they take obvious steps to dignify the burial of Jesus, these documents still depict a burial which a Jew in Roman Palestine would have recognized as dishonorable. For in every Gospel up to the Gospel of Peter, Jesus is not buried in a family tomb, and he is not mourned. This fact is both surprising and revealing. It is surprising because it shows that even with all their embellishments and improvements, there was a limit beyond which the early stages of the tradition would not go. [Fr. Raymond] Brown, for example, has demonstrated that the burial described in the Gospel of Mark is a dishonorable burial at the hands of a Torah-observant council member. In keeping with Jewish custom, Joseph of Arimathea buries the body at sunset, probably in a tomb reserved for criminals. What has been shown for Mark holds true for the other canonical burial narratives as well. The story is steadily improved upon, but the two defining marks of shame continue and persist: no family tomb, and no mourning. A detail added by Matthew, Luke, and John is particularly revealing in this regard. The tomb of Jesus, they all say, is new, “where not one had yet been laid” (Matt 27:60; Luke 23:3; John 19:43). Many scholars have noted that this description lends dignity to Jesus’ burial, because it clearly differentiates his resting place from a criminals’ burial place like the ones mentioned in the Mishnah. But as both David Daube and Josef Blinzler have pointed out, a new tomb would still be a shameful place of interment. In fact a new tomb, never before used by sinner or saint, would be the only culturally acceptable alternative to a criminal’s burial place, for it would be the only other way to preserve the boundary of shame which separated Jesus from his people. By putting him alone in a new tomb, Matthew, Luke, and John do not deny the shame of Jesus’ burial; they merely spare him the disgrace of being placed in a criminals’ tomb. A residue of shame still clings to him as an executed convict.

This is his conclusion:

On the basis of the evidence, then, the following scenario emerges as a likely course of events for the deposition of Jesus’ body: late on the day of his death, one or more of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem—later personified by Christian tradition as Joseph of Arimathea—requested custody of the body for purposes of dishonorable burial. These leaders, having collaborated with the Romans in the condemnation of Jesus, had both the means and the motive to bury him in shame: means, in their access to Pilate, and motive, in Jewish law and custom. Pilate did not hesitate to grant dishonorable burial to one of their condemned criminals. Only the most rudimentary burial preparations were administered—the body was wrapped and taken directly to the tomb, without a funeral procession, eulogies, or the deposition of any personal effects. By sunset on the day of his death, the body of Jesus lay within a burial cave reserved for criminals condemned by Jewish courts. No one mourned.

http://www.handofgod.com.au/attachments/Image/Jesus-tomb.jpg

Evans more or less concurs:

It is far more probable that arrangements would have been made to have Jesus and the other men interred. The story of Joseph of Arimathea, who otherwise is not known, is probably historical. There are apologetic touches, to be sure. In the telling of the story, Joseph grows in sympathy and allegiance to Jesus. But at its core is a story, in which Joseph either volunteers or was assigned the task of seeing to the prompt and unceremonious burial of Jesus and, probably, the other two men.

Pilate is accused of accepting bribes, so it has been suggested that Joseph may have bribed the governor. Perhaps. It is more likely that Pilate only required confirmation that the crucified men were indeed dead. Having their bodies taken down and out of public view for the Passover holiday would have been desirable.

The story of the women who witness Jesus’ burial and then return early Sunday to anoint his body smacks of historicity. It is hard to see why relatively unknown women would feature so prominently in such an important story, if what we have here is fiction. But if the women’s intention is to mourn privately, as Jewish law and custom allowed, and, even more importantly, to note the precise location of Jesus’ tomb, so that the later gathering of his remains for burial in his family tomb is possible, then we have a story that fits Jewish customs, on the one hand, and stands in tension with resurrection expectations and supporting apologetics, on the other.

Carefully observing where Jesus is buried and then returning Sunday morning to confirm and even mark, for identification, his corpse, is in keeping with Jewish burial customs. After all, m. Sanh. 6:5–6 implies that bodies are still identifiable, long after decomposition of the flesh. How was this done? We don’t know, but evidently the Jewish people knew how to mark or in some way identify a corpse, so that it could be retrieved some time later. We should not allow our own ignorance of such customs, or our condescension, to lead us to discount such tradition as implausible.
 
