Who was Joseph of Arimathea? The man who buried Jesus, and whether he was family

Joseph of Arimathea was a rich member of the Jewish council and a secret disciple of Jesus, who asked Pilate for Jesus’ body and laid it in his own new tomb (Matthew 27:57–60).

That is who he was. The Bible never makes him a relative of Jesus, although a much later legend does, and what the text gives him instead is stranger than kinship: a single evening, told by all four Gospels, each adding a detail the others leave out — and a line in the oldest summary of the Christian faith.

Who was Joseph of Arimathea?

Joseph of Arimathea was a wealthy man from a town called Arimathea, a member of the council, and a disciple of Jesus who kept it quiet. He appears only once, on the evening of the crucifixion, and Matthew introduces him in a single sentence:

“When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathæa, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus’ disciple:”Matthew 27:57, KJV

He goes to Pilate, asks for the body, wraps it in clean linen, and lays it in a tomb he had cut for himself:

“And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.”Matthew 27:60, KJV

This is not Joseph the carpenter, Mary’s husband (Matthew 1:16). Joseph was one of the most common names of the time, and Mark names a third in the same paragraph, “Mary the mother of Joses” (Mark 15:47; Joses is a form of Joseph). Luke calls Arimathea “a city of the Jews.” Where it stood is not certain; it is often identified with Ramathaim-zophim, the hometown of Samuel’s father (1 Samuel 1:1).

Was Joseph of Arimathea related to Jesus?

Not in the Bible. The Gospels call him a disciple — Matthew and John both use the word — and give him no family at all: no father, no wife, no children, no tie to Mary or to Joseph the carpenter.

Later legend fills the gap. Stories told in England, where his name became attached to Glastonbury, make him a merchant and Mary’s uncle, which would make him Jesus’ great-uncle. None of it is in the four Gospels, in Acts or in any letter of the New Testament. Part of why it is still repeated is that it explains how a man with no family claim could ask for the body of an executed man. The Gospels explain it differently: he asked, and he was a man Pilate would see.

Four Gospels, four details

All four Gospels tell the burial, and all four name him. Read side by side, each adds one thing the others leave out. Mark gives his standing, and his nerve:

“Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus.”Mark 15:43, KJV

Luke gives his character, and an aside that matters:

“And, behold, [there was] a man named Joseph, a counsellor; [and he was] a good man, and a just:”Luke 23:50, KJV

“(The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them;) [he was] of Arimathæa, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God.”Luke 23:51, KJV

“The counsel and deed of them” is the decision against Jesus. Luke does not use the word Sanhedrin, but the aside only makes sense if Joseph belonged to the body that made that decision, which is why he is usually read as a member of the council that condemned Jesus — and as one who did not go along with it. John gives the cost:

“And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, 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.”John 19:38, KJV

John has already said this was not rare among the leaders: “among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess [him]” (John 12:42). Joseph is one of them, until this evening. And Matthew, the only Gospel to call him rich, is also the only one to say the tomb was his own.

The request to Pilate

Pilate expected a crucified man to last longer. Jesus died within hours, and the body had to come down before the Sabbath began at sunset (Mark 15:42). Only Mark records how the governor took the request:

“And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead: and calling [unto him] the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead.”Mark 15:44, KJV

“And when he knew [it] of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph.”Mark 15:45, KJV

It is a small scene with a large consequence. The Roman governor does not take the request on trust: he has the death confirmed by the officer who stood at the cross before he releases the body. Joseph’s request is what puts Pilate’s own check on the death into the record.

Nicodemus and a hundred pounds of spices

John adds a second man. Nicodemus, a Pharisee and “a ruler of the Jews,” had come to Jesus by night early in John’s Gospel (John 3:1–2), and later spoke up for him among his own colleagues, asking whether the law judges a man before it hears him (John 7:50–51). At the burial he appears again:

“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].”John 19:39, KJV

The pound John uses is the Roman one, about three quarters of ours, so the spices weighed over seventy modern pounds. The two men wrap the body “as the manner of the Jews is to bury” (John 19:40), and John places the tomb:

“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.”John 19:41, KJV

Two quiet believers, both men of standing, the one who came by night and the one who kept silent for fear, are the ones who bury Jesus. The disciples who had followed him openly are not in the scene. The women are.

The part that almost never gets told: a line in the creed

Paul, writing to the church at Corinth in the 50s, sums up what he had received and passed on, and the burial is one of its four lines:

“For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;”1 Corinthians 15:3, KJV

“And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:”1 Corinthians 15:4, KJV

Paul does not name Joseph. But “he was buried” is no minor clause in that list: it stands between the death and the resurrection, and the Gospels’ answer to who buried him, and where, is Joseph of Arimathea, in his own new tomb. The women watched where he was laid:

“And Mary Magdalene and Mary [the mother] of Joses beheld where he was laid.”Mark 15:47, KJV

So on the first day of the week they went to a known place. Matthew adds that the next day the chief priests had Pilate’s leave to seal the stone and post a guard (Matthew 27:62–66): the stone is the one Joseph had rolled to the door. His last act in the story is the one Matthew’s next chapter undoes:

“And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.”Matthew 28:2, KJV

Isaiah 53:9 says of the servant that he was “with the rich in his death,” and Christians have long read Matthew’s “rich man of Arimathæa” as its fulfillment. Matthew himself does not cite Isaiah at this point, and the verse is translated more than one way; it is a reading, and this article gives it as one.

Trace it yourself

“A disciple” answers the question in two words. What it cannot show is the shape: a counsellor who did not consent, a request that made Rome confirm the death, two quiet believers carrying a body into a garden, and a stone that the next chapter finds rolled away.

Open the map on Nicodemus and follow his line to Jesus, then across to Pilate, Caiaphas and Mary Magdalene, the people at the cross and the tomb, with the verse behind every link as you go. Joseph of Arimathea himself is not on the free map: he is one of the 117 figures Sacred Scholar adds. His own page is free to read — Joseph of Arimathea — with his relationships and every passage he appears in.

Nicodemus, Jesus, Pilate, Caiaphas and Mary Magdalene are all among the 104 figures on the free map; no account is needed to open any of them.

Open Nicodemus on the map