A Tomb Fit for a Prophet: An Investigation into the Historical Plausibility of the Gospel Burial Accounts

Abstract

Why was the body of a man crucified by the Romans buried in a rock-hewn tomb? Whereas Jewish scruples about leaving the dead unburied would have been satisfied by burying Jesus in a shallow grave, a survey of Jewish burial practices indicates that instead he was buried in the kind of tomb normally reserved for the elite. Two of the Gospel accounts suggest that Joseph of Arimathea was a follower of Jesus, but this is historically unlikely. Piecing together the evidence from the Gospel narratives, it is proposed that, as a wealthy member of the Jewish ruling council, Joseph could well have been engaged in a programme of building tombs to honour prophets from the past. When faced with the death of a prophet in his own day, he may well have felt constrained to avert any divine retribution by giving Jesus an honourable burial. Memory theory is employed to suggest that distorted recollections of Joseph bribing Pilate to release Jesus’ body can be detected in the accounts of Jesus’ burial found in Matthew and John. This article aims to demonstrate that Jesus receiving an honourable burial in a rock-hewn tomb is historically plausible.

Introduction

Why was the body of a man crucified by the Roman authorities on the treasonous charge of being the ‘king of the Jews’ buried in the kind of tomb normally reserved for the elite? There is evidence to suggest that the Romans were prepared to allow the victims of crucifixion to be buried to satisfy Jewish scruples. A shallow grave would have sufficed for this purpose, yet the Gospels point to Joseph of Arimathea interring Jesus’ body in a rock-hewn tomb. Such extreme disparity between the shameful nature of Jesus’ crucifixion and the honourable nature of his burial calls for investigation.

Although Matthew and John identify Joseph as a disciple of Jesus, historically this is unlikely. Joseph was probably a member of the Jewish ruling council, and this article will offer cogent historical reasons as to why he would want to give Jesus’ body an honourable burial. This article will draw on social memory studies, which offer a basis for understanding how divergent memories of Joseph developed in the Gospel tradition. Insights from collective memory will also be used to suggest that the Gospel accounts include a distorted memory of Joseph bribing Pilate to release Jesus’ body for burial. The aim of this article is not to access a recoverable past on the basis of the Gospel narratives (Hatina 2024), but rather to show that Jesus receiving an honourable burial in a rock-hewn tomb is historically plausible (Keith 2011a: 65–68). ¹

The Gospel accounts differ over whether Joseph of Arimathea was a follower of Jesus (Mt. 27.57; Jn 19.38) or not (Mk 15.43; Lk. 23.50–51). ² Social memory theory offers an explanation for this divergence, inasmuch as collective memories are formulated by communities to meet their present needs (Fentress and Wickham 1992: 51–75). Maurice Halbwachs (1980) first drew attention to the social context in which memories are formed, and the use of collective memory theory has steadily been gaining traction in biblical studies (Kirk and Thatcher 2005; Duling 2006; Keith 2015; Huebenthal 2024). ³ Halbwachs’ work has been developed in two directions. Presentists argue that memories are wholly formulated on the basis of current social needs, so that the past is inaccessible and irrecoverable (Bodnar 1991; Gillis 2018). Continuationists rightly argue that this perspective is unduly sceptical (Schudson 1997; Misztal 2003: 56–74; Schwartz 2005a; Keith 2011a: 54–65; 2011b). They accept that the only past to which we have access is the past as it is remembered. However, while the actual past behind those memories may be inaccessible, it nevertheless constrains the formulation of memories (Kirk 2005; Rodríguez 2010: 41–80), which may be subject to refraction or distortion as part of this process (Le Donne 2007; Kirk 2011). This means that the making of memories ‘is always a fluid negotiation between the desires of the present and the legacies of the past’ (Olick 2006: 13). Consequently, different groups may remember competing versions of the same people or events. Social memory theory, then, suggests that we should not be surprised that each of the four Gospels remembers Joseph of Arimathea differently. While it is historically likely that Joseph was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, memory theory offers an explanation as to how memories of Joseph being a disciple of Jesus could have developed as a result of the community’s need to explain his decision bury Jesus in a rock-hewn tomb.

In terms of understanding Joseph’s possible motivation for giving Jesus an honourable burial, this article will also suggest that, as a member of the Sanhedrin, Joseph could well have been involved in a programme of building tombs to honour prophets of the past, in which case it is plausible to suppose that he would have been concerned to avert divine retribution for the killing of a prophet. As a member of the ruling class, Joseph would have had the financial resources to make a rock-hewn tomb available to Jesus, and he also would have been well-placed to offer Pilate a financial inducement to release Jesus’ body. It will be shown that Pilate was open to accepting bribes and—social memory theory will be used again at this point—to suggest that the Gospel accounts betray residual, distorted memories of such a bribe having exchanged hands.

In short, this article will make the case that there are plausible historical grounds ⁴ for supposing that Jesus’ most shameful death could have been followed by an honourable burial. We begin our study by considering what options would have available for dealing with the body of Jesus after his death.

