Lonely Cottage

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  “Among the few features of agricultural England which retain an appearance but little modified by the lapse of centuries, may be reckoned the high, grassy and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as they are indifferently called, that fill a large area of certain counties in the south and south-west. If any mark of human occupation is met with hereon, it usually takes the form of the solitary cottage of some shepherd. Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a down, and may possibly be standing there now. In spite of its loneliness, however, the spot, by actual measurement, was not more than five miles from a county-town. Yet that affected it little. Five miles of irregular upland, during the long inimical seasons, with their sleets, snows, rains, and mists, afford withdrawing space enough to isolate a Timon or a Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to please that less repellent tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, and others who “conceive and meditate of ple...

Who Buried Jesus: Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus or the Rulers of the Jews?

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Matthew 27:57-60, Mark 15:43-46 and Luke 23:5-53 each state the Joseph of Arimathea took down and buried the body of Jesus. John 19:38-42 says the same thing, only adding one piece of information the others did not: Nicodemus helped Joseph. That’s not a problem, nor is it a contradiction. So what?

Well, Acts 13:27-29 says that the Jews and their rulers crucified, took down and buried the body of Jesus. “For those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither Him nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him. And though they found no ground for putting Him to death, they asked Pilate that He be executed. When they had carried out all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb.” 

Ok, so who are the Jews and their rulers?

Mark 15:43 shows that Joseph of Arimathea is both a Jew and a ruler, “Joseph of Arimathea came, a prominent member of the Council, who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God; and he gathered up courage and went in before Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus.” And they buried Jesus according to the custom of the Jews.

Nicodemus is also both a Jew and a ruler. John 3:1 identifies him thus, “Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.”

So Acts 13:27-29 is correct!

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