an anything new be said about a major event that
occurred 2,000 years ago? Yes, says Amos Kloner, an archaeologist at Israel's Bar-Ilan University: Our Bible translations and paintings are misleading on an important fact about the
burial of Jesus, namely, the shape of the stone that covered his tomb.
According to all four New Testament Gospels, Jesus' body was placed in a tomb and the
entrance was covered by a large stone. Kloner, an authority on first-century Jewish burial customs, describes the status of the stone in Biblical Archeology Review of Washington, D.C.
He says the New Testament depiction fits what we know from other ancient sources. Tomb entrances were indeed covered by massive blocking stones to avoid ritual impurity and to keep out scavenging animals.
But contrary to what most people imagine, Kloner is convinced that the stone was square, not round. Thus it would have been pulled away, not rolled away, when the women found Jesus' tomb empty on Easter morning.
In most English-language Bibles, John 20:1 says
the stone was "removed" or "taken away," in which case the stone could have been either round or square. However, the three parallel passages in other Gospels (Matthew 28:2, Mark
16:3-4, Luke 24:2) are always translated as saying the stone was "rolled" away, indicating it was round.
Is the Bible wrong? No, says Kloner, but our English translations might be. The original Greek
verb "kulio" can mean "roll," "dislodge" or "move." So which is it? He says archaeology can tell us.
During what's known as the Second Temple
period (100 B.C. to A.D. 70), tombs had either round or square stones. More than 900 burial caves or tombs have been found from that period in the Jerusalem area. Only four of
these had round (disk-shaped) blocking stones.
The rare round stones were found only in large, distinguished tombs for the wealthy that had
at least two rooms or, in one instance, a spacious hall. Such family tombs held several bodies, and the round stone, placed between two parallel walls on a sort of track, could be
easily rolled away for additional burials.
One well-known example is the so-called Tomb of Herod's Family, located behind the
modern-day King David Hotel. Another is the tomb of Queen Helena, north of the Old City near the American Colony Hotel.
Perhaps Joseph of Arimathea, who loaned the tomb for Jesus, was wealthy enough to have
such a family burial place. But Kloner insists the Gospels contain clues that argue against a large tomb.
Judging from Mark 15:47 and John 20:1, the tomb was so small that people could peer in
from outside and see where Jesus' body was placed.
John 20:11 is especially important: "Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain ...."
That clearly indicates a tomb of modest size, the sort that took square rather than round blocking stones. Kloner adds that Mary's need to stoop is precisely right, since such caves and tombs had small, low entrances.
Another clue comes in Matthew 28:2, where an angel sat on the stone. Kloner says the between-the-walls track used for round stones in
Second Temple times would have made it impossible to sit on a stone that had been rolled away. (And a square stone would have been more comfortable.)
Dating is important because round stones became much more common starting in the second century. There are dozens of examples from the late Roman and Byzantine periods. These
round stones of later centuries were much smaller than those of the first century, and did not move on a track but were simply leaned against the entrance.
Kloner concludes that the ambiguity of the Greek word, combined with biblical details and modern archaeological evidence, makes it most
likely that the stone was square. As with most things biblical, this theory is not brand-new. He says it was suggested as early as 1935, on similar grounds, by the biblical
scholar Gustave Dalman. Kloner also reports scholars generally agree that tradition is correct and Jesus was buried
where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands.
