From BAS’s email on 2/22/26.
- The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is hallowed by tradition that goes back at least to the fourth century, when the emperor Constantine built the first church there. But in the 19th century, western Protestants regarded the Catholic Holy Sepulchre Church—in a densely built-up area of the Old City—as unsuitably located, and gave their loyalty to a two-chambered burial cave outside the city wall known as the Garden Tomb. At last, archaeology and science can weigh in. According to archaeologist Gabriel Barkay, the Garden Tomb is dated to the eighth–seventh centuries B.C.E. and was not in use during Jesus’ time.
- only a handful of tombs from the time of Jesus have been found with round stones. Instead, we now know from archaeological study that Jews of that period were using square stones to seal family tombs cut into the rocky hillsides around Jerusalem. And the fact that the word “rolled” is a translation of the Greek word kulio, which can also mean “dislodge,” “move back” or simply “move,” makes it almost certain that the rolled stone is a literary error.
- But almost frustratingly, it’s also true that the more we know about the history and language of Biblical times, the less we really know. For instance, a painstakingly detailed linguistic and literary analysis of the many possible endings for the Gospel of Mark reveals … that there are more questions raised than one started with.
In Easter and the Death of Jesus, BAS editors have carefully compiled a special collection of articles from Biblical Archaeology Review and Bible Review that reveal the Easter story in all its rich and rewarding facets. To truly understand the passion, crucifixion and resurrection, you’ll want to read all of the articles, of which these are only a small sample:
- What Did Jesus’ Tomb Look Like?
By Jodi Magness - Did a Rolling Stone Close Jesus’ Tomb?
By Amos Kloner - The Garden Tomb: Was Jesus Buried Here? – See Claude.ai’s summary here.
By Gabriel Barkay - The Resurrection of Resurrection
By N. T. Wright - Thinking About Easter
By Marcus J. Borg- What about the reports of his appearances? Paul provides the earliest (and only “firsthand”) reports. Paul’s experience of the risen Christ seems to have been visionary, according to his own words, as well as Luke’s threefold report of Paul’s Damascus road vision in Acts.6 It is striking that Paul explicitly and insistently denies that the resurrection body is physical; rather, it is spiritual (1 Corinthians 15:12–57). Note that Paul insists on the actuality of resurrection (verses 12–19), and then emphasizes that it is a spiritual body, not the physical body, that is raised (verses 35–50). Thus Paul affirms a “bodily” resurrection, even as he denies that it is physical.
