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89-564: The Garden Tomb and its surrounding gardens are adjacent to a rocky outcrop known as Skull Hill . In the mid-nineteenth century, some Christian scholars proposed that Skull Hill is Golgotha , where the Romans crucified Jesus. A couple decades later, in 1867, the Garden Tomb was discovered and later proposed to be the tomb of Jesus. More recently, the Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkay points out that

178-528: A typological reading of Leviticus 1:11 : "[The sheep for a burnt-offering] shall be slaughtered on the north side of the altar before the LORD". Gordon interpreted this verse to mean that Christ, the prototype, must also have been slain north of the "altar" (Skull Hill being north of Jerusalem and of the Temple Mount). This typological interpretation is obviously theological and not scientific in nature, which leads to

267-401: A German theologian and bible scholar from Dresden, was the first to publish a proposal that the rocky knoll north of Damascus Gate, which, as Thenius noticed, resembled a skull, was the biblical Golgotha . The site he suggested contains a few natural cavities as well as a man-made cave, which Christians call Jeremiah's Grotto . Thenius went so far as to suggest that Jeremiah's Grotto was in fact

356-477: A basilica, that is to say, a church of wondrous beauty", Cyril of Jerusalem , a distinguished theologian of the early Church, and eyewitness to the early days of Constantine's edifice, speaks of Golgotha in eight separate passages, sometimes as near to the church where he and his listeners assembled: "Golgotha, the holy hill standing above us here, bears witness to our sight: the Holy Sepulchre bears witness, and

445-684: A city according to a Hippodamian grid plan  – a north–south arterial road , the Cardo (which is now the Suq Khan-ez-Zeit), and an east–west arterial road, the Decumanus Maximus (which is now the Via Dolorosa ). The forum would traditionally be located on the intersection of the two roads, with the main temples adjacent. However, due to the obstruction posed by the Temple Mount, as well as

534-398: A few other details put forward in favour of the identification of Skull Hill as Golgotha . The location of the site would have made executions carried out there a highly visible sight to people using the main road leading north from the city; the presence of the skull-featured knoll in the background would have added to the deterrent effect. Eusebius (260s – c. 340) comments that Golgotha

623-459: A garden, and the somewhat isolated tomb adjacent to the cistern has become identified as the Garden Tomb of Jesus. This particular tomb also has a stone groove running along the ground outside it, which Gordon argued to be a slot that once housed a stone, corresponding to the biblical account of a stone being rolled over the tomb entrance to close it. Evangelicals and other Protestants consider

712-610: A location about 175 m (574 ft) to its south-southeast. The English names Calvary and Golgotha derive from the Vulgate Latin Calvariae , Calvariae locus and locum (all meaning "place of the Skull" or "a Skull"), and Golgotha used by Jerome in his translations of Matthew 27 :33, Mark 15 :22, Luke 23 :33, and John 19 :17. Versions of these names have been used in English since at least

801-507: A place of stoning, which he saw as corroborative evidence that it was indeed Golgotha . He also pointed to a Christian tradition which associated that general area with the martyrdom of St. Stephen as additional evidence that it was a public place of execution during the New Testament era. Conder actually downplayed the supposed resemblance to a skull which he viewed as immaterial, remarking: "I should not like to base an argument on so slight

890-434: A proposal that the rocky knoll north of Damascus Gate was the biblical Golgotha . He relied heavily on the research of Edward Robinson . In 1882–83, Major-General Charles George Gordon endorsed this view; subsequently the site has sometimes been known as Gordon's Calvary . The location, usually referred to today as Skull Hill , is beneath a cliff that contains two large sunken holes, which Gordon regarded as resembling

979-503: A resemblance". In his writings Conder refers to Skull Hill by the Arabic name El-Heidhemiyeh which he interpreted as "the rent", and which he proposed was a corruption of El-Heiremiyeh – "the place of Jeremiah". However, later research has shown that the name is actually a corruption of El-Adhamiyeh , named after a zawiya which according to Muslim tradition was founded by the celebrated Sufi saint Ibrahim ibn Adham . Charles Wilson spelled

