Joseph of Arimathea

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Joseph of Arimathea is not really mentioned much in the Bible.

There are four passages:

[Mat 27:57-60 KJV] 57 When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus’ disciple: 58 He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. 59 And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 60 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.

[Mar 15:43-46 KJV] 43 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. 44 And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead: and calling [unto him] the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead. 45 And when he knew [it] of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. 46 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.

[Luk 23:50-53 KJV] 50 And, behold, [there was] a man named Joseph, a counsellor; [and he was] a good man, and a just: 51 (The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them;) [he was] of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God. 52 This [man] went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. 53 And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.

[Jhn 19:38-42 KJV] 38 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. 39 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]. 40 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. 41 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. 42 There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews’ preparation [day]; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.

But, as we’ve seen in the Grail legend and the Jerusalem hymn, Joseph of Arimathea comes up often outside of the Bible.

Since the 2nd century, a mass of legendary detail has accumulated around the figure of Joseph of Arimathea in addition to the New Testament references. Joseph is referenced in apocryphal and non-canonical accounts such as the Acts of Pilate and the medieval Gospel of Nicodemus. Joseph is mentioned in the works of early church historians such as Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Eusebius, who added details not found in the canonical accounts. Francis Gigot, writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia, states that “the additional details which are found concerning him in the apocryphal Acta Pilati (“Acts of Pilate”), are unworthy of credence.” The Narrative of Joseph of Arimathea, a medieval work, is even purportedly written by him directly, although it adds more details on the robbers at Jesus’s crucifixion than Joseph himself. He also appears in the ancient non-canonical text the Gospel of Peter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_of_Arimathea

Joseph is accorded a long history in later literature. In the apocryphal Gospel of Peter (2nd century), he is a friend of Jesus and of Pilate. In the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (or Acts of Pilate; 4th/5th century), Jews imprison Joseph after Jesus’ burial, but he is released by the risen Lord, thus becoming the first witness of the Resurrection. In Robert de Boron’s verse romance Joseph d’Arimathie (c. 1200), he is entrusted with the Holy Grail (cup) of the Last Supper. A mid-13th-century interpolation relates that Joseph went to Glastonbury (in Somerset, England), of which he is patron saint, as head of 12 missionaries dispatched there by St. Philip the Apostle. In Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur (15th century), when Galahad receives the vision of the Grail, he sees Joseph standing at the altar dressed as a bishop.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sa … -Arimathea

In the Gospel of Peter:

22 Then the sun shone forth, and it was found to be the ninth 23 hour. And the Jews rejoiced, and gave his body unto Joseph to bury it, because he had beheld all the good things which 24 he did. And he took the Lord and washed him and wrapped him in linen and brought him unto his own sepulchre, which is called the Garden of Joseph.

http://gnosis.org/library/gospete.htm

Gospel of Nicodemus:

12 And 1 behold a certain man of Arimathæa, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus, but not openly so, for fear of the Jews, came to the governor, and entreated the governor that he would give him leave to take away the body of Jesus from the cross.

13 And the governor gave him leave.

14 And Nicodemus came, bringing with him a mixture of myrrh and aloes about a hundred pound weight; and they took down Jesus from the cross with tears, and bound him with linen cloths with spices, according to the custom of burying among the Jews,

15 And placed him in a new tomb, which Joseph had built, and caused to be cut out of a rock, in which never any man had been put; and they rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre.

https://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/lbob/lbob10.htm

Britain in particular had many legends about Joseph of Arimathea.

Many legends about the arrival of Christianity in Britain abounded during the Middle Ages.

Eusebius of Caesaria, one of the earliest and most comprehensive of church historians, wrote of Christ’s disciples in Demonstratio Evangelica, saying that “some have crossed the Ocean and reached the Isles of Britain.” Hilary of Poitiers also wrote that the Apostles had built churches and that the Gospel had passed into Britain. The writings of Pseudo-Hippolytus include a list of the seventy disciples whom Jesus sent forth in Luke 10, one of which is Aristobulus of Romans 16:10, called “bishop of Britain”.

When Joseph set his walking staff on the ground to sleep, it miraculously took root, leafed out, and blossomed as the “Glastonbury Thorn”. The retelling of such miracles encouraged the pilgrim trade at Glastonbury until the abbey was dissolved in 1539, during the English Reformation.

Another legend, as recorded in Flores Historiarum, is that Joseph is in fact the Wandering Jew, a man cursed by Jesus to walk the Earth until the Second Coming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_of_Arimathea