From cross to empty tomb: Behind the story of Holy Saturday

c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-They are words that echo in churches everywhere this time of year, sacred sentences that go to the heart of the Christian faith:”You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him.” Yet how many Christians know the […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

(RNS)-They are words that echo in churches everywhere this time of year, sacred sentences that go to the heart of the Christian faith:”You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him.” Yet how many Christians know the cultural and historical nuances of Jesus’ death and burial, the customs and taboos of his time that add texture and context to the Gospel story? What happened to Jesus’ body between Good Friday afternoon, when it was taken down from the cross, and Sunday morning, when his followers found an empty tomb?

The biblical narrative gives us clues, but it is left to scholars and students of antiquity to piece together the events of that dimly understood Sabbath.


Consider the site of Jesus’ burial. Contrary to popular belief, the placement of Jesus in what the Gospels describe as a”new”tomb may have been a vestige of the shame and disgrace that surrounded his trial, conviction and crucifixion.”The preference is to be buried in your family tomb,”said Byron R. McCane, a professor of religion at Converse College in Spartanburg, S.C.”That is a custom that goes way, way back. … Burial with your nearest relatives was a traditional family value in Jewish culture.” Because Jesus was interred apart from his clan, McCane says, his burial would have been considered”dishonorable”by the cultural standards of ancient Jerusalem.

If Jesus’ family had a tomb, it would have been located in Nazareth, his hometown, nearly 90 miles from where he died. Why, then, would Jesus’ body not be taken there?

The realities of first century life are one reason.”We don’t know what happened to people who passed away far away from their home,”said Ronny Reich, an archaeologist with the Israeli Antiquities Authorities in Jerusalem. But, he added,”Who would have taken a dead body back to Galilee, probably a journey of a week or two?” Another reason Jesus was buried apart from his family may be found in ancient Jewish law, as written in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy.”If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree,”states the book’s 21st chapter,”you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.” Crucifixion is, of course, death on a tree.”Crucifixion … might have led to the body not being buried in the traditional fashion,”noted Philip Sellew, a professor of classical and near-Eastern studies at the University of Minnesota.

Other aspects of Jewish religious law illuminate further the question of why Jesus was buried hurriedly, apart from his family. According to the law, a corpse and anyone who touched it were considered ritually unclean. A quick interment, usually before sundown on the day of death, was important.

As sundown approached on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion-the Friday before an important Passover Sabbath-the religious leaders sought an expedient solution to satisfy the law’s requirements.”In Jerusalem, especially, people wanted to live in pure conditions, ritual purity,”noted Reich.”So dead bodies were usually buried before sundown.” The Gospel of John alludes to this point, stating:”Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.” (BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)

McCane believes the Gospel writers, sensitive to the scandalous overtones of Jesus’ crucifixion, strove to put the best light on the events of his burial.

The Gospel of Mark gives this simple account of what happened to the body of Jesus between the cross and the grave:”So Joseph (of Arimathea) brought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.” The Gospel of John, widely believed to have been written after Mark’s, gives additional details. John writes that Joseph, a member of the Jewish ruling council, got help from Nicodemus, a prominent religious teacher. To prepare Jesus’ corpse for burial, Nicodemus provided a mixture of spices, and the two wrapped Jesus’ body and the spices in strips of linen. They placed the corpse in a new tomb, John writes.


The differences between Mark’s narrative and John’s is striking, McCane said.”… There’s a clear tendency to increasingly dignify the burial of Jesus,”he said of the two Gospels.”Mark’s account is a simple, sparse burial. By the time you get to John, it’s a more elaborate process.” (END OPTIONAL TRIM)

There is no absolute consensus as to the location of Jesus’ authentic tomb, but most scholars agree it would have been a cave-like, underground chamber outside the walls of Jerusalem on the city’s east, north or south side. Jerusalem’s prevailing winds blow from the west, and Jewish law decreed that no bodies could be buried west of the Temple-a way to keep spiritual and physical”impurity”from contaminating the community.

If the tomb mentioned in the Gospels was the kind used by well-to-do families, Jesus’ body would have been laid in a niche cut into a wall or on a bench hewn in the rock along a wall. A”pillow”shaped from the stone might have supported his head.

If the tomb were more modest-the kind used by poor families-it might have been a trough cut into bedrock and covered with stones.”To cut (out) family burial caves is an expensive thing and something that took quite a time,”Reich said.”To cut something in a trough is very simple.” In Jesus’ time, after a body had fully decomposed-usually one to three years later-the bones were arranged in an ossuary made of stone or wood. The larger bones were laid at the bottom, and the smaller bones and skull on top. Often, the remains of one family member shared a final resting spot with those of another.”It is not at all uncommon to find an ossuary holding the bones of more than one person,”McCane said.”The rabbinic literature said that people who shared a bed in life could share an ossuary in death.” The discovery of perfume bottles in some ancient tombs suggests that corpses may have been anointed there as well as at home in preparation for burial.”It is quite common to find perfume bottles in the (ancient Jerusalem) tombs,”McCane said.”You can imagine what one of these tombs might have smelled like. … Perfume might not only have been used to anoint the dead but also to help relieve the noses of the living.” But the Gospel account of Jesus’ burial seems to depart from first century Jewish burial custom in one important way: the description of spiced strips of linen used to annoint Jesus’ body:”And Nicodemus … brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds,”John’s Gospel reads.”Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs.” McCane said he has found no archaeological evidence to support the practice of wrapping the body with spices. Neither has Reich.

Still, the Gospel mention of myrrh and aloes clearly reinforces the notion that Jesus’ body merited special treatment.

Spices”were very expensive, luxury items in biblical Israel,”according to The Revell Bible Dictionary (Fleming H. Revell Co.).”… Myrrh was imported from Arabia and India. Its status as a luxury item made it an appropriate gift equal to the frankincense and gold brought to the Christ child by magi from the East.” Thus, John’s reference to”seventy-five pounds”of precious spices suggests those responsible for his burial went to great expense to treat him not as a common criminal-as the Roman authorities had-but as a king.


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