Jewish Burials

Although there is evidence that it was standard practice for the Romans to leave the bodies of those who had been crucified on the cross as a deterrent (Hengel 1977: 9, 76; Crossan 1994: 123–27; Casey 2010: 446; Cook 2011: 206–9), the earliest summary ⁵ we have of the good news of Jesus (1 Cor. 15.3–7) ⁶ includes the line ‘he was buried’ (ἐτάϕη). ⁷ Paul clearly knew that Jesus had been crucified (1 Cor. 1.23; 2.2, 8; 2 Cor. 13.4; Gal. 3.1), and he makes another reference to Jesus’ burial in Rom. 6.4 (Evans and Monette 2019). Despite the scepticism of some (Strauss 1860: 799; Spong 1994: 221–29; Ehrman 2014: 129–68), there is sufficient historical evidence to support the view that Jesus’ body was buried (Evans 2005; 2014: 71–93; Keener 2009: 325–26). Where and how he was buried is another matter.

In her analysis of the necropolis surrounding Jerusalem, ⁸ Rachel Hachlili argues that the bodies of those with great wealth or influence were interred in monumental tombs, which could accommodate a number of bodies placed in arcosolia, arch-shaped alcoves hewn into the walls of the tomb. In John’s account, the image of two angels sitting in the tomb either side of Jesus’ body, one at the head and one at the feet, suggests that his body could have been placed in one such recess in the wall.

The most elaborate of these tombs were equipped with circular stones located in slots, which could be rolled into place to block the entrance, but only a handful of tombs have been discovered which were sealed with a purpose-built rolling stone. This leads Amos Kloner (1999) to argue for a more modest tomb, which was sealed with a rectangular blocking stone, as this was the most common arrangement for rock-hewn tomb entrances in the second temple period. ⁹ Instead of arcosolia, such tombs contained cavities in the wall known as loculi, each of which could accommodate a body being inserted head- or feet-first. ¹⁰ These tombs had a central standing pit, which was surrounded by a bench (Hachlili 2005: 55–69), and this would correspond to Mark’s description of the women’s visit on Sunday morning, as they enter the tomb and go into the standing pit, where they see an angel sitting on a bench, who presumably shows them a loculus and says, ‘This is where they put him’ (Mk 16.5–6).

According to Kloner, it is likely that Jesus’ body was left on the bench at the side of the standing pit as a hasty interim measure. Jodi Magness (2005) also suggests that Jesus’ body could have been placed temporarily in a rock-cut tomb because no graves had already been dug for the bodies, and Jewish law did not permit the digging of such graves on the high days of Jewish festivals (m. Moed. Katan 1.6): Such a scenario would account for Jesus’ body being left out on a bench. ¹¹ Magness further taps into the resurrection narratives by suggesting that the body of Jesus may have been missing on the Sunday morning because it had already been removed to a pit or trench grave (2011: 171). However, Mary’s visit to the tomb at first light after the sabbath (Mk 16.2) would seem to preclude the prior removal of his corpse, and Kloner’s and Magness’ argument rests on the doubtful supposition that those with strong principles about burying the dead had made no advanced provision for disposing of the corpses.

Furthermore, the vocabulary used in the Gospels to describe moving the stone suggests that it was circular, rather than rectangular, as Kloner suggested. The verb προσκυλίω is used in Mt. 27.60; Mk 15.46, and its antonym ἀποκυλίω is found in Mt. 28.2; Mk 16.3,4; Lk. 24.2. According to Kloner, κυλίω can mean ‘dislodge’, ‘move back’ or ‘move’, but the verb is used of rolling stones to block the mouth of a tomb in Josh. 10.18, for rolling a stone up to be a makeshift sacrificial altar (1 Sam. 14.33), and metaphorically of trouble rolling back like a stone on the one who starts it (Prov. 26.27). ἀποκυλίω is also used of rolling a stone off the mouth of a well (Gen. 29.3, 8, 10 LXX). This suggests that the stone used to seal Jesus’ tomb could be rolled into place. Since, according to Kloner, round boulders were not commonly used to seal tomb entrances before the second century CE, this would suggest that Jesus’ tomb was sealed with a round stone constructed for that purpose. All the evidence from the Gospels suggests that Jesus’ body was placed in the kind of tomb used for burying the elite.

In practice, if Jewish scruples required the burial of dead bodies, then other, easier options, were available (Hachlili 2005: 1–4). Field graves or cist tombs have been discovered dug into the ground where the grave is simply covered with stone slabs. ¹² According to Magness (2011: 171), executed criminals would have been buried in pit graves or trench graves, which could be prepared relatively quickly (Myllykoski 2002: 76–81). In all four Gospel accounts of the crucifixion there are three dead bodies to be dealt with, ¹³ and if the need to bury them were primarily a matter of satisfying Jewish scruples, then the most likely scenario would have been for their remains to have been dumped together in a shallow grave (Crossan 1998: 555; 1999: 147). ¹⁴

