Jesus's Path To The Cross: An 8-Day DevotionalExemplo

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Resurrection

The Gospels provide many clues that help scholars piece together details of the tomb in which Jesus was buried. The tomb belonged to a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea. It had been hewn into a rock cliff located within a cultivated area, a place John calls a garden (Matt. 27:57, 60; Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53; John 19:41). The tomb was sealed with a large stone rolled to the opening (Matt. 27:60). The tomb was near where Jesus had been crucified (John 19:41). Because the Romans tended to crucify the condemned around public roadways, it is reasonable to conclude that Jesus’ tomb was near a main road close to an entrance to Jerusalem, likely on the busier, northern side of the city. Church tradition suggests that the location of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, now within the walls of Jerusalem but outside the northern wall of the city in the first century AD, was the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. Although this location cannot be proven, nothing archaeological has been discovered at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that contradicts the Gospels’ statements about Jesus’ burial.

By viewing other NT-era tombs of wealthy Jewish families found around Jerusalem, it is possible to imagine what Jesus’ tomb looked like. Because Peter easily saw the empty linen shroud in which Jesus had been wrapped (John 20:6–7), it seems that Jesus’ body had been laid on a bench within the tomb rather than in a long, narrow opening in the tomb, where most bodies were more often placed. Typically the bench location within a tomb was reserved for important persons.