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1068-581: A site said to have been recognized by the Roman empress Helena , mother of Constantine the Great , during her visit to the Holy Land in 325. Other locations have been suggested: in the 19th century, Protestant scholars proposed a different location near the Garden Tomb on Green Hill (now "Skull Hill") about 500 m (1,600 ft) north of the traditional site and historian Joan Taylor has more recently proposed

1157-405: A site immediately outside Jerusalem 's walls where, according to Christianity's four canonical gospels, Jesus was crucified . Since at least the early medieval period, it has been a destination for pilgrimage . The exact location of Calvary has been traditionally associated with a place now enclosed within one of the southern chapels of the multidenominational Church of the Holy Sepulchre ,

1246-543: A town-defense point of view, for the walls to have previously been east of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, concluding that the Church would have been inside the city walls and thus not the authentic tomb of Christ. He instead proposed that the true Calvary was the "rounded knoll" above Jeremiah's Grotto (i.e. Skull Hill). He based this identification on several arguments. First of all, since the Gospel according to John places Golgotha in

1335-666: A very skeptical mention by a prominent detractors of "Gordon's Calvary", the researcher and Army officer Charles W. Wilson . Gordon also commented on the appropriateness of the location in a letter he sent to his sister on January 17, 1883, his second day in Jerusalem: I feel, for myself, convinced that the Hill near the Damascus Gate is Golgotha. ... From it, you can see the Temple, the Mount of Olives and

1424-465: Is actually closer to Aramaic Golgolta , which also appears in reference to a head count in the Samaritan version of Numbers 1 :18, although the term is traditionally considered to derive from Syriac Gāgūlṯā ( ܓܓܘܠܬܐ ) instead. Although Latin calvaria can mean either "a skull" or "the skull" depending on context and numerous English translations render the relevant passages " place of

1513-438: Is certainly evidence that c.  160 , at least as early as 30 years after Hadrian's temple had been built, Christians associated it with the site of Golgotha ; Melito of Sardis , an influential mid-2nd century bishop in the region, described the location as "in the middle of the street, in the middle of the city", which matches the position of Hadrian's temple within the mid-2nd century city. The Romans typically built

1602-516: Is countenanced by its priests, and the fierce emotions of sectarian hate and blind fanaticism which are called forth by the supposed miracle , and remembering the tale of blood connected with the history of the Church, I should be loth to think that the Sacred Tomb had been a witness for so many years of so much human ignorance, folly, and crime. Based on topographical and textual considerations, Conder argued that it would be dangerous and unlikely, from

1691-458: Is left bare ever since it was first used as a place of execution. ... It is very nice to see it so plain and simple, instead of having a huge church built on it. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre has the tomb just a few yards away from Golgotha, corresponding with the account of John the Evangelist: "Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein

1780-485: Is the location, despite evidence to the contrary. However, despite the archaeological discoveries, the Garden Tomb has become a popular place of pilgrimage among Protestants including, in the past, Anglicans . As such, St. George's Anglican Cathedral was built 180 metres (200 yards) away from the Garden Tomb. The Garden Tomb has been the most favoured candidate site among leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . Major Christian denominations, including

1869-531: The 10th century , a tradition shared with most European languages including French ( Calvaire ), Spanish and Italian ( Calvario ), pre- Lutheran German ( Calvarie ), Polish ( Kalwaria ), and Lithuanian ( Kalvarijos ). The 1611 King James Version borrowed the Latin forms directly, while Wycliffe and other translators anglicized them in forms like Caluarie , Caluerie , and Calueri which were later standardized as Calvary . While

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1958-456: The Calvary Chapel by the art historian George Lavas and architect Theo Mitropoulos, a round slot of 11.5 cm (4.5 in) diameter was discovered in the rock, partly open on one side (Lavas attributes the open side to accidental damage during his repairs); although the dating of the slot is uncertain, and could date to Hadrian's temple of Aphrodite, Lavas suggested that it could have been

2047-553: The Gospels merely identify Golgotha as a "place", Christian tradition has described the location as a hill or mountain since at least the 6th century. It has thus often been referenced as Mount Calvary in English hymns and literature . In the 1769 King James Version , the relevant verses of the New Testament are: In the standard Koine Greek texts of the New Testament ,