Josephus indicates that the bodies of blasphemers should receive a dishonourable burial out of sight, which suggests that the graves of criminals could have been unmarked (Ant. 4.202). Jeremiah gives us insights into other methods of disposing of dead bodies. He predicts that the body of Jehoiakim will be dragged through the streets and thrown out of the city gates before being buried like a donkey (22.19). We also learn that after the prophet Uriah was executed by Jehoiakim, his body was ‘thrown’ into the grave of the common people (26.23 MT; 33.23 LXX), while the bodies of those murdered by Ishmael the son of Nethaniah were simply thrown into a cistern (Jer. 41.7 MT; 48.7 LXX). Evidence that dead bodies could simply be tossed into a pit is found in the Mishnah, which records how someone who finds a pit containing the bones of foetuses or dead people can collect the bones one by one so that the area may be considered clean (m.Oholot 16.5; cf. 17.2). It is evident that when it came to interring bodies, a wide range of options was available, and it is likely that, if permission to bury the corpse were granted at all, a dishonourable death would be followed by dishonourable burial (Davies and Allison 1997: 647–48).

Josephus records that Achan was given a dishonourable burial at night immediately after his death, as befitted a guilty man (Ant. 5.44). Byron McCane (1998) argues that the lack of public mourning marked Jesus’ burial as shameful (Myllykoski 2002: 71–76; Dijkhuizen 2011). The interment certainly seems to have been conducted swiftly as night fell, but the overriding consideration would have been to get the body buried before the start of the sabbath. All four Gospel accounts contain elements that belie the notion that this was a shameful burial: Joseph buys a linen shroud in which to wrap the body (Mk 15.46), while Nicodemus is said to bring myrrh and aloes to bury with the body (Jn 19.39). The tomb is new; no one else has been buried there (Lk. 23.53) and according to Matthew, it was Joseph’s own tomb (Mt. 27.60). There is nothing in these accounts to suggest a shameful burial.

The Bones of Yehochanan

It is clear that on at least one occasion the bones of a victim of crucifixion were returned to his family, and it is worth considering whether this indicates that victims of crucifixion could receive special treatment. In 1968 a tomb was excavated at Giv^cat ha–Mivtar and one of the ossuaries was found to contain the bones of Yehochanan, a victim of crucifixion (Zias and Sekeles 1985). One of the nails used to attach Yehochanan’s feet to the cross had bent when it was hammered into a knot in the wood, and presumably because of the difficulty of extricating it from the heel bone it was left in place. It appears that Yehochanan’s body was buried in such a manner that his bones could be identified and collected for interment on a subsequent occasion.

Crossan downplays the significance of the discovery, arguing that it emphasizes just how rare the practice of burying the victims of crucifixion was, since we have only found this single crucified skeleton when thousands were crucified around Jerusalem in the first century (1998: 545). Allison, however, points out that, had the nail not bent, it would have been removed from the body and the evidence that Yehochanan had been crucified would have vanished (2005: 361; Magness 2005). If it was standard practice to retrieve the nails for reuse after crucifixion, then archaeological evidence for the burial of crucified victims is going to be extremely rare. The archaeological evidence is open to different interpretations: Should we regard Yehochanan as an exceptional case, or does this discovery provide clear evidence that the victims of crucifixion could receive a decent burial after all?

Philo indicates that, on special occasions, the body of a victim of crucifixion might be released to their family (In Flaccum 83):

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. Because it was meet that the dead also should have the advantage of some kind treatment upon the birthday of an emperor… ¹⁵

Although he was based in Egypt rather than Israel, Philo makes it clear that releasing the bodies of those who had been crucified to their families for burial could be a gesture of magnanimity on the part of the Roman authorities to mark events such as the emperor’s birthday. Yet while such an act of clemency on the emperor’s birthday clearly enhances the honour due to the emperor, the benefit to Rome of releasing the body of a messianic pretender during the volatile period of Passover (Josephus, Ant. 20.106–7; Colautti 2002) is less easily construed. ¹⁶

Furthermore, it is not evident that Yehochanan’s body was released to his family for burial immediately after his execution. We may be confident that his body was buried in an identifiable location, so that his family could subsequently retrieve his bones, ¹⁷ but that place could have been a ditch, with nothing more than a marker to indicate where he had been buried. We cannot tell how long his body had been left on the cross after his death before his remains were buried. The leg bones were broken post-mortem (Zias and Sekeles 1985), and bones belonging to other people were found in the same ossuary, none of which suggests that his body was treated with respect or received a proper burial after his crucifixion. All we know is that at some point his family were able to retrieve his bones and place them in an ossuary in the family tomb. Yet Crossan notes that Yehochanan’s bones were interred in an expensive ossuary, and deduces that, ‘His family had enough money, power, or influence, not to save his life but at least to regain his body for proper burial’ (1991: 392).

If that is the case, Yehochanan was probably the exception rather than the norm, in that his family were able to retrieve his remains. The corollary of this observation is that money, power, and influence would have been crucial in terms of securing special treatment for the bodies of those who had been crucified. If Jesus’ body was interred in a rock-hewn tomb, that would have amounted to special treatment that was almost certainly not extended to those who were crucified with him. This suggests that it could have been possible for Jesus’ body to be buried through the intervention of someone with the money, power, and influence that his family lacked (Crossan 1991: 393). Joseph of Arimathea fits that profile. Without his intervention, Jesus’ body could well have been left unburied, or, at best, buried in a shallow grave. This prompts an investigation into what we know about Joseph of Arimathea and why he might have been concerned to give the body of Jesus an honourable burial.

