Some tombs include an area that appears to have been the setting for lamenting and eulogizing the deceased. Personal effects of the deceased might be placed in the tomb alongside the body: archaeologists have found an inkwell, jewelry, combs, and sandals. Members of the immediate family placed the body in the tomb while friends and relatives waited outside. Jewish funeral processions made their way from the family home to the family tomb. Some Mishnaic texts suggest that processions occasionally halted in order to “make lamentation” for the dead ( m. Such processions are described in the New Testament ( Luke 7:12, for example) and in Josephus, who emphasizes the splendor of Herod’s funerary cortege ( War I.671-3). Thus prepared, male relatives and friends would carry the corpse in a procession toward the place of interment, accompanied by friends, neighbors, and relatives. John 11 has such preparations in view: Lazarus’s “hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth” ( John 11:44). The body was wrapped and bound in strips of cloth. Literary depictions often suggest that perfumes or ointments were used for this washing. Jewish tractate Semahot, men could only prepare the corpse of a man, but women could prepare both men and women. According to Mishnah Sanhedrin 6.6, a corpse should be kept unburied overnight only on rare occasions.Īs soon as death was certain, the deceased’s eyes were closed the corpse was washed, and then wrapped and bound. In Mark 5:38, funeral preparations for Jairus’s daughter begin right away, and in John 11 Lazarus is buried on his day of death. The traditional Palestinian preference for prompt burial continued throughout the first century.
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