[Uniqueness of the Resurrection] [Biblical Evidence] [Historical Evidence] [Legal Evidence]  
[Swoon Theory] [Tomb Evidence]

The resurrection of Christ is at the foundation of Christianity, for without this belief, all of Christianity becomes null and void.  Christ has three credentials that He is the Son of God:   first is His impact upon history, second is that He fulfilled prophesy from the Old Testament, and the third is the Resurrection.  The Resurrection of Christ and Christianity stand or fall together.

The Uniqueness of the Resurrection.  All but four of the world's major religions are based upon philosophical presuppositions rather than on personalities.  Of these four, only Christianity includes an account of a Resurrection.  Judaism, out of which arose Christianity, certainly does not preach a resurrection concerning Abraham.  Buddhists have never ascribed to Buddha any thing remotely resembling a resurrection; in fact, Buddhists don't necessarily believe in a transcendent being such as a God.  William Smith notes in his book, Therefore Stand, that when Buddha died it was "with that utter passing away in which nothing whatever remains behind"  Islam also never held that Mohammed had a resurrection.  Mohammed died June 8, 63 A.D. at the ago sixty-one at Medina - and his tomb is actually visited by the faithful.  In summary, all the faithful Jews, Buddhists and Mohammedans agree that their founders never arose out of death unto a Resurrection.

The Importance of the Resurrection.  The historicity of the Resurrection of Christ is at the heart, the very center of Christianity.  It has been so since the foundations of Christianity - from the earliest moments.  A Wilbur Smith says,

"From the first day of its divinely bestowed life, the Christian church has unitedly borne testimony to  faith in the Resurrection of Christ.  It is what we may call  of the real fundamental doctrines and convictions of the church, ad so penetrates the literature  of the New Testament, that  you lifted out every passage in which a reference is made to the resurrection, you would have a collection of writings so mutilated that what remained could not be understood.  The Resurrection entered intimately into the life of the earliest Christians; the fact of it appears on their tombs, and in the drawings found on halls of the catacombs; it entered deeply into Christian hymnology; it became one of the most vital themes of the great apologetic writings of the first four centuries; it was the theme constantly dwelt upon in the preaching of the ante-Nicene and post-Nicene period.  It entered at once into the creedal formulae of the church; it is in our Apostles' Creed; it is in all the great creeds that followed."

"Christianity does not hold the resurrection to be one among many tenets of belief.  Without faith in the resurrection, there would be no Christianity at all.  The Christian church would never have begun; the Jesus-movement would have fizzled out like a damp squib with His execution.  Christianity stands or falls with the truth of the resurrection.  Once disprove it, and you have disposed of Christianity."

"No weapon has ever been forged, and ... none ever will be, to destroy rational confidence in the historical records of this epochal and predicted event.  The resurrection of Christ is the very citadel of the Christian faith.  This is the doctrine that turned the world upside down in the first century, that lifted Christianity preeminently above Judaism and the pagan religions of the Mediterranean world.  If this goes, so much almost everything else that is vital and unique in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ:  "If Christ be not risen, then is your faith in vain."  (1 Cr. 15:17).

"Taking the Gospel record as faithful history there can be no doubt that Christ Himself anticipated His death and resurrection, and plainly declared it to His disciples ... The gospel writers are quite frank to admit that such predictions really did not penetrate their minds till the resurrection was a fact (John 20:9).  But the evidence is there from the mouth of our Lord that He would come back from the dead after three days.  He told them that He would be put to death violently, through the cause of hatred, and would rise the third day.  All this came to pass."

"Jesus Himself never predicted His death without adding that He would rise, and described His coming resurrection as a "sign."  Paul, at the beginning of his letter to the Romans, wrote that Jesus was 'designated Son of God in power ... by His resurrection from the dead,' and the earliest sermons of the apostles recorded in Acts repeatedly assert that by the resurrection God has reversed man's sentence and vindicated His Son."

"From the time Jesus Christ began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day."  (Matthew 16:21).

"And as they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, 'Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.'" (Matthew 17:9).