Joseph of Arimathea: A Man of Means

According to Mk 15.43, Joseph of Arimathea was a prominent councillor ¹⁸ who was waiting for God’s kingdom. Asking Pilate for the body of Jesus was an act of bravery on his part, presumably because there was a risk of being identified as a sympathizer of someone who had just been crucified for treason. Mark’s description makes Joseph a highly ambiguous figure (Crossley and Myles 2023: 200–4). ¹⁹ On the one hand, he was a prominent member of the council (εὐσχήμων βουλευτής) which unanimously condemned Jesus to death (14.55, 64), while on the other, the reference to his expecting the kingdom of God suggests that he was a pious Jew (Lyons 2004; 2014), ²⁰ who would have been prepared to hear Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom without necessarily becoming a disciple himself (Brown 1988; 1994: 1214–16). For Matthew, Joseph was a rich man, who was also a disciple of Jesus (27.57), whereas John says he kept his discipleship a secret because he was afraid of the Jewish leaders (19.38). Like Mark, Luke also identifies Joseph as a member of the council, but depicts him as a good and righteous man, who had not consented to the council’s decision to put Jesus to death (23.50–51). The four Gospels all agree that Joseph buried Jesus, but they diverge in their description of his identity.

In his redaction of Mark, Matthew replaces Mark’s reference to Joseph being a member of the council with a reference to his being a wealthy man (27.57). In order to ascertain a possible basis for this redactional change, it is worth comparing Matthew’s and Mark’s account of Joseph going to Pilate and asking for the body of Jesus.

	Mk 15.43	Mt. 27.57–58
A	ἐλθὼν Ἰωσηϕ [ὁ] ἀπὸ Ἁριμαθαίας, εὐσχήμων βουλευτής,	ἦλθεν ἄνθρωπος πλούσιος ἀπὸ Ἁριμαθαίας, τοῦνομα Ἰωσηϕ,
B	ὃς καὶ αὐτὸς ἦν προσδεχόμενος τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ,	ὃς καὶ ἐμαθήτευσεν τῷ Ἰησοῦ.
C	τολμήσας εἰσῆλθεν πρὸς Πιλᾶτον καὶ ᾐτήσατο τὸ σῶμα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ.	Οὗτος προσελθῶν τῷ Πιλάτῳ ᾐτήσατο τὸ σῶμα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ.

Mark introduces Joseph by name, says that he comes from Arimathea, and identifies him as a prominent member of the council (A); he then uses a relative clause to say that Joseph was expecting the kingdom of God (B). Matthew introduces a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph (A), and uses a relative clause to say that was a disciple of Jesus (B). Matthew has thus changed Mark’s relative clause so that the ambiguous reference to expecting the kingdom is amended to Joseph being a disciple.

Matthew also softens Mark’s abrupt introduction of Joseph. By beginning with Joseph’s name, Mark almost seems to presuppose prior knowledge of who Joseph is on the part of his readers. ²¹ Matthew, unlike Mark, has referred to two other Josephs earlier in his narrative, the father (1.16–24; 2.13, 19) and the brother (13.55) of Jesus, so identifying this Joseph in advance as a rich man from Arimathea avoids any possible confusion. ²²

Looking at how Matthew has used Mark at this point, it is apparent that in the process of editing he has replaced Mark’s reference to Joseph being a member of the council with his description of him as a rich man, perhaps because he knew that portraying Joseph as a disciple of Jesus would conflict with his membership of the council that had condemned Jesus to death (26.59). Why then describe him as a rich man? John Martin Creed (1930: 291) suggests that Matthew understands εὐσχήμων in Mk 15.43 in a ‘vulgar’ sense as meaning wealthy, but this understanding of the adjective is attributed to ‘ignorant’ people, ²³ and it would be an unusual reading of the term.

However, as a prominent member of the aristocratic ruling council, Joseph almost certainly would have been rich (Goodman 1987: 54–60). Matthew’s depiction of Joseph as wealthy here may have more to do with social realities than with making any theological point. ²⁴ In this case, then, it is likely that Joseph really was a wealthy man, and that wealth would have given him access to Pilate (Luz 2005: 578).

In his description of Joseph, Luke concentrates on his identity as a member of the council, but makes it clear that he was not party to their decision to put Jesus to death or to their actions (23.51). Although Luke retains Mark’s comment that Joseph was waiting for the Kingdom of God, it appears that he did not understand this as a reference to Christian commitment. Instead, he identifies Joseph as ἀνὴρ ἀγαθὸς καὶ δίκαιος, a description which evokes Jewish piety. ²⁵ In Acts 13.29, Paul says that it was the people of Jerusalem and their rulers who buried Jesus after his execution, and this means that there is no evidence in Luke-Acts that points to Joseph being a supporter of Jesus (Brown 1994: 1218–19; Bovon 2012: 3.335; Casey 2010: 448–53). ²⁶

John, on the other hand, identifies Joseph as a follower of Jesus who kept his discipleship a secret for fear of the Jews (19.38). John does not explicitly identify him as a member of the council, but the reference to his secret discipleship associates him with those rulers who believed in Jesus, but did not confess it (12.42).