2136-713: The PhD degree from the Hebrew University on the topic "Topography and Toponymy of Crusader Jerusalem" under the supervision of Joshua Prawer . Between 1963 and 1990 Bahat was employed by the Israel Government's Department of Antiquities , Ministry of Culture and Education, including as the District Archeologist of Jerusalem. He taught until 2004 at Bar-Ilan University , Israel, and he is currently teaching at St. Michael College, University of Toronto, Canada. Bahat

2225-677: The Tenth Legion encampment on the Western Hill, Hadrian's city had two Cardo , two Decumanus Maximus , two forums, and several temples. The Western Forum (now the Muristan ) is located on the crossroads of the West Cardo and what is now El-Bazar/David Street, with the Temple of Aphrodite adjacent, on the intersection of the Western Cardo and the Via Dolorosa . The Northern Forum is located north of

2314-621: The Western Wall tunnels . Dan Bahat was born in Poland to parents who were citizens of Mandatory Palestine . The family moved to Tel Aviv in 1939 and became Israeli citizens in 1952. He served in the IDF from 1956 to 1958. In 1964 he gained a Bachelor's degree in archaeology and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . He finished his master's degree in 1978. In 1990 he obtained

2403-405: The basilica church Constantine built over the remainder of the enclosure was destroyed at the turn of the 11th century, and has not been replaced. Christian tradition claims that the location had originally been a Christian place of veneration, but that Hadrian had deliberately buried these Christian sites and built his own temple on top, on account of his alleged hatred for Christianity. There

2492-410: The crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus . In 2005 an Iron Age II cylinder seal was excavated, thought to be debris from nearby tombs. Due to the archaeological issues the Garden Tomb site raises, several scholars have rejected its claim to be Jesus' tomb. Author and explorer Paul Backholer concludes the emphasis on feelings in evangelical circles, has encouraged many to ‘feel’ the Garden Tomb

2581-413: The 7th century BC and that the site may have been abandoned by the 1st century. Eusebius comments that Golgotha was in his day (the 4th century) pointed out north of Mount Zion . While Mount Zion was used previously in reference to the Temple Mount itself, Josephus , the first-century AD historian who knew the city as it was before the Roman destruction of Jerusalem , identified Mount Zion as being

2670-574: The Committee of the Garden Tomb Maintenance Fund in Jerusalem an introduction and guidebook to the site in 1894. The booklet has subsequently been revised and enlarged on several occasions, including by Mabel Bent in the early 1920s. Golgotha Calvary ( Latin : Calvariae or Calvariae locus ) or Golgotha ( Biblical Greek : Γολγοθᾶ , romanized:  Golgothâ ) was

2759-472: The Garden Tomb is the authentic tomb of Jesus, and instead emphasizes the site's utility as a visual aid for the gospel accounts and its function as a place of Christian worship.The site draws hundreds of thousands of annual visitors, especially Evangelicals and other Protestants . According to the Bible , Jesus was crucified near the city of Jerusalem, outside its walls , and there has always been concern on

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2848-529: The Great , in 325. Less than 45 meters (150 ft) away, Helena also identified the location of the tomb of Jesus and claimed to have discovered the True Cross ; her son, Constantine, then built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre around the whole site. In 333, the author of the Itinerarium Burdigalense , entering from the east, described the result: On the left hand is the little hill of Golgotha where

2937-698: The Holy Land, argued against the authenticity of the traditional location, concluding: "Golgotha and the Tomb shown in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are not upon the real places of the Crucifixion and Resurrection". Robinson argued that the traditional location would have been within the city walls also during the Herodian era, primarily due to topographical considerations. Robinson was careful not to propose an alternative site and had concluded that it would be impossible to identify

3026-525: The Holy Land, as well as Conrad Schick , a prominent Jerusalem-based architect, city planner, and proto-archaeologist of Swiss origins who penned hundreds of articles for the Palestine Exploration Fund. In 1879 the French scholar Ernest Renan , author of the influential and controversial Life of Jesus also considered this view as a possibility in one of the later editions of his book. However,

