The Garden Tomb (; ) is an
ancient rock-cut tomb in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
that functions as a site of
Christian pilgrimage
Christianity has a strong tradition of pilgrimages, both to sites relevant to the New Testament narrative (especially in the Holy Land) and to sites associated with later saints or miracles.
History
Christian pilgrimages were first made to sit ...
attracting hundreds of thousands of annual visitors, especially
Evangelicals
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that emphasizes evangelism, or the preaching and spreading of the Christian g ...
and other
Protestants, as some Protestant Christians consider it to be the
empty tomb
The empty tomb is the Christian tradition that the tomb of Jesus was found empty after his crucifixion. The canonical gospels each describe the visit of women to Jesus' tomb. Although Jesus' body had been laid out in the tomb after crucifixi ...
where
Jesus of Nazareth resurrected. This is in contrast to an older tradition that locates the
death
Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose sh ...
,
burial
Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...
, and resurrection of
Jesus
Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
at a site roughly to the south that is now occupied by the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, is a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem. The church is the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchat ...
.
[Kochav (1999)][Pippert, Wesley G]
Jesus Christ's resurrection: Garden Tomb or Church of Holy Sepulchre?
upi.com, USA, April 7, 1985
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
Calvary ( or ) or Golgotha () was 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. ...
, 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
According to the gospel accounts, Jesus was buried in a tomb which originally belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy man who, believing Jesus was the Messiah, offered his own sepulcher for the burial of Jesus. According to Christian tradition ...
.
[
More recently, the Israeli archaeologist ]Gabriel Barkay
Gabriel Barkay (born 1944) (; sometimes transcribed from the Hebrew Gavriel Barkai) is an Israeli archaeologist.
Biography
Gabriel Barkay was born in the Budapest Ghetto, Hungary. He immigrated to Israel in 1950.
He studied archaeology, compar ...
points out that the tomb does not contain any features indicative of the 1st century AD, when Jesus was buried, and argues that the tomb was likely created in the 8th–7th centuries BC.[Barkay (1986)] The Italian archeologist Riccardo Lufrani argues instead that it should be dated to the Hellenistic era
In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the Roma ...
, the 4th–2nd centuries BC. The re-use of old tombs was not an uncommon practice in ancient times, but this would seem to contradict the biblical text that speaks of a newly hewn tomb which Joseph of Arimathea
Joseph of Arimathea () is a Biblical figure who assumed responsibility for the burial of Jesus after Crucifixion of Jesus, his crucifixion. Three of the four Biblical Canon, canonical Gospels identify him as a member of the Sanhedrin, while the ...
made for himself (Matthew 27
Matthew 27 is the 27th chapter in the Gospel of Matthew, part of the New Testament in the Christian Bible. This chapter contains Matthew's record of the day of the trial, crucifixion and burial of Jesus. Scottish theologian William Robertson Nico ...
:57–60, John 19
John 19 is the nineteenth Chapters and verses of the Bible, chapter of the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christianity, Christian Bible. The book containing this chapter is Anonymity, anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly ...
:41).
The organization that owns and maintains the Garden Tomb is a non-denominational
A non-denominational person or organization is one that does not follow (or is not restricted to) any particular or specific religious denomination.
The term has been used in the context of various faiths, including Jainism, Baháʼí Faith, Zoro ...
charitable trust based in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
named The Garden Tomb (Jerusalem) Association, a member of the Evangelical Alliance of Israel and the World Evangelical Alliance
The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is an interdenominational organization of evangelical Christian churches with 600 million adherents that was founded in 1846 in London, England, to unite evangelicals worldwide. WEA is the largest internati ...
. The association refrains from claiming that 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
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that emphasizes evangelism, or the preaching and spreading of the Christian g ...
and other Protestants
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
.[
]
Site inside the church: attitudes throughout history
According to the Bible
The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...
, Jesus
Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
was crucified
Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the condemned is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross, beam or stake and left to hang until eventual death. It was used as a punishment by the Achaemenid Empire, Persians, Carthaginians, ...
near the city of Jerusalem, outside its walls
Walls may refer to:
*The plural of wall, a structure
* Walls (surname), a list of notable people with the surname
Places
* Walls, Louisiana, United States
* Walls, Mississippi, United States
*Walls, Ontario
Perry is a township (Canada), ...
