What did Tombs Look like at the Time of Jesus?

[Errham]

I had always understood that it was not called Calvary because it was a height corresponding to a human head (although J’lem is a place of heights, and the shame-conscious Romans would certainly have used such a place for execution); but rather, because it was a place of death and therefore skulls, or because of the tradition of Adam’s tomb (and therefore “skull”) being there. (To this day, an underground space in the HS Basilica is said to have been once believed as the tomb of Adam.)

ICXC NIKA.

The underground chapel you’re talking about is either the Chapel of St. Helena, which is the major Armenian shrine within the church, or the Chapel of the Finding of the Cross, which is where St Helena found the true cross. The location that you’re looking for is the Chapel of Adam (right underneath Greek Golgotha and adjacent to the Stone of Unction). The legend is that Adam’s skull was buried underneath Golgotha itself. When the earthquake struck, it created a crack in the rock, and Jesus’s blood seeped down and anointed Adam’s skull, in a symbolic Baptisim and redemption of all man kind. The crack created by the earthquake can still be seen through a pane of glass in the chapel, thence its name

 

[patrick457]

I had always understood that it was not called Calvary because it was a height corresponding to a human head (although J’lem is a place of heights, and the shame-conscious Romans would certainly have used such a place for execution); but rather, because it was a place of death and therefore skulls, or because of the tradition of Adam’s tomb (and therefore “skull”) being there. (To this day, an underground space in the HS Basilica is said to have been once believed as the tomb of Adam.)

ICXC NIKA.

The Adam tradition really started with Origen: "Concerning the place of the skull, it came to me that Hebrews hand down [the tradition that] the body of Adam has been buried there; in order that “as in Adam all die” both Adam would be raised and “in Christ all will be made alive.” (This is from the Greek version of Origen’s writings; the Latin version simply says that it was a traditio, with no specification whether it was a ‘Hebrew’ one.)

Out of all the literary references which place Adam’s burial at Golgotha, only St. Ambrose (Exposition of the Holy Gospel According to Saint Luke X), Pseudo-Athanasius (De Passione et Cruce Domini: “the place of the Skull, which the Hebrew teachers declare was Adam’s tomb, for they say he was buried there after the curse”), and Basil of Seleucia (Oration XXXVIII.3) say something to the effect that it was a ‘Hebrew’ tradition. St. John Chrysostom also repeats the belief, but is more cautious: “Some say that Adam died there and there lieth; and Jesus in this place where death had reigned, there also set up a trophy.” (Homily on John 85, on John 18:16-18)

It was popular among Christians at the time because of all the symbolism: Adam must be buried in the place where Jesus was crucified in order for him to receive direct salvation through Jesus’ sacrifice. But it’s really doubtful for a number of reasons.

First, there is no real Jewish tradition that claims Adam was buried in what is now the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We do have at least two actual - if conflicting - Jewish traditions as to where Adam’s grave is. One, the standard version today, claims that Adam is buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron along with almost every OT patriarch and matriarch (with the exception of Rachel). Another, less-well known legend is, that Adam is buried under the Temple Mount, beneath the bedrock upon which the temple of Jerusalem was built. It’s more likely that the origin of the Adam tradition was due to Christians transferring Jewish beliefs about the Temple Mount - in this case, the legend of Adam being buried under it - to their own sacred places. This is the same phenomenon you have with the later Christian tradition which identified the mountain in the land of Moriah where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac not with the Temple Mount (which is where 2 Chronicles 3:1 and standard belief place it), but with ‘Mount Calvary’ itself.

Second, Errham already mentioned that the traditional spot was originally a stone quarry between the 8th and the 1st centuries BC before being finally abandoned, with the land finding some use as a spot for gardening and building tombs. IMHO you’d expect a bit more respect for the supposed site of the first man’s tomb if there really was a belief that Adam was buried there rather than just use it as a quarry/graveyard/garden/execution site.

 

[patrick457]

(Continued)

Now St. Jerome was the guy who claimed Golgotha pretty much means ‘place of beheading’ (i.e. execution site) and that it received its name because the place was littered with the skulls of people who were executed on the site.

I have heard that someone has explained that “place of the skull” is the place where Adam is buried and that the reason it is so named is because the head of that ancient man is laid there. They relate this to what the apostle says: “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten you.” This interpretation is attractive and soothing to the ear of the people, but it is not true. For outside the city and outside the gate there are places in which the heads of the condemned are cut off. This is where they took the name “of the skull” (Calvariae); that is, it refers to the skulls of the decapitated. But the reason the Lord was crucified there was so that where there was once a site of the condemned, there the banner of martyrdom would be raised; and just as he was made a malediction for us on the cross and was scourged and crucified, so he is crucified as if a guilty among the guilty for the salvation of all. But if anyone should wish to contend that the reason the Lord was crucified there was so that his blood might trickle down on Adam’s tomb, we shall ask him why other thieves were also crucified in the same place. From which it appears that Calvary signified not the tomb of the first man, but the “place of the decapitated.” Thus where sin abounded, grace would super-abound. But in the book of Joshua the son of Nave we read that Adam was buried near Hebron and Arba. (Commentary on Matthew 27:33)

But his claim, while having a bit more ‘true-to-life’ ring to it, is also problematic, since we know that 1st-century Jews placed a huge emphasis on the dead - even crucifixion victims - receiving a proper burial (cf. Deuteronomy 21:33). So that puts the whole ‘skulls scattered across the area’ picture out of the question: that would have been taboo for the Jews because any unburied corpse polluted the land which the Lord their God had given to them. It wouldn’t have been so much of a problem for Jerome though, since Jerusalem by his time was already a city of gentiles who didn’t really care about Jewish purity laws (since AD 135 until the 7th-century Arab conquest, Jews were not allowed within the city except for one day every year).

