Doug Shaver

One of those things that "everybody knows" is that according to the gospel authors, Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Sanhedrin. So I got to wondering about that the other day and did some checking.

First, Matthew and John say nothing about any office he might have held. Mark and Luke say he was a "councilor," or bouleutes in Greek.

According to Strong (apparently), since the Sanhedrin was a kind of council, any of its members would have been called bouleutes. That is certainly plausible, but I have not had a chance yet to determine whether Greek writers did in fact apply to word to Sanhedrin members.

More to the point, though . . . as far as I can determine, Mark and Luke could just as likely have meant to say that Joseph was a member of the Arimathea City Council. Does anybody here know any good reason to think otherwise?

Johnny Skeptic

Is there any credible historical evidence that Joseph of Arimathea existed?

yalla

Off the top of my bald head isn't there a problem with all of the council voting to kill JC and Joe being presented as a supporter of JC?
Hang on a tick and I'll check the RSV.
Here we go:
"Matthew" 27.1 "....all of the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death..."

Which, if it applies to the Sanhedrin, and I believe that's the usual interpretation, means that Joe must have voted to kill JC [note the ''all"] not a very supportive disciple like thing to do.
Maybe he's just a literary device character designed to perform a task in the plot, ie organise the tomb and consistency in detail is not relevant.
cheers
yalla

yalla

I looked more closely.

"Mark" 15.1
"...and the whole council held a consultation; and they bound Jesus..."

"Mark" 15.43
"...Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of THE council [and only one has been mentioned so I guess it's got to be the Sanhedrin] took courage...."

Now the only escape clause that lets Joe of the hook of being a seeker of KOG AND voting to kill JC are the words "took courage", but I reckon they apply to the act of going to Pilate.
Basically I think the author of "Mark" simply didn't worry about this, he needed someone with social enough clout to get JC's body off the cross and into a tomb so that there can be an empty tomb later and Joe fits the bill. Thus is the cloth cut.
Literary device. Enter stage left, execute task, exit stage right.

The other gospels basically follow the first one's lead with a few embellishments [rich, righteous, secretly, Nicodemus].

Except for the author of "Luke" who is awake to the problem of Joe being a party to killing JC so he exonerates him with the line [23.51] "who had not consented to their purpose and deed."
And maybe the author of John who makes him a secret disciple "for fear of the Jews".
We can see the trajectory of apology, embellishment and chronology of writing here, from initial creation ["Mark"], verbatim copy ["Matthew"] and then apology for Joe as a member of the council that killed JC ["Luke' and "John"]. The details change for theological/political reasons, not because they are factual.
How say you?
cheers
yalla

Ben C Smith

Some observations:

1. Mark does not present Joseph as a follower of Jesus. Mark says only that Joseph was waiting for the kingdom of God, and that description would fit far more than just the followers of Jesus.

2. Joseph does not have to ask for the body out of any religious feeling for Jesus. The Romans would probably leave the body on the cross to feed the crows for a few days; to many Jews that would be unthinkable, especially given the Passover season. Virtually any pious Jew would have motive to bury the body. I call attention to Josephus, Wars of the Jews 4.5.2 §317:

∏ροηλθον δε εις τοσουτον ασεβειας ωστε και αταφους ριψαι, καιτοι τοσαυτην Ιουδαιων περι τας ταφας προνοιαν ποιουμενων ωστε και τους εκ καταδικης ανεσταυρωμενους προ δυντος ηλιου καθελειν τε και θαπτειν.

But they went on to such irreligiosity as to even cast away [the corpses] unburied, although the Jews used to take such care of burials that they took down even those that were condemned and crucified before the sun set and interred them.

3. It is sometimes objected that Joseph, as a pious Jew, would have asked for all three bodies (those of the two bandits as well as that of Jesus). But Mark may simply be interested in, and thus have narrated about, only one of the bodies; also, Joseph may have asked for the body of Jesus because Jesus was the only one already dead (see Mark 15.44).

4. The later gospels appear to take steps to ensure that Jesus was buried by friends, not enemies; that is, they make Joseph look like a follower of Jesus.

Yalla, Mark 15.1 uses the Greek transcription for sanhedrin, while Mark 15.43 calls Joseph a respected councilor. Two different Greek words. However, I do tend to think that Mark is portraying Joseph as a member of the sanhedrin, though I am willing to be corrected on that.

Let me hasten to add that these observations on their own do not prove that the story is historical (I am undecided as yet, though perhaps leaning toward historicity); but I think that they impeach a few of the more common objections to its truth.

Ben.

Gamera

He is mentioned in a text that purports to recount an historical event. That's about as good as it gets for any historical personage of that time. That's why we believe Socrates, Pericles and Alexander existed. We don't have any videotapes. We have texts.

Doug Shaver

No, and I don't think he did. He is mentioned only in the gospels, and I don't consider them to evidence of anything historical.

But my question is about what the gospels say about him. Assuming his existence and assuming the gospels are accurate in what they say about his position, is it a justfiable inference that he was a member of the Sandredin?

Gamera

So Pontius Pilate didn't exist?

yalla

Gidday Ben,
Quick reactions to your points,
1.True, but the author of "John" thought that the reference to Joe meant "was a disciple of Jesus ["John" 19.38] and certainly there is an implication of that in the first gospel. But the main point is that it provides a motive for a character to perform the necessary task of getting JC off the cross and into a tomb. Work it in reverse. Gotta have an empty tomb. That means gotta have a tomb. Gotta get JC off the cross and into a convenient tomb......and so on. Joe as a character fulfils the necessary needs of the plot. No need to postulate historical fact, literary device satisfies the name of Joe.

2. Yep, is that Josephus bit the one where he asks for the crucified bodies of his 3 mates? Trouble is that is a very special case based on the relationship of Josephus and Vespasian [being aware of the enormity of asking Pilate for the body makes it necessary to describe Joe as "respected", not some ordinary bloke off the street]. Not only that but the normal course of events, if you ignore the corpse hanging around scenario, was that condemned criminals were assigned to the common burial place reserved for such.
I think Richard Carrier has [ or maybe refers to] an extended analysis of the normal process for the disposal of the body of a condemned man such as JC is alleged to have been.
And it did not involve tombs.
So a pious Jew of the time would not have placed a crucified body in a tomb.
Which sort of covers your point 3, but I note that in that comment of yours you are reinforcing the role of necessary literary device. You are right , the author of "Mark" is not particularly interested in getting the other two off the cross.They have served their purpose ["being buried with the transgressors" or whatever the quote is that is the stimulus for their presence].
Not necessary to his plot, so he ignores the fact that Joe should, as a pious Jew, have been equally concerned about the others.

Similarly with point 4. The other gospels are closing some of the weak links in the story eg "Why should Joe do this?'...cos he's a secret disciple, he's rich so can afford to have a spare tomb, he didn't consent to killing JC [even tho he's a council member, doesn't really matter which council, again its a plot device to get some Jewish authorities to kill JC] and so on.

Look at the whole story, in its growing stages in particular, and you can see the dramatic necessity for a character such as Joe. If he wasn't real it would have been necessary to invent someone like him. Exactly like him actually.
That strongly suggests fiction.

Ok its only one instance of such.
But then we are only considering this one instance arent we?
But throughout the gospels there a heck of a lot of such, usually stimulated by the desire to illustrate some Tanakh so-called "prophecy", dozens of such, you don't need me to enumerate them do you?

And please, lets not get into the Greek word game, as in another thread, I abjectly surrender in that contest.
cheers
yalla

DanBZ

Other people, besides the gospel writers, wrote about Pilate (such as Josephus).