Michelangelo’s Pietà depicts Mary holding the body of Jesus after he is taken down from the cross. But does the Bible describe this? Is they any indication that she was even in the vicinity?
BTW this question is about the facts as presented in the Bible, not facts in terms of what can be objectively verified.
Yes, according to the gospel of John:
25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” 27 Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.
Kind of remniscent of Bob Newhart?
“this is my sister Mary and my other sister Mary…”
Classical art even has a name for the trope, “The Three Marys”.
Now I want a painting “Hailing the Three Marys”, which depicts them as taxi drivers. Or Football players, I guess.
That verse doesn’t say anything abot Mary holding Jesus’s corpse after it was removed from the cross.
I don’t think that scene is described in any of the canonical gospels, but I don’t think it would be implausible. Each simply notes that Joseph of Arimathea got permission from Pilate to remove the body, took it down (the “Deposition of Christ”), and removed it to the tomb. John’s Gospel also indicates that Nicodemus participated.
I don’t read any of these accounts as claiming that Joseph did this work alone (or just with Nicodemus) (the Deposition of Christ is seldom (if ever) shown that way) but no real detail is provided on the specific actions taken between the requesting of permission and the placement in the tomb.
As to vicinity, Mark and Matthew explicitly place Mary and Mary Magaldene at the tomb at the time of the burial (and Luke refers to “the women who had come with him from Galilee,” which would have included Mary). So it clearly places her “in the vicinity” at the time and, I think, the obvious implication is that Mary (among others) were present for the descent as well.
Edit: I suppose I should note that the Mary at the tomb in Matthew is the “other Mary,” who has sometimes been identified as Mary (mother of Jesus) or Mary (wife of Clopas). These are the same two Marys that discover the resurrection.
FYI, here’s some info on Jewish Law concerning touching corpses. Corpses are considered top level unclean. But there’s a ritual to rid oneself of the uncleanliness over 7 days.
Note also that “the women” went to Jesus’s tomb on Sunday to wash him, etc. Touching is basically unavoidable.
One thing to really, really keep in mind is that the 4 gospels are all over the place regarding who was at the crucifixion and who went to the tomb first the next Sunday. (Only Mary Magdalene comes close to being consistently mentioned.)
Given all the info we have as a whole about the Mary, it seems unlikely she was present.
Also, the Roman’s weren’t keen on being nice to the bodies of people who were crucified. (Generally they were left to rot/get eaten by scavengers). So allowing his mother to hold him afterwards is unlikely (among many other things).
Christians were amazingly good at expanding stories over the years. E.g., the guy whose family owned the tomb was supposedly later in England (as it was later known). And there’s a ton of writings/art/etc. relating to that. None of which has any ancient support.
Indeed, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has the very slab on which Jesus’ body was laid for preparation. Mind you, it’s been replaced a few times as it gets worn away, but it’s still the original.
(And just down the steps in the Church is the one of the two tombs Jesus was laid in for 3 days. The other one is across the valley on the Mount of Olives)
What I find most implausible in Michelangelo’s Pieta is that the mother who holds her 33 years old son looks 10 years younger than him. In reality, she would have been in her late forties/early fifties and would have looked the part.
On our Vatican tour, the guide explained that artists of that time believed that chaste women did not age or wear down like sexually active women (don’t shoot the messenger!), and that Mary was typically depicted as the archetype of that notion—so chaste, she barely aged at all.
Not criticizing you, but did the guide think that Michelangelo, one of the geniuses of his times, had never seen a childless 50 years old spinster? I get that Renaissance art tended to idealization, but I don’t buy that explanation.
I’ll speculate that he might answer that there’s no lack of sexist beliefs that have zero evidence as support, and that Michelangelo himself might say, see that one lady over there? Man, just think what she’d look like if she wasn’t still a virgin.
Or, perhaps, that Michelangelo just complied with the artistic standard, whatever his experience was.
Anyway, take it up with our tour guide. 
Next time I visit the Vatican, I will needle them on this.
I had an art history class in college taught by an older, unmarried lady. She remarked that the youthful appearance of Mary in the Pieta was due to her chastity, adding, to the girls in the class, “I hope you’ll keep this in mind”.
I think that insistence on chronological accuracy is a relatively modern notion. Mary looks like that because that’s the archetypical appearance of Mary. Jesus looks like that because that’s the archetypical appearance of Jesus. The fact that the times of those two people’s archetypical appearances were three decades apart is irrelevant.
I will now have to add to my list:
Poor Joseph. Like having a nice bottle of wine and no opener.
I think the disciple Rufus put it best:
- Bethany : Jesus didn’t have any brothers or sisters. Mary was a virgin.
Rufus : Mary gave birth to CHRIST without having known a man’s touch, that’s true. But she did have a husband. And do you really think he’d have stayed married to her all those years if he wasn’t getting laid? The nature of God and the Virgin birth, those are leaps of faith. But to believe a married couple never got down? Well, that’s just plain gullibility.
I was responding to the thread title.