3115-540: The Holy Sepulchre . This places it well within today's walls of Jerusalem , which surround the Old City and were rebuilt in the 16th century by the Ottoman Empire . Proponents of the traditional Holy Sepulchre location point to the fact that first-century Jerusalem had a different shape and size from the 16th-century city, leaving the church's site outside the pre-AD 70 city walls. Those opposing it doubt this. Defenders of

3204-455: The Holy Sepulchre and under the nearby Muristan , it was found that the area was originally a quarry, from which white Meleke limestone was struck; surviving parts of the quarry to the north-east of the chapel of St. Helena are now accessible from within the chapel (by permission). Inside the church is a rock, about 7 m long by 3 m wide by 4.8 m high, that is traditionally believed to be all that now remains visible of Golgotha ;

3293-432: The Holy Sepulchre is located in an area which was outside the city walls in the days of Jesus and therefore indeed constitutes a plausible location for the crucifixion and burial of Jesus. Motivated by these concerns, some Protestants in the nineteenth century looked elsewhere in the attempt to locate the site of Christ's crucifixion, burial and resurrection. In 1842, heavily relying on Robinson's research, Otto Thenius ,

3382-530: The Lord was crucified. About a stone's throw from thence is a vault [crypta] wherein his body was laid, and rose again on the third day. There, at present, by the command of the Emperor Constantine, has been built a basilica ; that is to say, a church of wondrous beauty. Various archeologists have proposed alternative sites within the Church as locations of the crucifixion. Nazénie Garibian de Vartavan argued that

3471-537: The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, do not accept the Garden Tomb as being the tomb of Jesus and hold fast to the traditional location at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. However, many may also visit the site in order to see an ancient tomb in a location evocative of the situation described in John 19:41–42 . The British author, barrister and civil servant, Arthur William Crawley Boevey (1845–1913) produced for

3560-625: The Temple Mount, on the junction of the Via Dolorosa and the Eastern Cardo (the Tyropoeon ), adjacent to the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus , intentionally built atop the Temple Mount. Another popular holy site that Hadrian converted to a pagan temple was the Pool of Bethesda , possibly referenced to in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John, on which was built the Temple of Asclepius and Serapis . While

3649-401: The Temple of Aphrodite was still present, of a ship, a common early Christian symbol and the etching "DOMINVS IVIMVS", meaning "Lord, we went", lending possible support to the statement by Melito of Sardis' asserting that early Christians identified Golgotha as being in the middle of Hadrian's city, rather than outside. During 1973–1978 restoration works and excavations inside the Church of

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3738-627: The Western Hill (the current Mount Zion), which is south of both the Garden Tomb and the Holy Sepulchre. Eusebius' comment therefore offers no additional argument for either location. 31°46′43″N 35°13′46″E  /  31.77861°N 35.22944°E  / 31.77861; 35.22944 Dan Bahat Dan Bahat ( Hebrew : דן בהט , born 1938 in Lviv in Poland) is an Israeli archaeologist especially known for his excavations in Jerusalem , particularly at

3827-405: The actual location, and that only one of the two could be right, but that the important thing was the symbolism of the place and especially the history of Jesus and not a guarantee of the exact site. In the same interview, Steve Bridge, a retired pastor volunteering in the garden, claimed that Catholic groups came to the site regularly, and that the guides did not play politics, with the emphasis on

3916-476: The authenticity of the traditional holy sites – doubts which were exacerbated by the fact that Protestants had no territorial claims at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and by the feeling of Protestant pilgrims that it was an unnatural setting for contemplation and prayer. In 1841, Dr. Edward Robinson 's "Biblical Researches in Palestine", at that time considered the standard work on the topography and archaeology of

4005-630: The biblical text that speaks of a newly hewn tomb which Joseph of Arimathea made for himself ( Matthew 27 :57–60, John 19 :41). The organization that owns and maintains the Garden Tomb is a non-denominational charitable trust based in the United Kingdom named The Garden Tomb (Jerusalem) Association , a member of the Evangelical Alliance of Israel and the World Evangelical Alliance . The association refrains from claiming that