"And while they were gathering together in Galilee, Jesus said to them, 'The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men; and they will kill Him, and He will be raised again on the third day.' And they were deeply grieved."  (Matthew 17:22,23).

"Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered up to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will deliver Him up to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised up."  (Matthew 20:18,19).

"But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee."  (Matthew 26:32).

"And they seized upon that statement, discussing with one another what rising from the dead might mean."  (Mark 9:10).

"'...The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.' And He was saying to them all, 'If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me, For whosoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.  For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?  For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.  But I tell you truly, there are some of those standing here who shall not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.'"  (Luke 9:22-27).

The Resurrection Described by Ancient Historians.  One of the most fascinating aspects of the Resurrection of Christ is that it has been described in some detail by ancient historians.  This is particularly important since most of these historians were not in themselves Christians - but merely describing events the samee way any modern reporter would describe them.  The wealth of such descriptions along with their coherency and internal agreement, that spans many cultures and runs through several centuries lends credence to their individual descriptions. Wilbur Smith notes (Therefore Stand, 1965),

"The place is of geographical definiteness, the man who owned the tomb was a man living in the first half of the first century; that tomb was made out of rock in a hillside near Jerusalem, and was not composed of some mythological gossamer, or cloud dust, but is something which has geographical significance.  The guards put before that tome were not aerial beings from Mt. Olympus; the Sanhedrin was a body of men meeting frequently in Jerusalem.  As a vast mass of literature tells us, this person, Jesus, was a living person, a man among men, whatever else He was, and the disciples who went out to preach the risen Lord were men among men, men who ate, drank, slept, suffered, worked, died.  What is there 'doctrinal' about this?  This is a historical problem."

"He was crucified and died under Pontius Pilate.  He really, and not merely in appearance, was crucified, and died, in the sight of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth.
"But he rose again in three days ... On the day of the preparation, then, at the third hour, he received the sentence from Pilate, the Father permitting that to happen; at the sixth hour He was crucified; at the ninth hour He gave up the ghost; and before sunset He was buried.  During the Sabbath He continued under the earth in the tomb in which Joseph of Arimathaea had laid Him.
"He was carried in the womb, even as we are, for the usual period of time; and was really born, as we also are; and was in reality nourished with milk, and partook of common meal and drink, even as we do.  And when He had lived among men for thirty years, He was baptized by John, really and not in appearance; and when He had preached the gospel three years, and done signs and wonders, He who was Himself the Judge was judged by the Jews, falsely so called, and by Pilate the governor; was scourged, was smitten on the cheek, was spit upon; He wore a crown of thorns and a purple robe; He was condemned; He was crucified in reality, and not in appearance, not in imagination, not in deceit.  He really died, and was buried, and rose from the dead."

"we know more about the details of the hours immediately before and the actual death of Jesus, in and near Jerusalem, than we know about the death of any other one man in all the ancient world."

"But the Jews were so exasperated by is teaching, by which their rulers and chiefs were convicted of the truth, chiefly because so many turned aside to Him, that at last they brought Him before Pontius Pilate, at the time Roman governor of Syria, and, by the violence of their outcries against Him, extorted a sentence giving Him up to them to be crucified."

"a fact more certain by far than the assertions of your Proculi concerning Romulus."

What is also very interesting is what Tertullian has to say about Pilate's conversion to Christianity, that Pilate was now,

"in fact a Christian in his own convictions, he sent word of Him to the reigning Caesar, who was at the time Tiberius.  Yes, and the Caesars too would have believed on Christ, if either the Caesars had not been necessary for the world, or if Christians could have been Caesars.  his disciples also spreading over the world, did as their Divine Master bade them; and after suffering greatly themselves from the persecutions of the jews, and with no unwilling heart, as having faith undoubting in the truth, at last by Nero's cruel sword sowed the seed of Christian blood at Rome."

"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.  He drew over to him many Jews, and also many of the Greeks.  The man was the Christ.  And when Pilate had condemned him to the cross, upon his impeachment by the principal man among us, those who had loved from the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive on the third day, the divine prophets having spoken these and thousands of other wonderful things about him.  And even now, the race of Christians, so named from Him, has not died out."