The four Gospel accounts show that the early Christian community had divergent memories of whether or not Joseph was a follower of Jesus. By identifying Joseph as a follower of Jesus, Matthew (27.57) and John (19.38) offer a plausible explanation as to why Joseph was prepared to give Jesus an honourable burial: it would have been an act of personal devotion on his part. Memory theory alerts us to the way in which the present needs of the community shape memories of the past. In this case we can see how the recollection that Joseph was a follower of Jesus could have developed from the need to explain why a member of the council that condemned Jesus to death should then give him an honourable burial. This development in the tradition of understanding Joseph’s identity can be seen as an example of collective memory being refracted (Le Donne 2009: 65–77), in order to account for Joseph’s behaviour.

Historically, it is most likely that Joseph acted as a member of the Jewish council (Blinzler 1974: 56–107), and the tradition that he was a disciple developed by way of providing a rationale for his decision to bury Jesus’ body. Yet this does not preclude seeing Joseph of Arimathea as a historical figure behind that tradition. ²⁷ As Keith observes, ‘All tradition—all memory—is an indissoluble mix of the past and the present. The present would have nothing to remember if it were not for the past; the past would not be capable of being remembered if it were not for the frame-works of the present’ (2011b: 170). ²⁸

A Tomb for a Prophet?

If Joseph was not a follower of Jesus, what plausible motivation could account for his behaviour? A basis for answering this question may be found in the saying attributed to Jesus in Mt. 23.29//Lk. 11.47: ‘You build the tombs of the prophets.’ In Lk. 11.48, Jesus claims that building the tombs shows that the builders are acting in continuity with those who killed the prophets, but this can scarcely have been their actual motivation. On the contrary, according to Mt. 23.30–31, those who built the tombs did so to show that they would not have participated in shedding the blood of the prophets, yet Jesus says that the act of building the tombs shows that they are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. In other words, whereas those building the tombs did so to disassociate themselves from the historic murder of the prophets, Jesus counters that those who build the prophets’ tombs are carrying on the work of those who murdered the prophets in the first place. He radically reinterprets the significance of what they are doing. Irrespective of whether these words were uttered by the historical Jesus, they only hit home if they rebut an actual practice of dedicating tombs to prophets from the past.

We know that there was an explosion in tomb building during this period (Culpepper 2021: 455–56); hundreds have been discovered, some of which were never completed, although extensive looting means that there is very little evidence about those for whom these tombs were built. ²⁹ However, if The Lives of the Prophets, can be dated to this period, then this text reveals a contemporary concern to honour the historical prophets. It itemises the burial sites of 23 prophets, ³⁰ and D. R. A. Hare ventures to suggest that the Lives may have helped generate interest in the erection of memorials to them (1985: 381). ³¹

This dating of the Lives has been contested by David Satran, who argues that the burial notices reflect a fascination with sacred tombs which characterized Christian Byzantine piety of the fourth century CE and that the text therefore should not be used as evidence for Jewish attitudes from the Second Temple Period. While the work may incorporate early Jewish traditions, he argues that it is impossible to recover a pre-Christian version of the Lives, and that it is futile to speculate about the nature or contents of such a document (1995: 34–78).

However, Satran acknowledges that, ‘It is ill-advised to deny categorically the possibility of a Jewish text underlying the Lives’ (1995: 77), and Anna Schwemer argues that the relatively undeveloped nature of the traditions included in the Lives points to a date in the first century CE (1995: 68–69). Furthermore, an interest in the graves of the prophets would not have been out of place in the first century CE: Sirach 49.10 includes a prayer that the bones of the Twelve Prophets would send forth new life from where they lie, and the discovery of fragments of the Hebrew text at Masada shows how important this text was to Jews in this period (Nickelsburg 1981: 64–65; Horbury 1996). With due caution, then, there are good grounds for supposing that at least some of the traditions in the Lives can be dated prior to the second century CE. It is therefore legitimate to use the Lives to cast light on Jesus’ logion about building the tombs of the prophets. ³²

The account of Isaiah’s burial is significant, ³³ since it records the initial burial of Isaiah’s body beneath the Oak of Rogel (1.1), and then a subsequent interment ‘with care and great honour’ in a tomb near the Pool of Siloam (1.5). This second burial was conducted ‘as a memorial’ (μνήμης χάριν), and although we do not know when this memorial burial took place, ³⁴ this text does provide corroborative evidence that at some point, memorial tombs were erected to honour prophets from the past.