, and there has always been concern on the issue of the tomb of Jesus being inside the city walls, with various explanations coming up during the centuries.
Early medieval views
For example, as early as 754 AD Saint Willibald
Willibald (; c. 700 – c.787) was an 8th-century bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria.
Information about his life is largely drawn from the ''Hodoeporicon of Willibald'', a text written in the 8th century by Huneberc, an Anglo-Saxon nun from Hei ...
wrote that Helena
Helena may refer to:
People
*Helena (given name), a given name (including a list of people and characters with the name)
*Katri Helena (born 1945), Finnish singer
* Saint Helena (disambiguation), this includes places
Places
Greece
* Helena ...
, after finding the Cross
A cross is a religious symbol consisting of two Intersection (set theory), intersecting Line (geometry), lines, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of t ...
, included the site within the city walls. Some two-and-a-half centuries later, Saewulf (c. 1108 AD) maintained that it was Hadrian
Hadrian ( ; ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. Hadrian was born in Italica, close to modern Seville in Spain, an Italic peoples, Italic settlement in Hispania Baetica; his branch of the Aelia gens, Aelia '' ...
who enclosed the traditional Golgotha and Tomb of Christ within the city limits when he rebuilt the city during the second century AD, though they were previously outside the city.[Wilson (1906)] The two explanations obviously contradicted each other, since Hadrian's rebuilding of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina
Aelia Capitolina (Latin: ''Colonia Aelia Capitolina'' ɔˈloːni.a ˈae̯li.a kapɪtoːˈliːna was a Roman colony founded during the Roman emperor Hadrian's visit to Judaea in 129/130 CE. It was founded on the ruins of Jerusalem, which had b ...
predated Helena's pilgrimage there by close to two centuries.
Doubts after Reformation
After the Reformation
The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...
there were increasing doubts regarding the traditional holy places. In 1639 Quaresmius speaks of "western heretics" who argue that 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".
19th-century Protestant doubts
In 1812, also Edward D. Clarke rejected the traditional location as a "mere delusion, a monkish juggle" and suggested instead that the crucifixion took place just outside Zion Gate
Zion Gate (, ''Sha'ar Zion'', , ''Bab Sahyun''), also known in Arabic as Bab Harat al-Yahud ("Jewish Quarter Gate") or Bab an-Nabi Dawud ("Prophet David Gate"), is one of the seven historic Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem.
History
Zion Gate wa ...
.[ 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
Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and social activist. A global cultural icon, widely known by the nickname "The Greatest", he is often regarded as the gr ...
.[Kochav (1995)] The subsequent influx of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem included more Protestants who doubted 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 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 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 scholarship
Contemporary scholars, such as Professor Dan Bahat
Dan Bahat (; born 1938 in Lviv in Poland) is an Israeli archaeologist especially known for his excavations in Jerusalem, particularly at the Western Wall tunnels.
Biography
Dan Bahat was born in Poland to Polish Jewish parents who were citizen ...
, one of Israel's leading archaeologists, have concluded that the Church of 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.[Bahat (1986)]
Discovery
Skull Hill identified as Calvary
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.
Otto Thenius
In 1842, heavily relying on Robinson's research, Otto Thenius
Otto is a masculine German given name and a Otto (surname), surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', ''Odo'', ''Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity".
The name i ...
, 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 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
Calvary ( or ) or Golgotha () was 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. ...
'' 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''.
Fisher Howe
A few years later the same identification 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
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (shortened to UTS or Union) is a Private college, private ecumenical liberal Christian seminary in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, affiliated with Columbia University since 1928. Presently, Co ...
in New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
. 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 the hill in these terms: " hehill 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 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.
H. B. Tristram
Another early proponent of the theory that Skull Hill is Golgotha was the English scholar and clergyman Canon Henry Baker Tristram
Henry Baker Tristram FRS (11 May 1822 – 8 March 1906) was an English clergyman, Bible scholar, traveller and ornithologist. As a parson-naturalist he was an early, but short-lived, supporter of Darwinism, attempting to reconcile evolution an ...
, who suggested that identification in 1858 during his first visit to the Holy Land, chiefly because of its proximity to the northern gate, and hence also to the Antonia Fortress
The Antonia Fortress (Aramaic: קצטרא דאנטוניה) was a citadel built by Herod the Great and named for Herod's patron Mark Antony, as a fortress whose chief function was to protect the Second Temple. It was built in Jerusalem at the easte ...