Jodi Magness, however, disagrees with McCane’s interpretation of the ‘for criminals only’ type of graves:

This understanding of the Gospel accounts removes at least some of the grounds for arguments that Joseph of Arimathea was not a follower of Jesus or that he was a completely fictional character (although, of course, it does not prove that Joseph existed or that this episode occurred). In addition, the tomb must have belonged to Joseph’s family, because rock cut tombs were family tombs … There is no evidence that the Sanhedrin or Roman authorities paid for and maintained rock-cut tombs for executed criminals from lower-class families. Instead, these unfortunates would have been buried in pit graves or trench graves. This sort of tradition is preserved in the New Testament reference to the Potter’s Field (Matt 27:7-8).

There is no need to assume that the Gospel accounts of Joseph of Arimathea offering Jesus a place in his family tomb are legendary or apologetic. The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ burial appear to be largely consistent with the archaeological evidence. In other words, although archaeology does not prove there was a follower of Jesus named Joseph of Arimathea or that Pontius Pilate granted his request for Jesus’ body, the Gospel accounts describing Jesus’ removal from the cross and burial accord well with archaeological evidence and with Jewish law. The source(s) of these accounts were familiar with the manner in which wealthy Jews living in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus disposed of their dead. The circumstances surrounding Jesus’ death and burial can be reconstructed as follows.

http://rsc.byu.edu/sites/default/files/image/Religious Educator/4 1/image020.gif
Plan of a burial cave in south Jerusalem where the ossuary (bone-box) of a ‘Yehosef son of Qa(ya)fa’ is found. Note two types of loculi (the part of a tomb where a body was laid): benches and niches (kokhim, singular kokh).

http://rsc.byu.edu/sites/default/files/image/Religious Educator/4 1/image019.gif
Single-chamber tomb from Herodian period, located at Gilo, East Jerusalem, shown with (square) blocking stone, which was ‘plugged’ into the entrance

Jesus expired on the cross shortly before sundown on Friday. Because Jesus came from a lower-class family that did not own a rock-cut tomb, under ordinary circumstances he would have been buried in a pit grave or trench grave. However, there was no time to prepare (dig) a grave before the beginning of the Sabbath. Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy follower of Jesus, was concerned to ensure that Jesus was buried before sundown in accordance with biblical law. Therefore, Joseph hastened to Pilate and requested permission to take Jesus’ body. Joseph laid Jesus’ body in a loculus in his own rock-cut tomb, an exceptional measure due to the circumstances as rock-cut tombs were family tombs. When the women entered the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea on Sunday morning, the loculus where Jesus’ body had been laid was empty. The theological explanation for this phenomenon is that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. However, once Jesus had been buried in accordance with Jewish law, there was no prohibition against removing the body from the tomb after the end of the Sabbath and reburying it. It is therefore possible that followers or family members removed Jesus’ body from Joseph’s tomb after the Sabbath ended and buried it in a pit grave or trench grave, as it would have been unusual to leave a nonrelative in a family tomb. No matter which explanation one prefers, the fact that Jesus’ body did not remain in Joseph’s tomb means that his bones could not have been collected in an ossuary, at least not if we follow the Gospel accounts.

http://cojs.org/cojswiki/images/thu...300px-Ossuary_of_Yehohanan_son_of_Hagakol.jpg
The ossuary where the bones of Yehohanan (the crucified victim from Giv’at ha-Mivtar) were found
 
Concerning Reza Aslan and his Golgotha error.

Thanks for all the work Patrick 457. Much insight here due to all your effort.

Dr. Azlan (who has a Ph.D. in sociology) said (quoted in post 1 and seen here too) . . . .
. . . which is how Golgotha, the place of Jesus’ crucifixion, earned its name: the place of skulls.
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Azlan is just plain wrong on this (and so many other points).

Golgotha was/is called “Place of the Skull” (not “skulls”) because in ancient Jewish tradition, it is said that Adam’s SKULL is buried there on that very spot.

This is why when you see old Crucifixes from Europe they often have a small skull at the foot of the Crucifix representing Jesus the Crucified Messiah over Adam.

