See my article, "The Greek Words Used in the Gospel Accounts of Jesus' Burial-Can They be Reconciled with the Turin Shroud?" Many people believe many details of Jesus' burial can be found on the Shroud of Turin. The Jews never wrapped their dead like mummies, and some scholars believe that by the 1 st century, even the Egyptians were no longer doing so. There is a similar confusion about Jesus' burial because although Matthew, Mark and Luke all use the word sindon (linen sheet), John used the word othonia, which is a generic plural term for grave-cloths but often translated as "wrappings," and often equated with the linen strips of the Lazarus burial. When I was looking for a picture depicting Lazarus' burial, I was struck at how many of them showed him as having been wrapped mummy-like. The biggest misconception about Lazarus' burial is that he was wrapped like a mummy, due to many translations saying he was bound in "linen strips" (11:43). But it seems like a worthwhile task to compare what we know about the burials of Lazarus and Jesus. (The 1 st century was within the Second Temple Period.) The book's length alone should show that there was not a "typical" Jewish burial at that time. The late Jewish scholar Rachel Hachlili authored a work of over six-hundred pages titled Jewish Funerary Customs Practices And Rites In The Second Temple Period. But let's be clear at the outset: trying to uncover how 1st-century Jewish burials were done is no easy task. This story gives us a few solid details regarding a Jewish burial in the first century with which to compare to Jesus' own burial. Even those with a cursory knowledge of Bible stories have heard the story of Jesus having raised his friend Lazarus from the dead (Jn 11:1-43).
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