, the traditional site of Christ's trial. (Canon Tristram was also one of the advocates of purchasing the nearby Garden Tomb in 1893.)
Claude R. Conder
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
The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society based in London. It was founded in 1865, shortly after the completion of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem by Royal Engineers of the War Department. The Fund is the oldest known organization i ...
to conduct a mapping survey of Western Palestine. Conder was repulsed by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and especially by the annual "miracle of the Holy Fire
The Holy Fire (, "Holy Light") is a ceremony that occurs every year at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Great Saturday, the day before Orthodox Easter. During the ceremony, a prayer is performed after which a fire is lit inside ...
", as believed in by Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolical and Coptic Christians.
Based on topographical and textual considerations, Conder argued that it would be dangerous and unlikely, from 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 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 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 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
Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism.
Practitioners of Sufism are r ...
saint Ibrahim ibn Adham
Ibrahim ibn Adham also called Ibrahim Balkhi and Ebrahim-e Adham (); c. 718 – c. 782 / AH c. 100 – c. 165 is one of the most prominent of the early Sufi saints known for his zuhd (asceticism).
The story of his conversion is one of the mos ...
.[ Charles Wilson spelled the name as El Edhemîyeh.
]
Proponents in the 1870s
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
Samuel Gobat (26 January 1799 – 11 May 1879) was a Swiss Calvinist who became an Anglican missionary in Africa and was the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem from 1846 until his death.
Biography
Samuel Gobat was born at Crémines, Canton of Bern, ...
,[Schaff (1878)] who presided over the joint bishopric for Anglicans, Lutherans and Calvinists in the Holy Land, as well as Conrad Schick
Conrad Schick (1822–1901) was a German architect, archaeologist and Protestantism, Protestant missionary who settled in Jerusalem in the mid-nineteenth century.Perry & Yodim (2004) For many decades, he was head of the "House of Industry" at the ...
,[ 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
Joseph Ernest Renan (; ; 27 February 18232 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, writing on Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote wo ...
, 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.[
]
General Gordon
However, 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 a typological
A typology is a system of classification used to organize things according to similar or dissimilar characteristics. Groups of things within a typology are known as "types".
Typologies are distinct from taxonomies in that they primarily address t ...
reading o
Leviticus 1:11
" he sheep for a burnt-offeringshall 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 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:
Garden Tomb identified as Jesus' tomb
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 was never man yet laid." KJV (). 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 (); consequently, an ancient wine press
A winepress is a device used to extract juice from crushed grapes during winemaking. There are a number of different styles of presses that are used by wine makers but their overall functionality is the same. Each style of press exerts control ...
and cistern
A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster.
Cisterns are disti ...
have been cited as evidence that the area had once been 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
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that emphasizes evangelism, or the preaching and spreading of the Christian g ...
and other Protestants
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
consider the site to be the tomb of Jesus
According to the gospel accounts, Jesus was buried in a tomb which originally belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy man who, believing Jesus was the Messiah, offered his own sepulcher for the burial of Jesus. According to Christian tradition ...
.[
File:Tomb of Christ in the Garden, 1898-1946.jpg, A view of the Garden Tomb from the 1930s
File:Garden Tomb john 19 sign.JPG, Panel near the tomb
File:Garden Tomb Inside1.jpg, Inside the tomb
File:Garden Tomb Inside2.jpg, Inside the tomb
File:East Jerusalem - The Garden Tomb - Interior of the Tomb P1220165.JPG, Inside the tomb
]
Affiliation
The garden is administered by the Garden Tomb Association, a member of the Evangelical Alliance of Israel and the World Evangelical Alliance
The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is an interdenominational organization of evangelical Christian churches with 600 million adherents that was founded in 1846 in London, England, to unite evangelicals worldwide. WEA is the largest internati ...
.
Archaeological investigation and critical analysis
Golgotha
In the church
In the 20th century, archaeological findings enhanced the discussion concerning the authenticity of the traditional site at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, is a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem. The church is the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchat ...
:
*Prior to Constantine's time (r. 306–337), the site was a temple to Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...
