The Gospel Traditions Inferring to Jesus’ Proper Burial through the Depictions of Female Funerary Kinship Roles

Abstract

The early Christians believed that Jesus was buried according to Jewish customs. However, the question regarding the nature of Jesus’ burial remains contestable and this leads our attention once again to the textual information of the Gospel traditions dealing with Jesus’ death and burial scenes. As the Gospels uniformly disclose that Jesus is the embodiment of the divine Covenant, the authors must have been obliged to draw the picture of Jesus’ burial in association to propriety rather than impropriety and honor rather than dishonor since dishonorable burial was the lot only for those who violated God's Covenant through their disobedience. For this, the Synoptic Gospels, particularly, feature women in the kernel accounts of Jesus’ Passion as the intimate providers of essential funeral services necessary to mark Jesus’ burial as being ritualistically acceptable. Although it seems laconic and implicit in the Gospels’ descriptions of these women's actions and intents, these women fill the noticeable void of the immediate family of Jesus and fulfill the familiar roles required in the rites of the passage.