ContradictionsReading order 262Bible context 4 min read
Who buried Jesus?
The Gospels name sympathetic burial agents, while Acts groups the burial with actions of the people and rulers who condemned Jesus.
- Textual conflict
- Interpretive tension
- The passages pull in different directions, but the conflict depends on how their wording, scope, or narrative context is read.
- Importance
- Supporting
- A supporting event, teaching, or biographical claim.
Acts assigns condemnation and burial to one collective while Luke distinguishes Joseph from the condemnation; collective agency leaves room for different individuals.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Joseph of Arimathea obtains and buries Jesus' body
When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus’ disciple: He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.
Matthew 27:57-60
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Matthew 27
Joseph of Arimathea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead: and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead. And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and