JOSEPH OF ARIMATHAEA (presumably the Rama thaim of I Macc. xi. 34 and the Ramathaim-Zophim of I Sam. i. I, in the hill country of Ephraim), according to all four Gospels buried Jesus Christ. According to Mark he was an honourable councillor (Ebaxifficov (30vXevriis), who was waiting for the King dom of God. The Sabbath was approaching, i.e., it was nightfall on Friday afternoon, and had he not intervened the body would have been left for more than 24 hours. The law of Deut. xxi. 23 ordered that the body of a malefactor hung on a tree should not remain there all night. Joseph went to Pilate and got leave to bury the body. He did this with reverence and laid it in a rock hewn tomb, rolling a stone in front of the entrance. There is no reason to think that he was a disciple of Jesus. Respect for the law is sufficient motive. His approach to Pilate is more intelligible if he was a member of the Sanhedrin or acting on their instruc tions. He used the nearest tomb ; to search for a suitable one at a distance might have entailed breaking the Sabbath.
Such is Mark's story (xv. 42-46), which it is excessive scepti cism to doubt. The later narratives add nothing of historical value.
Luke and John have access to good Jerusalem tradition for the closing scenes of the Gospel story, but neither they nor Matthew seem to have any other source than Mark for the burial. Their additions and variations must therefore be attributed to the natu ral growth of Christian tradition. Matthew makes Joseph a rich man and a disciple of Jesus, and the tomb his own new one. Luke makes it clear that he was a member of the Sanhedrin, who had not consented to the condemnation. John says that he was a secret disciple and that Nicodemus was associated with him in the burial. In a later tradition, "the Gospel of Peter," Joseph is a friend of Pilate and arranges with him for the burial before the Crucifixion.
In a picturesque legend Joseph is said to have come to Britain and constructed the first Christian church in the land on an island in Somerset, afterwards Glastonbury. The passages in William of Malmesbury which contain the legend are said by J. A. Robinson in his Two Glastonbury Legends to be interpolations. In any case they belong to the realm of poetry rather than genuine tradition.