, built by Hadrian
Hadrian ( ; ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. Hadrian was born in Italica, close to modern Seville in Spain, an Italic peoples, Italic settlement in Hispania Baetica; his branch of the Aelia gens, Aelia '' ...
some time after 130.
**Archaeology suggests that the traditional tomb would have been within Hadrian's temple, or likely to have been destroyed under the temple's heavy retaining wall.[
** The temple's location complies with the typical layout of Roman cities (i.e. adjacent to the ]forum
Forum or The Forum may refer to:
Common uses
*Forum (legal), designated space for public expression in the United States
*Forum (Roman), open public space within a Roman city
**Roman Forum, most famous example
* Internet forum, discussion board ...
, at the intersection of the main north-south road with the main east-west road), rather than necessarily being a deliberate act of contempt for Christianity, as claimed in the past.
*A spur
A spur is a metal tool designed to be worn in pairs on the heels of riding boots for the purpose of directing a horse or other animal to move forward or laterally while riding. It is usually used to refine the riding aids (commands) and to ba ...
would be required for the rockface to have included both the alleged site of the tomb and the tombs beyond the western end of the church.
*The tombs west of the traditional site are dated to the first century, indicating that the site was outside the city at that time.
Knoll next to Garden Tomb
Besides the skull-like appearance (a modern-day argument), there are 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.
Ancient views
Eusebius
Eusebius of Caesarea (30 May AD 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist from the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima. ...
(260s – c. 340) comments that ''Golgotha'' 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
Mount Zion (, ''Har Ṣīyyōn''; , ''Jabal Sahyoun'') is a hill in Jerusalem, located just outside the walls of the Old City (Jerusalem), Old City to the south. The term Mount Zion has been used in the Hebrew Bible first for the City of David ( ...
. Although in the Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
. '' Temple Mount
The Temple Mount (), also known as the Noble Sanctuary (Arabic: الحرم الشريف, 'Haram al-Sharif'), and sometimes as Jerusalem's holy esplanade, is a hill in the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem that has been venerated as a ...
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
Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...
in the first century AD, and in the Byzantine period by Christian sources.
Christian traditions
An extra-biblical Christian legend maintains that ''Golgotha'' (lit. "the skull") is Adam
Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam).
According to Christianity, Adam ...
's burial site, while Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
ic-period Judaism held that Adam is buried in the cave of Machpelah
The Cave of the Patriarchs or Tomb of the Patriarchs, known to Jews by its Biblical name Cave of Machpelah () and to Muslims as the Sanctuary of Abraham (), is a series of caves situated south of Jerusalem in the heart of the Old City of Hebr ...
in Hebron
Hebron (; , or ; , ) is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Hebron is capital of the Hebron Governorate, the largest Governorates of Palestine, governorate in the West Bank. With a population of 201,063 in ...
, and the name ''Golgotha'' is absent from Talmudic literature.[Golgotha (literally, "the skull")]
''Jewish Encyclopedia'' (1906). The 1906 ''Jewish Encyclopedia
''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on the ...
'' states that the Talmudic-period rabbis created 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
The Temple in Jerusalem, or alternatively the Holy Temple (; , ), refers to the two religious structures that served as the central places of worship for Israelites and Jews on the modern-day Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. Accor ...
's Holy of Holies
The Holy of Holies ( or ''Kodesh HaKodashim''; also ''hadDəḇīr'', 'the Sanctuary') is a term in the Hebrew Bible that refers to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, where the Shekhinah (God in Judaism, God's presence) appeared. According ...
, 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 Garden Tomb
The earliest detailed investigation of the tomb itself was a brief report prepared in 1874 by Conrad Schick
Conrad Schick (1822–1901) was a German architect, archaeologist and Protestantism, Protestant missionary who settled in Jerusalem in the mid-nineteenth century.Perry & Yodim (2004) For many decades, he was head of the "House of Industry" at the ...
, a German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
architect, archaeologist and Protestant missionary, but the fullest archaeological study of the area has been the seminal investigation by Gabriel Barkay
Gabriel Barkay (born 1944) (; sometimes transcribed from the Hebrew Gavriel Barkai) is an Israeli archaeologist.
Biography
Gabriel Barkay was born in the Budapest Ghetto, Hungary. He immigrated to Israel in 1950.
He studied archaeology, compar ...
, professor of Biblical archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...
and at Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University (BIU, , ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academic university institution. It has 20,000 ...