4094-447: The bulk of Jerusalem. His stretched out arms would, as it were, embrace it: "all day long have I stretched out my arms" [cf. Isaiah 65:2 ]. Close to it is the slaughter-house of Jerusalem; quite pools of blood are lying there. It is covered with tombs of Muslim; There are many rock-hewn caves; and gardens surround it. Now, the place of execution in our Lord's time must have been, and continued to be, an unclean place ... so, to me, this hill

4183-530: The church on the site. The height of the Golgotha rock itself would have caused it to jut through the platform level of the Aphrodite temple, where it would be clearly visible. The reason for Hadrian not cutting the rock down is uncertain, but Virgilio Corbo suggested that a statue, probably of Aphrodite, was placed on it, a suggestion also made by Jerome . Some archaeologists have suggested that prior to Hadrian's use,

4272-508: The city limits when he rebuilt the city during the second century AD, though they were previously outside the city. The two explanations obviously contradicted each other, since Hadrian's rebuilding of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina predated Helena's pilgrimage there by close to two centuries. After the Reformation there were increasing doubts regarding the traditional holy places. In 1639 Quaresmius speaks of "western heretics" who argue that

4361-521: The concept that "Adam was created from the dust of the place where the sanctuary was to rise for the atonement of all human sin", i.e. the Jerusalem Temple 's Holy of Holies , so that sin should not constitute a constant or characteristic attribute of human nature; Christians adapted this thought and relocated Adam's grave to what they considered to be the new place of atonement, Jesus' crucifixion site at Golgotha. The earliest detailed investigation of

4450-603: The crucifixion site involves identifying a site that, in the city of Jerusalem some four decades before its destruction in AD   70, would have been outside a major gate near enough to the city that the passers-by could not only see him, but also read the inscription 'Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews'. Christian tradition since the fourth century has favoured a location now within the Church of

4539-403: The design of the church means that the Calvary Chapel contains the upper foot or so of the rock, while the remainder is in the chapel beneath it (known as the tomb of Adam ). Virgilio Corbo , a Franciscan priest and archaeologist, present at the excavations, suggested that from the city the little hill (which still exists) could have looked like a skull. During a 1986 repair to the floor of

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4628-400: The eyes of a skull. He and a few others before him believed that the skull-like appearance would have caused the location to be known as Golgotha. Nearby is an ancient rock-cut tomb known today as the Garden Tomb , which Gordon proposed as the tomb of Jesus. The Garden Tomb contains several ancient burial places, although the archaeologist Gabriel Barkay has proposed that the tomb dates to

4717-573: The first century AD, and in the Byzantine period by Christian sources. An extra-biblical Christian legend maintains that Golgotha (lit. "the skull") is Adam 's burial site, while Talmudic -period Judaism held that Adam is buried in the cave of Machpelah in Hebron , and the name Golgotha is absent from Talmudic literature. The 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia states that the Talmudic-period rabbis created

4806-411: The hill in these terms: "[The] hill is left steeply rounded on its west, north, and east sides forming the back and sides of the kranion, or skull. The skull-like front, or face, on the south side is formed by the deep perpendicular cutting and removal of the ledge. To the observer, at a distance, the eyeless socket of the skull would be suggested at once by the yawning cavern, hewn within its face, beneath

4895-440: The hill." Howe claimed that he developed his theory completely independently of Otto Thenius, and that he stumbled upon Thenius' claims only in the course of researching for his essay. Another early proponent of the theory that Skull Hill is Golgotha was the English scholar and clergyman Canon Henry Baker Tristram , who suggested that identification in 1858 during his first visit to the Holy Land, chiefly because of its proximity to

4984-462: The issue of the tomb of Jesus being inside the city walls, with various explanations coming up during the centuries. For example, as early as 754 AD Saint Willibald wrote that Helena , after finding the Cross , included the site within the city walls. Some two-and-a-half centuries later, Saewulf (c. 1108 AD) maintained that it was Hadrian who enclosed the traditional Golgotha and Tomb of Christ within

