Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
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ac ting in an offic ial or representative sense. In any c ase, why should an honourable
Counc illor and a member of the Great Sanhedrin have undertaken with his own
hands a menial t ask whic h c ould more appropriat ely have been left t o t he c ivil
guard?
Sec ondly, t here are very definit e indic at ions in t he apoc ryphal lit erature that
the Priests were very angry with Joseph of Arimathea and summoned him before
the Counc il. There would have been no oc c asion for suc h anger if he had ac ted
merely at their behest, but very good reasons for it if he had stultified their
c ollec t ive ac t ion in t he eyes of t he people and of Pilat e himself, by giving t o t he
body of Jesus an honourable and respec t ful burial. Finally t here is t he explic it
statement in St. Matthew’s Gospel that Joseph was a disciple, and in St. Luke that
he had not c onsented to their c ounsel and deed.
These considerations, taken together, seem to suggest that Joseph really was
a sympat hizer wit h Jesus who, st irred t o t he dept hs of his being by t he illegalit y
and fanatic ism of what had been done, dec ided to give openly an honourable burial
to the Great Teacher. With this object he went expressly to Pilate to beg the body,
and with this objec t he c hose his own tomb.
Now direc t ly we ac c ept t his view of Joseph of Arimat hea, we admit also a
whole c irc le of ideas whic h are inseparable from it. In t he first plac e it is ext remely
unlikely that in suc h c irc umstanc es Joseph would have wished to remove the body
of Jesus at all. If he took the action recorded of him in the Gospels he compromised
and even dest royed his soc ial st anding with the offic ial and ruling c aste. By that
one ac t he threw in his lot irrevoc ably with the party of Jesus. He would hardly
have adopted a bold and c ourageous c ourse like that if he had not held Jesus in
deep love and veneration. To one in his position, having made at long last the
sac rific e he had hesitated to make during the living ministry, the thought that the
revered leader and martyr rested in his own tomb would have been an imperishable
consolation – the one hallowed rec ollec tion whic h would brighten the sad memories
of his dec lining days. T he more c losely we c onsider t his ac t ion of Joseph of
Arimathea the more we get the impression of a man ac ting upon an inner
c ompulsion t o seize t he last fleet ing opport unit y t o align himself wit h t he c ause of
Jesus before it was too late. Would he have incurred the penalties inseparable from
his ac t ion – the contempt of his old associates, the deep hostility of the Priesthood,
t he ignominy of dec laring himself a follower of t he disc redit ed and c ruc ified Prophet
- and have been willing wit hin t hirt y-six hours to part with the glory? I think not.
Overwhelming ly psyc hology is against it.
But there is another and even more c ogent reason for thinking that Joseph was
not responsible for the removal of the body. Within seven weeks at latest the
disc iples were bac k in Jerusalem dec laring wit h t he ut most c ert aint y and c onvic t ion
that Jesus had risen from the dead. If Joseph had made a perfectly legitimate
removal of the body and (to avoid a popular demonstration) had done so in the
middle of the night before Mary and her friends arrived at the Garden, the true
facts of the matter must have been quite easily accessible to the Priests. After all,
another tomb had to be found, and at least two or three helpers were required to
c arry the body. Why then, when all Jerusalem was seething with the Christian
c ontroversy, did they not simply tell the truth and thus give an effec tive quietus to
the rumours due to the disappearanc e of the body?