Soul Invictus

I seem to recall reading that it was customary for bodies of crucified persons to not be removed, under any circumstances. I seem to also recall an apologetic that explains that Jesus' body was allowed to be taken away due to some sort of agreement with Joseph of Arimathea. Is anyone familiar with the apologetical discussion in regards to where Jesus' body would have gone, and what the rebut is to that argument?

Toto

The story is that Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy Jew and a member of the Sanhedrin, was a secret admirer of Jesus, and went to Pilate and got permission to take the body and bury it.

This is undoubtedly mythic. There is no place "Arimathea." The procedure of crucifixion was meant to not only torture the person, but disgrace him by leaving his naked body on the cross for a long time, and then throwing it in a common grave if there was anything left.

The apologists just accept the gospel accounts, which are minimally possible, since we can't prove that there was no such person, or that some exception was not made here, etc.

Soul Invictus

I thought this was the fashion of the story I'd heard. Is there any Biblical reference for this line of thinking? I don't ever recall reading this in church. I'd actually only become familiar with this issue until here at iidb.org.

SLD

While it was standard practice to leave the bodies on the cross for nature to take its course, there were many, many exceptions made. Families of the victims often bribed soldiers into letting them come and take the body (as long as he was dead), and Josephus even reports that he begged Titus to take down three men while still alive, one of whom actually survived the ordeal. The character of Joseph of Arimathea is necessary to get the body because he is a man of influence, a member of the Sanhedrin and someone who can talk to Pilate. The disciples would not have dared to ask for such a thing as Pilate could just as easily hung them. He was after all quite ruthless.

There is also the issue of Jewish custom of not letting executed criminals hang on a tree after sunset. IIRC, Deuteronomy specifically prohibits this. Thus there may have been some concessions in this regard by the Romans to their Jewish subjects, (boy weren't they magnanimous? ). Thus it is plausible that the body was not left to rot on the cross. Of course we can never really know for sure. The JoA character does seem somewhat contrived - he's necessary for the story, but we no little else about him.

SLD

Evoken

There is also a theory that says that he was just tortured on the cross but that he later married Mary Magdalene and headed to southern France with a son.

Another variant is that he did died and resurrected(or didn't not sure how the history goes) but had a son with The Magdalene and she headed to southern France with him and started a royal bloodline.

Doctor X

The way I heard it he opened a Bistro. . . .

--J.D.

Amos

There was no body. The ego is an identity that only exists in our imagination.

Amos

"Of Arimathea" is a personification of the enterprising carpenter Joseph was who was rich in real life experience . . . and that is how he had hewn his own tomb as if out of rock for a non-existing body.

I can take you further along in this and say that Joseph was not really a carpenter either because carpenters do not have sheep to herd at night to vacate the stable he was reborn in . . . which, of course, was his own mind if that is where rebirth takes place. And so on.