5073-606: The most famous proponent of the view that Skull Hill is the biblical Golgotha was Major-General Charles Gordon who visited Jerusalem in 1883. His name has become so entwined with Skull Hill that many contemporary news articles and guide books erroneously state that Gordon was the first to discover the site. In reality Gordon was very much influenced by the arguments of Conder and by his conversations and correspondence with Schick. Gordon went beyond Howe and Conder to passionately propose additional arguments, which he himself confessed were "more fanciful" and imaginative. Gordon proposed

5162-616: The name and its origin. Jerome considered it a place of execution by beheading ( locum decollatorum ), Pseudo-Tertullian describes it as a place resembling a head, and Origen associated it with legends concerning the skull of Adam . This buried skull of Adam appears in noncanonical medieval legends, including the Book of the Rolls , the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan , the Cave of Treasures , and

5251-636: The name as El Edhemîyeh . Additionally, in the 1870s the site of Skull Hill was being strongly promoted by several notable figures in Jerusalem, including the American consul to Jerusalem, Selah Merril , who was also a Congregationalist minister and a member of the American Palestine Exploration Society, the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem Samuel Gobat , who presided over the joint bishopric for Anglicans, Lutherans and Calvinists in

5340-420: The near vicinity of a garden and a tomb ( John 19:41–42 ) Conder argued that Golgotha must be close to the necropolis found just north of Jerusalem, near the main road to Nablus, "among the olive-gardens and vineyards of Wady el-Joz". Secondly, Conder proposed that Calvary was the public place of execution and especially noted that Sephardic Jews had regarded the site next to Jeremiah's Grotto as traditionally being

5429-610: The northern gate, and hence also to the Antonia Fortress , the traditional site of Christ's trial. (Canon Tristram was also one of the advocates of purchasing the nearby Garden Tomb in 1893.) Another prominent proponent of the "new Calvary" was Claude R. Conder , a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, who was appointed in 1872 by the Palestine Exploration Fund to conduct a mapping survey of Western Palestine . Conder

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5518-465: The now-buried Constantinian basilica’s altar was built over the site. Prior to Helena's identification, the site had been a temple to Aphrodite . Constantine's construction took over most of the site of the earlier temple enclosure, and the Rotunda and cloister (which was replaced after the 12th century by the present Catholicon and Calvary chapel ) roughly overlap with the temple building itself;

5607-526: The old city, they "incidentally confirm[ed] the bringing of Golgotha inside a new town wall." In 2007 Dan Bahat , the former City Archaeologist of Jerusalem and Professor of Land of Israel Studies at Bar-Ilan University , stated that "Six graves from the first century were found on the area of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. That means, this place [was] outside of the city, without any doubt…". The traditional location of Golgotha derives from its identification by Queen Mother Helena , mother of Constantine

5696-406: The place had actually been known as "Gol Goatha"—which he interpreted to mean "heap of death" or "hill of execution"—and had become associated with the similar sounding Semitic words for "skull" in folk etymologies . James Fergusson identified this "Goatha" with the Goʿah ( גֹּעָה ) mentioned in Jeremiah 31 :39 as a place near Jerusalem, although Krafft himself identified that location with

5785-405: The positioning of the Temple of Aphrodite may be, in light of the common Colonia layout, entirely unintentional, Hadrian is known to have concurrently built pagan temples on top of other holy sites in Jerusalem as part of an overall " Romanization " policy. Archaeological excavations under the Church of the Holy Sepulchre have revealed Christian pilgrims' graffiti, dating from the period that

5874-412: The relevant terms appear as Golgothâ ( Γολγοθᾶ ), Golgathân ( Γολγοθᾶν ), kraníou tópos ( κρανίου τόπος ), Kraníou tópos ( Κρανίου τόπος ), Kraníon ( Κρανίον ), and Kraníou tópon ( Κρανίου τόπον ). Golgotha's Hebrew equivalent would be Gulgōleṯ ( גֻּלְגֹּלֶת , "skull"), ultimately from the verb galal ( גלל ) meaning "to roll". The form preserved in the Greek text, however,

