Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
102Extract 9: Ian Wilson, ‘Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?’ (1996)
Taken from: Ian Wilson, Jesus: The Evidenc e (Weidenfeld and Nic holson, 1996),
Chapter 10, Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?, pp.139–153.
Ac c ording to the gospels, Joseph of Arimathea laid Jesus in his own new, roc k-c ut
tomb ‘in whic h no one had yet been buried’ (John 19: 41). This is desc ribed as
having been in a garden, close to Golgotha (John 19: 41–2), and with a ‘very big’
stone rolled ac ross the entranc e-way (Matthew 27: 60; Mark 15: 46; 16: 3–4).
More t han sixt y examples of suc h rolling-stone tombs c an still be seen in and
around Jerusalem. Their entranc e boulders c an weigh up to two tons, though if on
level ground they can with a little effort be rolled aside by just one person.
Although the John gospel’s information that ‘no-one had yet been buried’ in the
t omb might appear puzzling, in fac t t his is c onsist ent wit h the evidence of Jewish
roc k-cut tombs from Jesus’ time that have been excavated in recent years.
Thus, as was found, for instanc e, during the earlier-mentioned excavations at Giv’at
ha -Mivt ar, a single Jewish t omb might c ont ain one or more benc hes or ‘laying-out’
plac es, together with as many as eight or more c hambers c ut into the roc k to
accommodate ossuaries, the stone boxes in which the bones were gathered once
the corpse had decomposed. Since each tomb-c hamber might c ontain two or three
ossuaries, and each ossuary several sets of bones, a single tomb could be used for
thirty or more people over a period of decades. For a tomb to be one in which ‘no-
one had yet been buried’ would therefore be at least worthy of comment. It also
provides an element of authentic Jewish detail bearing in mind that, for the Romans
and other Gentiles of Jesus’s time, c remation was the norm.
But where was Jesus’ tomb located in relation to present-day Jerusalem? Today the
t radit ional sit e is marked by t he mainly Crusader-built Churc h of the Holy
Sepulchre, a bewildering rabbit-warren of an edifice, always under repair and
t eeming wit h t ourist s, wit h in it s midst a rat her ugly, many t imes rebuilt edic ule, or
‘lit t le building’, housing a c arefully prot ec t ed marble slab c overing all that remains
of the purported benc h on whic h Jesus was laid out in death. This loc ation has been
identified as Jesus’ burial place at least since the time when Helena, mother of the
first Christian Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, reputedly ‘disc overed’ it bac k
in the fourth c entury AD. As rec ounted by the near-c ontemporary c hurc h historian
Socrates Scholasticus:
Helena went to Jerusalem to find what had been that city as desolate as ‘a
lodge in a garden of c uc umbers’... after the Passion Christians paid great
devotion to Christ’s tomb, but those who hated Christianity covered the spot
with a mound of earth, built a temple of Aphrodite on it, and set up her
statue there, so that the place would not be forgotten. The device was
suc c essful for a long t ime – until, in fac t, it bec ame known to the Emperor’s
[i.e. Constantine the Great’s] mother. She had the statue thrown down, the
earth removed and the site cleared, and found three crosses in the
tomb... With them was also found the titulum on whic h Pilate had written in
various languages that the Christ c ruc ified was the king of the Jews ...