Matthew, Mark, and Luke all give Joseph of Arimathea sole credit for taking Jesus down, wrapping the body in linen, and laying it in the tomb. John 19:38-42 has Joseph of Arimathea plus Nicodemus burying him together, with Nicodemus supplying a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes. Acts 13:27-29, in Paul's Pisidian Antioch sermon, attributes the burial to 'they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers' — the Jewish authorities, the same people who condemned him. Three different burial parties for the same body.
Proposed answers
People have answered this in several ways; GEBible presents them as equal peers.
57When evening had come, a rich man from Arimathaea, named Joseph, who himself was also Jesus’ disciple came.58This man went to Pilate, and asked for Jesus’ body. Then Pilate commanded the body to be given up.59Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,60and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut out in the rock, and he rolled a great stone against the door of the tomb, and departed.
43Joseph of Arimathaea, a prominent council member who also himself was looking for God’s Kingdom, came. He boldly went in to Pilate, and asked for Jesus’ body.44Pilate marveled if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead long.45When he found out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph.46He bought a linen cloth, and taking him down, wound him in the linen cloth, and laid him in a tomb which had been cut out of a rock. He rolled a stone against the door of the tomb.
50Behold, a man named Joseph, who was a member of the council, a good and righteous man51(he had not consented to their counsel and deed), from Arimathaea, a city of the Jews, who was also waiting for God’s Kingdom:52this man went to Pilate, and asked for Jesus’ body.53He took it down, and wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid him in a tomb that was cut in stone, where no one had ever been laid.
38After these things, Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked of Pilate that he might take away Jesus’ body. Pilate gave him permission. He came therefore and took away his body.39Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred Roman pounds.40So they took Jesus’ body, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury.41Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden. In the garden was a new tomb in which no man had ever yet been laid.42Then because of the Jews’ Preparation Day (for the tomb was near at hand) they laid Jesus there.
27For those who dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they didn’t know him, nor the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him.28Though they found no cause for death, they still asked Pilate to have him killed.29When they had fulfilled all things that were written about him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a tomb.
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement— a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Leans toward a genuine contradiction
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
This entry actually contains two questions of very different weight, and they should be kept apart. The first — whether Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus alone or with Nicodemus — is not a genuine contradiction. The second — whether the burial was performed by a sympathetic disciple or by the very authorities who condemned Jesus — is a real and unresolved tension.
On the first: Matthew 27:57–60, Mark 15:43–46, and Luke 23:50–53 all credit Joseph of Arimathea with requesting the body from Pilate, taking it down, wrapping it in linen, and laying it in a tomb. John 19:38–42 adds Nicodemus, who supplies "about an hundred pound weight" of myrrh and aloes. Crucially, none of the Synoptics states that Joseph acted *alone*; they simply do not mention a second person. John's addition is therefore supplementary, not contradictory — the standard harmonization (Joseph as principal, Nicodemus assisting) is sound and is exactly the sort of elaboration John regularly supplies. This part genuinely resolves. (One may note redactional coloring even here: John's lavish hundred-pound spice quantity gives Jesus a royal burial fit for a king, consistent with the Fourth Gospel's high Christology, but a difference of theological emphasis is not a contradiction of fact.)
The second is harder. Acts 13:27–29, in Paul's Pisidian Antioch sermon, attributes the disposal of the body to "they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers" — the same subject that "desired Pilate that he should be slain." The Greek keeps the subject continuous: the *rulers* who condemned him are the ones who, "when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre." Grammatically the burying party is the hostile Jewish leadership, not a devoted disciple. This sits awkwardly against both the Synoptic and Johannine traditions, in which Joseph is "an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God" (Mark) and explicitly "Jesus' disciple" (Matthew, John).
The apologetic response, advanced by Darrell Bock and Ben Witherington, reads Acts 13:27–29 as compressed sermonic rhetoric: Paul is summarizing the Passion in broad strokes, and "they" denotes the Jerusalem establishment as the collective agent that *brought about* the sequence of events, the burial included, without specifying who physically handled the corpse. Joseph, on this reading, was himself a member of the Sanhedrin — "a counsellor" — so a loose reference to "the rulers" need not exclude him. This is possible. But it is strained against the wording: "they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre" is a concrete, agent-specific statement, and the natural antecedent of "they" is the hostile party of v. 27–28, not a lone sympathizer.
The critical scholarship reads the divergence as evidence of developing burial traditions. John Dominic Crossan and Bart Ehrman argue that standard Roman crucifixion practice was to leave bodies on the cross or consign them to a common grave, and that the dignified entombment by a named, wealthy, sympathetic councilor is most plausibly a later Christian development designed to secure an honorable burial and a locatable, verifiable tomb — a development that grows more elaborate across the tradition (anonymous in the earliest layers, then Joseph, then Joseph plus Nicodemus, with ever more spices and ever more explicit discipleship). On this view Acts 13:27–29 may preserve an *earlier*, undeveloped memory in which Jesus' opponents simply disposed of the body. The counter-argument from apologists is that an embarrassing burial by a Sanhedrist (a member of the condemning body) is unlikely to be invented and may be historical; Jodi Magness, surveying the archaeology of first-century Jerusalem rock-cut tombs, considers a hasty burial of Jesus by a Jewish figure consistent with Jewish law's demand to bury the executed before nightfall (Deut 21:22–23), which complicates the flat "no burial ever happened" position.