Finally, it is clear from historical documents that the early Christians were not about some philosophy or ethic, but solely about disseminating the truth of the Resurrection of Christ and its importance to the individual man.  As J.N.D. Anderson asserts,

"From the very first the conviction that Jesus had been raised from death has been that by which their very existence has stood or fallen.  There was no other motive to account fro them, to explain them ... At no point within the New Testament is there any evidence that the Christians stood for an original philosophy of life or an original ethic.  Their sole function is to bear witness to what they claim as an event - the raising of Jesus from among the dead ... The one really distinctive thing for which the Christians stood was their declaration that Jesus had been raised from the dead according to God's design, and the consequent estimate of Him as in a unique sense Son of God and representative man, and the resulting conception of the way to reconciliation."

"As a historical fact, it has been His Resurrection which has enabled men to believe in His official exaltation over humanity.  It is not a mere question of the moral influence of His character, example, and teaching.  It is that their present surrender to Him as their Redeemer has been promoted to this belief, and could not be justified without it.  Indeed, those who deny His Resurrection consistently deny as a rule His Divinity and His redemptive work in any sense that St. Paul would have acknowledged."  (Hastings, James, et al., A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, 1909).

"In the whole story of Jesus Christ, the most important event is the resurrection.  Christian faith depends on this.  It is encouraging to now that it is explicitly given by all four evangelists and told also by Paul.  The names of those who saw Him after His triumph over death are recorded; and it may be said that the historical evidence for the resurrection is stronger than for any other miracle anywhere narrated; for as Paul said, if Christ is not risen from the dead then is our preaching in vain, and your faith is also vain."

"how he had been brought up in a rationalistic environment, and had come to the opinion that the resurrection was nothing but a fairy tale happy ending which spoiled the matchless story of Jesus.  Therefore, he planned to write an account of the last tragic days of Jesus, allowing the full horror of the crime and the full heroism of Jesus to shine through.  He would, of course, omit any suspicion of the miraculous, and would utterly discount the resurrection.  But when he came to study the facts with care, he had to change his mind, and he wrote his book on the other side.  His first chapter is significantly called, "The Book that Refused to be Written," and the rest of his volume consists of one of the shrewdest and most attractively written assessments I have ever read."  (Green, Michael, Man Live, 1968).

"The great truths which the apostles declared, were, that Christ had risen from the dead, and that only through repentance from sin, and faith in Him, could men hope for salvation.  Then they asserted with one voice, everywhere, not only under greatest discouragements, ut in the face of the most appalling errors that can be presented to the mind of man.  Their master had recently perished as a malefactor, by the sentence of a public tribunal.  His religion sought to overthrow the religions of the whole world.  The laws of every country were against the teachings of His disciples.  The interests and passions of all the rules great men in the world were against them.  The fashion of the world was against them.  Propagating this new faith, in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but contempt, opposition, revilings, bitter persecutions, stripes, imprisonments, torments, and cruel deaths.  Yet this faith they zealously did propagate; and all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay, rejoicing.  As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only prosecuted their work with increased vigor and resolution.  The annals of military warfare afford scarcely an example of the like heroic constancy, patience, and unblanching courage.  They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidence of the great facts and truths which they asserted; and these motives were pressed upon their attention with the most melancholy and terrific frequency.  It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually risen from the dead.  If it were morally possible for them to have been deceived in this matter, every human motive operated to lead them to discover and avow their error.  To have persisted in so gross a falsehood, after it was known to them, was not only to encounter, for life, all the evils which man could inflict, from without, but to endure also the pangs of inward and conscious guilt; with no hope of future peace, no testimony of a good conscience, no expectation of honor or esteem among men, no hope of happiness in this life, or in the world to come.
"Such conduct in the apostles would moreover have been utterly irreconcilable with the fact that they possessed the ordinary constitution of our common nature.  Yet their lives do show them to have been men like all others of our race; swayed by the same joys, subdued by the same sorrows, agitated by the same fears, and subject to the same passions, temptations, and infirmities, as ourselves.  And their writings show them to have been men of vigorous understandings.  if then their testimony were not true, there was no possible motive for its fabrication."

