Historic Fact #2: Jesus was Buried  

He was buried

According to the four gospels, Joseph of Arimathea claimed Jesus’ body. With his fellow member of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus, he prepared Jesus’ body for burial. 

Merrill Tenney describes customs of a first century burial: “In preparing a body for burial according to Jewish custom, it was usually washed and straightened, and then bandaged tightly from the armpits to the ankles in strips of linen about a foot wide. Aromatic spices, often of a gummy consistency, were placed between the wrappings or folds. They served partially as a preservative and partially as a cement to glue the cloth wrappings into a solid covering … John’s term “bound” (Gr. Edesan) is in perfect accord with the language of Lk. 23:53 where the writer says that the body was wrapped … in linen … On the morning of the first day of the week the body of Jesus had vanished, but the graveclothes were still there. (Tenney, Merrill C. The Reality of the Resurrection. Chicago: Moody Press, 1963)

John 19: 38-42: 

Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. (NIV)