Steel-manning both sides: the Synoptic–John difference dissolves, and "they" in Acts could be a rhetorical generalization. But the Acts attribution to the condemning rulers is not naturally read that way, and the most economical explanation is that distinct communities remembered and developed the burial differently.
Where the critical reading lands: Synoptic/John tension harmonizable; Acts 13:27–29 a genuine, unresolved divergence reflecting tradition development.
Sources for this reading
Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave (ABRL; Doubleday, 1994), vol. 2 pp. 1201-1313on the burial traditions
Joel Marcus, Mark 8-16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AYB 27A; Yale University Press, 2009) pp. 1069-1075on Mark 15:42-47Mark 15:42-47
Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (XIII-XXI) (AB 29A; Doubleday, 1970) pp. 938-960on John 19:38-42John 19:38-42
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles (AB 31; Doubleday, 1998) pp. 509-518on Acts 13:27-29Acts 13:27-29
John Dominic Crossan, Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus (HarperSanFrancisco, 1995) pp. 160-188
Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (HarperOne, 2014) pp. 151-169
Darrell L. Bock, Acts (BECNT; Baker Academic, 2007) pp. 453-456
Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Eerdmans, 1998) pp. 412-414
Jodi Magness, "Has the Tomb of Jesus Been Discovered?" Society of Biblical Literature Forum (2007)
Examining the tension
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement — a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Leans toward a genuine contradiction
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
This entry actually contains two questions of very different weight, and they should be kept apart. The first — whether Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus alone or with Nicodemus — is not a genuine contradiction. The second — whether the burial was performed by a sympathetic disciple or by the very authorities who condemned Jesus — is a real and unresolved tension.
On the first: Matthew 27:57–60, Mark 15:43–46, and Luke 23:50–53 all credit Joseph of Arimathea with requesting the body from Pilate, taking it down, wrapping it in linen, and laying it in a tomb. John 19:38–42 adds Nicodemus, who supplies "about an hundred pound weight" of myrrh and aloes. Crucially, none of the Synoptics states that Joseph acted *alone*; they simply do not mention a second person. John's addition is therefore supplementary, not contradictory — the standard harmonization (Joseph as principal, Nicodemus assisting) is sound and is exactly the sort of elaboration John regularly supplies. This part genuinely resolves. (One may note redactional coloring even here: John's lavish hundred-pound spice quantity gives Jesus a royal burial fit for a king, consistent with the Fourth Gospel's high Christology, but a difference of theological emphasis is not a contradiction of fact.)
The second is harder. Acts 13:27–29, in Paul's Pisidian Antioch sermon, attributes the disposal of the body to "they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers" — the same subject that "desired Pilate that he should be slain." The Greek keeps the subject continuous: the *rulers* who condemned him are the ones who, "when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre." Grammatically the burying party is the hostile Jewish leadership, not a devoted disciple. This sits awkwardly against both the Synoptic and Johannine traditions, in which Joseph is "an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God" (Mark) and explicitly "Jesus' disciple" (Matthew, John).
The apologetic response, advanced by Darrell Bock and Ben Witherington, reads Acts 13:27–29 as compressed sermonic rhetoric: Paul is summarizing the Passion in broad strokes, and "they" denotes the Jerusalem establishment as the collective agent that *brought about* the sequence of events, the burial included, without specifying who physically handled the corpse. Joseph, on this reading, was himself a member of the Sanhedrin — "a counsellor" — so a loose reference to "the rulers" need not exclude him. This is possible. But it is strained against the wording: "they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre" is a concrete, agent-specific statement, and the natural antecedent of "they" is the hostile party of v. 27–28, not a lone sympathizer.
The critical scholarship reads the divergence as evidence of developing burial traditions. John Dominic Crossan and Bart Ehrman argue that standard Roman crucifixion practice was to leave bodies on the cross or consign them to a common grave, and that the dignified entombment by a named, wealthy, sympathetic councilor is most plausibly a later Christian development designed to secure an honorable burial and a locatable, verifiable tomb — a development that grows more elaborate across the tradition (anonymous in the earliest layers, then Joseph, then Joseph plus Nicodemus, with ever more spices and ever more explicit discipleship). On this view Acts 13:27–29 may preserve an *earlier*, undeveloped memory in which Jesus' opponents simply disposed of the body. The counter-argument from apologists is that an embarrassing burial by a Sanhedrist (a member of the condemning body) is unlikely to be invented and may be historical; Jodi Magness, surveying the archaeology of first-century Jerusalem rock-cut tombs, considers a hasty burial of Jesus by a Jewish figure consistent with Jewish law's demand to bury the executed before nightfall (Deut 21:22–23), which complicates the flat "no burial ever happened" position.
Steel-manning both sides: the Synoptic–John difference dissolves, and "they" in Acts could be a rhetorical generalization. But the Acts attribution to the condemning rulers is not naturally read that way, and the most economical explanation is that distinct communities remembered and developed the burial differently.
Where the critical reading lands: Synoptic/John tension harmonizable; Acts 13:27–29 a genuine, unresolved divergence reflecting tradition development.
Sources for this reading