Hi @Freakazoid,
Looks like we’ve cross-posted one another. I see that you’ve been kind enough to post the following, in response to my request for names and sources:
I should probably give a few.examples.to back up my claim on Ehrman.
Craig Evans says that almost no one follows Ehrman and Crossan in Roman Law and the Burial of Jesus- Matthew and Mark Across Perspectives: Essays in Honour of Stephen C. Barton and William R Telford. He pretty much dismissed Ehrman in a footnote.
I take it you’re referring to this 2016 article by Dr. Craig Evans, which is available online. However, the blog articles I cited above from Ehrman’s blog, in response to Evans, date from as recently as 2018, and specifically address the strongest points in Evans’ arguments, so as far as I’m concerned, they supersede what was written in 2016.
Another overview is John Granger Cook, ‘Crucifixion and Burial’, New Testament Studies, 57 (2011), 193–213. Ehrman should had access to this while writing his book but completely ignored it.
Thank you for the reference. I tried to read it online, but since I’m not attached to an academic institution, I couldn’t get access. However, being a person who doesn’t give up easily, I hunted around, and eventually tracked down what I take to be Cook’s strongest argument, on this thread:
John Granger Cook has written a comprehensive book Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World (2014)
On page 186, he points out Philo of Alexandria’s account of Flaccus and the crucifixion of Jews in Alexandria in 38 CE that there was an earlier custom of allowing burial rites to the crucified but Flaccus did not follow this custom.
Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World - John Granger Cook - Google Books
There are accounts of thieves being denied burial as a spectacle to dissuade other thieves.
However, Ehrman addressed this point in a blog article here. I’ll quote the relevant passage:
Philo is NOT stating a universal exception to the rule. He is saying that in Alexandria, where he lives, he has known some “cases” where crucified people have been allowed burial. These are a few cases, not the “practice” (as Craig would have it). These exceptions have been made for one reason and one reason only: to honor “the birthday of the emperor.’ The reason that Philo points this out is because in fact it is a surprising act of clemency, precisely because it was NOT the Roman practice ever to do such a thing. The bodies in these cases are not given to friends or anyone who asks for them, but only to relatives. And most important of all is this: Philo objects to Flaccus for actually crucifying people on the emperor’s holiday, when his predecessors removed crucified bodies ahead of time on that day. But that means that the predecessors had NOT crucified people on that day – because Philo is objecting to Flaccus since, unlike them, he has not only not shown clemency but HAS crucified people on that day. That clearly means that the people whose bodies were removed on this holiday had been crucified previously (otherwise Philo would not have said, to paraphrase: you not only have not done what a few others have done and allowed a decent burial for those crucified – you’ve actually performed the crucifixion itself on that day). I’m having trouble explaining this as clearly as I like. But the point is this: the bodies that were given decent burials on these rare occasions were bodies that had been hanging on their crosses after they had died. In other words, EVEN THIS EXCEPTION does not involve an instance in which someone was given a burial on the day that they were executed (which is what Craig argues happened in the case of Jesus).
Dr. Craig Evans also cites the discovery of hundreds of hundreds of crucifixion nails as evidence that crucifixion victims were given decent burials in Roman-governed Judea. Ehrman apparently disagrees with this interpretation. He writes of the nails: “Some of them with calcium on them (according to Zias, the expert) were not crucifixion nails, but over the years absorbed some of the calcium from the ossuary skeletons. Others (possibly not always connected with tombs) survive because they had been used as talismans.”
Another argument made by Evans is that Roman justice "not only allowed for the executed to be buried, but it even encouraged it in some instances.” On this point, Craig cites the Roman Digesta. However, Ehrman replies that this would not have applied to Jesus, since he was convicted as a political criminal: “King of the Jews.” He asks: “Do we have any evidence that Roman authorities allowed someone like Jesus, who was crucified – and especially one crucified as an enemy of the state, guilty of high treason — to be given a decent burial on the day of his execution, as opposed to the general practice of leaving the bodies on the crosses to be subject to the ravages of time and scavenging animals?”
Now you have said Jesus may not have been guilty of high treason, but we can rephrase Ehrman’s question: is there any evidence of lesser political criminals being given a decent burial on the day of their execution?
Up until this point, I have defended Ehrman, but now I’m going to do a back-flip and give a plug to his academic adversary, Dr Craig Evans. I have just been watching a one-hour video, by Dr. Craig Evans, dated 30 March 2018, and titled: “Was the Body of Jesus Placed in a Known Tomb?” I would strongly urge all readers to watch this video: it’s very good.
After listening to Dr. Evans’ side of the story, I think it’s fair to say that a strong case can be made that Pilate would have allowed the Jewish authorities to take Jesus’ body down from the Cross and bury it on the same day. I won’t say it’s highly probable that Pilate would have done that: I really don’t know. But it’s certainly highly plausible.
However, as I argued above, that still leaves scenarios 2 (dishonorable burial by the Jewish authorities in a dirt grave), 3 (dishonorable burial by the Jewish authorities in Joseph of Arimathea’s family tomb, as an interim measure), 4 (burial by Joseph, against the wishes of the Sanhedrin, in his family tomb) and 5 (burial by Joseph, against the wishes of the Sanhedrin, in a new tomb) as possibilities. Dr. Evans seems to opt for a version of scenario 5: Pilate gave the body to Joseph of Arimathea, who allowed Jesus to be buried in his own new tomb. As I pointed out in my original post on Michael Alter’s book, the story of Jesus being buried in a new tomb was deliberately written for apologetic purposes , in the opinion of the late Catholic Biblical scholar and priest, Fr. Raymond Brown (The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John (xviii-xxi), 1970, Garden City: Doubleday, p. 959). Brown was no radical. I also mentioned that Dr. Jodi Magness thinks that Jesus’ body was laid in a new burial niche in the wall (or loculus ) inside Joseph of Arimathea’s family rock tomb - which, if true, would undercut the apologetic claim that Jesus’ tomb was found empty on Easter Sunday morning.
So my biggest criticism of Dr. Evans’ presentation is that he fails to explain why he believes Joseph of Arimathea was permitted to place Jesus’ body in his own tomb, let alone a new one, and that he fails to discredit scenarios 2, 3 and 4, which would undercut any empty tomb apologetic. Evans also fails to explain where and how the women would have managed to purchase the spices Mark says they bought on Sunday morning, at the crack of dawn (Mark 16:1).
As I stated above, I think it’s quite possible that Pilate made an exception and allowed the Jewish leaders to give Jesus a dishonorable burial, as it was the eve of the Passover. My own view is that Byron McCane in his article, “‘Where No One Had Yet Been Laid’: The Shame of Jesus’ Burial” (in B.D. Chilton and C.A. Evans (eds.), Authenticating the Activities of Jesus (NTTS, 28.2; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998) comes closest to describing what actually happened.
The upshot of all this is that it’s very uncertain what actually happened to Jesus’ body. Since we need to establish what happened in order to show that he was resurrected, it follows that in the 21st century, we are no longer in a position to show that. That’s all I wanted to say.