“ Some critics (e.g. Strauss, New Life of Jesus, ch. 96) have thrown doubt upon the story, regarding some of the details as invented to suit the prophecy in Isa. liii. 9, “they made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death” (for various translations, see Hastings’s Dict. Bible, ii. 778) . ”

“ Perhaps the phrase “noble councillor” is intended to imply merely a man of wealth and position. Again Matthew says that Joseph was a disciple, while Mark implies that he was not yet among the definite adherents of Christ, and John describes him as an adherent “secretly for fear of the Jews.” Most likely he was a disciple, but belonged only to the wider circle of adherents. The account given in the Fourth Gospel suggests that the writer, faced with these various difficulties, assumed a double tradition: (1) that Joseph of Arimathaea, a wealthy disciple, buried the body of Christ ”