"What Women were Accustomed to Do for the Dead Beloved by Them" (Gospel of Peter 12.50): Traces of Laments and Mourning Rituals in Early Easter, Passion, And Lord's Supper Traditions (Essay‪)‬

In the NT, characters participate in mourning rituals from antiquity, including Jewish rites. Tabitha, after her death, is laid out in her house, and widows keen over her (Acts 9:37, 39). Loud weeping and wailing are heard in the house of the dead daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:38-39 par.). (1) Mary and Martha's neighbors come to the house of mourning to console them (John 11:17) and accompany the sorrowing Mary to the tomb. Others follow in the funeral procession for the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:13). Mourning women follow the condemned Jesus to the place of execution (Luke 23:27). (2) During and after the burial of Stephen, pious men raise a loud lament (Acts 8:2). Women are present also at Jesus' burial (Mark 15:47 parr.) and visit the tomb on the third day (Mark 16:1 parr.) What seems to be missing, at first glance, is mourning for Jesus, but in my opinion this is a misleading impression. In harmony with a number of contributions in recent years I would like, in what follows, to show that mourning rituals and lament traditions are presupposed and theologically reflected upon by some of the Easter and passion accounts. To begin with, let me point to a number of fundamental features of ancient mourning rituals.