"There are some particulars in the history of our Saviour, allowed to be so peculiarly appropriated to the Messiah, such innumerable marks of Him, that to believe them of Jesus of Nazareth was in effect the same as to believe Him to be the Messiah, and so are put to express it.  The principal of these is His Resurrection from the dead; which being the great and demonstrative proof of His being the Messiah, it is not at all strange that those believing His Resurrection should be put forth for believing Him to be the Messiah; since the declaring His Resurrection was declaring Him to be the Messiah."

"I believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.  As you say, this is a "personal matter," but I am not ashamed to let the world know what I believe, and that I can intellectually defend my belief ... I cannot prove this belief as I can prove certain scientific facts in my library which one hundred years ago were almost as mysterious as the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  On the basis of historical evidence of existing biological knowledge, the scientist who is true to the philosophy of science can doubt the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, but he cannot deny it.  Because to do so means that he can prove that it did not occur.  I can only say that present-day biological science cannot resurrect a body that has been dead and entombed for three days.  To deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the basis of what biology now knows is to manifest an unscientific attitude according to my philosophy of the true scientific attitude."

For example, Ignatius' Gospel (c 50-115) is Jesus Christ.  Ignatius asks Christians to "be fully convinced of the birth and passion and resurrection."  Jesus Christ is "our hope through the Resurrection" and the Church "rejoices in the Passion of our Lord and in His Resurrection without wavering."

In the Epistle of St. Polycarp to the Philippians (c. 110), Polycarp says Jesus Christ "endured to come so far as to death for our sins, whom God raised, having loosed the pains of death."  God "raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead and gave Him glory and a throne on His right hand, to Whom were subjected all things in heaven and on earth."  St. Polycarp sealed his testimony by his blood for shortly before Polycarp's martyrdom, he hopes he "might take a portion in the number of the martyrs in the cup of Christ, to the resurrection of eternal life both of soul and body in the incorruption of the Holy Ghost."

The Supposition that Jesus Christ Did Not Die on the Cross.  Many challengers of the Christian faith have supposed that somehow Christ did not really die on the cross, that maybe he was only injured, and the wounded Christ was taken down from the cross and surreptitiously nursed back to health by his friends.  This logic forms the basis for the so-called "swoon theory" - that Christ merely fainted on the Cross and was not really dead when taken down from the Cross.  While such conjectures might satisfy those who hope to somehow discredit Christianity, there are many reasons to discount this possibility entirely.
I have wondered why Christ would permit Himself to be tortured and killed in such a barbarous and disgusting manner as through crucifixion.  A crucifixion was surely one of the most painful ways to die and certainly could have been substituted by means of death that might be much less painful and humiliating.  But, I believe the answer is clear; a crucifixion attended to by Roman guards was the surest means possible to ensure death in the ancient world.  While other methods of death might prove easier than a crucifixion, there might always be the question as to whether Christ might have survived them - not so with crucifixion in ancient Rome - the only way you would come down from the Cross would be after your death.

But not only was Christ crucified on a Roman cross and attended to by Roman guards; he was also beaten severely prior to His crucifixion.  Such a beating would most assuredly leave Him in a most weakened physical condition rendering Him even more likely to die on the Cross.  Of this beating, John Mattingly says,

"The adjudged criminal was usually first forcefully stripped of his clothes, and then tied to a post or pillar in the tribunal.  Then the awful and cruel scouring was administered by the lictors or scourgers.  Although the Hebrews limited by their law the number of stroked in a scouring to forty, the Romans set no such limitation; and the victim was at the mercy of his scourgers.

"The brutal instrument used to scourge the victim was called a flagrum ... It can readily be seen that the long, lashing pieces of bone and metal would greatly lacerate human flesh."

