Revisiting the Burial by Joseph of Arimathea, and a quick note on the True Lost Gospel of Peter

Jesus's honorable burial
The original post is here. What I realized around the time of finishing it up is just this paragraph below, which draws all the main points together:

Why would a legend writer stick so faithfully to the facts, the embarrassing ones, despite an early church that had disdain for the Jewish leaders, and people would know about a specific member Joseph of Arimathea even into the second generation? The closest argument I can imagine is because it fits Mark's theology, but why bother with just this one thing? But here, the fact that Mark's Gospel has Pontius Pilate and the two men crucified with Him not developed shows that Mark definitely didn't need a bad-guy-turned-good-guy to bury Jesus.  That idea is so... arbitrary. 

I haven't really said this explicitly before, but it goes right along with my arguments for Mark as the true lost Gospel of Peter: Mark was recording primarily a history, making the facts fit a theological motive but working in all truth nonetheless. That's why he doesn't bother to explain things like why Jesus didn't seem to know who He healed in Mark 5 or Joseph buried Jesus but seemed to have condemned Him to death beforehand.

(I thought of the argument that maybe Mark could invent the healing in chapter 5 because it wouldn't be that hard for a reader to conclude Jesus knew but just had a reason to act like He didn't. But this would go against the external evidence in Matthew [see this post] and just be an arbitrary invention [an argument against the criterion of dissimilarity is here]. A legend writer would emphasize the supernatural Jesus, not just decide to make such an elongated story. I just thought someone might suggest it fits Mark's theology, as argued by Ehrman, that the Disciples didn't understand Jesus. But again this would be an arbitrary invention, as the story focuses on a lone embarrassing event with Jesus which is anti-parallel to how He would be invented. A reader could think it's no wonder the Disciples didn't get Him -- Jesus contradicted Himself! These objections plain and simple just don't deal with the argument I offered.)

Ehrman cites two specific instances that prove Pilate to be an immoral ruler(1). One is when he profaned Jerusalem by allowing images of the emperor on them. Some people protested, and when threatened, said they would rather suffer a horrible death than give in. Pilate backed down because he couldn't kill them all just like that and had the images removed (Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.1).

Another incident was worse, as Pilate had some of his men kill Jews... by disguising themselves and blending in with the crowd (Antiquities 18.3.2).

This is similar to the fact that Pilate had to walk a fine line between keeping the Jews happy and Rome happy. Civil unrest would threaten his job. The Jewish philosopher Philo records the Jews successfully pressuring Pilate to get their demands met (To Gaius 38.301-302)(2). (This supports the story in John 18-19 where Pilate doesn't want to crucify Jesus but decides to even though he'd rather not. Especially see 19:12.)

In 15:43, it explicitly says that Joseph "went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body." Interestingly enough, this summer, at a Christian day camp, I had to read a story titled "I dare." On the inside of the cover page, this stuck out to me and I remembered it:

"'I dare' is used in its highest and best meaning--the same sense in which it is used in Mark 15:43 when Joseph of Arimathea dared (Greek root tolmas) to request the body of Jesus."

So actually, there is an abundance of evidence for Jesus's honorable burial. It is certain, historically speaking, that Jews would want and get their dead buried. The story has more contextual credibility by making it explicit that Joseph was bold. And finally, Joseph of Arimathea would have been a complete arbitrary invention. No wonder expert skeptical scholar of the twentieth century Rudolf Bultmann said it lacks signs of legend.

It was said in my original post that archeology cannot confirm that Pontius Pilate handed Jesus's body to Joseph. Well, we know that Jewish corpses could be buried, and so Pilate probably would. But I also thought about how Jesus was different from any other prisoner he ever had. Even in Mark's account, he wanted to save Jesus and not free Barabbas. Some hymn or song asks, "Who was this man that stood before him?" Jesus could very well have made an impression on his heart and so he would be willing to hand the body to a Jew, even, say, had we no evidence that crucified Jews would get buried. The empty tomb being independently verified would suggest this. 

But fortunately, there is a lot of good direct evidence anyway! 

Citations:

1. Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (HarperOne: 2014), 162-63.

2. Frank Turek and Norman L. Geisler, I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist (Crossway: Wheaton, IL. 2004), 267. They cite Craig L. Blomberg's The Historical Reliability of John's Gospel: Issues & Commentary (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, IL. 2001).