Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Mark 15:42-16:8, The tomb
Joseph of Arimathea buries Jesus before the Sabbath. When it is over, the women come with spices, find the stone rolled away, and hear that he has been raised.
Mark 15:42-16:8, in every translation this tool compares.
With the Sabbath coming at sundown, Joseph, a council member, dares to ask Pilate for the body, wraps it in linen and lays it in a rock tomb. Two of the women see where. After the Sabbath three women bring spices to anoint him, wondering who will move the stone. A young man in white tells them Jesus has risen and is going ahead to Galilee, and they run from the tomb afraid and tell no one.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sabbath\/","n":"The Sabbath","s":"The seventh day, a commanded rest from sundown to sundown, a badge of Jewish identity, and a law the experts argued over in detail.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/burial-and-mourning\/","n":"Burial and mourning","s":"Mourners came at once, the dead were buried the same day, wrapped in linen in rock tombs, and family carried the duty of burial. Pagan mourning, with little hope beyond a shadowy underworld, could be bleak.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/anointing-with-oil\/","n":"Anointing with oil","s":"Oil poured on the head was a courtesy to a guest, the sign of a new king, a medicine, and care for the dead. The setting decided which.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/women-who-followed\/","n":"Women who followed","s":"Women traveled with Jesus, paid for his movement, and stayed at the cross and the tomb when the men had gone.","r":""}
The best manuscripts end at 16:8, and the sources disagree about why. Wright is convinced the original ending was lost, a torn last page or column; Bailey argues that 16:1-8 completes the same seven-part pattern as the burial account, so no lost final page is needed, and Garland calls theories of a lost ending unhelpful and reads the abrupt close as intended. The Garden Tomb was cut in the eighth or seventh century BC, so it cannot be the new tomb of 15:46 (Garland; the cultural backgrounds article on the tomb's location), and the Holy Sepulchre has a tradition reaching back before Constantine. Philo protests that the prefect Flaccus left executed Jews on their crosses, when on a festival the crucified were usually taken down and given to their kin (Garland). The cultural backgrounds map of Passion Week has the body in the tomb before six on Friday evening, when the Sabbath began.
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Mark 15:46, 16:1, 16:2, 16:3, 16:5 and 16:8, and notes on Matthew 27:58 and 27:60
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Mark 15:42 and 16:8
- N. T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, comments on Mark 16:1-8 and Mark 16:9-20
- Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, ch. 14, Jesus and Women: An Introduction
- David E. Garland, Mark, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Mark 15:43, 15:46 and 16:8
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article The Location of Jesus' Tomb
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article Passion Week: Bethany, the Mount of Olives and Jerusalem