, during the late twentieth century.
The tomb has two chambers, 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 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:
* The tomb is far too old to be the tomb of Jesus, as it is typical of the 8th–7th centuries BC, showing a configuration which fell out of use after that period. It fits well into a wider necropolis
A necropolis (: necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek ''nekropolis'' ().
The term usually implies a separate burial site at a distan ...
dating to the First Temple
Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (), was a biblical Temple in Jerusalem believed to have existed between the 10th and 6th centuries BCE. Its description is largely based on narratives in the Hebrew Bible, in which it was commis ...
period which also includes the nearby tombs on the grounds of the Basilica of St Stephen.
* The groove was a water trough, built by the 11th-century Crusaders for donkey
The donkey or ass is a domesticated equine. It derives from the African wild ass, ''Equus africanus'', and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, ''Equus africanus asinus'', or as a separate species, ''Equus asinus''. It was domes ...
s/mule
The mule is a domestic equine hybrid between a donkey, and a horse. It is the offspring of a male donkey (a jack) and a female horse (a mare). The horse and the donkey are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes; of the two ...
s.
* The cistern was built as part of the same stable complex as the groove.
* The waterproofing on the cistern is of the type used by the Crusaders
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...
, and the cistern must date to that era.
In 1986, Barkay criticized defenders of the location of the garden and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, is a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem. The church is the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchat ...
for making more theological and apologetic than scientific arguments.[Gabriel Barkay, "The Garden Tomb: Was Jesus Buried Here?", ''Biblical Archaeology Review'', vol. 12, no 2, 1986, p. 47]
In 2010, the director of the garden, Richard Meryon, claimed in an interview with ''The Jerusalem Post
''The Jerusalem Post'' is an English language, English-language Israeli broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, Israel, founded in 1932 during the Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate of Mandatory Palestine, Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''Th ...
'' that each camp had academic and archaeological evidence in favor of 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
Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
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 the crucifixion
Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the condemned is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross, beam or stake and left to hang until eventual death. It was used as a punishment by the Achaemenid Empire, Persians, Ancient Carthag ...
and the resurrection
Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions involving the same person or deity returning to another body. The disappearance of a body is anothe ...
of Jesus
Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
.
In 2005 an Iron Age II cylinder seal was excavated, thought to be debris from nearby tombs.
Reception by Christian denominations
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 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, Anglican
Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...
s. As such, St. George's Anglican Cathedral was built 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
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, denomination and the ...
.
Major Christian denominations, including 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 .
The British author, barrister and civil servant, Arthur William Crawley Boevey
Arthur William (A. W.) Crawley-Boevey was a British author, barrister and civil servant, born on 12 August 1845 in London, UK. As an author, he is most known for his works on preservation of buildings and archeological sites in the British Empire ...
(1845–1913) produced for 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
Mabel Virginia Anna Bent (née Hall-Dare, a.k.a. Mrs J. Theodore Bent) (28 January 1847 – 3 July 1929), was an Anglo-Irish explorer, excavator, writer and photographer. With her husband, J. Theodore Bent, she spent two decades (1877–1897) t ...
in the early 1920s.Arthur William Crawley Boevey
Arthur William (A. W.) Crawley-Boevey was a British author, barrister and civil servant, born on 12 August 1845 in London, UK. As an author, he is most known for his works on preservation of buildings and archeological sites in the British Empire ...
, Mrs J Theodore Bent, Miss Hussey (no date). ''The Garden Tomb, Golgotha and the Garden of Resurrection''. Committee of the Garden Tomb, London.
See also
* Zedekiah's Cave, part of the same ancient quarries
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
* Access to cited text currently not allowed (August 2021).
*
* Good text scan, but with blurred illustrations and captions; o
here
a darker scan, but with fully visible illustrations.
External links
*
* This contains a detailed summary of the then-current theories as to the location of the tomb, with an extensive bibliography.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Garden Tomb
Buildings and structures completed in the 8th century BC
Buildings and structures completed in the 7th century BC
1867 archaeological discoveries
Alleged tombs of Jesus
Archaeological sites in Jerusalem
Rock-cut tombs
Anglican pilgrimage sites
Shrines in Jerusalem
Christian buildings and structures in Palestine
Calvary
Tombs in Palestine