"It has been conjectured that [His] scourging even surpassed the severity of the normal one.  Although the normal scourging was administered by lictors, Lange concludes that since there were no lictors at Pilate's disposal, he used the soldiers.  Thus, from the very character of these low, vile soldiers, it may be supposed that they exceeded the brutality meted out b the lictors."

"And they brought Him to the place Golgotha, which is translated, Place of a Skull.  And they tried to give Him wine mixed with myrrh; but He did not take it.  And they crucified Him, and divided up His garments among themselves, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take.  And it was the third hour when they crucified Him.  And the inscription of the charge against Him read, "The King of the Jews."  And they crucified two robbers with Him; one on the right and one on the left.  And those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads, and saying, "Ha! You who were going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself, and come down from the cross!"  In the same way the chief priests along with the scribes were also mocking Him among themselves and saying, "He saved others:  He cannot save Himself.  Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!"  And those who were crucified with Him were casting the same insult at Him.  And when the sixth hour had come, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour.  And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" which is translated, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"  And when some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, "Behold, He is calling for Elijah."  And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink, saying, "Let us see whether Elijah will come to take Him down."  And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last.  And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.  And when the centurion, who was standing right in front of Him, saw the way He breathed His last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!"" (Mark 15:22-27, 29-39).

"For indeed a death by crucifixion seems to include all that pain and death can have of horrible and ghastly - dizziness, cramp, thirst, starvation, sleeplessness, traumatic fever, tetanus, shame, publicity of shame, long continuance of torment, horror of anticipation, mortification of untended wounds - all intensified just up to the point at which they can be endured at all, but all stopping just short of the point which would give to the sufferer the relief of unconsciousness.

"The unnatural position made every movement painful; the lacerated veins and crushed tendons throbbed with incessant anguish; the wounds, inflamed by exposure, gradually gangrened; the arteries - especially at the head and stomach - became swollen and oppressed with surcharged blood; and while each variety of misery went on gradually increasing, there was added to them the intolerable pang of a burning and raging thirst; and all these physical complications caused an internal excitement and anxiety, which made the prospect of death itself - of death, the unknown enemy, at whose approach man usually shudders most - bear the aspect of a delicious and exquisite release." (Farrar, The Life of Christ, 1897).

After the nails were put through the wrist and into the cross beam, the person was then hoisted up and the crossbar was attached to the vertical stake.  Next, the were nailed to the stake and again, the nail would produce tremendous pain as it crushed nerves in the foot.  The person would then be hanging from the cross by his wrists and feet producing tremendous stresses on the body.  First, the shoulders would become dislocated - this would happen by the weight of thhe body hanging from the cross.  This would fulfill Old Testament prophesy in Psalm 22, which was written hundreds of years before the crucifixion, and ways, "My bones are out of joint."

As the person is then hanging from the cross being supported by his dislocated arms whose wrists have long spikes through them, he gradually leans forward.  As he leans forward, the stresses on the muscles of inspiration and the diaphragm place the person in full inspiration.  In order to exhale so that the person being crucified can take another breath, he must push himself up by his feet so the tension on his muscles would be eased and he could then breathe out.  In doing so, the nail would tear into the foot, eventually locking up against the ankle bones.  After struggling to exhale, the person could then relax and then take another breath.  Again, he would then have to support himself by his aching feet to inhale again.  This would continue until complete exhaustion ensued, the person could no longer lift himself up by his feet, and he would suffocate.  As the carbon dioxide builds up in the system producing increasing amounts of acid in the blood stream, the heart beats faster and faster and often goes into heart failure, producing fluid around the heart (pericardial effusion) and the lungs (pleural effusion).  The gospels also record that a Roman soldier thrust a spear into His side to be absolutely sure He was dead, and when the spear was withdrawn, blood and water came out from His side.  What happens is that the blood located around the lung and heart separates upon death into red blood cells and serum (water).  The gospel writers of course had no idea as to the significance of their observation but it clearly indicates that Christ's circulation had stopped allowing this separation to occur.   Michael Green says,