The Lives of the Prophets ends with the martyrdom of Zechariah son of Jehoiada, and states that after his burial ‘the priests were not able to see a vision of angels of God or to give oracles from the Holy of Holies or to inquire by the Ephod, or to answer the people through Urim as formerly’ (23.1–2). ³⁵ These words have direct relevance to the latter half of the first century CE, since according to Josephus there was no prophetic gift in the Temple in the decades before its destruction at the hands of the Romans. He claims that the oracular jewelled breastplate of the high priest used to shine as a sign that God was present at their sacrifices, and that the nation would be victorious in battle, but because God was displeased with the transgression of his laws, this stopped 200 years before he wrote his Antiquities (3.214–18; Weissenrieder 2017). This date corresponds to the death of John Hyrcanus in 104 BCE, of whom Josephus says that God deemed him worthy of the three greatest privileges, those of governing the nation, the high priesthood, and the gift of prophecy (Ant. 13.299; cf. 13.282; Bell. 1.68–69). After John Hyrcanus, there is no record of the high priest giving divine oracles (Fried 2009).

This suggests that Lives 23 could well have been written to address a context where the priests were not able to give oracles as they had done formerly (ὡς τὸ πρίν, 23.2). The Lives attributes this to the killing of Zechariah, who, as he died, called on God to see and avenge his death (2 Chron. 24.22). This provides an eminently suitable historical context for the construction of tombs as propitiatory monuments to atone for the sin of killing this prophet and others in Jesus’ day, ³⁶ and it is plausible to suppose that Jesus’ logion about the blood of the prophets from Abel to Zechariah ³⁷ being required ‘of this generation’ (Mt. 23.35; Lk. 11.50–51) taps into the same way of thinking.

If such tombs were being built, it would have been the priests themselves who would have been acutely aware of their inability to utter divine oracles, and this would have constituted a high level of motivation for propitiating God for any bloodguilt that might still be attached to Jerusalem for the historic killing of God’s prophets. ³⁸ Furthermore, it would have been the priestly elite who would have had the resources to finance the construction of such propitiatory tombs. Although in Mt. 23.29, Jesus charges the scribes and Pharisees with building the tombs of the prophets, and in Luke, he addresses the teachers of the law (11.46), it is less likely that these groups would have had the finances to build extravagant tombs. These Gospels were written post-70, when the priestly elite had no power base, and it is reasonable to suppose that both authors recontextualized Jesus’ original accusation to direct it against those whom their audience would regard as their contemporary opponents.

If Joseph was indeed a wealthy, prominent member of the ruling council, it is plausible to suppose that he could have been involved in such a project, and if that is the case, then one can easily imagine a deep sense of disquiet on Joseph’s part when Jesus is condemned to death. Whether Joseph regarded Jesus as a prophet or not, there were many who regarded him as such (Mt. 21.11, 46; Mk 6.15; Lk. 7.16, 39; 24.19; Jn 4.19; 6.14; 7.40; 9.17), and according to Jn 7.52, the Jewish council were well aware of this identification. Joseph may well have been aware of the irony that those who were engaged in a building programme to honour past prophets who had been killed in the city were the very same people who were responsible for the execution of someone widely regarded as a prophet in their own day. History was repeating itself and Joseph was part of that. The one thing he could do (and maybe felt he had to do) was to ensure that Jesus received an honourable burial. That would have been why he took his life in his hands to ask Pilate for Jesus’ body, and that would account for his lack of concern over what happened to the bodies of the two bandits. As a deeply religious man who had ploughed monetary resources into building tombs to atone for the wrongful murder of historic prophets, he may have felt constrained to use those same resources to ensure that the man widely regarded as a prophet in his own day at least received a decent, albeit a hasty burial. Such a reconstruction is necessarily hypothetical, but it does provide an eminently plausible explanation as to why Joseph, as a member of the Jewish ruling council, felt obliged to inter a victim of crucifixion within a rock-hewn tomb, so giving the prophet Jesus an honourable burial.

Pontius Pilate

Yet obtaining permission from Pilate to bury Jesus would not have been straightforward. Joseph was not seeking permission to bury the body of a crucified slave in a field grave or a cist tomb. Jesus had been executed as a messianic pretender, on the charge of being ‘King of the Jews’, ³⁹ and Joseph wanted to give him an honourable burial in a rock-hewn tomb. We cannot simply assume that Pilate would have been amenable to such a request.

Philo (Legatio ad Gaium 299–305) and Josephus (Bell. 2.169–77; Ant. 18.55–89; Stowasser 2008) both supply negative portraits of Pilate, leading Bart Ehrman to suggest that Pilate was ‘a fierce, violent, mean-spirited ruler who displayed no interest at all in showing mercy and kindness to his subjects and showed no respect for Jewish sensitivities’ (2014: 161). However, in her careful study of Pilate, Helen Bond (1998) portrays him as a competent governor who was prepared to work alongside the Jewish hierarchy in executing a suspected political agitator (Carter 2003), and who may on occasion have been prepared to release lesser criminals as a gesture of Roman goodwill (Bond 1998: 49–93, 194–202; McGing 1991).

