Jesus' Burial: A Trajectory of Embellishment
I have blogged about Jesus' burial a couple of times, and to some degree this is repeating what was said earlier. However, in this post I want to focus on how the early Christians freely embellished the gospels as it suits their purpose. I would guess Joseph of Arimathea was in the habit of getting corpses off crosses, something he did as a requirement of his position and religion. The corpses would be dumped in a nearby communal grave, which is all his religion required. If the gospel is right, the entire Sanhedrin had condemned Jesus as a blasphemer, so no way would Joseph take any care of the body, he just wanted it under the ground. Chances are the disciples were not around; they guessed that that was what happened. Burial in a communal grave for criminals is as dishonourable as it gets, so as the decades passed the early Christians set about fixing that. Here is the earliest version we have by Mark. It claims Jesus was wrapped in linen and buried in a tomb cut out o