5963-427: The rock outcrop had been a nefesh – a Jewish funeral monument, equivalent to the stele . The Itinerarium Burdigalense speaks of Golgotha in 333: "... On the left hand is the little hill of Golgotha where the Lord was crucified. About a stone's throw from thence is a vault (crypta) wherein His body was laid, and rose again on the third day. There, at present, by the command of the Emperor Constantine, has been built

6052-461: The rock. Based on the late 20th century excavations of the site, there have been a number of attempted reconstructions of the profile of the cliff face. These often attempt to show the site as it would have appeared to Constantine. However, as the ground level in Roman times was about 4–5 feet (1.2–1.5 m) lower and the site housed Hadrian's temple to Aphrodite, much of the surrounding rocky slope must have been removed long before Constantine built

6141-497: The rolling-stone type use vertical walls on either side of the entrance to hold the stone, not a groove on the ground. Barkay concluded that: In 1986, Barkay criticized defenders of the location of the garden and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for making more theological and apologetic than scientific arguments. In 2010, the director of the garden, Richard Meryon, claimed in an interview with The Jerusalem Post that each camp had academic and archaeological evidence in favor of

6230-442: The second to the right of the first, with stone benches along the back wall of the first chamber, and along the sides of each wall in the second chamber, except the wall joining it to the first chamber; the benches have been heavily damaged but are still discernible. The edge of the groove outside the tomb has a diagonal edge, which would be unable to hold a stone slab in place (the slab would just fall out); additionally, known tombs of

6319-409: The separate Gennáth ( Γεννάθ ) of Josephus , the "Garden Gate" west of the Temple Mount . There is no consensus as to the location of the site. John 19:20 describes the crucifixion site as being "near the city". According to Hebrews 13:12 , it was "outside the city gate". Matthew 27:39 and Mark 15:29 both note that the location would have been accessible to "passers-by". Thus, locating

6408-454: The site of the crucifixion, as it would be strong enough to hold in place a wooden trunk of up to 2.5 metres (8 ft 2 in) in height (among other things). The same restoration work also revealed a crack running across the surface of the rock, which continues down to the Chapel of Adam ; the crack is thought by archaeologists to have been a result of the quarry workmen encountering a flaw in

6497-480: The site to be the tomb of Jesus . The garden is administered by the Garden Tomb Association, a member of the Evangelical Alliance of Israel and the World Evangelical Alliance . In the 20th century, archaeological findings enhanced the discussion concerning the authenticity of the traditional site at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre : Besides the skull-like appearance (a modern-day argument), there are

6586-452: The skull " or "Place of the Skull", the Greek forms of the name grammatically refer to the place of a skull and a place named Skull. (The Greek word κρᾱνῐ́ον does more specifically mean the cranium , the upper part of the skull, but it has been used metonymously since antiquity to refer to skulls and heads more generally.) The Fathers of the Church offered various interpretations of

6675-568: The stone which lies there to this day." And just in such a way the pilgrim Egeria often reported in 383: "… the church, built by Constantine, which is situated in Golgotha…" and also bishop Eucherius of Lyon wrote to the island presbyter Faustus in 440: "Golgotha is in the middle between the Anastasis and the Martyrium, the place of the Lord's passion, in which still appears that rock which once endured

6764-459: The tomb does not contain any features indicative of the 1st century CE, when Jesus was buried, and argues that the tomb was likely created in the 8th–7th centuries BCE. The Italian archeologist Ricardo Lufrani argues instead that it should be dated to the Hellenistic era, the 4th–2nd centuries BCE. The re-use of old tombs was not an uncommon practice in ancient times, but this would seem to contradict

6853-407: The tomb itself was a brief report prepared in 1874 by Conrad Schick , a German architect, archaeologist and Protestant missionary, but the fullest archaeological study of the area has been the seminal investigation by Gabriel Barkay , professor of Biblical archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Bar-Ilan University , during the late twentieth century. The tomb has two chambers,

6942-461: The tomb of Christ. Though his proposal for the tomb of Christ did not have a lasting influence, his proposal for Golgotha was endorsed by several other Protestant scholars and pilgrims. Since Golgotha is the Aramaic word for skull, and may perhaps refer to the shape of the place, Thenius concluded that the rocky escarpment was likely to have been Golgotha . A few years later the same identification