Philo cites a letter purportedly from Agrippa to Caligula that incorporates claims that Pilate placed some gold shields in Herod’s palace in the holy city of Jerusalem (Legatio ad Gaium 299–305). ⁴⁰ According to Philo’s account, Pilate did this more to provoke the people than to honour Tiberius, though there was no forbidden imagery on the shields, only an inscription citing the donor and dedicating them to the emperor. ⁴¹ The people perceived this as a threat to their traditions that the emperor had hitherto upheld and they implored him to remove them. ⁴² Pilate refused, and the letter attributes this to his inflexible, stubborn, and cruel disposition. When those sent to Pilate talked of appealing to Tiberius, he became exasperated and was afraid that they would ‘denounce the briberies, the insults, the robberies, the outrages and wanton injuries, the executions without trial constantly repeated, the ceaseless and supremely grievous cruelty’ he had inflicted on them (ἐξελέγξωσι τὰς δωροδοκίας, τὰς ὕβρεις, τὰς ἁρπαγάς, τὰς αἰκίας, τὰς ἐπηρείας, τοὺς ἀκρίτους καὶ ἐπαλλήλους ϕόνους, τὴν ἀνήνυτον καὶ ἀργαλεωτάτην ὠμότητα, Leg. Ad Gaium 302). Consequently, despite his vindictive and irascible nature, Pilate did not know what to do: He lacked the courage to take down what he had set up; he did not want to do anything to please his subjects; and he was also fully aware of the intransigence of Tiberius. When the people saw that he wanted to change his mind without appearing to do so, they appealed to Tiberius, which apparently made Tiberius so angry that he wrote immediately to Pilate, rebuking him for his unprecedented foolhardiness and ordering him to take down the shields and transfer them immediately to Caesarea.

From his account it is evident that Philo is no fan of Pilate and portrays him in the worst possible light. Bond’s own assessment is that the erection of the shields was not a deliberately provocative act, since they were not decorated with images and were set up inside the headquarters of Roman administration in the city: It may be that Pilate simply misjudged the level of Jewish opposition to honouring the emperor in this way (1998: 36–48). Bond observes that Philo’s description of Pilate is marked by the stock in trade vocabulary he uses of the enemies of the Jewish people, and that, ‘Philo’s description of him is doubtless exaggerated in accordance with his own theological rhetoric’ (1998: 33; Maier 1969; Tiwald 2024).

Yet it is worth pausing to consider how much truth there is in the allegation that Pilate was guilty of corruption (δωροδοκία) and greed (ἁρπαγή). ⁴³ These terms are also found in Philo’s general assessment of governors in the time of Tiberius (In Flaccum 105), and in the absence of any specific examples of Pilate being susceptible to bribery, the suspicion remains that Philo drew on stock-in-trade accusations to blacken his character. However, Josephus’ comment on why Tiberius tended to leave governors in post for long periods supports Philo’s assessment of Pilate (Ant. 18.172–73; Schürer 1973: 383). Tiberius recognized that all governors had a tendency to line their pockets (‘it was a law of nature’) and there was a danger that governors who were in post for a short term would concentrate on fleecing the people as much as possible in that period, whereas those in post for longer might feel that over time they were able to get enough by stealing from the people to be less vigorous in their extortion. Therefore, although Philo’s accusation of corruption may have been stereotypical so far as Roman governors were concerned, it is likely that they gave good reason to earn such a reputation (Rapske 2000, Keener 2015: 3439–42).

In the closing years of the Republic and at the start of the Empire, bribery was both prevalent and illegal. ⁴⁴ Ovid comments that bribes will buy both gods and men (Ars Amatoria 3.653), and although a refusal to take bribes was the mark of a good leader, ⁴⁵ there was no doubt that governors were susceptible to bribery, ⁴⁶ and those appointed over Judaea would likely have inherited a culture of corruption (Josephus, Ant. 17.304–8). So, when Joseph came seeking permission to bury Jesus, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that Pilate would have been open to accepting a bribe.

Evidence of a Bribe

There is no direct evidence that Pilate was bribed, but in different ways all the Gospel accounts of Joseph visiting Pilate can be shown to offer some support for this theory. There is evidence in Mark’s account to support the notion of Joseph taking a bribe to Pilate. In this section, we also will draw on social memory theory to show how residual, distorted recollections of a bribe may surface in Matthew’s and John’s accounts of Jesus’ burial. Luke provides cogent reasons why the memory of this happening would have been suppressed.

We begin with Mark’s observation that it took courage for Joseph to approach Pilate. The participle τολμήσας (15.43) shows that he went to Pilate ‘boldly’. Making this request entailed an element of danger. He could have implicated himself in the treason for which Jesus had been executed (Brown 1988: 241). ⁴⁷ In such a situation, taking a bribe to Pilate would not only have helped open the door to Pilate granting Joseph’s request; it would also have offered a degree of protection to Joseph as he made the request in the first place. As a member of the Jewish ruling council, Joseph would have been familiar with the common-sense counsel found in the book of Proverbs, that bribes are highly effective (17.8); a gift opens doors and gives access to the great (18.16), and that a secret gift averts anger, while a concealed bribe subdues strong wrath (21.14). Thus, while Mark makes no explicit mention of a bribe, his account presupposes a situation in which Joseph taking a bribe to Pilate would have been an eminently sensible precaution.

