Chapter 290 of 404

Burial Preparations (Mk 15:42-47)

In the Synoptic chronology Jesus died c. 3 p.m.; after Joseph stopped to secure Pilate’s permission (Mk 15:43),³³³ perhaps only an hour remained before sun-down and the prohibition of work. Although anointing (Mk 16:1) and washing the corpse were permissible even on the Sabbath,³³⁴ some other elements of the burial³³⁵ could be conducted only in the most preliminary manner for the moment, though undoubtedly hastened considerably through the agency of Joseph’s servants. Pious Jews would not move the corpse or its members on the Sabbath.³³⁶

Spices (Mk 16:1) could diminish the stench of decomposition and, in practice, pay final respects to the deceased; they were not, however, used to preserve the corpse,³³⁷ since the bones would be reinterred a year later.³³⁸ Against the traditional Markan account of women coming to anoint the body after the Sabbath (Mk 16:1), some doubt that women would seek to anoint a corpse that had been decomposing that long.³³⁹ This objection to the tradition, however, may point us in precisely the opposite direction. Whereas someone inventing a story about Jesus’ burial may have been concerned about such an issue, the tradition fits the time and place it depicts. William Lane Craig observes that “Jerusalem, being 700 meters above sea level, can be quite cool in April” (cf. also Mk 14:54); the body remained in the tomb only a day and two nights, and “a rock-hewn tomb in a cliff side would stay naturally cool.”³⁴⁰ The women may have done what the tradition depicts, precisely in that time and place.

Some other details simply fit what we know about burials more generally. For example, in a Jewish setting, linen shrouds³⁴¹ were part of honorable burial (Mk 15:46),³⁴² specifically for the righteous.³⁴³

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