Think about that. What rich person would construct his own personal, family tomb right next to a Roman execution site? It makes no sense!
It makes much more sense that the Sanhedrin owned one or several tombs next to Golgotha for the purpose of having available a temporary burial location for Jews who were crucified by the Romans, in the event, that their death was so late on Friday afternoon that the Jewish officials needed quick access to a location immediately adjacent to Golgotha in order to get the body under ground before sunset, the beginning of the Sabbath. The bodies could then be removed and transferred to a permanent burial site once the Sabbath had ended.
How likely is it that an influential Sanhedrist would have had his private tomb so close to a place of execution? …[But] there could be other possibilities for which we have no evidence, e.g., Joseph’s use of a friend’s tomb.
—New Testament scholar, Raymond Brown, in The Death of the Messiah, p. 1250-1251
