Bible Synapse

Who buried Jesus: Joseph of Arimathea, Joseph with Nicodemus, or the rulers in Jerusalem?

Hard question · The death and resurrection of Jesus · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate

A summary and a fuller accountBoth true, in different senses
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The passages

Mark 15:43–46

Joseph of Arimathea, “an honourable counsellor”, asked Pilate for the body, wrapped it in linen and laid it in a tomb cut in the rock.

Joseph of Arimathea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead: and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead. And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre.

John 19:38–42

Joseph took the body; Nicodemus brought myrrh and aloes; together they wound it in linen and laid it in the new tomb nearby.

And after this Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews’ preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.

Acts 13:27–29

Paul says the people of Jerusalem and their rulers condemned Jesus, and “they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre”.

For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him. And though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.

The objection

The first three Gospels say Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus. John adds Nicodemus. In Acts, Paul says that the people of Jerusalem and their rulers, the very people who had him condemned, took him down and laid him in a tomb. Critics ask who actually buried him.

The answer

Joseph and Nicodemus buried Jesus, and both were rulers of the Jews. The first three Gospels name Joseph because he took the lead: he went to Pilate, asked for the body and provided the tomb. John adds that Nicodemus came too, bringing the spices, and that the two of them wrapped the body together (John 19:39–40); servants may well have helped. Adding a helper is not a contradiction.

The same facts explain Acts 13:29. Joseph was a member of the council (Mark 15:43; Luke 23:50–51), and Nicodemus was “a ruler of the Jews” (John 3:1). So it is literally true that rulers took Jesus down and buried him. In a short sermon Paul is summing up what was done to Jesus in Jerusalem, by its people and its rulers, from the condemnation to the burial; he does not say that the same individuals did each thing. Barnes and Gill both read the verse this way, and Gill notes that ‘they took him down’ can be read as ‘he was taken down’. Luke, who reports the sermon, had himself written that Joseph took the body down and laid it in the tomb, and in Acts 13:29 he uses the same two Greek verbs, kathaireō (‘take down’) and tithēmi (‘lay’), as in Luke 23:53. He plainly did not think the two accounts disagreed. The rulers had also asked Pilate to have the bodies removed before the sabbath (John 19:31).

From the classic commentators

It was enough that they too were among the rulers of the Jews, and that they, in what they did, were acting without any expectation of the Resurrection.C. J. Ellicott (ed.), Commentary for English Readers, on Acts 13:29 (1878)

Sources

Further reading

Raised by: The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. Only the verse references come from these lists.

Checked 2026-10-22. All hard questions