Two Words for One Dead Man

When Joseph of Arimathea goes to Pontius Pilate to ask for the remains of Jesus, all four Gospels use the same Greek word: soma (σῶμα), meaning “body.” It is a respectful, dignified word. Joseph asks for a body, the body of someone he honors. Pilate agrees to release the remains, and here Mark does something none of the other Gospel writers do. He switches words. Mark 15:45 says that Pilate granted the ptoma (πτῶμα) to Joseph. That word does not mean “body.” It means “corpse,” and it is blunt and ugly on purpose.

What the Words Mean

Ptoma comes from the Greek verb pipto, which means “to fall.” A ptoma is literally “a fallen thing.” In the Greek Old Testament and in the Book of Revelation, the word is reserved for the bodies of people who died violently. Mark uses this same word in only one other place in his Gospel: to describe the headless corpse of John the Baptist after Herod had him beheaded (Mark 6:29). By choosing ptoma for Jesus, Mark forces his reader to see the cross for what it did: it turned a living man into a broken, fallen thing.

Matthew makes a different choice. In Matthew 27:59, Joseph does not take the ptoma; he takes the soma. Greek dictionaries describe soma as the “more dignified” of the two words. Matthew’s choice treats the remains of the Lord with maximum reverence. Both words are true. Both are inspired. Mark shows us the horror; Matthew shows us the honor.

σῶμα (soma) — Body πτῶμα (ptoma) — Corpse
Literal meaning Body; the whole person, living or dead, treated with dignity A fallen thing; from pipto (“to fall”). A blunt word for a lifeless corpse
Tone Reverent, dignified Stark, clinical, unflinching
Used by All four Gospels (Joseph’s request); Matthew, Luke, and John throughout the burial Mark alone (Pilate’s release of the remains); also Mark 6:29 for John the Baptist’s headless corpse
Why it matters Affirms the real, physical humanity of Jesus, even in death Forces the reader to see the violent reality of what the cross did to a human body

A Gift, Not a Handoff

One more word deserves attention. When Mark says Pilate released the ptoma to Joseph, the verb he uses is edoresato (ἐδωρήσατο), from doreomai, meaning “to present as a gift.” Pilate did not simply hand over the remains; he granted them. Crucifixion victims were normally left on the cross to rot or were thrown into a common trench. The entire point of the punishment was public shame that continued after death. The fact that Pilate made a personal gift of the body to a member of the Jewish council is extraordinary. Instead of a trench, Jesus received a fine linen shroud and a rock-hewn tomb. What Rome intended as the ultimate disgrace, God turned into the setting for the resurrection.

Why This Matters

The Gospel writers are careful with these words for a reason. A real ptoma was placed in a real tomb. The death was not symbolic, not spiritual, not an illusion. It was physical, violent, and confirmed by a Roman centurion. That real death is the necessary precondition for what comes next: a real, bodily resurrection, in which the perishable is raised imperishable and the fallen thing is restored to glory.

The Word Your Bible Chose

How English Translations Handle Mark 15:45

Why Older Bibles All Say “Body”

Every English Bible published before 1881 translates Mark 15:45 as “body.” The reason is straightforward. Those translations were based on either the Latin Vulgate (where Jerome used the dignified word corpus in both verses) or the Textus Receptus (a Greek text compiled from later medieval manuscripts that had already replaced ptoma with soma to match the other Gospels). The translators were not hiding anything; they were faithfully rendering the manuscripts in front of them.

What Changed

In the 19th century, scholars gained access to far older manuscripts, particularly the 4th-century Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These ancient texts preserve ptoma in Mark 15:45. Textual critics determined that later scribes had smoothed the text, replacing the harsh “corpse” with the reverent “body” to match Matthew, Luke, and John. The principle they applied is simple: a pious copyist might soften a jarring word, but no copyist would deliberately make a text more offensive. The harsher reading is almost certainly what Mark originally wrote.

The Modern Divide

Modern translations now face a choice. “Word-for-word” translations (formally equivalent) tend to preserve the shift and print “corpse.” “Thought-for-thought” translations (dynamically equivalent) tend to smooth the text and print “body,” judging that “corpse” would jar the modern reader without adequate explanation. Both approaches are defensible. The table below shows what your Bible does with this verse. Translations that print “corpse” are shown in bold.

Translation Date Greek Source Philosophy Mark 15:45
Wycliffe Bible 1382 Latin Vulgate Early “gave the body”
Tyndale NT 1526 Textus Receptus Early “gave the body”
Geneva Bible 1599 Textus Receptus Formal “gave the body”
Douay-Rheims 1609 Latin Vulgate Formal “gave the body”
King James (KJV) 1611 Textus Receptus Formal “gave the body”
English Revised (ERV) 1881 Early Critical Formal “granted the corpse”
American Standard (ASV) 1901 Early Critical Formal “granted the corpse”
RSV 1952 Critical Text Formal “granted the body”
NASB 1995 Critical Text Formal “granted the body”
NIV 1978/2011 Critical Text Dynamic “gave the body”
NRSV 1989 Critical Text Formal “granted the body”
ESV 2001 Critical Text Formal “granted the corpse”
The Message 2002 Critical Text Paraphrase “gave Joseph the corpse”
HCSB 2004 Critical Text Optimal “gave the corpse”
CSB 2017 Critical Text Optimal “gave the corpse”
NLT 2015 Critical Text Dynamic “have the body”

Whichever Bible you hold in your hands, the underlying Greek text is now settled. Mark wrote ptoma. He meant it. The question for each translation committee is whether to let you hear it or to cushion the blow. Knowing that the word is there, even when your English Bible has smoothed it away, changes the way you read the burial. The Roman governor did not release a dignified body. He discarded a ruined carcass. Three days later, it was not a carcass that walked out of the tomb.