"We are told on eyewitness authority that "blood and water" came out of the pierced side of Jesus (John 19:34,35).  The eyewitness clearly attached great importance to this.  Had Jesus been alive when the spear pierced His side, strong spouts of blood would have emerged with every heart beat.  Instead. the observer noticed semi-solid dark red clot seeping out, distance and separate from the accompanying watery serum.  This is evidence of massive clotting of the blood in the main arteries, and is exceptionally strong medical proof of death.  It is all the more impressive because the evangelist could not possibly have realized its significance to a pathologist.  The "blood and water" from the spear-thrust is proof positive that Jesus was already dead."  (Green, Michael, Man Alive, 1968).

There is now good evidence that nails were indeed used in Roman executions.  In 1968, archeologists in Jerusalem found the remains of three dozen Jews who were crucified during the uprising against the Romans in 70 A.D. - one victim who was apparently names Yohanan, had a seven-inch nail driven through his feet with bits of olive wood from the cross still attached.  This provides excellent archeological confirmation of a key facet in the Gospels' account of the crucifixion.

Finally, there is the question as to how we can be so sure Christ died on the cross.  Naturally, this is necessary in order to believe in the Resurrection.  While we can never be absolutely sure that death occurred because we can not go back in time and make personal observations, one fact remains - the Roman soldiers were very efficient at killing people - that was their job and they were goodd at it.  Finally, if the Roman soldier somehow escaped death, the responsible solder would be put to death himself so they had a great incentive to be sure the sentence against each prison was indeed carried out.

Mark also reports Pilate's surprise at hearing that Christ was already dead, and personally questioned the centurion before he would allow the body to be removed from the cross.  The Roman soldiers were certainly not unfamiliar with death and would know it when they saw it.  Only after Pilate had been reassured that Jesus was indeed dead would he give permission to Joseph to remove the body.

Finally, if we make the grand supposition that somehow Jesus might have survived the crucifixion alive after hours hanging on the cross, after having been pierced by a Roman spear, placed unconscious in a tomb locked behind a huge rock, then regained consciousness, somehow got out of his burial clothes and folded them up nicely, somehow moved a huge rock and overpowered guards standing at the tomb and sneaked away to somehow survive in hiding; could the kind of pathetic creature have inspired his disciples to go out and proclaim he was the Lord of life and had triumphed over the grave?  After having been crucified and suffered extensive blood loss and trauma, he would have represented a pathetic creature hardly able to inspire a movement based upon His triumph over death.

The Tomb. It was uncommon for the victim of a Roman persecution to receive a burial; rather, the victim was allowed to stay on the cross after death to be picked apart by animals and birds, eventually to fall to the ground into decay.  One author notes,

"The Roman practice was t leave the victim of crucifixion hanging on the cross to become the prey of birds and beasts.  But who would dream of saying that there were no exceptions to this rule?  Josephus (Autobiography, Ch. 75, Wars of the Jews, IV, v.2) induced the Emperor Titus to take down from the cross three crucified persons while still alive.  Would any one argue that this cannot be historic because the rule was otherwise?  The Jewish practice, no doubt, was the burial of the condemned.  This was the Jewish law.  But Josephus assures us that the Jews themselves broke the law of burial at times.  In the "Wars of the Jews," he writes: 'They proceeded to that degree of impiety as to cast away their dead bodies without burial, although the Jews used to take so much care of the burial of men, that they took down those that were condemned and crucified, and buried them before the going down of the sun."

Loisy thinks that relatives might obtain permission for burial of condemned.  No relative, however, obtained it for Jesus' body: nor any of the Twelve.  The three crucified men whom Josephus induced the imperial authority to take down from the cross were not relatives; they were only friends.  He remembered them as his former acquaintances.'  A strong case might be made out against the likelihood of Josephus' request, still more of its being granted.  No one, however, appears to doubt the facts.  They are constantly quoted as if they were true.  Why should not Joseph of Arimathea make a similar request to Pilate?" (Sparrow-Simpson, W.J. The Resurrection and the Christian Faith, 1968).

