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ossuary

The practice, in and around Jerusalem in the late second-Temple era, for Jews of financial means and societal status to bury their dead in a cave or tomb carved into limestone outcroppings. After about a year, after flesh and burial cloths had decomposed, the skeletal remains were placed in an ossuary (bone box). Many ossuaries have been discovered. Two famous ones are the ossuary of the high priest Caiaphas (pictured) and the purported ossuary of James with the controversial Aramaic inscription, "Ya'akov bar-Yosef akhui diYeshua [=James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus]” Many scholars think that James ossuary is correctly dated to the first century but that the inscription, or part of the inscription, is a forgery.

The burial of Jesus, as described in the Gospels, was probably intended to be such a burial, first in the borrowed tomb and later to have been placed in an ossuary. But the Gospel accounts say that the tomb was found empty thus their would be no second burial in an ossuary.

It is important to keep in mind that peasants and crucifiixion victims were seldom buried in a tomb. In fact, some modern scholars (John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg and John Shelby Spong) contend that Jesus was probably not buried and that the Gospel accounts are fiction. However, if we assume that the Shroud is authentic, then it would certainly confirm that Jesus was buried in a tomb. An understanding of the Shroud could profoundly affect our thinking in the ongoing quest for the historical Jesus.

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Shroud of Turin Story

© 2005 Daniel R. Porter, Bronxville, New York