The Time of the Tomb

188:2.1If Je­sus’ fol­low­ers were un­mind­ful of his prom­ise to rise from the grave on the third day, his en­e­mies were not. The chief priests, Phar­isees, and Sad­ducees re­called that they had re­ceived re­ports of his say­ing he would rise from the dead.

188:2.2This Fri­day night, af­ter the Pass­over sup­per, about mid­night a group of the Jew­ish lead­ers gath­ered at the home of Cai­a­phas, where they dis­cussed their fears con­cern­ing the Mas­ter’s as­ser­tions that he would rise from the dead on the third day. This meet­ing ended with the ap­point­ment of a com­mit­tee of San­hedrists who were to visit Pi­late early the next day, bear­ing the of­fi­cial re­quest of the San­hedrin that a Ro­man guard be sta­tioned be­fore Je­sus’ tomb to pre­vent his friends from tam­per­ing with it. Said the spokesman of this com­mit­tee to Pi­late: “Sir, we re­mem­ber that this de­ceiver, Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, said, while he was yet alive, ‘Af­ter three days I will rise again.’ We have, there­fore, come be­fore you to re­quest that you is­sue such or­ders as will make the sepul­chre se­cure against his fol­low­ers, at least un­til af­ter the third day. We greatly fear lest his dis­ci­ples come and steal him away by night and then pro­claim to the peo­ple that he has risen from the dead. If we should per­mit this to hap­pen, this mis­take would be far worse than to have al­lowed him to live.”

188:2.3When Pi­late heard this re­quest of the San­hedrists, he said: “I will give you a guard of ten sol­diers. Go your way and make the tomb se­cure.” They went back to the tem­ple, se­cured ten of their own guards, and then marched out to Joseph’s tomb with these ten Jew­ish guards and ten Ro­man sol­diers, even on this Sab­bath morn­ing, to set them as watch­men be­fore the tomb. These men rolled yet an­other stone be­fore the tomb and set the seal of Pi­late on and around these stones, lest they be dis­turbed with­out their knowl­edge. And these twenty men re­mained on watch up to the hour of the res­ur­rec­tion, the Jews car­ry­ing them their food and drink.