Jerome proposed an alternative etymology for Golgotha because, well, he apparently pretty much got sick of the Adam story being repeated in his time. (In an earlier work of his, a commentary on Ephesians (AD 386), he basically repeated the Adam story while explaining Ephesians 5:14, claiming to have heard it from a preacher; but by the time he wrote this commentary on Matthew twelve years later, he had begun to dismiss it as while being “attractive and soothing to the ear of the people, … not true.”)

http://www.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/hebron.jpg

Funnily enough, Jerome seems to be aware of the tradition of Adam being buried in Hebron (he even claimed that ‘Hebron’ comes from the Hebrew word for ‘four’, because four patriarchs were buried there: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Adam!), even insisting that Adam’s burial is referred to in the book of Joshua. He was referring here to a difficult passage in Joshua 14:15. Literally translated it goes like: “And the name of Hebron was previously Kiriath-Arba - he was the great man (ha-adam ha-gadol) among the Anakim. And the land rested from war.” Jerome went so far as to render this in the Vulgate as: “The name of Hebron before was called Cariath-Arbe: Adam the greatest among the Enacims was laid there: and the land rested from wars.” (D-R Challoner)

 

[patrick457]

Now for the accounts of Jesus’ burial. Our two (likely) earliest gospels, that of Matthew and Mark (and also Luke), tell of Jesus being buried in a very stark, bare-bones way. Since Jesus died late in the afternoon there was no time for a full funeral, and Jesus was executed as a criminal, so His burial was a rushed, even rather ‘shameful’ affair: contrary to all cultural expectations, a sympathetic stranger, a non-relative, had hurriedly buried Him, with only the bare essentials, in a tomb that is not His family’s. There wasn’t even apparently enough time to anoint the body properly (so the women had to do it two to three days later), and there is apparently no public displays of mourning.

And he [Joseph] bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud, and laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid. (Mark 15:46-47)

And Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock; and he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb, and departed. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the sepulchre. (Matthew 27:59-61)

Then he [Joseph] took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud, and laid him in a rock-hewn tomb, where no one had ever yet been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and saw the tomb, and how his body was laid; then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. (Luke 23:53-56)

But when you come to John, John now portrays Jesus’ burial as being of a more dignified, royal funeral, as is shown by the rather extravagant amount of spices Nicodemus brings (100 Roman litra), rather than the muted, hurried affair of the synoptics. This is in keeping with John’s depiction of Jesus as a true king throughout his passion narrative. John’s portrayal of Jesus receiving this kind of burial is, in a way, his attempt to counteract the shame of Jesus’ crucifixion. But even with the dignified details, John still doesn’t/couldn’t hide the fact that Jesus’ burial was not fully honorable: Joseph and Nicodemus are not his relatives, and the tomb is not His family’s.

After this Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him leave. So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who had at first come to him by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds’ [approx. 75 lb. / 34.5 kg.; the measurement is in Roman pounds or *litra] weight. They took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb where no one had ever been laid. So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, as the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.

Beyond the gospels, the apocryphal Gospel of Peter embellish the story.

And they drew out the nails from the hands of the Lord and placed him on the earth; and all the earth was shaken, and a great fear came about. Then the sun shone, and it was found to be the ninth hour. And the Jews rejoiced and gave his body to Joseph that he might bury it, since he was one who had seen the many good things he did. And having taken the Lord, he washed and tied him with a linen cloth and brought him into his own sepulcher, called the Garden of Joseph. …]

Now at the dawn of the Lord’s Day Mary Magdalene, a female disciple of the Lord (who, afraid because of the Jews since they were inflamed with anger, had not done at the tomb of the Lord what women were accustomed to do for the dead beloved by them), having taken with her women friends, came to the tomb where he had been placed. And they were afraid lest the Jews should see them and were saying, ‘If indeed on that day on which he was crucified we could not weep and beat ourselves, yet now at his tomb we may do these things. But who will roll away for us even the stone placed against the door of the tomb in order that, having entered, we may sit beside him and do the expected things? For the stone was large, and we were afraid lest anyone see us. And if we are unable, let is throw against the door what we bring in memory of him; let us weep and beat ourselves until we come to our homes.’ And having gone off, they found the sepulcher opened.

In GoP, Mary Magdalene explicitly determines not to confine their grieving in privacy: they will publicly do “what women were accustomed to do for the dead beloved by them.” Jesus’ burial is now given the dignity of public acts of mourning.