Welcome, May!

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The past few weeks have been stressful. Training new employees, dealing with difficult customers, not sleeping well, not exercising (I’ve gained 20 pounds in the last two years), getting through family drama (two life-threatening events in the same day, 2000 miles apart: my dad’s heart attack in NM and a 9 year grandchild starting the rest of his life with Type 1 Diabetes) . . .  My CrossFit lifestyle withered into oblivion when I lost my job at the University in 2020, as Covid got going. Deep depression brought me to a standstill as I took a few months to try to reset. Since then, my physical status has been on steady decline. Now my daily schedule looks something like this: Work 3-11 pm (on a good day), Go to bed at 4 am, get up between 10:30 am and noon, get booted up and go back to work. If I get one day off a week I’m fortunate. At least I don’t have to work all night for now. That was the worst.  So I haven’t had time or energy to do much, even read, much less write. And since my

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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