With Jesus OVER Adam there are literal AND figurative layers of meaning in such a Crucifix (my wife has one such Crucifix from her long passed away grandmother–the skull was an enigma to us until we later found out about this issue).

I’ve since heard speakers discuss this phenomenon. A brief reference to this history can also be found at the Catholic Encyclopedia.
There was a tradition current among the Jews that the skull of Adam, after having been confided by Noah to his son Shem, and by the latter to Melchisedech, was finally deposited at the place called, for that reason, Golgotha. The Talmudists and the Fathers of the Church were aware of this tradition, and it survives in the skulls and bones placed at the foot of the crucifix. The Evangelists are not opposed to it, inasmuch as they speak of one and not of many skulls. (Luke, Mark, John, loc. cit.)
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It might be helpful for Dr. Azlan to clean up his potty mouth, work on his scholarship, and stop attacking Christianity.

I have not read Azlan’s book but I’ve seen enough dubious excerpts, where I know I won’t be wasting my money on it.
 
Cathoholic said:
**Golgotha was/is called “Place of the Skull” (not “skulls”) because in ancient Jewish tradition, it is said that Adam’s SKULL is buried there on that very spot.

This is why when you see old Crucifixes from Europe they often have a small skull at the foot of the Crucifix representing Jesus the Crucified Messiah over Adam.

With Jesus OVER Adam there are literal AND figurative layers of meaning in such a Crucifix (my wife has one such Crucifix from her long passed away grandmother–the skull was an enigma to us until we later found out about this issue).

I’ve since heard speakers discuss this phenomenon. A brief reference to this history can also be found at the Catholic Encyclopedia**.

Please see post number 18. There is no verifiable authentic Jewish tradition that Adam was buried in the traditional site, where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands.
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We knew Jesus had secret disciples.

One of them provided a large apartment in the upper city of Jerusalem for Jesus.

Could bribery have been a factor?

The Centurion could have been paid off to release the body- maybe prematurely.

The Upper City was full of tunnels-Jesus could have been hidden there, alive or otherwise, after initially being interred in a nearby tomb.
 
steve53 said:
We knew Jesus had secret disciples.

One of them provided a large apartment in the upper city of Jerusalem for Jesus.

Could bribery have been a factor?
Click to expand...
All the gospels say that it is a katalyma (a place to stay, a guest room) and an “upstairs room.” It doesn’t say where in Jerusalem the house is. Could be in the Upper City, but then again could be just about anywhere.
The Centurion could have been paid off to release the body- maybe prematurely.
Click to expand...
The Upper City was full of tunnels-Jesus could have been hidden there, alive or otherwise, after initially being interred in a nearby tomb.
Click to expand...
And the good ol’ Essenes drugged Jesus then treated His wounds for three days until He got better enough to pass Himself off as ‘risen’. Then Jesus decided to spend the rest of His days in an Essene monastery but not before saying goodbye to His disciples on a cloudy mountain, which made His (rather gullible, if you ask me) disciples think that He had ‘ascended’ to heaven - kind of makes you wonder why no one bothered to see where He went off to. Oh wait, scrap that - Jesus was actually speared on His side, right? That must mean He actually died from His wounds. So I guess the Essenes tried to nurse Him back to health but to no avail - Jesus was literally dying from His injuries when He ‘appeared’ to His disciples (orchestrated by the Essenes, of course :rolleyes:). We have the gospels to blame for distorting these final encounters into resurrection appearances.

All of the above are common cliches from many 18th-19th century ‘rational’ retellings of the life of Jesus. To be frank with you, some of them reach high levels of absurdity. This is what I’m talking about when I refer to ‘rationalizations’ of Scripture: these explanations try to have the cake and eat it. We don’t like to dismiss the resurrection accounts, but since they ain’t ‘rational’ we must try to find a way to explain them without including anything that smacks of the supernatural. :rolleyes: 🤷 Heck, I think Thomas Jefferson was being more honest when he simply omitted the resurrection in his cut-and-paste, de-supernaturalized life of Jesus.
 
If you are a man of faith, historical detail is very secondary consideration, agreed.
 
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