Turning to the accounts in Matthew and John, both narratives include elements that strike the critical reader as historically implausible, if not bordering on the absurd. Matthew states that the guards at the tomb were bribed to say that the body of Jesus was stolen (28.12), a detail that strikes many commentators as highly unlikely (Luz 2005: 611). John records that Nicodemus used an astronomical quantity of spices when he buried the body of Jesus (19.39), ⁴⁸ spices that presumably were purchased at huge expense.

Drawing on social memory theory, it is possible to see how these implausible features in the evangelists’ accounts could have originated in suppressed and distorted memories of a bribe being given to Pilate, rather than being spun out of thin air. In their study of how group memories are distorted, Baumeister and Hastings argue that

by and large outright fabrication of collective memory is rare. The implication may be that collective memories are to some extent constrained by the facts. Facts may be deleted, altered, shaded, reinterpreted, exaggerated, and placed in favourable contexts, but wholesale fabrication seems to lie beyond what most groups can accomplish. Presumably, thorough historical research would eventually uncover an example or two of fabrication, but these would be extreme exceptions. Fabrication is thus not one of the standard techniques of altering collective memory for self-serving ends…Although it is apparently rare and difficult to fabricate a wholly spurious group memory, it is relatively easy and common to take some shreds of historical truth and blow them up into a major, important myth for the group (1997: 282; Kirk 2011; McIver 2011: 81–121; 2019). ⁴⁹

If a historical incident of Joseph bribing Pilate lies behind the accounts of the guards being bribed in Mt. 28.12 and the spices bought by Nicodemus in Jn 19.39, it possible to see how the memory of this event became distorted in these narratives. Whereas Mark describes Joseph as respected and prominent member of the Jewish ruling council (15.43), Matthew (27.57) and John (19.38) identify him as a follower of Jesus, while Luke casts him as a good and righteous man (23.50). The ascription of such qualities to Joseph by Matthew, John, and Luke may go some way towards accounting for his motivation in burying Jesus, but they are hard to reconcile with the act of giving a bribe. According to Tertullian, no one who gives a bribe (corruptor) can be considered a Christian (Apologeticum 44.2–3), and the Jewish Testament clearly condemns the practice of bribery (Job 15.34; Ps. 26.10; Isa. 33.15; Sir. 40.12). Thus, although Luke makes no mention of Joseph taking a bribe to Pilate, his characterization of Joseph as a good and righteous man effectively deters him from doing so, because of the expectation that such a man would not engage in bribery.

These considerations provide cogent reasons for the suppression of any explicit reference to bribery in the evangelists’ accounts (Kirk 2005: 10–14; 2018: 22–24; Keith 2015: 354–76). However, social memory theory enables us to see how, rather than vanishing completely, recollections of a bribe could resurface in a different guise. Thus, a bribe is paid to the guards, rather than to Pilate (Kennard 1955), or a vast amount of money is spent on burial spices. ⁵⁰ The Gospel accounts suggest that there were recollections that burying Jesus involved expending a large amount of money. As the actual reason behind this money changing hands was suppressed, so distorted versions of the memory surface in the Gospel narratives. In this way, although none of the evangelists explicitly mention a bribe being paid to Pilate, it is possible to detect these echoes of a memory, generated by the historically plausible event that Joseph secured the right to bury the body of Jesus in a rock-hewn tomb by giving Pilate a bribe.

Conclusion

It is historically likely that there was a major programme of building tombs to venerate prophets from the past who had been unjustly killed. It is plausible that part of the motivation for this building programme was to atone for the sins of the fathers who had put these prophets to death. It is probable that this building programme was undertaken by the wealthy ruling elite in Jerusalem. If Joseph was a respected member of the council, then there is good reason to suppose that he played a part in this building programme.

We know that Jesus was regarded by many as a prophet. Joseph would probably have known this, and therefore he may well have been uncomfortably aware that history was repeating itself and that Jerusalem had just killed another prophet. The one thing Joseph could do to mitigate the situation was to ensure that Jesus’ body received a decent burial, and that is why he boldly approached Pilate to ask for Jesus’ body and why the dead body of Jesus was placed in a rock-hewn tomb. This scenario is entirely consistent with Mark’s depiction of Joseph as a member of the Jewish ruling council (15.43).

By virtue of being part of the ruling elite, Joseph would have had the wealth and influence to be able to bribe Pilate to let him bury Jesus’ body, and there is evidence to suggest that Pilate would have been open to bribery on account of his greed. It is also possible that fragmented memories of money changing hands to facilitate Jesus’ burial remain embedded in what appear to be some of the more historically implausible details in Matthew’s and John’s accounts of the burial of Jesus.

Overall, then, a reasonable case can be made for Joseph of Arimathea interring the dead body of a victim of crucifixion in his own family tomb. Joseph had the means (money to bribe Pilate), the motive (burying a prophet) and the opportunity (a rock-hewn tomb was available). This reconstruction of events offers a plausible underlying historical basis for the Gospel accounts of Jesus being given an honourable burial in an expensive rock-hewn tomb.