"And when it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus.  This man came to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.  Then Pilate ordered it to be given over to him." (Matthew 27:57,58).
"And when evening had already come, because it was the Preparation Day, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea came, a prominent member of the Church, a man who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God; and he gathered up courage and went in before Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus.  And Pilate wondered if He was dead by this time, and summoning the centurion, he questioned him as to whether He was already dead.  And ascertaining this from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph." (Mark 15:42-45).
"And behold, a man named Joseph, who was a member of the Council, a good and righteous man, (he had not consented to their plan and action) a man from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who was waiting for the kingdom of God, this man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus."  (Luke 23:50-52).

"And after these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate granted permission.  He came therefore, and took away His body" (John 19:38).

"...  the description of the Sepulcher of our Lord when it was supposed to have been newly discovered by the Empress Helena.  The account is that of Eusebius of Casearea - the father of Church History.  It is taken from the Theophania - a work recovered during this century, and of which a translation was published by Dr. Lee at Cambridge in 1843.
"The grave itself was a cave which had evidently been hewn out; a cave that had now been cut out in the rock, and which had experienced (the reception of) no other body.  For it was necessary that it, which was itself a wonder, should have th care of that corpse only.  For it is astonishing to see even this rock, standing out erect, and along on a level land, and having only one cavern within it; lest had there been many, the miracle of Him who overcame death should have been obscured."

"that we can determine respecting the sepulchre from the data here furnished, is (1) That it was not a natural cave, but an artificial excavation in the rock. (2) That it as not cut downwards, after the manner of a grave with us, but horizontally or nearly so, into the face of the rock."  (Alford, Henty, he Greek Testament: With a Critially Revised Text:  A Digest of Various Readings: Marginal References to Verbal and Idiomatic Usage: Prolegomena: And A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 1868).

"Had the body of Christ merely been thrown into a common grave and left unattended, there would have been no possible reason for the anxiety of His enemies to spread the report that the body had been stolen." (Smith, Wilbur, Therefore Stand, 1965).

"And Joseph took the body ... and laid it in his own new tomb..." (Matthew 27:59,60)
"...which had been hewn out in the rock ..."  (Mark 15:46).
"...where no one had ever lain" (Luke 23:53).
which as located "...in the place where He was crucified ... in the garden ..." (John 19:41)

"And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen coth .." (Matthew 27:59)
"And Joseph brought a linen sheet, took Him down, wrapped Him in the linen sheet ..."  (Mark 15:46)
"And when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, that they might come and anoint him" (Mark 16:1)
"And they [the women] returned and prepared spices and perfumes" (Luke 23:56a).
"He [Joseph of Arimathea] came ... and Nicodemas came also ... bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight.  And so they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews" (John 19:38b-40).

The Burial of Christ.  The burial of Christ is a historical event attested to by a historical document.  There is internal consistency among the four gospels concerning the details about His burial, such as how and where He was laid. These details give us more assurance concerning the veracity of the accounts themselves.  Wilburt Smith writes,

"We know more about the burial of the Lord Jesus than we know of the burial of any single character in all of ancient history.  We know infinitely more about His burial than we do the burial of any Old Testament character, of any king of Babylon, Pharaoh of Egypt, any philosopher of Greece, or triumphant Caesar.  We know who took His body from the cross; we know something of the wrapping of the body in spices, and burial clothes; we know the very tomb in which this body was placed, the name of the ma who owned it, Joseph, of a town known as Arimathaea.  We know even where this tomb was located, in a garden nigh to the place where He was crucified, outside the city walls. We have for records of this burial of our Lord, all of them in amazing agreement, the record of Matthew, a disciple of Christ who was there when Jesus was crucified; the record of Mark, which some say was written within ten years of our Lords' ascension; the record of Luke, a companion of the apostle Paul, and a great historian; and the record of John, who was the last to leave the cross, and, with Peter, the first of the Twelve on Easter to behold the empty tomb."  (Smith, Wilbur, Therefore Stand, 1968).

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