7031-541: The traditional location as a "mere delusion, a monkish juggle" and suggested instead that the crucifixion took place just outside Zion Gate . During the 19th century travel from Europe to the Ottoman Empire became easier and therefore more common, especially in the late 1830s due to the reforms of the Egyptian ruler, Muhammad Ali . The subsequent influx of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem included more Protestants who doubted

7120-483: The traditional site could not possibly be the true tomb of Christ. The first extant publication which argues a case against the traditional location was written by the German pilgrim Jonas Korte in 1741, a few years after his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. His book contained a chapter titled "On Mount Calvary, which now lies in the middle of the town and cannot therefore be the true Calvary". In 1812, also Edward D. Clarke rejected

7209-400: The traditional site have argued that the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was only brought within the city limits by Herod Agrippa (41–44), who built the so-called Third Wall around a newly settled northern district, while at the time of Jesus' crucifixion around AD 30 it would still have been just outside the city. Henry Chadwick (2003) argued that when Hadrian's builders replanned

7298-459: The true location of the holy places. However, he did suggest that the crucifixion would have taken place somewhere on the road to Jaffa or the road to Damascus. Skull Hill and the Garden Tomb are located in close proximity to the Damascus road, about 200 m. from Damascus Gate. Contemporary scholars, such as Professor Dan Bahat , one of Israel's leading archaeologists, have concluded that the Church of

7387-406: The very cross on which the Lord was." Breviarius de Hierosolyma reports in 530: "From there (the middle of the basilica), you enter into Golgotha, where there is a large court. Here the Lord was crucified. All around that hill, there are silver screens." (See also: Eusebius in 338. ) In 1842, Otto Thenius , a theologian and biblical scholar from Dresden , Germany , was the first to publish

7476-544: The works of Eutychius , the 9th-century patriarch of Alexandria. The usual form of the legend is that Shem and Melchizedek retrieved the body of Adam from the resting place of Noah 's ark on Mount Ararat and were led by angels to Golgotha, a skull-shaped hill at the center of the earth where Adam had previously crushed the serpent's head following the Fall of Man . In the 19th century, Wilhelm Ludwig Krafft proposed an alternative derivation of these names, suggesting that

7565-589: Was endorsed by the American industrialist Fisher Howe, who was also one of the founding members of the board of directors of Union Theological Seminary in New York . In 1850, Howe visited the Holy Land, and endorsed the view that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre could not be the true site of Christ's death and resurrection. Instead, he pointed to the hill containing Jeremiah's Grotto as the true Calvary, though he had only argued this view in length in an essay published in 1871, just after his death. In that essay Howe described

7654-537: Was in his day pointed out "north of Mount Zion". Both the Garden Tomb's Golgotha and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are north of the hill currently referred to as Mount Zion . Although in the Hebrew Bible the term Mount Zion referred to the Temple Mount or the spur south of it , which both lay east of Jerusalem's Central Valley , the name Mount Zion has been used for Jerusalem's western hill, both by Josephus in

7743-402: Was never man yet laid." KJV ( John 19:41 ). In the latter half of the 19th century a number of tombs had also been found near Gordon's Golgotha, and Gordon concluded that one of them must have been the tomb of Jesus. John also specifies that Jesus' tomb was located in a garden ( John 19:41 ); consequently, an ancient wine press and cistern have been cited as evidence that the area had once been

7832-504: Was repulsed by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and especially by the annual "miracle of the Holy Fire ", as believed in by Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolical and Coptic Christians. There are those who would willingly look upon it as the real place of the Saviour's Tomb, but I confess that, for myself, having twice witnessed the annual orgy which disgraces its walls, the annual imposture which

7921-656: Was the head of archaeological research at the Western Wall tunnels between 1986–2007. In January 1992, Dan Bahat published the IAA 's archaeological finding of the Western Stone , the largest ashlar stone found to date in Israel, at ca. 10–12 metres above the base of the Temple Mount 's western wall . The stone measures 13.6 metres (45 ft) in length, presumably 4.6 metres (15 ft) in depth, 3.5 metres (11 ft) in height, and

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