The Life of Jesus in Harmony | Index

tomb

(Heb. gadish, "heaped" up, a "tumulus"; Gk. mnemeion, a "remembrance"). A natural cave enlarged and adapted by excavation, or an artificial imitation of one, was the standard type of sepulcher.

"The caves, or rock-hewn sepulchers, consisted of an antechamber in which the bier was deposited, and an inner or rather lower cave in which the bodies were deposited, in a recumbent position, in niches.

According to the Talmud these abodes of the dead were usually six feet long, nine feet wide, and ten feet high. Here there were niches for eight bodies-- three on each side of the entrance and two opposite. Larger sepulchers held thirteen bodies.

The entrance to the sepulcher was guarded by a large stone or by a door (Mt 27:65; Mk 15:46; Jn 11:38-39). This structure of the tombs will explain some of the particulars connected with the burial of our Lord, how the women coming early to the grave had been astonished in finding the 'very great stone' 'rolled away from the door of the sepulcher,' and then, when they entered the outer cave, were affrighted to see what seemed 'a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment' (Mk 16:4-5)" (Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life, p. 171).