A Spicy Grave

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Background
Jesus was crucified between two thieves sharing the same fate, one of whom He may have pardoned eternally. While on the cross, from noon to 3 P.M. the land got dark. Jesus cried out to God asking why He had forsaken Him. When Jesus died, the Temple's curtain tore, the earth shook, and dead holy men came back to life.

According to the Synoptic Gospels, immediately after Jesus' death, the centurion watching over the crucified people, and possibly his soldiers and other onlookers, finally realized that Jesus had been the righteous Son of God. According to John, soldiers were instead surprised to find that Jesus had already died when they had come to remove the people from their crosses in order to respect the Passover holiday.

A Spicy Grave

An empty grave is hardly worth mentioning unless it was filled at one point in time. We have come to the point of the story where Jesus' body is placed into the grave, so that the tomb's subsequent vacancy would have some meaning to it. Let us quickly pay our last respects as we study the burial of Jesus.

Matthew 27:57-66, Mark 15:42-47, Luke 23:50-56, and John 19:38-42 each cover the entombment of Jesus, and do so with many similarities. Yet there are some distinct differences which are a little too striking for each account to have a stake on the truth. Let us being with John.

John tells us that Joseph of Arimathea had been a disciple of Jesus, but secretly so, because he was afraid of the Jews, and that it was Joseph who asked Pilate to have Jesus' dead body (John 19:38). Nicodemus, the Pharisee whom Jesus had confused with His discussion of being born again, who later defended Jesus to the other religious elite, helped Joseph take care of Jesus' body. Together they wrapped Jesus' body with linen and applied aromatic spices to it according to Jewish burial customs, but the amount of spices used, seventy-five pounds (34.1 kilograms) worth, was consistent with the quantity used for burying royalty ( John 19:39-40). It was quite a suitable honor for the King of Kings.

Needless to say, wrapping Jesus' body while adorning it with that much spice did take some time, and it was already late in the day, so in John 19:41-42 we see:

At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. NIV

So we read that Jesus was buried close to where He was crucified in a new tomb. The implication of the next sentence is that that location was not one of preference, but one of convenience and need; because it was Passover and because the tomb was nearby, He was entombed there... not to mention it was already late in the day, and rubbing that much spice on a body takes some time! :-)

Now, Mark 15:42-47 tells us a slightly different story. Joseph boldly asked for Jesus body. Pilate was surprised that Jesus was already dead. (Maybe he had missed the whole three-hours-of-darkness-and-earthquake thing.) Anyway, Joseph wrapped Jesus' body in linen and placed it in a tomb carved from rock, with Mary and Mary witnessing the burial.

There is no mention of Nicodemus. There is also no mention of anointing Jesus' body with the massive quantity of spices that John recorded, or any spices for that matter. The silence does not necessarily mean that Joseph's spice slathering did not happen, but Mark's version would seem to imply that it did not. In fact, when you look at the start of the next chapter, in Mark 16:1 you find Mary, Mary, and Salome going to anoint Jesus with spices. Had they seen John's version of the anointing, it would be as though they were bringing a cup of water to the ocean in trying to anoint Jesus' body with the little bit of spices they could likely afford, and their actions would be unnecessary because all of the proper procedures had already been followed according to John 19:40.

Luke 23:50-56 is basically the same account as Mark, with a couple notable exceptions. First, Joseph is portrayed as being vocal against Jesus' sentencing, which does not necessarily contradict, but does cast some possible doubt on some version of the story, considering that John recorded that Joseph was a disciple of Jesus in secret. The second exception is that Luke dropped the reference Pilate being surprised of Jesus' hasty death.

Just like Mark, Luke also had Mary and Mary preparing to anoint Jesus' body with spices.

Finally we come to Matthew 27:57-66. Matthew made very significant changes in order to incorporate the guarded-body/guarded-tomb theme that he uniquely contributed to the story. Before we get to that, let us quickly note the other appreciable alterations.

First, like Luke, Matthew dropped the reference to Pilate being surprised of Jesus' early exit from life. Second, Matthew makes this tomb one that Joseph himself had cut out of the rock, which is a far cry from John's version of just being a convenient resting place. Third, the burial anointment was dropped as well, including the second(?) one done by Mary and Mary. Instead, in the next chapter, Matthew 28:1 reported that Mary and Mary were simply going down to look at the tomb, not to anoint Jesus.

Back to the guards, Matthew's unique content, Matthew 27:62-66 has the Chief Priests and Pharisees asking Pilate to post guards at the tomb to prevent Jesus' body from being stolen. Of course, that is hilariously ludicrous, not only because Matthew has recorded private dialog of that request without having an allied eyewitness, but more so because it portrays the Chief Priests and Pharisees as having a better understanding of what Jesus had promised than His own Disciples! As the story will show as it continues, none of Jesus' Disciples were actually anticipating Jesus coming back to life when He did.

While the stories have a similar backbone, they are quite different. Obviously, not each version can be true. That is not the important question though. The important one is whether or not this is based on a true story; if that backbone represents what actually occurred. Yet if events are recorded which we can be fairly certain did not occur, such as Chief Priests and Pharisees as having a better understanding of what Jesus had promised than His own Disciples, if something can be fabricated and passed of as truth for long enough, then what kind of certainty can you legitimately claim in knowing the truth of the matter?